RAMPAGING ARMY SACKED ROME AND HELD THE POPE HOSTAGE
[Above: Sack of Rome. 6 May 1527. after Martin van Heemskerck (1555). British Museum / Public domain. Wikimedia File:Sack of Rome 1527.jpeg]
SIXTEENTH-CENTURY EUROPE seethed with spiritual and political ferment. Christians fought Turks, Protestants warred with Catholics, Catholic powers fought each other, peasants rose against lords, and popes formed alliances that swirled and dissipated like mists as they sought to protect papal prerogatives.
In September 1526, Clement VII of the Medici family of Florence was pope when Cardinal Colonna, a rival, joined Spanish grandee Ugo di Mancada to attack Rome. The attackers quickly broke into the city and sacked it. Romans, sick of arrogant churchmen and high taxes, did little to defend the pope. Clement VII escaped to his citadel, the Castel Sant’Angelo. Lacking provisions, he soon had to capitulate.
Clement learned little from his embarrassment. He did not strengthen Rome’s defenses or placate the populace. Instead, to save money, he dismissed most of Rome’s troops. Although Spanish forces had defeated the French at Pavia in 1525, Clement allied himself with France.
The pope’s strategy revealed its weakness in 1527. Emperor Charles V did not have funds to pay his Spanish troops and German mercenaries. Defying their commanders, the hungry soldiers headed south through Italy, intending to sack Florence and Rome. The army became a mob, robbing, raping, torturing, and murdering as it advanced. George von Frundsberg and the Duke of Bourbon were unable to control them. Frundsberg collapsed from a stroke. Florence reinforced its position, causing the lawless army to focus on Rome, an easier target. The Duke of Bourbon demanded huge sums from the pope.
Clement pleaded with England and France to help but they were too distant to intervene. Meanwhile he cobbled together a defensive band of about eight thousand military veterans and untrained civilians. Too late he started to repair Rome’s walls. The city’s prospects improved when rain and mud caused the advancing force to abandon their artillery. Without cannon, it would be harder for them to breach Rome’s walls.
The hope proved illusionary. Under cover of fog, the enemy attacked. The Romans beat back the first assault and killed the Duke of Bourbon. Clement held a mass imploring God’s protection. But while he was at the altar, the invaders overcame Rome’s defenders. On this day, 6 May 1527, Charles V’s mercenaries poured into the city. Two thousand Swiss guards died protecting the pope, who again escaped to the Castel Sant’Angelo.
Charles V’s mercenaries proceeded to loot, rape, torture, and kill. No one was safe. They held cardinals and nobles for high ransoms and burned two thirds of the city. They were barely dissuaded from torching the Vatican Library or destroying the Sistine Chapel. Months passed before the last invaders left, and then only because epidemics were killing them.
Although Charles apologized to the pope and disavowed the carnage, he exacted concessions. Clement was hostage to Charles’s policies.
The effects were far-ranging. The pope had to crown Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor. He also had to refuse Henry VIII’s request for a divorce from Catharine of Aragon, Charles’s aunt, leading Henry to break from the Catholic Church. When the pope schemed against Charles, the emperor denounced him in terms that strengthened Lutheran reformers.
In yet more fallout, the pope’s Italian allies marched into Rome and sacked it yet again. Italian city-states preyed on the pope’s weakness to seize papal lands. People blamed the immorality of the clergy for the catastrophe. Their demands for church reform led to the election of a severe pope after Clement died, and so inquisition raged. And the popes could no longer lavish support on art, so funding for the Renaissance dried up.
—Dan Graves
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