The state of the Italian convents at this period gave occasion to crimes in which women played a prominent part.

After the Council of Trent reforms were instituted in religious houses.

But they could not be immediately carried out; and, meanwhile, the economical changes which were taking place in the commercial aristocracy, filled nunneries with girls who had no vocation for a secluded life.

Less money was yearly made in trade; merchants became nobles, investing their capital in land, and securing their estates on their eldest sons by entails.

It followed that they could not afford to marry all their daughters with dowries befitting the station they aspired to assume.