This study argues that the parish clergy of the northern Italian diocese of Novara benefited from a dramatic increase in educational institutions in the decades following the Council of Trent (1545- 63) and that their formation was rooted in the humanist program of grammar, letters, poetry, history, rhetoric, and moral philosophy, inculcated through the reading of classical authors. Employing the acts of visitations conducted between 1616 and 1663, it is based on comments made by the priests themselves about their education and on an analysis of the secular books in their personal libraries. It concludes that a number of the Novarese priests developed a lifelong interest in humanist and secular works, while some of them employed their humanist training as schoolmasters in the towns and villages of the diocese.