The Catholic Revival was by its nature reactionary. Symonds analyses the position of Spain in the Italian peninsula, the conduct of the Tridentine Council, the specific organization of the Holy Office and the Company of Jesus, and the state of society upon which those forces were brought to bear. Poet, essayist, and literary historian, John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) delved into every field of the humanities, writing the celebrated Renaissance in Italy and publishing translations of the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini and the Sonnets of Michelangelo and Campanella; he wrote biographies of Shelley, Sidney, and Jonson, and collaborated with Havelock Ellis on a number of projects in sexology. He is remembered for his untiring efforts to loosen the restraints on homosexuals in England, and his Memoirs are the only diary of a Victorian homosexual of his stature.