Part 601

And Clement hastened to prove the sincerity of his renewed friendship by a professional contribution to the success of their new alliance, in the welcome shape of a plenary absolution from all observance of the oaths so sworn. … On the 22nd of May following [at Cognac], the Pope entered into a formal league with Francis [called 'Holy' for the reason that the Pope was a party to it]. Venice joined her troops to those of the Ecclesiastical States, and they marched together to the support of the Milanese, who had risen in revolt against the Emperor. Assistance had also been promised by Henry of England, who had stipulated, however, that he should not be named as a party to the alliance, but only considered as its protector. This was the most strenuous and most united attempt Italy had yet made to rid herself of the domination of the stranger, and patriotic hopes beat high in several Italian hearts. … It may be easily imagined that the 'Most Catholic' monarch [Charles V.] felt towards Clement at this time in a manner which led him to distinguish very nicely between the infallible head of the universal Church and the sovereign of the Ecclesiastical States. … Though he retained the utmost respect and reverence for the vicegerent of heaven, he thought that a little correction administered to the sovereign of Rome would not be amiss, and nothing could be easier than to find means ready to his hand for the infliction of it. The Colonnas were of course ready for a rebellion on the slightest encouragement. … So when Don Ugo di Moncada, Charles's general at Naples, proposed to the Colonnas to join him in a little frolic at Clement's expense, the noble and most reverend members of that powerful family jumped at the proposal. … The united forces of the Viceroy and the Colonnas accordingly one morning entered Rome, altogether without opposition, and marched at once to the Vatican. {1839} They completely sacked, not only the Pope's palace, and the residences of many gentlemen and prelates, but also, says the historian [Varchi], 'with unheard-of avarice and impiety,' robbed the sacristy of St. Peter of everything it contained. Clement had barely time to escape into the castle of St. Angelo; but as he found there neither soldiers nor ammunition, nor even food for above three days, … he consented to a treaty by which the Pope agreed to pardon the Colonnas freely for all they had done against him; to take no steps to revenge himself on them; to withdraw his troops from Lombardy; and to undertake nothing in any way, or under any pretext, against the Emperor." As a hostage for the fulfilment of this treaty, Pope Clement gave his dear friend Filippo Strozzi; but no sooner was he delivered from his captors than he hired seven "black companies" of adventurers and 2,000 Swiss, and began a furious war of extermination upon the Colonnas and all their dependents. At the same time he wrote private letters to the heads of his "Holy League," "warning them to pay no heed to any statement respecting a treaty made by him with the Emperor, and assuring them of his intention to carry on the war with the utmost energy." A little later, however, this remarkable Holy Father found it convenient to make another treaty with the Viceroy of Naples, for the release of his friend Strozzi, which bound him still more to friendly relations with the Emperor. This latter treaty, of March, 1527, "would seem in some sort to imply the reconciliation once again of the Pope and the Emperor." But Charles had already set forces in motion for the chastisement of the faithless Pope and his allies, which either he could not or did not care to arrest. "The Constable Bourbon, whom the gross injustice of Francis I., and the intolerable persecution of his infamous mother, Louise de Savoie, had driven to abandon his country and allegiance [see FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523], … was now … marching southwards, with the imperial troops, to chastise the different members of the League against the Emperor, which Clement, as has been seen, had formed. George Frundsberg, a German leader of reputation, had also crossed the Alps with 15,000 men,—'all Lutherans and Lanzknechts,' as the Italians write with horror and dismay,—and had joined these forces to the Spaniards under Bourbon. … The combined force was in all respects more like a rabble rout of brigands and bandits than an army; and was assuredly such as must, even in those days, have been felt to be a disgrace to any sovereign permitting them to call themselves his soldiers. Their pay was, as was often the case with the troops of Charles V., hopelessly in arrear, and discipline was of course proportionably weak among them. … The progress southward of this bandit army … filled the cities exposed to their inroad with terror and dismay. They had passed like a destroying locust swarm over Bologna and Imola, and crossing the Apennines, which separate Umbria from Tuscany, had descended into the valley of the Arno not far from Arezzo. Florence and Rome both trembled. On which would the storm burst? That was the all-absorbing question. Pope Clement, with his usual avarice-blinded imbecility, had, immediately on concluding the above-mentioned treaty with the Neapolitan viceroy, discharged all his troops except a body-guard of about 600 men. Florence was nearly in as defenceless a position"; but a small army of the League, under the Duke of Urbino, was at Incisa, and it was "probably the presence of this army, little as it had hitherto done to impede the progress of the enemy, which decided Bourbon eventually to determine on marching towards Rome. It seems doubtful how far they were in so doing, executing the orders, or carrying out the wishes, of the Emperor. … Upon the whole we are warranted in supposing that Bourbon and Frundsberg would hardly have ventured on the course they took, if they had not had reason to believe that it would not much displease their master. … On the 5th of May [1527] Bourbon arrived beneath the walls of Rome. … On the evening of the 6th of May the city was stormed and given over to the unbridled cupidity and brutality of the soldiers. … Bourbon himself had fallen in the first moments of the attack."

