  From about 1350 to about 1450, scholastic thought was in retreat. At least two factors seem to have contributed to this situation: first, the epidemic known as the Black Death decimated the universities of medieval Europe, where scholastic thought had flourished in the thirteenth century; second, the Italian Renaissance began moving forward at high speed with its emphasis on the discovery of the ancients and its rejection of “the age in the middle.” However, after the middle of the fifteenth century, particularly following the integration of the Iberian peninsula at the end of the century and the consolidation of the Spanish Empire, there was a resurgence of scholasticism in the Iberian and Italian peninsulas. The Counter Reformation, a movement within the Catholic Church intended to meet the challenge of the Reformation, also contributed substantially to the rebirth of scholastic thought. Among the great leaders of this movement were the Italian Thomas de Vio, also known as Cajetan (1468–1534), and the Spaniard Francis Suárez. Both had enormous influence on all subsequent scholastics and scholastically-inspired thought. Indeed, Suárez's Metaphysical Disputations (1597) became the standard textbook of metaphysics in Europe and Latin America for one hundred and fifty years after its publication, which means that what he has to say about categories is important for understanding late scholastic category theory and the discussions of the categories in Early Modern philosophy. Apart from questions of originality, Suárez is historically important because he was a bridge for metaphysical thought between the Middle Ages and the Modern period.