CRISTO RAUL.ORG |
BOOK 13CLEMENT VII. A.D. 1523-1534
CHAPTER I.
Clement
VII. —His Election, Character, and the Beginning of his Reign. —His Ineffectual
Efforts for Peace and his Alliance with Francis I of France.
In
consequence of Adrian’s delicate state of health, Imperial diplomacy was
already busying itself, in the summer of 1523, with the prospects of a Papal
election. Charles V knew how much would depend, in his struggle with France, on
the policy of the new Pope. On the 13th of July he sent to his Ambassador at
Rome, the Duke of Sessa, special instructions concerning the Conclave; their
gist was that everything was to be done to secure the election of the
Vice-Chancellor, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici. To the candidature of this Prince
of the Church, who during two pontificates had been his staunch adherent,
Charles continuously remained steadfast.
This
attitude of the Emperor was sure to lessen considerably the prospects of
Cardinal Wolsey, whose position and reputation were almost on a level with
those of Medici. All the lofty expectations of the English Cardinal who, in
conjunction with Henry VIII, was eagerly canvassing for his own election, were
nullified by the circumstance that the great majority in the Sacred College
were more than ever unwilling to hear of a foreigner and absentee as the Pope’s
successor. But, in spite of the most zealous exertions, even Cardinal de'
Medici was far from certain of his own success, as the entire French party was
in decided opposition to this loyal champion of Imperial interests. Further,
the group of older Cardinals were all unfriendly to him as leader of the
juniors nominated by Leo X.
The
parties in the College of Cardinals were formed on the same lines as those in
the Conclave of Adrian VI. The Mantuan envoy, in a despatch of the 29th of
September 1523, reports that Medi can count certainly on about seventeen votes,
although he cannot affirm the same of any other Cardinal. The chances of
Cardinal Gonzaga are very seriously considered. This opinion corresponded more
closely with the actual position of things than the more sanguine surmises of
the Florentine representative who, on the same day, writes of the rising
prospects of Cardinal de' Medici. It was particularly prejudicial to the latter
that, as in the last Conclave, Cardinal Colonna, otherwise strongly affected
towards the Emperor, and in spite of his promise given to Sessa, was coming
forward as Medici’s strongest opponent. He sided with the older Cardinals and
even with the party of France. It was not less embarrassing that Medici’s
mortal enemy, Soderini, had been freed from his imprisonment and admitted to
the Conclave through the efforts of the older Cardinals, who were threatening
to cause a schism. In addition to this, Farnese, since the 27th of September,
had come to the front as a dangerous rival of Medici. The latter, while making
every exertion to secure the support of the foreign powers, was resolutely
determined either to become Pope himself at any cost, or, if this was
impossible, to assist in the election of one of his own party.
Such
being the state of things, a long and stormy conclave was looked for when, on
the 1st of October 1523, the five-and-thirty electors assembled in the Sixtine Chapel, while without a heavy thunderstorm was
raging. This, as well as the circumstance that Medici’s cell had been erected
under the fresco, by Perugino, of “St Peter’s elevation to the Primacy”, was
looked upon as an augury of the future. Nor were prognostications in favour of
Medici wanting in other ways, for the Duke of Sessa worked for him at fever
heat. His opponents were no less indefatigable; they first of all tried to
put off any decision until the arrival of the French Cardinals; consequently,
in the meantime only the Bull of Julius II against simony was read. The first
scrutiny should have taken place on the morning of the 6th of October. But this
intention was abandoned when suddenly, on that very day, to the no small
annoyance of the Imperialists, the French Cardinals, Louis de Bourbon, François
de Clermont, and Jean de Lorraine appeared in conclave in order to travel with
greater speed they had put on short laymen’s clothes, and entered, booted and
spurred, into the midst of their colleagues; all business now came to a
standstill. The wooden cells set apart for the electors were separated from
each other by small spaces and distinguished by letters of the alphabet. The
cells prepared for the Cardinals appointed by Leo X were decorated in red,
those of the others in green. The Swiss guards were appointed to watch over the
Vatican. Fifteen Cardinals stood firm for Medici, the Emperor’s candidate; four
others, also Imperialists, at whose head was the powerful Colonna, it had been
impossible to win over. Twelve Cardinals formed the French party; six were
neutral. Each of these three parties had no thought of giving in. On the first
day of the Conclave were named as Medici’s competitors: Fieschi,
the French candidate; Jacobazzi, who was supported by
Colonna; last, and most important of all, Farnese; in Rome it was repeatedly
said that he was already elected.
