A Short History of Italy Part 11

Now that we have followed Milan into the service of Spanish masters, we must do a somewhat similar office for Florence. But Florence's liberty was put out in glory. The politic statesman, Lorenzo dei Medici, whose sagacity had contributed so much to the pleasant state of Italy prior to the French invasion, died in 1492. The great period of Florentine intellectual primacy ended with him, for, though Florence continued to pour forth genius, that genius no longer was gathered together at home but emigrated to honour other places. Nevertheless, she again challenges our admiration; the ancient republican city once more a.s.serted its preminence by a burst of moral enthusiasm. Nowhere else in Italy throughout the Renaissance was such a spectacle seen, and though the leader, Girolamo Savonarola (1452-98), was a native of Ferrara, yet it was in Florence, and among Florentines, that he kindled enthusiasm and ran his brilliant career. Savonarola was the reincarnation of a Hebrew prophet, a Florentine Habakkuk, pa.s.sionately sure of the moral government of G.o.d, pa.s.sionately convinced that the wickedness of Italy must bring its own punishment and purification. Shortly before Lorenzo's death he became a distinguished preacher, spoke in the cathedral, and won the ear of the people. He preached righteousness and judgment to come. He proclaimed spiritual evils and political punishments, and foretold that G.o.d would stretch forth His hand and send His avenger to punish Italy. The prophecies were so definite, and fitted the invasion of Charles VIII so accurately, that Savonarola was hailed as a prophet. In the excitement over the French invasion Lorenzo's sons were driven out, the former republican const.i.tution restablished, and Savonarola raised by a burst of popular enthusiasm practically to the position of guiding and governing the city. The best way to understand Savonarola's influence is to read a few extracts from the diary of Luca Landucci, a Florentine apothecary:--

"December 14, 1494. On this day Fra Girolamo greatly laboured in the pulpit that Florence should adopt a good form of government; he has been preaching in Santa Maria del Fiore [the Duomo] every day, and this day, Sunday, he preached, and he did not want women but men, and he wanted the officers of the city, and n.o.body stayed in the Palace [Palazzo Vecchio, the City Hall] except the Gonfaloniere and one other; all the officials in Florence were there, and he preached about matters of state, that we ought to love and fear G.o.d and love the common weal, and that no man henceforth should wish to hold his head high or wish himself great. He always inclined to the people's side, and insisted that no blood should be shed, but that punishment should be made in some other way; and he preached like this every day....

"April, 1495. Fra Girolamo preached and said that the Virgin Mary had revealed to him how the city of Florence would become richer, more glorious, and more powerful than she had ever been, but not till after many troubles; and he spoke all this as if he were a prophet, and most of the people believed him, especially the better sort who had no political or partisan pa.s.sions....

"June 17, 1495. The Frate nowadays is held in such esteem and devotion in Florence that there are many men and women who would obey him implicitly, if he should say 'walk into the fire.' Many believe him to be a prophet, and he said so himself....

"February 16 [1496], the Carnival. Fra Girolamo preached a few days ago that the children, instead of foolish pranks, throwing stones, etc., should collect alms and distribute them to the worthy poor; and, thanks to divine grace, such a change was wrought, that in place of tomfoolery the children collected alms for days beforehand, [and to-day six thousand of them or more, carrying olive branches and singing hymns, marched to the Duomo where they offered up their alms] so that good sensible men wept from tenderness and said, 'Truly this new change is the work of G.o.d.' ... I have written this because it is the fact and I saw it, and I felt the greatest happiness to have my children among those blessed innocent bands....

"August 15, 1496. Fra Girolamo preached in Santa Maria del Fiore [the Duomo, where great scaffolds had been erected which were filled with children singing], and there was so much holiness in the church, and it was so sweet to hear the children sing, above, below, and on every side, singing so simply and so modestly, that they did not seem like children.

I write this because I was there and saw it and felt so much spiritual sweetness. In truth the Church was full of angels."

