After St. Bernadine of Siena and Savanarola, Segneri was Italy's greatest orator. He reformed the Italian pulpit. Marini and the Marianisti with the petty tricks and simpering graces of the "Seicento" had degraded the national literature. The pulpit even was infected. Segneri at times stumbles into the defects of the "Seicentisti", but his occasional bad taste and abuse of profane erudition cannot blind the impartial critic to his merits. The "Quaresimale" , "the Prediche", the "Panegyrici Sacri" (Florence, 1684, translated by Father Humphrey, London, 1877), stamp him as a great orator. His qualities are a vigour of reasoning, a strategist's marshaling of converging proofs and arguments, which recall Bourdaloue; a richness of imagination which the French Jesuit does not possess; a deep and melting pathos. He is particularly cogent in refutation; to harmony of thought and plan, he unites a Dorian harmony of phrase; he is full of unction, priestly, and popular. He has two sources of inspiration, his love of God and of the people before him. To his oratorical powers, he added the zeal of an apostle and the austerities of a great penitent. All this readily explains his wonderful success with people naturally emotional and deeply Catholic. Entire districts flocked to hear him; extraordinary graces and favours marked his career. His triumphs left him simple as a child. In his theological discussion with his superior-general, Thyrsus Gonzalez, who was a firm champion of Probabiliorism, he combined the respect and obedience of the subject with the reasonable and manly independence of the trained thinker (cf. Lettere sulla Materia del Probabile" in vol. IV of "Opere", Venice, 1748). Segneri wrote also "Il penitente istruito (Bologna, 1669); "Il confessore istruito" (Brescia, 1672); "La Manna dell anima" (Milan, 1683, tr. London, New York, 1892); "Il Cristiano istruito" (Florence, 1690). His complete works (cf. Somervogel) have been frequently edited: at Parma, 1701; Venice, 1712-58; Turin, 1855, etc. The "Quaresimale" has been printed at least thirty times. Some of Segneri's works have been translated into Arabic. Hallam criticizes Segneri unfairly; Ford is more just in his appreciation.