Several Reformation scholars have long conjectured, but have hitherto not been able to measure with reasonable precision, the impact of the diverse religious orientations of mid sixteenth-century Italy on both Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Tudor England. While this may seem arcane, considering the distinct ways in which the two countries developed during the early modern period, in her stimulating and wide-ranging book Anne Overell sets out to explain with compelling clarity how Italian reform, though crushed in Italy, exerted a strong and lasting influence on English religious culture from Archbishop Thomas Crammer's generation until well into the seventeenth century. In the first chapter the author provides an excellent contextual foundation for the interaction between the two countries in a review of how English travellers to the fount of Renaissance came in contact with the spirituali movement. In subsequent chapters Overell delineates the essential features of this intriguing connection, sealed by the trials and tribulations of such well-known exiles as Bernardino Ochino, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Emmanuel Tremellius, Giacomo Aconcio, or of less known but influential figures like Giovanni Battista Castiglione, Princess Elizabeth's Italian teacher, Pietro Vanni, Latin secretary to King Henry viii, Guido Giannetti, royal informant on Italian affairs, and many others. The book also sheds much-needed new light on our understanding of Marian reCatholicisation led by Cardinal Reginald Pole, English by birth but once prominent among Italy's spirituali. Included in this vivid representation of Anglo-Italian contacts are humanists like Celio Secondo Curione and Francesco Negri, or divines like Pier Paolo Vergerio; although they never took up residence in England, they interacted with England theologically, and their writings are inextricably woven into English history. Chapter ix (‘A literary epilogue’) is notable for its explication of the conspicuous consumption of Italian religious books in the second half of Elizabeth's reign. While it is understood that this study focuses primarily upon religious history, the analysis of the Anglo-Italian interactions would have been greatly enriched had it been built on recent important scholarship occurring in other disciplines, such as political science, philosophy, literature and book production. For instance, the author's case for the link between the two countries in this latter field would have been strengthened exponentially had it taken into account Ugo Rozzo's watershed works. Nevertheless, Overell is to be congratulated on this excellent study. The author displays a penetrating and incisive understanding of the primary sources and at the same time synthesises a wide range of the latest scholarship. The book will be helpful to any scholar interested in exploring the relationships between Italian reform and English reformations.