That Venice finally submitted to Roman influence, while preserving the semblance of independence, detracts, indeed, from the importance of this Interdict-affair considered as an episode in the struggle for spiritual freedom.
Moreover, we know now that the presumptuous pretensions of the Papacy at large were destined, before many years had passed, to be pared down, diminished and obliterated by the mere advance of intellectual enlightenment.

Yet none of these considerations diminish Sarpi's claim to rank as hero in the forefront of a battle which in his time was being waged with still uncertain prospects.[135] In their comparatively narrow spheres Venice and Sarpi, not less than Holland, England, Sweden and the Protestants of Germany, on their wider platform at a later date, were fighting for a principle upon which the liberty of States depended.
And they were the first to fight for it upon the ground most perilous to the common adversary.

In all his writings Sarpi sought to prove that men might remain sound Catholics and yet resist Roman aggression; that the Roman Court and its modern champions had introduced new doctrine, deviating from the pristine polity of Christendom; that the post-Tridentine theory of Papal absolutism was a deformation of that order which Christ founded, which the Apostles edified, and which the Councils of a purer age had built into the living temple of God's Church on earth.
[Footnote 135: Sarpi's correspondence abundantly proves how very grave was the peril of Papal Absolutism in his days.

The tide had not begun to turn with force against the Jesuit doctrines of Papal Supremacy.

See Ranke, vol.ii.pp.