Physical realism, the humors of the streets and satiric assaults upon the life of the courts made excellent materials for the entertainment of the Italian mind, especially at such a time as the close of the sixteenth century, when the country had reached the completion of that state described by Symonds: "The intellectual and social life of the Italians, though much reduced in vigor, was therefore still, as formerly, concentrated in cities marked by distinct local qualities and boastful of their ancient glories.

The courts of Ferrara and Urbino continued to form centers for literary and artistic coteries.

Venice remained the stronghold of mental unrestraint and moral license, where thinkers uttered their thoughts with tolerable freedom and libertines indulged their tastes unhindered.

Rome early assumed novel airs of piety, and external conformity to austere patterns became the fashion here.

Yet the Papal capital did not wholly cease to be the resort of students and artists.