ABSTRACT
Look at a map of the period. Look down on Rome-the southernmost point of Europetorn to shreds by wars, attacked to the south by malaria, surrounded by a bitter sea full of strife and dread, infested by pirates. Ninety thousand people were separated only by the Adriatic, the Apennines, and a hundred galleys-which Venice kept always ready for war-from the ruinous regions of the infidel and from the even more hated Orthodox Christians, “foremost enemies of the Holy See.” To the north its spiritual hegemony was threatened by the vacillations of the French and the sledgehammer blows of the kings and princes of the Reformation. The small Italian states-Tuscany, Savoy, Parma, Modena, and the republic of La Serenissima-were rent with internal conflict, as were Poland, Austria, and Spain. Still, these powers acted as dikes to protect the Catholic Church from the Protestant world, which was itself showing signs of division. Gustavus Adolphus himself, the king of Sweden, was on the point of converting at the time of Urban VIII.
