Sack of Rome (1527)

The growing power of the King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V alarmed Pope Clement VII, who perceived Charles as a threat to the papal power. Clement VII formed an alliance with Charles V's arch-enemy, King Francis I of France, which came to be known as the League of Cognac. Apart from the Pope and the King of France, the League also included the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Genoa, and the Florence of the Medici. The League began hostilities in 1526 by attacking the Republic of Siena, but the undertaking proved to be a failure and revealed the weakness of the troops at the Pope's disposal. The Imperial Army defeated the French army, but funds were not available to pay the soldiers. The 34,000 Imperial troops mutinied and forced their commander, Duke Charles III of Bourbon, to lead them towards Rome, which was an easy target for pillaging due to the unstable political landscape at the time. Aside from some 6,000 Spaniards under the Duke of Bourbon, the army included some 14,000 Landsknechte under Georg von Frundsberg; some Italian infantry led by Fabrizio Maramaldo, the powerful Italian cardinal Pompeo Colonna, and Luigi Gonzaga; and some cavalry under the command of Ferdinando Gonzaga and Philibert, Prince of Orange. Though Martin Luther himself was against attacking Rome and Pope Clement VII, some followers of Luther's Protestant movement viewed the papal capital as a target for religious reasons. Numerous outlaws, along with the League's deserters, joined the army during its march. The Duke of Bourbon left Arezzo on 20 April 1527, taking advantage of chaos among the Venetians and their allies after a revolt broke out in Florence against Pope Clement VII's family, the Medici. In a message to Clement, the Duke announced that "he [wouldn’t] be able to hinder his army [from marching to Rome], being dragged along with it more like a prisoner than a free man"; however, contemporary eyewitnesses and historians doubted his claim of helplessness. His largely undisciplined troops sacked Acquapendente and San Lorenzo alle Grotte, and then occupied Viterbo and Ronciglione, reaching the walls of Rome on 5 May. ==Sack==

. The imperial troops were 14,000 Germans, 6,000 Spaniards, and an uncertain number of Italian infantry. The troops defending Rome were not very numerous: only 5,000 militiamen led by Renzo da Ceri and 189 Papal Swiss Guards. The city's defenses included the massive Aurelian Walls, and substantial artillery, which the Imperial army lacked. Charles of Bourbon needed to conquer the city swiftly to avoid the risk of being trapped between the besieged city and the League's army. On 6 May, the Imperial army attacked the walls at the Gianicolo and Vatican hills. The Duke of Bourbon was fatally wounded in the assault. He was allegedly shot by Benvenuto Cellini, a prominent artist who participated in Rome's defense, killing the Duke and wounding Philibert of Châlon according to his own account. The Duke was wearing his famous white cloak to mark him out to his troops, which also had the unintended consequence of pointing him out as the leader to his enemies. With the death of their last respected leader, the common soldiery in the Imperial army lost any restraint when they easily succeeded in storming the walls of Rome the same day. Philibert of Châlon took command of the troops, but he was not as popular or feared, leaving him with little authority. In the event known as the Stand of the Swiss Guard, the Swiss, alongside the garrison's remaining soldiers, made their last stand in the Teutonic Cemetery within the Vatican. Their captain, Kaspar Röist, was wounded and later sought refuge in his house, where Spanish soldiers killed him in front of his wife. Although Martin Luther himself was against revolt against the Church by "hand and flail," the actions of German troops were ostensibly fuelled by the religious discontent proliferating at the time, and the targeting of Church officials and property was intentionally symbolic. The Vatican Library was saved because Philibert had set up his headquarters there. After three days of ravages, Philibert ordered the soldiers to stop pillaging, but few heeded his words, and the plundering continued unabated for five more days. ==Aftermath and effects==

, 1884. Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer Often cited as the end of the Italian High Renaissance, the Sack of Rome shaped the histories of Europe, Italy, and Christianity, with lasting ripples throughout European culture and politics. Before the sack, Pope Clement VII opposed the ambitions of Emperor Charles V. Afterward, he lacked the military or financial resources to do so. To avert more warfare, Clement adopted a conciliatory policy toward Charles. The sack had major repercussions for Italian society and culture, and in particular, for Rome. Clement's War of the League of Cognac would be the last fight of some of the Italian city-states for independence until the nineteenth century. Before the sack, Rome had been a center of Italian High Renaissance culture and patronage, and the main destination for any European artist eager for fame and wealth, thanks to the prestigious commissions of the papal court. In the sack, Rome suffered depopulation and economic collapse, sending artists and writers elsewhere. Lamenting the loot and destruction of many of Rome's antiquities and artistic treasures, Antonio Tabaldeo wrote, "if you come back, you will find Rome unmade." The calamity also dealt a grave blow to Rome's scholarly prestige, as the contents of many of its great libraries – including the Vatican library – were destroyed or sold in the sack. Proponents of humanism especially lamented the destruction of the city's stores of knowledge, which had come to characterize Rome as a "paradise of learning"; the sack did indeed prove to mark the end of humanism's favor within Christian thought. Among those who died in the sack were papal secretary Paolo Valdabarini and professor of natural history Augusto Valdo. Many Imperial soldiers also died in the aftermath, largely from diseases caused by masses of unburied corpses in the streets. Pillaging finally ended in February 1528, eight months after the initial attack, when the city's food supply ran out, there was no one left to ransom, and plague appeared. A power shift – away from the Pope, toward the Emperor – also produced lasting consequences for Catholicism. After learning of the sack, Emperor Charles professed great embarrassment that his troops had imprisoned Pope Clement. Charles would eventually restore many of the spoils of the sack, amounting in value to more than 4 million ducati, to the Vatican. Cumulatively, these actions changed the complexion of the Catholic Church, steering it away from Renaissance freethought personified by the Medici Popes, toward the religious orthodoxy exemplified by the Counter-Reformation. After Clement's death in 1534, under the influence of Charles and later his son King Philip II of Spain (1556–1598), the Inquisition became pervasive, and the humanism encouraged by Renaissance culture came to be viewed as contrary to the teachings of the Church. == In popular culture ==

The last part of the historical fiction novel The Adventurer by Finnish author Mika Waltari describes the Sack of Rome through the eyes of a young man drifting through historical events across 16th-century Europe. The Sack of Rome is the main background of the song The Last Stand by Sabaton. == Notes ==