The Council of Trent
Pasquale Cati's painting of a session of the Council of Trent, which met between 1545 and 1563 to define the Catholic response to the Reformation.
Trent sat, on and off, for eighteen years across three papacies. It settled doctrine that had been left ambiguous for centuries, reformed the training of clergy and did not concede the points the Protestants most wanted. The council mattered as much for what it refused as for what it defined, and it set the terms of Catholic practice until the twentieth century. Read the full story in our article on Diplomatic Manoeuvres and Religious Tensions: Papal-Imperial Negotiations at the Council of Trent (1545–1563).
Public domain — source (Wikimedia Commons). Free to reuse under the stated licence.