The friar's political enemies were strong, and the Pope, the very notable Borgia, Alexander VI, in anger and in fear, excommunicated him, and bade the Signory of Florence forbid him to preach. There was great disturbance over this action, and feeling ran to a pa.s.sionate height.

One of Savonarola's disciples, a foolish Dominican, challenged an adversary to the ordeal by fire; the challenge was accepted, and on the appointed day all Florence, in great excitement, flocked to the _piazza_. The Dominican and his adversary were there, and their respective partisans, but nothing was done. One delay followed another; there was nothing but hesitancy, disagreement as to conditions, backing and filling. The disappointed populace turned on Savonarola. They had believed him a prophet and expected to see a judgment of G.o.d. The Pope took advantage of this resentment, and demanded his trial. Savonarola was tried, and tortured. During the torture a confession was extorted from him, which was undoubtedly pieced out by forgery. Our apothecary says:--

"April 19, 1498. The confession of Fra Girolamo was read before the Council in the Great Hall, which he had written with his own hand,--he whom we held to be a prophet,--and he confessed that he was not a prophet, and had not received from G.o.d the things he preached, and he confessed to many things in the course of his preaching which were the opposite of what he had given us to understand. I was there to hear the confession read, and was bewildered and stood astonished and stupefied.

My soul was in pain to see such an edifice tumble to earth because it all rested on a lie. I expected Florence to be a new Jerusalem from which should proceed laws, glory, and the example of a good life and to behold the restoration of the Church, the conversion of the infidels, and the comfort of good men, and now I behold the opposite,--and I took the medicine. In Thy will, O G.o.d, stand all things."

Savonarola was condemned to death for heresy; he was hanged, his body burned, and his ashes flung into the Arno. So ended the one moral effort of the Italian Renaissance.

After his death the Republican government endured for a time; but the Medicean faction was powerful and forced its way back in 1512. Then Lorenzo's second son, Giovanni (1475-1521), following the steps of Florentine art and humanism, went to Rome and became Pope Leo X. As Pope, he was able to strengthen his family in Florence and to extend its dominion. But Republicanism, quickened by the events then happening in Rome, flared up once more in 1527; but it was helpless before the hostile spirit of the time. Another Medici had become Pope, Clement VII, and the requirements of policy induced the calculating Emperor, Charles V, to suppress what he deemed a rebellion. Florence made a gallant defence; Michelangelo strengthened her walls, and the courage of the defenders threw a dying glory over the city. A great grandson of Lorenzo, Alessandro dei Medici, was put into power, and married to a daughter of Charles V. He was succeeded by a distant cousin, Cosimo (1537), who was honoured by His Holiness the Pope with the t.i.tle of Grand Duke of Tuscany. Thus Florentine liberty was extinguished, and the Medici were established as dukes in name as well as in fact.

_The Two Sicilies, 1494-1516_

In the south, it will be remembered, Alfonso the Magnanimous, as the grateful humanists dubbed him, had united Sicily and the mainland; but on his death (1458) the kingdom fell asunder. Sicily, as a part of the Kingdom of Aragon, devolved on a legitimate brother, whereas Naples, claimed as a conquest, was bequeathed to a b.a.s.t.a.r.d son, Ferdinand the Cruel. The two kingdoms followed their respective dynasties for nearly fifty years, when Sicily came by inheritance to Ferdinand of Aragon.

That crafty and eminently successful monarch, not satisfied with Castile, Granada, Sicily, and a transatlantic realm, but coveting the Kingdom of Naples, conspired with Louis XII of France, who now represented the traditional Angevin claim; the two invaded the coveted kingdom, and divided it between them (1500-1). Naturally, the rogues disagreed over the division of the spoils, and fell foul of each other.

The Spaniards were triumphant, and the Kingdom of Naples was annexed to the crown of Spain. Thus the Two Sicilies were reunited under the Spanish crown, and on Ferdinand's death (1516) descended to his grandson, the Emperor Charles V. The unfortunate kingdom remained an appanage of Spain for two hundred years.

