In the process of this transformation the people submitted to rigid ecclesiastical discipline, and adopted, without assimilating, the customs of a foreign troop of despots.
At first sight we may wonder that the race which had shone with such incomparable luster from Dante to Ariosto, and which had done so much to create modern culture for Europe, should so quietly have accepted a retrogressive revolution.

Yet, when we look closer, this is not surprising.

The Italians were fatigued with creation, bewildered by the complexity of their discoveries, uncertain as to the immediate course before them.

The Renaissance had been mainly the work of a select few.
It had transformed society without permeating the masses of the people.
Was it strange that the majority should reflect that, after all, the old ways are the best?
This led them to approve the Catholic Revival.

Was it strange that, after long distracting aimless wars, they should hail peace at any price?
This lent popular sanction to the Spanish hegemony, in spite of its obvious drawbacks.
These may be reckoned the main conditions which gave a peculiar but not easily definable complexion of languor, melancholy, and dwindling vitality to nearly every manifestation of Italian genius in the second half of the sixteenth century, and which well nigh sterilized that genius during the two succeeding centuries.