[Footnote 32:  Luigi Mocenigo says of him that Pius ’averlo per un angelo di paradiso, e adoperandolo per consiglio in tutte le sue cose importanti.’  Alberi, vol. x. p. 40.  The case made out against Morone during the pontificate of Paul IV. may be studied in Cantu, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 171-192, together with his defence in full.  It turned mainly on these articles:—­unsound opinions regarding justification by faith, salvation by Christ’s blood, good works, invocation of saints, reliques; dissemination of the famous book on the Benefits of Christ’s Death; practice with heretics.  He was imprisoned in the Castle of S. Angelo from June, 1557 till August, 1559.  Suspicions no doubt fell on him through his friendship with several of the moderate reformers, and from the fact that his diocese of Modena was a nest of liberal thinkers—­the Grillenzoni, Castelvetro, Filippo Valentini, Faloppio, Camillo Molza, Francesco da Porto, Egidio Foscarari, and others, all of whom are described by Cantu, op. cit. Disc, xxviii.  The charges brought against these persons prove at once the mainly speculative and innocuous character of Italian heresy, and the implacable enmity which a Pope of Caraffa’s stamp exercised against the slightest shadow of heterodoxy.]

This in itself was significant of the new regime which now began in Rome.  Morone, like his master, understood that the Church could best be guided by diplomacy and arts of peace.  The two together brought the Council of Trent to that conclusion which left an undisputed sovereignty in theological and ecclesiastical affairs to the Papacy.  It would have been impossible for a man of Caraffa’s stamp to achieve what these sagacious temporizers and adroit managers effected.

Without advancing the same arrogant claims to spiritual supremacy as Paul had made, Pius was by no means a feeble Pontiff.  He knew that the temper of the times demanded wise concessions; but he also knew how to win through these concessions the reality of power.  It was he who initiated and firmly followed the policy of alliance between the Papacy and the Catholic sovereigns.[33] Instead of asserting the interests of the Church in antagonism to secular potentates, he undertook to prove that their interests were identical.  Militant Protestantism threatened the civil no less than the ecclesiastical order.  The episcopacy attempted to liberate itself from monarchical and pontifical authority alike.  Pius proposed to the autocrats of Europe a compact for mutual defence, divesting the Holy See of some of its privileges, but requiring in return the recognition of its ecclesiastical absolutism.  In all difficult negotiations he was wont to depend upon himself; treating his counselors as agents rather than as peers, and holding the threads of diplomacy in his own hands.  Thus he was able to transact business as a sovereign with sovereigns, and came to terms with them by means of personal correspondence.