_Venice, 1453-1508_

In the northeast Venice still led a brilliant career, like a charming woman who has received some fatal hurt and does not know it, but instinctively lives more brilliantly than ever. Her fatal hurt was the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks (1453). At first the only obvious ill consequence was war. Venice, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, stepped into the place of Constantinople, and became "the bulwark of the West." She waged war after war with the Turks and maintained her reputation for valour and resolution, but Turkey was too strong for her, and little by little stripped her of her long-drawn-out empire of coast and island. A far worse blow than direct war was the cutting of the great trade routes with the East, which damaged all the maritime cities of Italy, but Venice most. Turkey stopped the supplies of Venetian greatness, and slowly but surely sapped Venetian strength. On the stoppage of the straight road to Asia, the blocked current of commerce poked about for a new way, and discovered that it could reach the East by doubling the Cape of Good Hope. Commerce thus avoided Turkey, but it also abandoned the Mediterranean, great centre and source of ancient civilization, and left the maritime cities of Italy stranded, as it were, on the sh.o.r.es of a forsaken sea.

This doom, however, was still hidden in the obscurity of the future, and Venice appeared to be at the height of prosperity. The French amba.s.sador, Philippe de Commines, called her "the most triumphant city I have ever seen." The Venetians were a people apart from other Italians; they never suffered from foreign invasion, or domestic revolt; they lived in isolation, maintained their own customs and usages, and enjoyed a sumptuous, opulent life, in proud security. Venice was the richest, the most comfortable, the best governed city in the world. In military strength she was commonly reckoned the first power in Italy, with the Papacy, the Kingdom of Naples, and the Duchy of Milan about equal in second rank. Venice entertained no suspicion of any seeds of decadence, and continued her greedy career of annexation on the mainland, with a haughtiness worthy of ancient Rome. She laid hands on part of Romagna, and angered the Popes who had a t.i.tle thereto, which, however imperfect, was much better than the Venetian t.i.tle. She provoked the Emperor Maximilian, of the House of Hapsburg, who claimed Verona as an Imperial city; and to the west she came into dangerous compet.i.tion with the French invaders. These enemies, taking their cue from the piratical seizure of Naples by the French and Spanish, agreed together to part.i.tion the Venetian territory on the mainland, and invited all the powers of Europe to join them and take a share of the booty. The coalition planned a kind of joint-stock piracy. This was the League of Cambrai (1508), which stripped Venice of all her Italian territory, and threatened the city herself. The allies, however, fell out among themselves; and Venice, by biding her opportunity, in the course of time managed to recover most of her lost territory. Thus, though for a season the Barbarians brought the haughty city to her knees, she weathered the storms better than the rest of Italy, and continued to maintain her independence for three centuries to come.

The Papacy deserves a chapter to itself.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE PAPAL MONARCHY (1471-1527)

The Papacy found itself in an exceedingly difficult situation. It had to adapt an ecclesiastical system, matured in the Middle Ages, to new political systems, to new knowledge, to new thought, in short, to a new world. During its struggle with the Empire, the course before it, however arduous, had been plain, namely, to abase the Emperors; during its captivity at Avignon, its duty to return to Rome (though individual Popes were blind or indifferent) likewise had been plain; during the schism, the one end to be aimed at was union. But now everything was new, and a new policy had to be devised. There were three matters which required particular consideration: the demand for reform which came from across the Alps; the great intellectual awakening of the Renaissance; and the ambitions of the other Italian powers. For these problems the solution which the Papacy tried was twofold: to establish a firm pontifical princ.i.p.ality, and to use the new intellectual forces as a motive power to keep itself at the head of Christendom. By a strong pontifical princ.i.p.ality the Papacy hoped to secure itself against the covetousness of the other Italian states. By using the new intellectual forces it hoped to range them on its side, and so to choke, or at least to overcrow, the ultramontane cry for reform. One need not suppose that such a plan was consciously thought out in detail from the beginning; rather it was the course which the Papacy gradually took, partly from theory, partly under the stress of pa.s.sing circ.u.mstances.

