In the beginning of the 16th century the Church began also a secular struggle against the Reformation, which subtracted a great part of Christendom to the papal authority. The revenge of the church started with the Council of Trent, and with the great Popes of the Counter-Reformation (from Pius IV to Sixtus V). Under them Rome became the center of the reformed Catholicism, and thanks to them the City was adorned with monuments which celebrated the restored greatness of the Papacy. During the 17th and the beginning of the 18th centuries the Popes continued the tradition of Counter-reformation, enriching the city's landscape with Baroque buildings, erected by the Popes themselves or by theirs Cardinal-nephews. During the Age of Enlightenment the new ideas reached also the Eternal City, where the Papacy supported Archeological Studies and improved the people's welfare However, at the same time the Popes had to fight against the anti-church policy of the great European powers which, among others, forced them to suppress the Jesuits.
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