It became an Italian power of the first magnitude, devoted to the absolutist principles of Spanish and Papal sovereignty.

The further changes which took place in Italy after the year 1530, turned equally to the profit of Spain and Rome.

These were principally the creation of the Duchy of Parma for the Farnesi (1545-1559), of which I shall have to speak in the next chapter; the resumption of Ferrara by the Papacy in 1597, which reduced the House of Este to the smaller fiefs of Modena and Reggio; the acquisition of Montferrat by Mantua in 1536; the cession of Saluzzo to Savoy in 1598, and the absorption of Urbino into the Papal domains in 1631.
It was hoped when Charles and Clement proclaimed the pacification of Italy at Bologna on the last day of 1529, that the peninsula would no longer be the theater of wars for supremacy between the French and Spaniards.

This expectation proved delusive; for the struggle soon broke out again.

The people, however, suffered less extensively than in former years; because the Spanish party, supported by Papal authority, was decidedly predominant.