We remember that the Council of Constance closed the Great Schism, and sent Martin V (1417-31) back to Rome as sole Pope. His pontificate marks the end of the old Republican commune, which had made so much trouble for Popes and Emperors in days past, and therefore marks the first definite stage in the transformation of the Papacy into a local secular power. Rome, although she did not deny herself an occasional outbreak in memory, as it were, of good old days, settled down into a papal city.

The most interesting part of the papal story is the process that went on within the Church. The intolerable burden of ecclesiastical taxation, the growth of heresy, and the degeneration of the clergy, as well as the Great Schism, had roused Europe to a sense that something must be done, and Europe attempted the old remedy of Ec.u.menical Councils. At Constance the question of general reform had come up, but the papal party had managed to prevent action. At the next Council, held at Basel, internal difficulties appeared still more plainly. Party lines were sharply drawn; the ultramontanes, as before, wished to subject the Popes to the supremacy of Councils, to subst.i.tute an ecclesiastical aristocracy of bishops in place of a papal monarchy, and, as it were, transfer the centre of ecclesiastical gravity from Rome across the Alps. Feeling ran so high that the Council split in two. Part followed the Pope to Italy, and part stayed in Basel and elected an anti-pope (1439). It looked as if schism had come again, but the danger pa.s.sed. The anti-pope resigned; unity was restored and lasted for seventy years.

Nicholas V, as we have seen, hoped to maintain the Papacy at the head of Christendom by means of the new intellectual forces. Such a conception was purely Italian, and showed plainly enough that the Papacy had ceased to represent Christendom, had ceased to be the real head of a Universal Church, and had become a purely Italian inst.i.tution. While Nicholas and his successors were thinking of culture and of becoming Italian princes, the pious ultramontanes, comparatively indifferent to the intellectual excitement of the Renaissance, were thinking of sin and of the remedy for sin. The papal Curia was clever, but did not foresee that to subordinate the old conception of the Papacy as the head of the religious and ecclesiastical organization of Europe to the new conception of it as an Italian princ.i.p.ality would surely alienate the Teutonic peoples; it did not foresee that the Renaissance, with its spirit of examination, investigation, criticism, with its encouragement of the free play of the human mind, was necessarily preparing the way for the Reformation. But the Curia perceived the opposite difficulties, to which we are generally blind, that unless the Papacy did establish itself as a temporal power, it might well be reduced to another Babylonish Captivity by a king of Naples, a duke of Milan, or even by some _condottiere_. And it perceived that other difficulty as well, that if the Papacy turned against the intellectual movement, the intellectual movement would, in self-defence, turn against the Papacy.

The Popes did indeed seek to revive the old rle of the Papacy in one respect. They tried to arouse the sentiment of Christendom against the invading Turks, and to lead a crusade themselves. But the time for such a course had pa.s.sed. The kings and princes of Europe were busy with their own kingdoms and princ.i.p.alities and would not budge; and the Papacy was obliged to give up the plan. Discouraged by this failure it naturally turned to the new theory of a little papal kingdom and vigorously put the theory into practice. The three Popes who accomplished this task were Francesco della Rovere, Sixtus IV (1471-84), Rodrigo Borgia, Alexander VI (1493-1503), and Giuliano della Rovere, Julius II (1503-13). Their careers must be looked at more closely.

Sixtus IV was the son of a peasant. Educated by the Franciscans, he became distinguished as a scholar in theology, philosophy, and ecclesiastical affairs, and was chosen general of the order. When Pope, after a last futile attempt to start a crusade, Sixtus openly abandoned the rle of Pontiff of Christendom and became an Italian prince.

