ABSTRACT
The religious wars in France, the division of the German states into mutually hostile leagues and increasing signs of administrative and economic breakdown in the over-expanded Ottoman Empire guaranteed the continuing observance of the terms of Cateau-Cambresis and of the post-Lepanto peace treaties. The achievement of internal peace permitted the rulers of the Italian states to direct their attention to the most urgent problem they shared with the rulers of many other European states at the time: banditry. For those Italians who were well off, however, the sun of peace and prosperity totally obscured these occasional clouds. Just as often, however, economic prosperity was the consequence of the survival of what had been one of the chief virtues of Italian businessmen for over three centuries: versatility. And the aesthetic and philosophic establishments gave every promise of being as solidly founded and as potentially immortal as peace, prosperity, the political order and the Tridentine Church.
