In order to understand the transition of Italy from the Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation manner, it will be well to concentrate attention on the history of the Papacy during the eight reigns of Paul III., Julius III., Paul IV., Pius IV., Pius V., Gregory XIII., Sixtus V., and Clement VIII.[9] In the first of these reigns we hardly notice that the Renaissance has passed away.  In the last we are aware of a completely altered Italy.  And we perceive that this alteration has been chiefly due to the ecclesiastical policy which brought the Council of Trent to a successful issue in the reign of Pius IV.

[Footnote 9:  These eight reigns cover a space of time from 1534 to 1605.]

Before engaging in this review of Papal history, I must give some brief account of the more serious religious spirit which had been developed within the Italian Church; since the determination of this spirit toward rigid Catholicism in the second half of the sixteenth century decided the character of Italian manners and culture.  Protestantism in the strict sense of the term took but little hold upon Italian society.  It is true that the minds of some philosophical students were deeply stirred by the audacious discussion of theological principles in Germany.  Such men had been rendered receptive of new impressions by the Platonizing speculations of Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, as well as by the criticism of the Bible in its original languages which formed a subordinate branch of humanistic education.  They had, furthermore, been powerfully affected by the tribulations of Rome at the time of Bourbon’s occupation, and had grown to regard these as a divine chastisement inflicted on the Church for its corruption and ungodliness.  Lutheranism so far influenced their opinions that they became convinced of the necessity of a return to the simpler elements of Christianity in creed and conduct.  They considered a thorough-going reform of the hierarchy and of all Catholic institutions to be indispensable.  They leant, moreover, with partiality to some of the essential tenets of the Reformation, notably to the doctrines of justification by faith and salvation by the merits of Christ, and also to the principle that Scripture is the sole authority in matters of belief and discipline.  Thus both the Cardinals Morone and Contarini, the poet Flaminio, and the nobles of the Colonna family in Naples who imbibed the teaching of Valdes, fell under the suspicion of heterodoxy on these points.  But it was characteristic of the members of this school that they had no will to withhold allegiance from the Pope as chief of Christendom.  They shrank with horror from the thought of encouraging a schism or of severing themselves from the communion of Catholics.  The essential difference between Italian and Teutonic thinkers on such subjects at this epoch seems to have been this:  Italians could not cease to be Catholics without at the same time ceasing to be Christians.