Energetic and masterful, he set to work to consolidate the loose and insubordinate papal territories into a compact state. The task was not easy, and one of the obstacles in his way was lack of men whom he could trust. It was of little advantage to gather together an army, or to capture a city, if the papal general or governor found his own interests opposed to papal interests. Loyalty was held in scant esteem by Italians of the Renaissance. Sixtus met the difficulty by employing his nephews. This policy was by no means the beginning of papal nepotism, but these nephews happened to be young men with marked tastes for greed, ferocity, and dissipation, and brought the system into especial notoriety. To one nephew the Pope gave a cardinal's hat, four bishoprics, an abbey, a patriarchate, as well as free access to the papal treasury. When this young man had died of dissipation, the post of chief favourite descended to his brother. For him the Pope procured a wife from the ducal house of Sforza, and began to carve a dukedom in Romagna, with the intention of adding slices cut from the neighbouring states. This young man was arrogant, ignorant, and brutal, with no interests except ambition and the chase. In due course he was murdered.

Whatever effect nepotism of this character produced across the Alps, it served certain purposes in Italy. Sixtus made himself feared, and advanced the project of a papal kingdom to a point where his successors were able to take it up and complete it.

Sixtus also pursued Nicholas's plan of making Rome the first city of the world in art and magnificence. He brought together architects and artists, and patronized art and literature. But this aspect of the plan to maintain the Papacy at the head of Christian Europe belongs rather to the story of the high Renaissance, and must be postponed to the next chapter.

We may pa.s.s over the next Pope, who was not distinguished except for a frank recognition of his illegitimate children, and for what then appeared a whimsical desire to maintain peace, and proceed to the notorious Rodrigo Borgia, Alexander VI. It was in Borgia's pontificate that the French invasion of 1494 took place. This introduction of a new and terrible element into Italian politics frightened him as well as other Italian rulers, for he knew that the Papal State would never be strong enough to resist single-handed such an army as that of Charles VIII, and he tried to form a union of the Italian powers for common defence. His policy met little success, especially as he himself, seeing advantages to be gained from a French alliance, whirled about, granted to the French king a dispensation for divorce, to the French favourite a cardinal's hat, and made a separate treaty for himself (1499). Borgia did no more than any other Italian prince would have done, but he must bear his share of the responsibility. It was a deliberate sacrifice of Italian for papal interests. Whether that was justifiable or not is another matter. The Pope wished to establish a Pontifical State, and acted in the manner which he thought would be most likely to achieve success.

Borgia also followed the example set by Sixtus, and raised his family to power and rank, partly, of course, from affection, but partly in order to strengthen the Papacy. His task was to reduce the papal va.s.sals in the Pontifical States to obedience and so to create a strong central government. The instrument he employed was his son Csar Borgia. This brilliant young man has won a great reputation, owing in large measure to Machiavelli's admiration. He was an athletic, handsome, taciturn man, quick, cunning, and cruel. He began his career in the Church, but at the time of his father's reconciliation with France, gave up his cardinal's hat, and was created duke by the French king. Csar made an excellent instrument for rooting out the disobedient va.s.sals of the Papal State.

They were crafty, greedy, and false; he was craftier, greedier, and falser than they. He dispossessed them with ruthless vigour, and established himself in their stead. His energy and success were extraordinary, and frightened other Italian rulers. None knew how far his ambition might stretch, or how far the Papacy might be able to push him. The direct military power of the Pontifical State was not very great and could readily be measured, but the indirect power of the Papacy as head of the Christian Church was vague and alarming.

Nevertheless, Csar's princ.i.p.ality, which rested wholly on the Papacy, fell to pieces when his father died.

Borgia's att.i.tude towards the arts belongs to the next chapter; but in respect to them as well as to the Pontifical State, he followed what I have called the twofold policy of the Popes of the Renaissance. That policy undoubtedly had its advantages; but it also had its disadvantages, and these appear more conspicuous in Borgia's pontificate than in any other. The establishment of papal dominion, as we have seen, encouraged, if it did not necessitate, nepotism; and nepotism involved prodigality and dissipation. The Popes used their families to strengthen their position; and the upstart families, giddy with sudden wealth and power, misbehaved. The nephews of Sixtus rendered some service to the Papacy, but they caused scandal. Csar Borgia rendered greater services, and caused still greater scandal. The other branch of the twofold policy, by a different path, led to the same result.

