The Italians stood no longer in a relation of uncontested intellectual superiority to these peoples, while they met them under decided disadvantages at all points of political efficiency.
The Mediterranean had ceased to be the high road of commercial enterprise and naval energy.

Charles V.'s famous device of the two columns, with its motto _Plus Ultra_, indicated that illimitable horizons had been opened, that an age had begun in which Spain, England and Holland should dispute the sovereignty of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Italy was left, with diminished forces of resistance, to bear the brunt of Turk and Arab depredations.

The point of gravity in the civilized world had shifted.

The Occidental nations looked no longer toward the South of Europe.
While these various causes were in operation, Catholic Christianity showed signs of re-wakening.