Farnese
was, in fact, the only one among the electors who could measure himself with
Medici. He was his senior, and a Roman by birth, and he was unquestionably
superior to his rival in political penetration, in the largeness of his
conceptions, and in his understanding of ecclesiastical affairs. It was also to
his advantage that he was neutral, although his leanings were more towards the
Emperor than otherwise.
In
the first scrutiny, on the 8th of October, the different parties measured their
strength : the French candidate, Cardinal Fieschi,
had eleven votes, and the same number were given to Carvajal, an Imperialist.
The next scrutinies were also without result. All
hoped for a speedy end of the war in Lombardy, and, on that account, tried to
prolong the election. Under these circumstances it was great good fortune that
no serious disturbances took place in Rome, which remained as quiet as before
the beginning of the Conclave. The populace could not be blamed when, on the 10th
of October, they began to complain of the long delay. In consequence of these
demonstrations, an attempt was made on the 12th, by Colonna and the French, to
obtain the tiara for Cardinal Antonio del Monte, but without success. “Our
Cardinal”, the Florentine envoy reports on the 13th, “is in close alliance with
his friends and stands firm.” Colonna also, in spite of Sessa’s
representations, relaxed nothing of his opposition to the hated Medici. The
situation was unchanged. Once more, but in vain, the Romans begged that the
election might be settled quickly. Armellini sent
them answer : “Since you can put up with a foreign Pope, we are almost on the
point of giving you one; he lives in England.” This gave rise to a great
tumult. The Romans shouted, “Choose us one of those present, even if he be a
log of wood.”
Even
in the days that followed, Medici, with his sixteen to eighteen followers,
stood out obstinately against the opposition, now increased from twenty to
two-and-twenty Cardinals. The closure had become a dead letter. Uninterrupted
communication was kept up with the outer world. On the 19th of October a
Venetian reports: “Things are just where they were on the first day”. “The
Cardinals,” exclaims a Mantuan envoy in despair, seem determined to spend the winter in
conclave”. Each party watched with anxiety for some turn of events in Lombardy.
The Romans grew more and more restless, and Farnese tried to calm them. Several
new candidates besides Farnese appeared at this time, such as the Franciscan Cristoforo Numai, Achille de Grassis,
and, above all, Sigismondo Gonzaga. On the 28th of October the Romans again
made remonstrances, but the Conclave went on as before, Medici and Farnese
holding the scales between them. November came, and, notwithstanding fresh
popular impatience, the end of the proceedings was not yet in sight. The Court
was in despair; fear of a schism was already occupying men’s minds. Once more a
pause in the transactions of the Conclave was caused by the arrival, on the
12th of November, of Cardinal Bonifacio Ferreri,
whose sympathies were French. He brought up the number of Medici’s opponents to
three-and-twenty, and that of the electors to thirty-nine. If the Venetian
Ambassador is to be believed, Cardinal Farnese now succeeded, by large
promises, in detaching the Duke of Sessa from the party of Medici and bringing
him over to his own.
Medici,
nevertheless, had not the slightest intention of giving in; in fact, he had
good grounds for raising his hopes even higher than before, since his party
stood by him firm as a rock. The position of his adversaries was very
different; they had only one point of union, the determination to prevent
Medici from becoming Pope in other respects they were divided from the first,
for most of them had pretensions to the tiara themselves. “But,” as
Guicciardini remarks, “it is difficult to keep up a partnership when its chief
supports are discord and ambition.” Medici, for some time past, had built his
hopes on this state of things, and used all the means in his power to produce
dissension among his adversaries. It is especially remarkable that help came to
him from, of all people, the French Ambassador.
On
the death of Adrian VI, Francis I wished immediately to enter Italy in person,
but the difficulties arising from the desertion of the Constable de Bourbon to
the Emperor had forced him to give up the idea. He was thus obliged to limit
his activities to using the influence of the French Cardinals, to whom he had
named Fieschi, Soderini, and Scaramuccia Trivulzio as his candidates, and that of the envoys
he had delegated. Lodovico di Canossa, who was such an active agent on behalf
of French interests, received the royal commands to go to Italy too late, so
that only Count Carpi reached the Conclave in time. “Our enemies”, wrote Sessa
on the 28th of October, “had a triumph at first, since Carpi is openly on the
side of France, and came, moreover, as the representative of King Francis; but
his old friendship with Medici is stronger than his party spirit. He has
succeeded in splitting up our opponents”. It was not, however, old friendship
only which induced Carpi to take up this surprising position, but in all probability
a promise of neutrality from Medici, the hitherto stout Imperialist.