Patronage of arts and letters involved great expense and encouraged luxurious tastes; luxury led to idleness, and idleness to vice. The Roman atmosphere had never been favourable to spiritual life, and now, surcharged with the cla.s.sical spirit of the Renaissance, practically extinguished religion.

For centuries the Roman Curia had been a b.u.t.t for the arrows of satire.

The minnesingers of Germany, the troubadours of Provence, had paused in their amorous ditties to compose bitter gibes against the greed and luxurious life of the great Roman prelates. Taunts such as this became household phrases: Curia Romana non quaerit ovem sine lana.[19] Dante had put priest, prelate, and Pope into h.e.l.l. Petrarch had written scathing verses:--

Nest of treachery, wherein is hatched All evil that besets the world to-day, Slaves to wine, debauch, and gluttony,

Well-head of woe, and baiting place of wrath, School of false thought, temple of heresy, etc.

One of the best tales in the "Decameron" turns on the conversion of a Jew, who goes to Rome, sees the conduct of Pope and cardinals, and becomes convinced that only a Divine Church can support so staggering a burden. In Borgia's time the Curia outdid itself, and Borgia led the way. He acknowledged his children, and lavished papal revenues upon them; he bestowed a cardinal's hat on Alexander Farnese, founder of the Farnese family, for the sake of Giulia Farnese, his frail sister; he sanctioned ballets and theatricals of a scandalous nature in the Vatican palace, and encouraged his sons and his cardinals in a dissolute life.

Vice was not all; the odour of crime infected the air. The Pope's son, the Duke of Gandia, was murdered, so was his son-in-law, husband of his daughter Lucrezia. Cardinals died mysteriously. The common voice, whispering low in Rome and loud elsewhere, ascribed these murders to Csar Borgia. It appeared as if the Pope believed the charges himself.

"Csar," he said, "is a good-natured man, but he cannot tolerate affronts." Lucrezia, too, became the object of the grossest slanders. No doubt common gossip then, as always, raised a tree of falsehood from a mustard grain of truth; but credulity accepted every accusation as true.

North of the Alps the simple-minded Germans shuddered and crossed themselves. Even the Romans were shocked. When the Pope died, no man would touch his body; it was dragged by a rope fastened to its foot from the bed to the grave, and there tumbled in. No one doubted that his soul had gone to h.e.l.l.

Alexander VI violated every rule of domestic morality; nevertheless, Pope Julius II (1503-13) violated the sacred character of priest as fundamentally, though in a much less repulsive way. Julius, a nephew of Sixtus IV, was a fiery soldier, a high-aspiring prince, a man of great qualities, impatient and magnificent. Had he been duke of Milan or King of Naples, he would have presented a n.o.ble figure; but a Pope armed cap--pie, entering a conquered city through the breach battered by his cannon, was as clear a defiance of the evangelical spirit of the reformers as the private profligacy of Pope Borgia.

Julius pursued the twofold policy of the Papacy with greater zeal and greater success than any of his predecessors. His furious energy completed the work of making the incohesive states of the Church into a compact princ.i.p.ality; and he is the real founder of the absolute Papal State, the first real Pope-king. He achieved equal success in the other branch of the policy, and revelled in the kindred spirit of the High Renaissance. Julius exalted Rome to the place of first city in the world; and if the world had asked for art from the Papacy instead of asking for religion, it would have been abundantly satisfied. But Germany was thinking of sin, of vice, of simony, of taxation, and was becoming conscious of an extreme national antipathy to Italian rule; and when a young German monk, like Martin Luther, went to Rome, instead of taking pleasure in the architecture, painting, and sculpture that adorned the city, he was horrified at the lack of religion.

Julius, however, was ent.i.tled to a sense of accomplishment at his death.

