The revival of learning in Italy was accompanied by other circumstances which had a powerful influence on the arts, and particularly on the sumptuary arts of the century. It has been already remarked that while the nations of Europe were more or less convulsed with war it was not easy or possible for the inhabitants, even the wealthy, to do much in furnishing dwelling-houses with any kind of comfort. Rich furniture consisted in a few costly objects and in hangings such as could be carried about on sumpter horses or in waggons, and, with the addition of rough benches, tables, and bedsteads, could make bare walls look gay and comfortable, and offer sufficient accommodation in the empty halls of granges and manors seldom lived in, for the occasions of a visit or a temporary occupation. Churches indeed were in those ages respected by both sides in the furious contests that raged throughout Europe. The violation of holy places was a crime held in abhorrence by all combatants, and the treasuries and sacristies, therefore, of churches were full of examples of every kind of accomplishment possessed by the artists of the day. They contained objects collected there during many generations, as was the case of shrines like that of the Virgin del Pillar in Spain, of which the offerings so long preserved have been very lately sold and dispersed, and represented the art of many successive ages. But in private houses it was scarcely possible to have any corresponding richness, though in the instance of kings and potentates there was often much splendour. As in England the fifteenth century saw the close of a series of great wars and the establishment of one powerful government, so during its conclusion and the beginning of the next century a similar disorder gradually gave place to tranquillity in Italy.