The
final decision was reached by Cardinal Colonna at last renouncing his
opposition to Medici. This change of mind was the result of a quarrel between
Colonna and his French friends, because the latter refused to vote for Jacobazzi, the Imperialist. One of the French Cardinals,
Francois de Clermont, seeing that confinement in the vitiated atmosphere of the
Conclave was becoming daily more trying to the older Cardinals, now went the
length of proposing Cardinal Orsini, who was hostile to Colonna as well as to
the Emperor, Medici pretended to be in favour of this old friend of his family.
Then Colonna, in great alarm, saw that he must give in, a course which he was advised
to take by his brother, then in the service of the Emperor. He joined sides
with Medici, who promised him the pardon of Soderini, and personal advantages
as well. This reconciliation of the two enemies, who had so long been at
strife, took place on the evening of the 17th of November.
Colonna
immediately drew with him a number of Cardinals, first his friend Jacobazzi, followed by Cornaro and Pisani, then Grassis, Ferreri, and others.
Medici could now count on twenty-seven votes, and his election was certain. On
the same day, the 18th of November, two years before, he had entered Milan. The
proclamation of the new Pope was deferred until the pardon of Soderini should
be settled and the capitulations signed; the latter guaranteed that the
benefices held by the Pope as Cardinal should be divided among his electors.
The twelve Cardinals forming the French party now gave up further resistance as
useless, and on the morning of the 19th of November, the votes having been once
more taken for the sake of security, Giulio de Medici was proclaimed as
unanimously chosen Pope. The victor, on emerging from this hard contest of
fifty days, assumed the name of Clement VII. His first act of government was to
confirm the capitulations, but with the additional clause that they might, if
necessary, be altered in Consistory.
The
respect which Clement VII had won for himself as Cardinal under Leo X by his statesmanlike
efficiency and admirable administration in Florence, as well as by his
seriousness, moderation, and avoidance of all frivolous pleasures, threw a
lustre over the beginning of his pontificate. Seldom had a new Pope been
welcomed with such general rejoicing and such high-pitched expectation. In
place of an Adrian VI, simple-minded and exclusively devoted to ecclesiastical
interests, a Pope had arisen who satisfied the wishes of the majority in the
Curia. He was a great noble and an expert politician. The Romans were
delighted; a Medici Pope encouraged their hopes of a renewal of the happy days
of Leo X, and of a long and brilliant reign fruitful of results in art and
science. Their expectations were strengthened when Clement at once drew into his
service classical scholars like Giberti and Sadoleto,
showed his care for the maintenance of justice, gave audiences with the utmost
freedom of access, was marked in his courtesy to persons of all classes, and
bestowed graces with great generosity. “He granted more favours”, wrote the
Bolognese envoy, “on the first day of his reign than Adrian did in his whole
lifetime”. The satisfaction of the electors was not less, among whom the Pope
distributed the whole of his benefices, representing a yearly income of upwards
of 60,000 ducats. Cardinal Colonna got, in addition, the Riario palace, the Cancelleria, and office of
Vice-Chancellor, and Cornaro the palace of San Marco; the amnesty granted to
Soderini was full and complete. The coronation took place on the 26th of
November with great pomp, and in presence of an incredible concourse of people.
On the tribune could be read the inscription, “To Clement VII, the restorer of
peace to the world and perpetual defender of the Christian name”. “It seems”, wrote
Baldassare Castiglione, “that here everyone expects the very best of the new
Pope”.
In
upper Italy also, especially in the States of the Church, the election made a
very favourable impression. Alfonso of Ferrara had taken advantage of the
vacancy in the Holy See to seize on Reggio and Rubbiera;
he was even preparing to advance on Modena, when he heard of Clement’s election. He at once gave up this design and sent
a messenger to the Pope, and somewhat later his eldest son, to tender his
homage and prepare the way for an understanding ; this was not arrived at, but
a truce for one year was agreed to. The disturbances in the Romagna, promoted
by Giovanni da Sassatello in the name of the Guelph
party, but at the secret instigation of France, came to an end at once with the
appearance of the name of Medici from the electoral urn. In Florence the
advantages of another Medicean pontificate were
calculated with true commercial shrewdness, and there were many who started for
Rome in quest of fortune. In Venice the expressions of congratulation were
exuberant; the Doge wrote that he would send the most illustrious citizens of
the Republic to honour Clement as a deity on earth. “Praised be the Lord for
ever”, exclaimed Vittoria Colonna when she received the news of Clement’s election; “may He further this beginning to such
ends, that men may see that there was never wrought a greater blessing, nor one
which was so grounded on reason”. The thoughts and hopes of this noble woman
were then shared by many. A canon of Piacenza declared that Medici by his skill
and sagacity would bring the endangered barque of Peter safely into harbour.
