But the established order subsists until the moment comes for a new synthesis.

And in the sixteenth century the necessary impulse of regeneration was to come, not from Italy, satisfied with the serenity of her art, preoccupied with her culture, and hardened to the infamy of her corruption, but from the Germany of the barbarians she despised.
These considerations will help to explain how it was that the Church, in spite of its corruption, stood its ground and retained the respect of the people in Italy.

We must moreover bear in mind that, bad as it was, it still to some extent maintained the Christian verity.

Apart from the Roman Curia and the Convents, there existed a hierarchy of able and God-fearing men, who by the sanctity of their lives, by the gravity of their doctrine, by the eloquence of their preaching, by their ministration to the sick, by the relief of the poor, by the maintenance of hospitals, Monti di Pieta, schools and orphanages, kept alive in the people of Italy the ideal at least of a religion pure and undefiled before God.[1] In the tottering statue of the Church some true metal might be found between the pinchbeck at the summit and the clay of the foundation.
[1] See the life of S.Antonino, the good Archbishop of Florence.
It must also be remembered how far the worldly interests and domestic sympathies of the Italians were engaged in the maintenance of their Church system.

The fibers of the Church were intertwined with the very heartstrings of the people.