Sarpi goes on to point out that the prince who had first perceived the danger was Philip II. of Spain. The only books that he allowed to remain under the censorship of the Inquisition were missals, breviaries, and school-books. The censorship of all other literature was confided to a commission appointed by himself. Sarpi recalls that this had been the course taken also by the Republic, and emphasises the importance on the part of the Republic of retaining in its own hands a similar control of literary censorship. Sarpi closes his report by recommending the establishment of a code of general rules, behind which the ducal secretary can shelter himself from the importunate, the interested, and the over-zealous, and by means of which a consistent censorship policy can be maintained. While Sarpi’s main purpose was the maintaining the independence of the State against the encroachments of the Papacy, the principles for which he contended were of first importance for the prosperity and, in fact, for the continued existence of the Venetian publishing interest. Unless the burden of Papal censorship could be lessened, literary production in Venice must cease. In the schemes submitted to the Government for a code of general rules by which was to be directed the system of political censorship, Sarpi specified four classes of writers whose books, in his judgment, ought to be placed upon the _State Index_: I. Those who attack the Constitution of the Republic and its laws by name; II. Those who attack the laws and constitution adopted by the Republic without naming her; III. Those who, even within the limits of fair controversy, argue against the legislation of the State; IV. Those who attack no laws of the State, but who broadly maintain the absolute and universal superiority of the ecclesiastical over the temporal authority. Sarpi further contended that “In the correction of books which are open to censure, it is not advisable to follow the practice of the Church in raking through the entrails of an author and altering the sense and the intention of whole passages, so that the writer is made to say the reverse of what he desired to say; first, because all the world stigmatises such action as falsification; secondly, because such conduct would bring upon Venice the infamous charge of castrating books; thirdly, because the Court of Rome assumes for itself the sole right to alter passages in books.” Sarpi concludes his report by submitting ten propositions, upon which he recommends the Government to take action: