This was effected by drafting Italian prelates, as occasion required, to Trent.
Many of the poorer sort were subsidized, and placed under the supervision of Cardinal Simoneta, who gave them orders how to vote.

A small squadron of witty bishops was told off to throw ridicule on inconvenient speakers by satirical interpolations, or to hamper them by sophistical arguments.

Spies were introduced into the opposite camps, who kept the Legates informed of what the French or Spaniards deliberated in their private meetings.

The Legates meanwhile established a daily post of couriers, who carried the minutest details of the Council to the Vatican.

When the resolutions of the congregations on which decrees were to be framed had been drawn up, they referred them to his Holiness.