in the pursuit of objects which they had in common; and the Council ended in strengthening rather than weakening the papal grip upon the Church. The Papacy supported by the Italian episcopate defied the Christian world.
No less than five Legates were appointed to preside over the Council. At their head was placed Ercole di Gonzaga, Cardinal of Mantua, brother of the Duke, a man of conciliatory disposition; and he had for his colleagues Girolamo Seripando, the former General of the Augus-tinians, who had played a prominent part in the earlier Sessions, Luigi Simonetta, and Jacopo Puteo, both of them canonists of renown, and Stanislaus Hosius, who had worked hard against heresy in Poland. The last-named three were firmly devoted to the papal interests. Puteo, however, soon fell ill, and his place was taken by Cardinal Marc d'Altemps, Bishop of Constance, a young man of little experience. Ludovico Madruzzo, nephew of Cardinal Madruzzo, had succeeded his uncle in the bishopric of Trent, and received the Legates on their arrival on April 16, 1561.
The Bishops, however, arrived but slowly, and summer and autumn went by. At length the Pope could wait no longer, and fixed the first (Seventeenth) Session for January 18, 1562. There were then assembled for the opening of the Council five Cardinals, three Patriarchs, eleven Archbishops, ninety Bishops, four Generals of Orders, and four Abbots. The first business undertaken by the Council was the question of an Index of Prohibited Books. It was decided to revise the Index issued by Paul IV; and a commission of eighteen prelates was appointed for the purpose. A safe-conduct was then granted to any Protestants who might come to the Council in the same terms as that granted under Julius III. But this was nothing more than a formality, as there was not the least prospect that any would attend. It was, however, necessary to satisfy the Emperor so far. Although the numbers present at the opening of the Council were greater than they had ever been in any of the earlier Sessions at Trent or Bologna, the assembly was purely a gathering of the Catholic world. There was no longer even the possibility, which had existed at an earlier date, of a frank meeting of the Protestants and a consideration of their objections. The Papacy had defeated the attempt before, and mutual distrust now made it hopeless. The interest of the third meeting of the Council lies in the effort made by certain elements in Catholicism to readjust the balance of forces in the government of the Church, and to satisfy the needs of Catholics north of the Alps.
The cleft between the parties revealed itself at the very beginning of the Council. The Legates inserted in the decree concerning the opening of the Council the words "proponentibus legatis ac praesiden-tibus." Against this the Spanish Bishops, led by Guerrero, Archbishop of Granada, protested. Its object was to diminish the independent power of the Council apart from the Pope, by taking away its right of
