This study sets the history of a friendship in the context of religious reform in Italy in the 1530s. Richard Morison and Michael Throckmorton were friends at the University of Padua but gradually became foes. In 1536 Morison returned to England to become Cromwell's propagandist and later Throckmorton began his dramatic career as Pole's agent. In Italy, however, both these young humanists had links with a group of reformers later called ‘spirituali’. Morison met them through contacts with Edmund Harvel and Bishop Cosimo Gheri. The discovery of Throckmorton's inventory shows that he owned books associated with Italian reform, including banned publications containing writings of the Northern Reformers. The rift between them was caused by political reformation in England, not religion in Italy.