This was in great measure due to indifference; for the Church herself had taught her children by example to regard her dogmas and her discipline as a convenient convention.

It required all the scourges of the Inquisition to flog the nation back, not to lively faith, but to hypocrisy.

Furthermore, the political conditions of Italy were highly unfavorable to a profound religious revolution.

The thirst for national liberty which inspired England in the sixteenth century, impelling the despotic Tudors to cast off the yoke of Rome, arming Howard the Catholic against the holy fleet of Philip, and joining prince and people in one aspiration after freedom, was impossible in Italy.

The tone of Machiavelli's _Principe_, the whole tenor of Castiglione's _Cortigiano_, prove this without the need of further demonstration.
[1] It is well known that Savonarola's objection to classical culture was based upon his perception of its worldliness.