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.