Between the years 1564 and 1596, the Inquisitorial censorship of books had been weighing more and more heavily on the publishers and booksellers in Venice and throughout Italy. The _Indexes_ which had appeared since the issue of La Casa’s Catalogue had so increased the number of unpublishable books, many of them forming a large staple in the trade of Venetian publishers, that the interests of these publishers, and particularly their export trade, had suffered severely. The attempt had been made to take away the right of the Venetian printers to print Bibles and missals, and to restrict the printing of such books to Rome. The business was interfered with for a time, but the attempt to stop it altogether was in the end successfully resisted. In spite of Paruta’s opinion that Venetian interests had been sufficiently consulted, the printers and booksellers at once appealed to the Senate for support against the new _Index_. The negotiations lasted for some months, but in the end the Pope gave way on the more important points complained of, and a Declaration or _Concordat_ was agreed upon which lessened, as far as Venice was concerned, the stringency of some of the more objectionable features of the _Index_. When this _Concordat_ had been signed, the Senate authorised the publication of the _Index_. The most important clause in the _Concordat_ was the seventh, which provided that the right of the Bishops and Inquisitors to prohibit books which are not on the present _Index_, should refer only to books which attacked religion, or which were printed outside of Venice, or which were issued with a false imprint. This right was to be exercised only on just cause shown, and with the consent of the three lay assessors. This limitation of the ecclesiastical Inquisition to purely religious or theological questions constituted a most valuable precedent in the long fight between the Church and the secular authorities concerning the control of the Press. The fifth clause drew a nice distinction: Printers were forbidden to use lascivious woodcuts, but they might use cuts which were profane without being lascivious. A few months before the arrangement of the _Concordat_, and while the settlement was still pending, the Senate had published a decree condemning the practice which had begun to come into vogue among the publishers and printers of Venice of applying to Rome for privileges and monopolies. The Senate announced that any privileges that had been thus obtained must be renounced or they would be disregarded and prohibited, under penalty of a fine of ten ducats, any future attempts to secure, either directly or indirectly, publishing privileges from any authority other than the officials appointed for the purpose by the Government of the Republic.