These are Volumes 6 and 7 of John Addington Symonds’s monumental Renaissance in Italy, treating “The Catholic Reaction” — the Counter-Reformation. Symonds examines how the Catholic Church responded to Protestantism through the Council of Trent, the Inquisition, and the Jesuits, and how this reshaped Italian culture.
Part of the most ambitious nineteenth-century English study of the Renaissance, the volumes trace the waning of the period’s creative freedom under religious reaction. Symonds writes with learning and literary grace. This free EPUB edition presents the complete text for readers of Italian Renaissance and Reformation history.