Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 6 and 7 (of 7) / The Catholic Reaction

The book traces Italy's shift from Renaissance pluralism to a Catholic revival shaped by Spanish political dominance and papal centralization. It recounts the military and diplomatic settlements that weakened independent city-states, then follows the Church's response to Protestantism through councils and doctrinal reaffirmation, reforming and authoritarian pontificates, new religious orders, and mechanisms of discipline. It assesses how these developments curtailed earlier intellectual freedoms, reshaped artistic and literary life, and reorganized clerical structures, while examining debates between moderate reformers and hardline conservatives and the wider social and economic consequences of foreign hegemony.