_T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 10, chapter 3 (volume 4)._

ALSO IN: _T. A. Trollope, Filippo Strozzi, chapter 7._

_W. Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V., book 4 (volume 2)._

_L. von Ranke, History of the Reformation in Germany, book 4, chapters 1-3._

ITALY: A. D. 1527. The Sack of Rome by the Spanish and German Imperialists.

"Bourbon fell at the first assault; but by evening the Vatican suburb was in the hands of the enemy. Clement, who was even best informed of the state of things, had not anticipated such an issue. He scarcely saved himself by flight from the Vatican to the castle of St. Angelo, whither the fugitive population hurried, as the shipwrecked crew of an entire fleet hastens to a single boat which cannot receive them. In the midst of the thronging stream of men, the portcullis was lowered. Whoever remained without was lost. Benvenuto Cellini was at that time in Rome, and was among the defenders of the walls. He boasted that his ball had destroyed Bourbon. He stole fortunately into the citadel, before it was closed, and entered the Pope's service as bombardier. Even at this last moment, Clement might have saved Rome itself, which, situated on the opposite shore of the river, had not yet been entered by the enemy. They offered to spare it for a ransom; but finding this too high, and awaiting hourly Urbino's army, to which, though nothing was yet to be seen of it, he looked as a deliverer in the time of need, he would hear nothing of it. And thus the undefended city fell into the hands of the imperialists. Almost without resistance they entered Trastevere, a small quarter of the city lying to the west of the Tiber; and then crossing the bridges, which no one had demolished, they pressed forwards into the heart of Rome. It was the depth of the night. Benvenuto Cellini was stationed on the tower of the castle of St. Angelo, at the foot of the colossal angel, and saw the flames bursting forth in the darkness, and heard the sorrowful cry all around. For it was late before the soldiers began to cast off all restraint. They had entered quietly. The Germans stood in battalions. But when they saw the Spaniards broken up and plundering, the desire was aroused in them also; and now a spirit of emulation appeared, as to which nation could outdo the other in cruelty. The Spaniards, it is asserted by impartial Italians, carried the day. {1840} There had been no siege, no bombardment, no flight of any great extent; but as if the earth had opened, and had disgorged a legion of devils, so suddenly came these hosts. Everything was in a moment abandoned to them. We must endeavour to conceive what kind of men these German soldiers were. They formed an intermediate class between the prime and the refuse of the people. Gathered together by the hope of booty, indifferent what end was assigned them, rendered wild by hunger and tardy pay, left without a master after the death of their commander, they found themselves unrestrained in the most luxurious city of the world—a city abounding with gold and riches, and at the same time decried for centuries in Germany, as the infernal nest of the popes, who lived there as incarnate devils, in the midst of their Babylonian doings. The opinion that the pope of Rome, and Clement VII. in particular, was the devil, prevailed not only in Germany, but in Italy and in Rome the people called him so. In the midst of plague and famine he had doubled the taxes and raised the price of bread. What with the Romans, however, was an invective arising from indignation, was an article of faith among the Germans. They believed they had to do with the real antichrist, whose destruction would be a benefit to Christendom. We must remember, if we would understand this fury of the German soldiery, in whose minds, as in those of all Germans, Lutheran ideas at that time prevailed, how Rome had been preached and written upon in the north. The city was represented to people as a vast abyss of sin; the men as villains, from the lowest up to the cardinals; the women as courtesans; the business of all as deceit, theft, and murder; and the robbing and deluding of men that had for centuries been emanating from Rome, was regarded as the universal disease from which the world was languishing. Thither for centuries the gold of Germany had flowed; there had emperors been humbled or poisoned; from Rome every evil had sprung. And thus, while satiating themselves with rapine and murder, they believed a good work was being done for the welfare of Christendom, and for the avenge of Germany. Never, however—this we know—does the nature of man exhibit itself more beast-like, than when it becomes furious for the sake of ideas of the highest character. Before the castle of St. Angelo, which, carefully fortified with walls and fosses, alone afforded resistance, the German soldiers proclaimed Martin Luther as pope. Luther's name was at that time a war-cry against pope and priestcraft. The rude multitude surmised not what Luther desired when he attacked the papacy. In front of St. Peter's church, they represented an imitation of the papal election with the sacred garments and utensils. They compelled one priest to give extreme unction to a dying mule. One protested that he would not rest until he had consumed a piece of the pope's flesh. It is true, Italians for the most part relate this, but the German reports themselves do not deny the excessive barbarity which was permitted. Ten millions of precious metal was carried away. How much blood did this money involve, and what was done to those from whom it was taken? Fewer were put to death than were plundered, says one of the records, but what does that imply? It is true, the Germans often quarrelled with the Spaniards, because the horrors which they saw them practise were too terrible for them. Otherwise the sparing of human life was less an act of clemency than of covetousness. Prisoners of war were at that time regarded as slaves; they were carried away as personal property, or a ransom was extorted. … This system was carried to a great pitch in Rome. The possessors of palaces were obliged to purchase their ransom, the Spanish cardinals as well as the Italian—no difference was made. Thus at least escape was possible. … And as the people were treated, so were the things. Upon the inlaid marble floor of the Vatican, where the Prince of Orange took up his abode—the command of the army devolving upon him after Bourbon's death—the soldiers lighted their fire. The splendid stained glass windows, executed by William of Marseilles, were broken for the sake of the lead. Raphael's tapestries were pronounced excellent booty; in the paintings on the walls the eyes were put out; and valuable documents were given as straw to the horses which stood in the Sistine Chapel. The statues in the streets were thrown down; the images of the Mother of God in the churches were broken to pieces. For six months the city thus remained in the power of the soldiery, who had lost all discipline, Pestilence and famine appeared. Rome had more than 90,000 inhabitants under Leo X.; when Clement VII. returned a year after the conquest, scarcely a third of that number then existed—poor, famished people, who had remained behind, because they knew not whither to turn. All this lay on the conscience of the man who now for months had been condemned to look down upon this misery from the castle of St. Angelo, in which the Spaniards held him completely blockaded, and where pestilence and want of provisions appeared just as much as down below in Rome. At last, after waiting day after day, he saw Urbino's army approaching from afar: their watch-fires were to be perceived; and every moment he expected that the duke would attack and deliver the city. But he moved not. It is thought he intended now to avenge the rapine which the Medici under Leo. X. had carried on against him. … After having rested for some time in sight of the city, in which the imperialists had opened their intrenchments round the castle of St. Angelo for a regular siege, he withdrew back again to the north, and left the pope to his fate."