The Marquis of Pescara considered that by the result of the election the wishes
of the general majority had been met in a measure which was, perhaps, unprecedented.
“Clement VII”, said Bembo, “will be the greatest and wisest, as well as the
most respected Pope whom the Church has seen for centuries”. Almost everyone
overlooked the great weaknesses which were combined with undeniable good
qualities in the character of the new Pontiff.
Unlike
most members of his house, Clement VII was a good-looking man. He was tall and
had a graceful figure ; his features were regular and refined, and only a close
observer would have remarked that he had a slight squint in his right eye. At
this time his face was beardless, as Raphael had depicted it in his portrait of
Leo X. Clement’s health left nothing to be desired;
being extremely temperate and of strictly moral life, there was reason to
expect that his reign, on which he entered in his forty-sixth year, would be a
long one. Although, as a genuine Medici, he was a patron of literature, art,
and music, Clement was yet by nature essentially prosaic. Without approaching
Leo X in versatility and intellectual resources, he had, on the other hand,
none of the frivolity and pleasure-seeking, the extravagance and ostentation of
the latter. It was noticed with satisfaction by sober-minded observers that his
coronation banquet was arranged without the superfluous luxury and the presence
of professional jesters which had marked that of Leo X. With such empty
recreations Clement, who for years had been a man of great industry, did not
concern himself. Nor had he any taste for noisy hunting parties and expensive
excursions, in which he saw only a waste of time. He very rarely visited Magliana, and only saw at intervals his beautiful villa on
Monte Mario. As a Medici and as a statesman of the Renaissance, Clement VII was
far superior to Leo X in caution and acumen. “This Pope”, Loaysa reported to the Emperor, “ is the most secretive man in the world, and I have
never spoken with one whose sayings were so hard to decipher”.
In
the discharge of his duties the new Pope was indefatigable; he devoted himself
to affairs with the greatest punctuality, earnest attention, and an assiduity
that never flagged. Only at meal-times did he allow himself some recreation; a
good musician himself, he then
took pleasure in listening to motets, and engaged in serious conversation
with artists and men of learning. At his table, which was very frugal, two
physicians were always present; save at the chief meal of the day, the Pope ate
very little, and kept fast days rigorously; but he only said Mass on great
festivals. His bearing during all religious ceremonies was full of reverence
and dignity. “There is no one”, wrote Soriano, “who celebrates Mass with so
much beauty and piety of demeanour”. If Clement VII had none of his predecessor’s
strength as an ecclesiastical ruler, and showed generally more knowledge and
experience in political than in spiritual affairs, yet, contrasted with the
levity of Leo X, he marked a beneficial change in the pontifical character.
The
Venetian Ambassador, Marco Foscari, who, during his three years’ embassy, was
able to observe Clement VII closely, considered that “he was full of
uprightness and piety. In the Segnatura he would do
nothing to the prejudice of others, and when he confirmed a petition, he would
not, as Leo did, withdraw his word. He neither sold benefices nor bestowed them simoniacally. In contrast to Leo and other Popes,
when he conferred graces he asked no services in return, but wished that
everything should proceed in equity”.
Clement
VII’s great parsimony gave rise to many unmeasured accusations. The extremes to
which he went in this respect explain, but do not in every instance justify,
the charge of miserliness brought against him. This is clearly shown from the
fact that in his almsgiving he was as open-handed as Leo X. He deserves praise rather
than blame in avoiding the extravagance of his cousin, whose debts he was obliged
to pay. The shadows on Clement’s character lay in
other spheres they were closely connected with idiosyncrasies which the
Venetian envoy, Antonio Soriano, has minutely described. Soriano disputes the
current opinion that the Pope was of a melancholy disposition; his physicians,
he observes, thought him rather of a sanguine temperament, which would also
account for his fluency of speech. Contarini also insists on the good reputation
enjoyed by Clement VII; great ideas he certainly had not, but he spoke very
well on any subject brought before him. Contarini accounts for Clement’s slowness of decision and lack of courage by the
coldness of his nature, wonderfully characterized by Raphael in his likeness of
the Cardinal in the portrait of Leo X. Soriano also speaks strongly of the Pope
as very cold-hearted.
