In this sort, Messer Rinaldo Corso composed, and the literary ladies, to whom throughout, as in the above passage, his labours are especially dedicated, must be supposed to have read more than five hundred close-printed pages of commentary on the works of the celebrated poetess, who, in all probability, when she penned the sonnet in question, had no more intention of setting forth the reasons for her return to Ischia, than she had of alluding to the occult properties of the mysterious number seven. The natural supposition is, that as she had been driven from her home by the pestilence, she returned to it when that reason for absence was at an end. There she seems to have remained tranquilly employed on her favourite pursuits, increasing her already great reputation, and corresponding assiduously with all the best and most distinguished men of Italy, whether laymen or ecclesiastics, till the year 1536. In that year she again visited Rome, and resided during her stay there with Donna Giovanna d'Aragona, her sister-in-law. Paul III., Farnese, had in 1534 succeeded Clement in the chair of St. Peter; and though Paul was on many accounts very far from being a good Pope or a good priest, yet the Farnese was an improvement on the Medici. As ever, Rome began to show signs of improvement when danger to her system from without began to make itself felt. Paul seems very soon to have become convinced that the general council, which had been so haunting a dread to Clement during the whole of his pontificate, could no longer be avoided. But it was still hoped in the council chambers of the Vatican that the doctrinal difficulties of the German reformers, which threatened the Church with so fatal a schism, might be got over by conciliation and dexterous theological diplomacy. As soon as it became evident that this hope was vain, fear began to influence the papal policy, and at its bidding the ferocious persecuting bigotry of Paul IV. was contrasted with the shameless profligacy of Alexander, the epicurean indifferentism of Leo, and the pettifogging worldliness of Clement. Between these two periods came Paul III., and the illusory hopes that the crisis might be tided over by finding some arrangement of terminology, which should satisfy the reformers, while Rome should abandon no particle of doctrine on which any vital portion of her system of temporal power was based. To meet the exigencies of this period, Paul III. signalised his accession by raising to the purple a number of the most earnest, most learned, and truly devout men in Italy. Contarini, the Venetian; Caraffa, from Naples; Sadoleto, Bishop of Carpentras; Pole, then a fugitive from England; Giberti, Bishop of Verona; and Fregoso, Archbishop of Salerno, were men chosen solely on account of their eminent merit.