He left to his successors a little kingdom in the middle of Italy, and he had made Rome the centre of the arts. Not till the days of his successors did the failure of that policy appear. By a kind of poetic justice the utter failure of art to satisfy the demand for reform, for purity, for religion, was proved during the pontificates of the two Medici, Leo X and Clement VII. The Medici had patronized the arts, both in Florence and in Rome, and the arts repaid the Medici with enjoyment and renown. But the Medici had done nothing for the spirit of reform; on the contrary, they had helped crush Savonarola, and the spirit of reform turned upon them. Germany hoisted the standard of secession during the pontificate of Leo, and an army of the unfaithful sacked Rome during that of Clement.

Leo X was a fat, clever, cultivated man, with no great virtues and no real vices. "Let us enjoy the Papacy since G.o.d has given it to us," is the sentiment put into his mouth, and serves to characterize his reign.

Bred in his father's intellectual circle, and a member of the luxurious Roman society, Leo shared the tastes of both. He was a connoisseur of works of art, and derived genuine sthetic pleasure from them; he was also fond of agreeable company, good cookery, the chase, and most forms of social amus.e.m.e.nt. His political conduct was not of much real consequence, as matters had gone too far. In the interminable struggle between Charles V and Francis I, the Papacy tried to hold a balance of power, and bargained with both sides; but, as the Spaniards, in possession of both Milan and Naples, were the stronger, the Papacy generally found its advantage on that side. As to the larger matter of the ecclesiastical unity of Christendom there was practically nothing to be done. The causes which split the Teutonic world from the Latin were already matured. It was too late to stop the Reformation. Luther might have been dealt with more shrewdly, but the forces behind him could not have been kept in check. Leo excommunicated Luther (1520), and the Imperial Diet at Worms condemned him and his doctrine, but the unity of the Church was doomed.

To Leo succeeded his cousin Clement VII, after a brief pontificate by the last foreign Pope. Clement was incompetent, and failed to realize the gravity of his situation; neither he nor Rome understood the crisis they had reached. The prevailing state of mind may be inferred from this extract from the diary of a young Roman burgher: "I saw this Pope the first day of May, 1525, come in the morning of the Feast of SS. Philip and James to the Church of the Holy Apostles, and after celebrating high ma.s.s, remain all day and night in the palace of the Colonna.... That day it was an old and foolish custom in the Colonna palace (which connects with the church and has windows looking in it), to throw various kinds of fowls and animals into the church to the people who were there, all of the lowest sort. They also put a pig in the middle of the church up high, and whoever was able to climb up and take it, won it; and on top of the roof were kegs and pots of water, which they poured on the persons who climbed up. The amus.e.m.e.nt of those gentlemen, and of the rest who looked on, was to see the crowd in a mess, battling, shrieking, pushing, shoving, like beasts,--a merrymaking not becoming in a church or any sacred edifice." The diary adds: "Now let people learn to know the souls of the great and especially of priests, how wicked, deceitful, and false they are, how full of fraud and knavery."[20] There were plenty of other facts to prove this conclusion. The merrymaking was doomed to cease.

The incompetent Pope was totally at a loss what policy to follow, not knowing whether it was better to incline towards the Empire or to France. He shifted at the wrong time, joined a league against the Empire, then wriggled and shuffled, and so drew upon himself and the devoted city the punishment due to a long course of wickedness. The Imperial army, a ruffian host of Germans (many of them Lutherans), Spaniards, and Italians, under the command of the traitor Bourbon, was encamped in the north; the unpaid soldiers clamoured for plunder, and Bourbon led them to Rome, carried the neglected walls by a.s.sault, and put the city to sack. Rome was a little city, with perhaps 90,000 inhabitants, but rich in the oblations and tribute money of Christendom; the churches were decked with gold and silver, the palaces stuffed with precious paintings, tapestries, and ornaments of every kind. Popes, cardinals, and princes had rivalled one another in acc.u.mulations of works of art and articles of luxury. Though license, profligacy, and crime had then shut out Rome from the sympathy of the world, it is impossible to read to-day of the horrors of the sack--men murdered, mothers, daughters, nuns outraged, old men and priests brutally insulted, churches and sacred relics defiled--without the sharpest pity.

For eight days the devilish work went on, and but 30,000 inhabitants were left, so many had fled, or been killed, or made prisoners (1527).