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Abstract: The essay traces the genesis of Theatine spirituality. The first order of regular clergy was created in the early sixteenth century by the uncompromising bishop Gian Pietro Carafa (who later became Cardinal Inquistitor and Pope as Paul IV), its principal founder, and by the cleric Gaetano Thiene. Established to help the religious activities of Carafa, the order felt compelled to seek a new place in the post-Tridentine age after his death in 1559 and found it in the spirituality of Gaetano. He had been one of the most important disciples of the controversial spiritual father Battista da Crema, whose teaching had been disseminated within the order despite the objections of Carafa. It reached the next generation of clerics including Lorenzo Scupoli, whose main work, Il combattimento Spirituale, would become the manifesto of Theatine spirituality.