Metamorfosi della cristianità: popoli, Stati e potere tra realtà italiana e contesto europeo all’aprirsi del Cinquecento

The high Renaissance culture, as portrayed especially in Erasmus’ works, has not failed to call for an awareness of European Christianity’s state of health during the very Early Modern Age. It was able to defend itself from the threats that came from external entities linked to the expansive strength on the Mediterranean of the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, it highlighted the internal weaknesses provided, from one hand, by the increasing States’ political fragmentation and, from the other, as a result of the degenerative phenomena that were introduced into the collective religion. The tendency to re-emerge of the different perception between the secular and sacred fields was strictly related with the persistent fusion of these two gravitation forces within the social system, thus increasing the need for a constant self-reform of the Christian world.