The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

CHAPTER VIII.
Reopening of the Council of Trent. Sessions XVII to
XXII.
Two complete years, full of work and anxieties, had been
necessary, in order to overcome the " sea of difficulties "
which the reopening of the Council had had to face. The
satisfaction of Pius IV. was therefore great and fully justified
when, at the end of the third year of his pontificate, he at
last saw all his efforts crowned with success.^
It was a momentous day for the Church and the Papacy
when all the members of the Council present in Trent assembled
in the ancient church of S. Peter, on the morning of January
i8th, 1562, in order to proceed in procession to the neigh-
bouring Cathedral for the purpose of the solemn opening of
the General Council of the Church. The members of the
secular and regular clergy of the city formed the head of the
procession, and these were followed by the mitred abbots,
ninety bishops, eleven archbishops, and three patriarchs.
Then followed the Duke of Mantua, the nephew of the Cardinal,
who had come to Trent for the solemnity. Cardinal Madruzzo,
and the four Papal legates, Gonzaga, Simonetta, Seripando
and Hosius, whose dignity was denoted by an infula of gold
material. The secular ambassadors should have followed
the legates, but none had as yet arrived. Four generals of
orders followed, with the Auditor of the Roman Rota, the
Consistorial Advocate, the Promoter of the Council, and
lastly the magistrates of Trent and other lay persons of
distinction.
^ The Pope expressed his joy at the opening of the Council in a
consistory on January 28, 1562. See Acta consist, in Laemmer,
Melet., 213 seq., and Ehses, VIII., 271. C/. also Borromeo's
letter to Simonetta in Susta II., 18.
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