and what Roman Catholic and what clergyman or layman
belonged to which confession, the doctrinal decrees of the
first two sessions left no doubts on these questions.
Henceforth Roman Catholicism could be readily distin-
guished from Protestantism, as the Tridentine definitions
on Scripture, justification, and sacraments indicate.
Whereas the Protestant churches claimed there was only
one authority—Holy Scripture—Trent declared that there
were two: Scripture and the teaching tradition of the
Church whose magisterium was embodied in the papacy.
While Trent did not forbid vernacular editions of the
Bible, it did declare the Latin Vulgate to be the only au-
thentic text and stressed the right of the magisterium “to
judge of the true sense and interpretation of Holy Scrip-
ture.” On the question of justification, while Protestants
claimed that people are justified by faith alone (see JUSTI-
FICATION BY FAITH) without the works of the Mosaic law,
the Council of Trent asserted that people are saved by faith
in combination with good works. Regarding sacraments,
the Protestant churches held that there were only two
(baptism and the Eucharist) and that they were not vehi-
cles of grace; Trent reaffirmed the seven sacraments (bap-
tism, penance, the Eucharist, confirmation, holy orders,
marriage, and extreme unction) as vehicles of saving
grace. Finally, the last session of the council redefined and
reaffirmed almost every belief that such humanist scholars
as ERASMUShad considered superstitious (and therefore
not obligatory for the believer): the making of vows, belief
in Purgatory, the invocation of saints, the veneration of
relics, and the giving of INDULGENCES. On November 13,
1564 (the year that John Calvin died), the pope summed
up the Roman Catholic faith as taught at Trent in the
Creed of Pope Pius IV. This was a fitting capstone to the
Council, as it was truly a victory for the papacy and a clos-
ing off of all possibility of negotiated compromise with
Protestantism for the next 400 years.
See also: HYMNODY; LITURGY
Further reading: Robert Birely, The Refashioning of
Catholicism, 1450–1700: A Reassessment of the Counter-
Reformation (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of
America Press, 1999); Hubert Jedin, Crisis and Closure of
the Council of Trent (London: Sheed & Ward, 1967).
Tribolo, Niccolò (Niccolo de’ Pericoli) (1500–1550)
Italian sculptor
He was born in Florence, where much of his work is to be
seen. Tribolo was influenced by MICHELANGELO, of whose
works he made copies (Bargello). His own most success-
ful genre was fountain statuary, such as the fountain of
Hercules and Cacus at the suburban Villa di Castello (Flo-
rence), where Tribolo also laid out the gardens (c. 1540).
Tribunal of Blood The popular name for the Council of
Troubles, established in 1567 by the Spanish governor of
the Netherlands, the duke of ALBA, to try the cases of those
suspected of treason during the Dutch revolt (see NETHER-
LANDS, REVOLT OF THE). In the next six years it heard some
12,203 cases, producing 9000 convictions and just over
1000 executions. The slaughter has been exaggerated by
propaganda, but fear of the tribunal did drive many rebels
and Calvinists out of the Netherlands, 60,000 (2% of the
population) fleeing during Alba’s rule. The tribunal was
abolished by his successor, Don Luis de Requesens, in
1573 in an attempt to conciliate the Dutch.Tridentine Of, or relating to, the Council of TRENT.trigonometry The main achievements of Renaissance
mathematicians in the field of trigonometry were twofold.
Their first task involved the identification and definition
of the main trigonometric ratios. Although trigonometry
was developed by ancient Greek mathematicians, it was in
fact based on quite different presuppositions. The Greeks
were interested in establishing tables of chords. Abandon-
ing this approach, Renaissance mathematicians based
their work on the assumption that the trigonometric ra-
tios could be expressed as functions of angles. The first
modern attempt to develop trigonometry in this way,
though restricted to sines and cosines, was made by RE-
GIOMONTANUSin De triangulis (1464; published in 1533).
The system was extended to the other trigonometric ratios
by RHETICUSin his Canon doctrinae triangulorum (1551).
The success of this program imposed on mathematicians
the second task of constructing the appropriate tables.
After more than a decade of intense labor Rheticus suc-
ceeded in completing detailed tables of all six trigonomet-
ric functions. They were published posthumously in his
Opus Palatinum de triangulis (1596).Trissino, Giangiorgio (1478–1550) Italian classicist,
critic, dramatist, and poet
Born to a patrician family in Vicenza, Trissino studied
Greek in Milan (1506) and went to the court of Ferrara in- He attended meetings of the Orti Oricellari in Flo-
rence in 1513 and the following year moved to the court
of Pope Leo X in Rome. He was highly regarded by suc-
cessive popes, who entrusted him with several important
diplomatic missions.
Sophonisba (1515; first performed 1562), inspired by
an episode in the Roman historian Livy, led the way in in-
troducing a vernacular tragedy based directly on Greek
models and Aristotelian principles, instead of on SENECA.
Written in blank verse, it was also structurally close to
Greek tragedy in alternating episode and chorus and in
maintaining the unities of action and time. His comedy I
simillimi (The Look-Alikes; 1548) drew on PLAUTUS’s
Menaechmi but also imitated the Old Comedy of Aristo-
phanes in structure. His blank-verse epic in 27 books, La
Italia liberata da’ Gotthi (1547–48), recounting the Byzan-
tine general Belisarius’s sixth-century conquest of Italy
TTrriissssiinnoo,, GGiiaannggiioorrggiioo 4 47733