Sack of Rome (1527)

Coordinates: 41°50′N 12°30′E / 41.833°N 12.500°E / 41.833; 12.500
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Sack of Rome
Part of the War of the League of Cognac

The sack of Rome in 1527, by Johannes Lingelbach, 17th century (private collection)
Date6 May 1527; 496 years ago
Location
Rome, Papal States
Belligerents

Mutinous troops of Charles V:

Commanders and leaders
Strength
  • 5,000 militiamen
  • 500
    Swiss Guards
[1]

20,000+ (mutinous)

  • 14,000 German Landsknechte
  • 6,000 Spanish soldiers
  • Unclear number of Italian mercenaries
Casualties and losses
1,000 militiamen killed
458 Swiss Guards killed[1]		 Unknown
45,000 civilians dead, wounded, or exiled[2][3]

The Sack of Rome, then part of the

Swiss Guard were annihilated in a delaying rearguard
action; he remained there until a ransom was paid to the pillagers.

Odet de Foix forced the army to withdraw towards Naples from the city. Rome's population had dropped from 55,000 to 10,000 due to the atrocities, famine, an outbreak of plague and flight from the city. The subsequent loss of the League army during the Siege of Naples
secured a victory in the War of the League of Cognac for Charles V. The Emperor denied responsibility for the sack and came to terms again with Clement VII. On the other hand, the Sack of Rome further exacerbated religious hatred and antagonism between Catholics and Lutherans.

Preceding events

The growing power of the King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor

League of Cognac.[5]

The League was composed not only of the Pope and the King of France, but also of the

Medici. Hostilities began 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.[6]

The army of the Holy Roman Emperor 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 Duke Charles, the army included some 14,000

Prince of Orange. Though Martin Luther himself was against attacking Rome and Pope Clement VII, some who considered themselves followers of Luther's Protestant movement
viewed the papal capital as a target for religious reasons. Numerous bandits, along with the League's deserters, joined the army during its march.

Duke Charles left

San Lorenzo alle Grotte, and then occupied Viterbo and Ronciglione
, reaching the walls of Rome on 5 May.

Sack

Sack of Rome. By Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

The imperial troops were 14,000 Germans, 6,000 Spanish, and an uncertain number of Italian infantry.[7] The troops defending Rome were not very numerous: only 5,000 militiamen led by Renzo da Ceri and 189[8] Papal Swiss Guards. The city's defenses included the massive Aurelian Walls, and substantial artillery, which the Imperial army lacked. Duke Charles 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

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 remnant, made their last stand in the

Kaspar Röist, was wounded and later sought refuge in his house, where he was killed by Spanish soldiers in front of his wife.[8] The Swiss fought bitterly, but were hopelessly outnumbered and almost annihilated. Some survivors, accompanied by a band of refugees, fell back to the steps of St. Peter's Basilica. Those who went toward the Basilica were massacred, and only 42 survived. This group of 42, under the command of Hercules Goldli, managed to stave off the Habsburg troops pursuing the Pope's entourage as it made its way across the Passetto di Borgo, a secure elevated passage that connects the Vatican City to Castel Sant'Angelo.[8]

Martin van Heemskerck
(1527).

After the execution of some 1,000 defenders of the Papal capital and shrines, the pillage began. Churches and monasteries, as well as the palaces of prelates and cardinals, were looted and destroyed. Even pro-Imperial cardinals had to pay to save their properties from the rampaging soldiers. On 8 May, Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, a personal enemy of Clement VII, entered the city. He was followed by peasants from his fiefs, who had come to avenge the sacks they had suffered at the hands of the Papal armies. Colonna was touched by the pitiful conditions in the city and gave refuge to some Roman citizens in his palace.

The

Venice took advantage of this situation to capture Cervia and Ravenna, while Sigismondo Malatesta returned to Rimini
.

