It is the contention of Dejob that by the close of the 16th century the Catholic reformation had exerted in Italian literature an influence that was both significant and lasting, while the effect on the literature of Spain was hardly less marked although probably less lasting. The Protestant peoples had, as he claims, thus far produced, under the inspiration of religious feeling, no works that could equal the religious productions of these two countries. It was during the century following that the literature of France received from Christianity its most profound impression.[140] The correspondence of Cardinal Sirleto gives an indication of the labour undertaken by the clergy of Italy after the Council of Trent for the purpose of disputing with the Protestants the leadership in science and in scholarship. Sirleto, who had had a chair of rhetoric in the College of San Silvestro at Rome, was, in 1549, placed in charge of the great library of the Vatican. Later, he became Bishop and Cardinal, but resigned the honours of the Episcopacy in order to devote himself exclusively to the pursuit of learning and to the service of other scholars of the Church. The group of Catholic writers who were, during the lifetime of Sirleto, devoting themselves to scholarly labours included such names as those of Baronius, Bellarmin, Tiraboschi, Latini, Orsini, and many others. Sirleto, with a marvellously intimate knowledge of the great collections of the Vatican that were under his control, devoted himself during a series of years through correspondence, through suggestions, and through the loan of manuscripts and books, to furthering the work of the writers of this group. It would appear as if no Italian writer of the day who was giving attention to dogma, to history, to tradition, to exegesis, or even to general literature, was able to complete his work without the co-operation of Sirleto. He typified in his own person the great revival in scholarly and in literary interests that accompanied the reform in morals and in religious zeal brought about by the Council of Trent. The Protestant writers were no longer to be permitted to have a monopoly of applied scholarship or in literary exposition for popular reading. Men like Baronius devoted themselves in defence of the Church to the proofs to be secured from history and tradition; while hundreds of writers who had secured their training in the newly established or newly revised schools of the Church, brought into print, for the reading of the people generally, appeals and arguments with which to offset the influence of the “flyleaves” of Wittenberg. It was in fact through the furious attacks of Luther and his associates that a comprehensive reformation was brought about in the army of Catholicism.