The confessors announced to their penitents that books condemned in Rome were prohibited for believers; and as a rule such books, although not included in any _Index_ accepted by the Republic, could find no sale in Venice. While other causes also contributed to the extinction of the prestige of the Venetian Press, and to the very great decline in its business, the chief responsibility for such decline must rest with the Church for its persistent hostility to the smallest measure of freedom of the Press, and for its insistence upon restrictive measures of censorship which were absolutely incompatible with publishing activity and with literary production. =The Interdict and Fra Paolo Sarpi.=--While the contest between Rome and Venice had turned very largely upon questions connected with the censorship of the Press, many other matters were involved which assumed still larger proportions in the relations between the Church and the Republic. Between 1605 and 1650, a number of issues were fought over, issues connected sometimes with the control by the State Government of ecclesiastics accused of crimes or misdemeanours, sometimes with the control exercised by the Church over ecclesiastical property within the borders of the Republic, and again with the relations of the Jesuits and Capuchins to the law of the State. Venice was fighting for her civil and secular independence; while the Pope had declared his position when he announced that he would not submit to be Pope everywhere save in Venice. Paul addressed a _monitorium_ to the clergy of Venice, threatening excommunication to the Doge and Senate and interdict upon the Republic. The Doge forbade the publication of the _monitorium_, and the excommunication and interdict came into operation. While all the business of the Republic necessarily suffered, its export trade in books was, for a time, brought practically to a standstill. The interdict lasted for a little more than a year, when it was finally removed under a compromise settlement brought about through the French Ambassador. The most prominent figure in the whole of the struggle of this period between Venice and the Papacy was Fra Paolo Sarpi. Cleric though he were, he contended vigorously that the Church was embarking upon a wrong course, and he held that the State was justified in resisting, in secular matters, ecclesiastical encroachments upon the rights of the sovereign. In the end, notwithstanding some temporary success on the part of the State Governments of Italy, the Papacy succeeded in establishing nearly all of its contentions, including a rigorous censorship of the Press and the resulting limitations in literary activities.