Always
a procrastinator, Clement belonged to that unfortunate class of characters in
whom the powers of reflection, instead of giving clearness to the thoughts and
strength to the will, perpetually call forth fresh doubts and suspicions.
Consequently, he had no sooner come to a decision than he as quickly regretted
it; he wavered almost constantly hither and thither between contending resolves,
and generally let the fitting opportunity for action escape his grasp. The Pope’s
indecision and instability were bound to do him all the more harm since they
were accompanied by great timidity. From this excessive want of courage, as
well as from his innate irresolution and a parsimony often most mischievously
employed, Guicciardini explains Clement’s incapacity
to act when the time came to put into execution decisions reached after long
reflection.
These
fatal characteristics had almost escaped notice while Giulio de' Medici was Leo’s
adviser, and had not then reached their later stage of development. All men
then knew that the Cardinal served the reigning Pope with untiring industry and
the greatest fidelity. Of restless energy and the highest reputation, his
political influence was appraised in those days at a higher value than it in
reality deserved, and most, indeed, of the political successes of Leo X were
ascribed not to himself, but to his minister. When at last the latter rose to
the head of affairs, he showed that he could neither come to a decision at the
right moment nor, having done so, put it resolutely into execution; for, in
consequence of his over-subtle statecraft, he could never shake himself free
from suspicion, and a constant dread of real and, still oftener, imaginary
dangers impeded all his transactions and put a stop to any decided and
consecutive course of action. A letter, a word was enough to upset a resolution
formed after long balancing and calculation, and to throw the Pope back on the
previous state of resourceless indecision. At first Clement’s contemporaries almost entirely overlooked these ominous characteristics. All
the more painful was their surprise when they saw the great Cardinal, once held
so high in men's esteem, sink into a Pope of petty and cheap reputation.
The
Imperialists were more disappointed than any, for they had indulged in the most
sanguine and extravagant hopes. At the close of the Conclave, Sessa had written
to Charles : “The Pope is entirely your Majesty’s creature. So great is your
Majesty’s power, that you can change stones into obedient children”. Sessa, in
saying this, had failed to see that the election had not been altogether his
work, and that even during the Conclave, Medici had taken up a more neutral
attitude than before. Further, he overlooked the difference that must arise
between the policy of Clement as Pope and his policy as Cardinal. The ideal
evidently present to Clement’s mind at the beginning
of his reign was one of impartiality and independence towards the Emperor and
Francis alike, in order that he might be of service in restoring peace, thereby
securing the freedom of Italy and the Papacy, for which there was a double
necessity owing to the Turkish danger and the spread of heresy in Germany.
Unfortunately, although he was fully aware of the grave condition of affairs
throughout the world, he was entirely wanting in the determination, firmness,
and fearlessness of a Julius II. From the first suspicious signs of weakness
were discernible. How could it be otherwise when—a significant circumstance the
two leading advisers of the Pope were each respectively champions of the two
great opposing parties? The one, Gian Matteo Giberti, an excellent and
blameless man, who became Datary, drew closer to France the more he realized
the danger to the freedom of Italy and the Papacy arising from the worldwide
power of Spain; the other, Nicolas von Schonberg, was, on the contrary, a
thorough Imperialist. To the conflicting influence of these two counsellors
Guicciardini principally ascribes the instability of character which Clement,
to the general astonishment, began so soon to display.
Immediately
after his election the Pope entered into secret negotiations with the Venetian
Ambassador Foscari. He opened to him his scheme of joining himself with Venice
and the Duke of Milan, so as to separate Switzerland from France and bring the
former at the same time into alliance with himself. By these manoeuvres he
expected to cut off from France all hopes of predominance in Italy, and also,
in the same way, to thwart the plans of the Emperor, showing himself to be a
Pope in reality, and not, like Adrian, merely Charles’s servant. Yet he did not
wish to push his undertakings against the Emperor further, but rather to keep
at peace with him. He was not thinking of war, but how to arrange an armistice,
the Curia at that moment being not only without money, but also burdened with
Leo’s debts. As he was beset on the one hand by the Emperor’s party, and, on
the other, by that of France, through Count Carpi, he was anxious to know the
intentions of Venice before he committed himself to any declaration. Sessa, who
saw in Clement VII only the former adherent of Imperial policy, was bitterly
disappointed. The Pope flatly refused to turn the alliance made with Adrian
from the defensive into the offensive. He would continue to pay the stipulated
subsidy to the Emperor’s forces, but as Father of Christendom his first duty
was the restoration of peace. “Everything I have urged to the contrary”, wrote
another Imperialist diplomatist, the protonotary Caracciolo,
on the 30th of November, “has failed”. The Pope remarked that he could not
declare himself in favour of an open league against France, he would much
rather do all he could to bring about a general armistice among all Christian
States; to this object all his
endeavours were now at first directed. This policy of peace, with special
reference to the Turkish danger, he had already emphasized in the letters
despatched to Francis before his coronation, announcing his election.
