known works re-filling the empty churches. Several cities in France in the French wars of religion and in Germany, Bohemia and elsewhere in the Thirty Years War saw similar bursts of restocking. The rather extreme pronouncement by a synod in Antwerp in 1610 that in future the central panels of altarpieces should only show New Testament scenes was certainly ignored in the cases of many paintings by Rubens and other Flemish artists (and in particular the Jesuits continued to commission altarpieces centred on their saints), but nonetheless New Testament subjects probably did increase. Altarpieces became larger and more easy to make out from a distance, and the large painted or gilded carved wooden altarpieces that were the pride of many northern late medieval cities were often replaced with paintings. Some subjects were given increased prominence to reflect Counter-Reformation emphases. The Repentance of Peter, showing the end of the episode of the Denial of Peter, was not often seen before the Counter-Reformation, when it became popular as an assertion of the sacrament of Confession against Protestant attacks. This followed an influential book by the Jesuit Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621). The image typically shows Peter in tears, as a half-length portrait with no other figures, often with hands clasped as at right, and sometimes "the cock" in the background; it was often coupled with a repentant Mary Magdalen, another exemplar from Bellarmine's book. As the Counter-Reformation grew stronger and the Catholic Church felt less threat from the Protestant Reformation, Rome once again began to assert its universality to other nations around the world. The religious order of the Jesuits or the Society of Jesus, sent missionaries to the Americas, parts of Africa, India and eastern Asia and used the arts as an effective means of articulating their message of the Catholic Church's dominance over the Christian faith. The Jesuits' impact was so profound during their missions of the time that today very similar styles of art from the Counter-Reformation period in Catholic Churches are found all over the world. Despite the differences in approaches to religious art, stylistic developments passed about as quickly across religious divisions as within the two "blocs". Artistically Rome remained in closer touch with the Netherlands than with Spain. Notes References David Freedberg, "Painting and the Counter-Reformation", from the catalogue to The Age of Rubens, 1993, Boston/Toledo, Ohio, online PDF Freedberg, Sydney J. Painting in Italy, 1500–1600, 3rd