Italt  is  the  land  which  next  to  Spain  is  the  most  import^
ant  for  the  Counter-Heformation.  While  we  can  trace  in
Spain  and  in  Germany  a  certain  solidarity  of  religious
movement,  the  spiritual  conditions  of  Italy  during  the  first
half  of  the  sixteenth  century  were  as  manifold  as  its
political  conditions.  It  is  impossible  to  speak  of  the
Italians  as  a  whole.  Italy  had  been  the  land  of  the  Renais-
sance, but  that  great  intellectual  movement  had  never
rooted  itself  deeply  in  the  people  as  it  had  done  in
Germany,  France,  or  England.
The  Italian  peasantry  were  a  class  apart  from  the
burghers  as  they  were  nowhere  else.  Their  religion  was
usuaUy  a  thinly  veiled  paganism,  a  belief  in  the  omni«
presence  of  spirits,  good  and  bad,  to  be  thanked,  propitiated,
coaxed  or  compelled  by  use  of  charms,  amulets,  spells,  and

^  Sources  :  ContariDi,  Opera  (Paris,  1671);  Corresptmdenz  Ccnlarimn^
ed.  by  L.  Pastor  (1880) ;  Cortese,  Epistolanim  famUiarum  liber  (Venice,
1673) ;  Ghiberti,  Opera  (Verona,  1740) ;  Sadoleto,  Epistolarum  libri  sexdecim
(Lyons,  1660) ;  Pole,  Epistolw,  et  alicrum  ad  ipmm  (Brescia,  1744-67),
Carteggio  di  Vittoria  Colonna  (Turin,  1889) ;  Vergerio,  BrUfwechsel  (edited
for  the  Bihlvotheh  des  lUerarischen  VercivM^  Stnttgart,  1876).
Later  Books  :  Jacob  Burckhardt,  The  Civilisaticn  of  the  Period  of  the
JUnaissanee  (Eng.  trans.,  London,  1892) ;  Symonds,  Benaiseanee  in  Italy.
The  Catholic  Reaction  (London,  1886) ;  Cantd,  OH  Eretiei  d' Italia  (Turin,
1866-67)  ;  Braun,  Cardinal  Oasparo  Contarini  (1903) ;  Dittrich,  Oasparo
Contarini  (Braunsberg,  1888) ;  Dnmy,  Le  Cardinal  Carlo  Caraffa  (Paris,
1882) ;  Grotheln,  Jgnatiue  Loyola  ujui  die  Oeffenr^ormaiionf  pp.  77-207
(Halle,  1896) ;  v.  Reumont,  ViUoria  Colonna  (Freiburg  i.  B.  1881).
