The force to judge and the desire to create were generated.

The immediate result in the sixteenth century was an abrupt secession of the learned, not merely from monasticism, but also from the true spirit of Christianity.

The minds of the Italians assimilated Paganism.

In their hatred of mediaeval ignorance, in their loathing of cowled and cloistered fools, they flew to an extreme, and affected the manner of an irrevocable past.

This extravagance led of necessity to a reaction--in the north to Puritanism, in the south to what has been termed the Counter-Reformation effected under Spanish influences in the Latin Church.