In 1615, Andrea Morosini completed his History of Venice, in which he had occasion to deal with the question of Interdict. The Venetian Inquisition refused to sign the _testamur_, which was requisite before the Council of Ten could grant an _imprimatur_. Paolo Morosini, who was in charge of his brother’s work, appealed to the Senate, and secured a declaration to the effect that the narrative in the History was an exact and trustworthy account, that the Inquisitor drew his authority to act from no other power than the Republic, that that authority extended only to the supervision of books having to do with questions of faith, and that no such questions came into the History. The Government thereupon ordered the immediate publication of the book without the _testamur_, and with the words _superiorum permissu_. It is to be noted that the prohibition of Rome probably prevented the sale of the book in Italy outside of Venice, and must, therefore, have materially lessened the prospects of profit for author or publisher. There were also instances of books which were approved by the Church but the publication of which was considered detrimental to the interests of the State, and their sale in Venice was accordingly prohibited. One book of this class was the _Recantation_ of the Archbishop of Spalato, printed in Rome in 1623, by the Apostolic printers. The Republic objected to the contention of the Archbishop that the Pope had power in things temporal as well as in things spiritual. A second example is the _History of the Council of Trent_, by Cardinal Pallavicini, written in answer to Sarpi’s History. Through the Venetian Ambassador at Rome, Pallavicini made application for permission to sell his book in Venice. The application was refused on the ground that the History contained sentiments obnoxious to the Government of the Republic. In a report written to the Government by Sarpi at this time, he takes the ground that the tendency on the part of the Church during the past few years has produced a whole series of books whose doctrines are entirely subversive of all secular government. They teach that no government but the ecclesiastical has a divine origin; that secular government is a thing profane and tyrannical which God permits to be imposed upon His people as a kind of trial or persecution; that the people are not in conscience bound to obey the secular law or to pay taxes; that the imposts and public subventions are, for the most part, iniquitous and unjust, and that the princes who impose these have in many cases been excommunicated, and that because of such excommunication of princes, death, want, and other public misfortunes have come upon their communities. In short, princes and rulers are held up to view as impious and unjust; subjects may have to obey them perforce, but, in conscience, they are free to do all that in them lies to break their yoke.