Aftermath and effects

Sack of Rome, by Amérigo Aparicio, 1884
Sack of Rome, by Francisco Javier Amérigo, 1884. Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer

Often cited as the end of the Italian High Renaissance, the Sack of Rome impacted the histories of Europe, Italy, and Christianity, creating lasting ripple effects throughout European culture and politics.[10]

Before the sack, Pope Clement VII opposed the ambitions of Emperor Charles V. Afterward, he no longer had the military or financial resources to do so.[3] To avert more warfare, Clement adopted a conciliatory policy toward Charles.[3][11]

The sack had major repercussions for Italian society and culture, and in particular, for Rome. Clement's

Italian High Renaissance culture and patronage and the main destination for any European artist eager for fame and wealth, for the prestigious commissions of the papal court before the sack, suffered depopulation and economic collapse, causing artists and thinkers to scatter.[13] The city's population dropped from over 55,000 before the attack to 10,000 afterward. An estimated 6,000 to 12,000 people were murdered. Among those who died from the sack was the papal secretary Paolo Valdabarini[14] and the professor of Natural History Augusto Valdo.[15]

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.

Medicean golden age had passed.[10] The city did not recover its population losses until approximately 1560.[16]

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; however, he had ordered troops to Italy to bring Clement under his control, though he wanted to avoid destruction within the city of Rome, which would be damaging to his reputation. Charles eventually came to terms with the Pope with the

Counterreformation. 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.[20][3]

The sack also contributed to making permanent the split between

Trent, Italy as its site. He did not convene the Council of Trent during his lifetime, fearing that the event would be a dangerous power play. In 1545, eleven years after Clement's death, his successor Pope Paul III convened the Council of Trent. As Charles predicted, it reformed the corruption present in certain orders of the Catholic Church.[23] However, by 1545, the moment for reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants – arguably a possibility during the 1520s, given cooperation between the Pope and Emperor – had passed. In assessing the effects of the Sack of Rome, Martin Luther
commented: "Christ reigns in such a way that the Emperor who persecutes Luther for the Pope is forced to destroy the Pope for Luther" (LW 49:169).

In commemoration of the Swiss Guard's bravery in defending Pope Clement VII during the Sack of Rome, recruits to the Swiss Guard are sworn in on 6 May every year.[24]

Notes

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 9780786474707
    .
  2. ^ a b Watson, Peter – Boorstin, Op. cit., p. 180 [full citation needed].
  3. ^ a b c d e "Did the Sack of Rome in 1527 end the Renaissance in Italy? – DailyHistory.org".
  4. ISBN 978-1-4503-2783-1
    .
  5. ^ Vincenzo (9 November 2021). "Il Sacco dei Lanzichenecchi - Rome Guides Blog". Rome Guides (in Italian). Retrieved 1 March 2024.
  6. ^ "League of Cognac | European history | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 1 March 2024.
  7. ^ Dandeler, Spanish Rome. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. p. 57.
  8. ^ a b c "The Swiss Guard - History". vatican.va. Archived from the original on 31 December 2008.
  9. ^ Pastor, Ludwig Freiherr von (1923). The History of the Popes: From the Close of the Middle Ages. 1521-1527. Kegan Paul. pp. 414–415.
  10. ^ a b c "Sack of Rome | Encyclopedia.com". encyclopedia.com.
  11. ^ a b Chastel, Andre (1983). The Sack of Rome, 1527. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 73.
  12. ^ "The Italian Monarchist: A Case for Italian Unification". 10 June 2015.
  13. ISBN 978-0-521-71938-4
    .
  14. ^ Nuovo Dizionario Istorico, Va = Uz, Tomo XXI, translated from French, Remondini of Venice (1796); pages 13.
  15. ^ Nuovo Dizionario Istorico pages 15.
  16. ISBN 0-520-03945-9
    .
  17. ^ "Clement Vii | Encyclopedia.com". encyclopedia.com.
  18. ^ Holmes (1993). p. 192.
  19. ^ Froude (1891), pp. 35, 90–91, 96–97 Archived 6 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine.
  20. ^ "Spanish Inquisition | Definition, History, & Facts". 11 October 2023.
  21. ^ "The Mad Monarchist: Papal Profile: Pope Clement VII". 9 July 2012.
  22. ^ "Clement VII in "Enciclopedia dei Papi"". treccani.it.
  23. ^ "Catholic Encyclopedia: Pope Paul III".
  24. ^ "May 6 & the Swiss Guard Induction Ceremony | Papal Artifacts".

Bibliography

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