, indeed, there was something that might at first
blush have seemed favorable to the Lutheran revolt. Few lands were
more open to German and Swiss influences than was their transalpine
neighbor. Commercially, Italy and Germany were united by a thousand
bonds, and a constant influx of northern travellers, students, artists,
officials and soldiers, might be supposed to carry with them the
contagion of the new ideas. Again, the lack of political unity might
be supposed, as in Germany, so in Italy, {372} to facilitate sectional
reformation. Finally, the Renaissance, with its unparalleled freedom
of thought and its strong anti-clerical bias, would at least insure a
fair hearing for innovations in doctrine and ecclesiastical ideals.

And yet, as even contemporaries saw, there were some things which
weighed far more heavily in the scale of Catholicism than did those
just mentioned in the scale of Protestantism. In the first place the
autonomy of the political divisions was more apparent than real. Too
weak and too disunited to offer resistance to any strong foreign power,
contended for by the three greatest, Italy became gradually more and
more a Spanish dependency. After Pavia [Sidenote: 1525] and the treaty
of Cateau-Cambresis [Sidenote: 1529] French influence was reduced to a
threat rather than a reality. Naples had long been an appendage of the
Spanish crown; Milan was now wrested from the French, and one after
another most of the smaller states passed into Spain's "sphere of
influence." The strongest of all the states, the papal dominions,
became in reality, if not nominally, a dependency of the emperor after
the sack of Rome. [Sidenote: 1527] Tuscany, Savoy and Venetia
maintained a semblance of independence, but Savoy was at that time
hardly Italian. Venice had passed the zenith of her power, and
Florence, even under her brilliant Duke Cosimo de' Medici [Sidenote:
Cosimo de' Medici, 1537-1574] was amenable to the pressure of the
Spanish soldier and the Spanish priest.

Enormous odds were thrown against the Reformers because Italy was the
seat of the papacy. In spite of all hatred of Roman morals and in
spite of all distrust of Roman doctrine, this was a source of pride and
of advantage of the whole country. As long as tribute flowed from all
Western Europe, as long as kings and emperors kissed the pontiff's toe,
Rome was still in a sense the capital of Christendom. An example of
how {373} the papacy was b