_H. Grimm, Life of Michael Angelo, chapter 10, section 3 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN: _Benvenuto Cellini, Life, translated by J. A. Symonds, book 1, sections 34-38 (volume 1)._

_Benvenuto Cellini, Life, translated by T. Roscoe, chapter 7._

_J. S. Brewer, The Reign of Henry VIII., chapter 25 (volume 2)._

ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529. Siege and captivity of the Pope. New league against the Emperor. French invasion and disastrous siege of Naples. Genoese independence recovered. Treaties of Barcelona and Cambrai. Francis renounces all pretensions beyond the Alps. Charles V. supreme.

Shut up in Castle St. Angelo, the Pope, Clement VII., "deprived of every resource, and reduced to such extremity of famine as to feed on asses' flesh, was obliged to capitulate on such conditions as the conquerors were pleased to prescribe. He agreed to pay 400,000 ducats to the army; to surrender to the emperor all the places of strength belonging to the Church; and, besides giving hostages, to remain a prisoner himself until the chief articles were performed. … The account of this extraordinary and unexpected event was no less surprising than agreeable to the emperor. {1841} But in order to conceal his joy from his subjects, who were filled with horror at the success and crimes of their countrymen, and to lessen the indignation of the rest of Europe, he declared that Rome had been assaulted without any order from him. He wrote to all the princes with whom he was in alliance, disclaiming his having had any knowledge of Bourbon's intention. He put himself and court into mourning; commanded the rejoicings which had been ordered for the birth of his son Philip to be stopped; and, employing an artifice no less hypocritical than gross, he appointed prayers and processions throughout all Spain for the recovery of the pope's liberty, which, by an order to his generals, he could have immediately granted him. … Francis and Henry [of France and England], alarmed at the progress of the imperial arms in Italy, had, even before the taking of Rome, entered into a closer alliance; and, in order to give some check to the emperor's ambition, had agreed to make a vigorous diversion in the Low Countries. The force of every motive which had influenced them at that time was now increased; and to these was added the desire of rescuing the pope out of the emperor's hands, a measure no less politic than it appeared to be pious. This, however, rendered it necessary to abandon their hostile intentions against the Low Countries, and to make Italy the seat of war. … Besides all … public considerations, Henry was influenced by one of a more private nature: having begun, about this time, to form his great scheme of divorcing Catharine of Aragon, towards the execution of which he knew that the sanction of papal authority would be necessary, he was desirous to acquire as much merit as possible with Clement, by appearing to be the chief instrument of his deliverance. … Henry … entered so eagerly into this new alliance, that, in order to give Francis the strongest proof of his friendship and respect, he formally renounced the ancient claim of the English monarchs to the crown of France, which had long been the pride and ruin of the nation; as a full compensation for which he accepted a pension of 50,000 crowns, to be paid annually to himself and his successors. The pope, being unable to fulfil the conditions of his capitulation, still remained a prisoner. … The Florentines no sooner heard of what had happened at Rome, than they ran to arms … and, declaring themselves a free state, reëstablished their ancient popular government.

See FLORENCE: A. D.1502-1569.