Clement
hoped to satisfy the Imperialists without taking any steps openly hostile to
France, since each of those implacable enemies, Charles and Francis, wished him
to become his partisan. Not only were the Ambassadors and Cardinals on both
sides busy in support of this object, but also special envoys from the French
King and the Emperor. The representative of the former, Saint-Marceau, arrived
in Rome on the 1st of February 1524. Great as his offers were, Clement refused
to acknowledge the claims of Francis to Milan, and was at the greatest pains to
avoid even the appearance of showing favour to France. But he was just as
little disposed to add to the concessions already contained in the treaty made
by his predecessor with Charles V, which would not expire until September 1524.
In spite of his financial distress, he paid the monies agreed upon, but
secretly, on account of France. Sessa was beside himself at the indecision of
the Pope, who was the Emperor’s ally, but was constantly coquetting with
France. The more Sessa insisted, the more Clement drew back.
Another
emissary of Charles, Adrian de Croy, had no better
fortune. The Pope explained that he could work best for peace by being
completely neutral, and in this he was confirmed, as early as the spring of
1524, by the threatening reports of the progress of Lutheranism in Germany and
the growing danger from the Turk. That the Christian powers should be tearing
each other to pieces in presence of such perils seemed to him intolerable; he
hoped that his envoys might succeed in securing at least an armistice. Clement
had already, on the 8th of December 1523, sent his chamberlain, Bernardino della Barba, to the Emperor in Spain with offers of
mediation in the cause of peace. A discussion on the means of achieving the
much-needed pacification of Europe, held in Consistory on the 9th of March
1524, resulted in the decision that Nicolas von Schonberg should visit the
Courts of France, Spain, and England. By the 11th of March he had started, not overglad of his mission, the difficulties of which he fully
understood, and knowing well that Giberti would now have a monopoly of
influence. Schonberg's instructions left no doubt as to Clement’s sincere wish to prepare a way for peace; he travelled very quickly, and at the
end of March was in Blois, where he stayed until the nth of April; after
conferring with Charles at Burgos, he returned again to Blois, and thence, on
the 11th of May, set out for London.
In
Rome, where, soon after the arrival of the Florentine embassy of homage, the
plague broke out with fury, Sessa, Lope Hurtado de Mendoza, and the English
envoys were actively working on behalf of the Emperor, while Saint-Marceau and
Carpi, supported by the powerful Giberti, worked for Francis. The timid Pope,
meanwhile, still continued to shirk the decided avowal of partisanship desired
by the Imperialists; under the influence of reports from Lombardy, where
Bonnivet, the general of Francis, had had reverses, he leant, on the whole,
more to Charles, but without having any intention of openly taking his side. On
the 10th of April Clement wrote strongly to the French King saying that, in
spite of his great obligations to the Emperor, he had honestly tried to carry
out his duties towards them both impartially. Four days later he laid before
Charles, in detail, his reasons for being neutral, and consequently for
declining to renew the league entered into by Adrian. The Pope, so ran the
strongly worded letter, was as much as ever attached to the Emperor, but his
position as the Father of all Christians demanded from him the utmost possible
neutrality, so that in mediating for the much-needed peace, he should not
appear to any to be led by party spirit. He would thus find all the readier
obedience when he should summon his sons to take arms against the Turk.
In
May the situation of the French in Lombardy had gone from bad to worse. The
Imperialists in Rome celebrated their successes with festive demonstrations. On
the 17th of May the anti-imperialist Cardinal Soderini died, and at the same
time Carpi fell into disgrace with the Pope. Clement was still more angry with
the Duke of Ferrara, who was trying to make discord between him and Charles V,
and was threatening Modena. But the Pope was also in the highest degree
dissatisfied with Sessa, who was still intriguing against him in Siena. In the
beginning of June Clement addressed an exhortation to peace to Francis,
pointing out to him how necessary it was to yield under the changed condition
of things. By the 16th of June Schonberg was back in Rome. In Sessa’s opinion,
what he brought back with him from France was not worth the cost of the
journey.
In
the meantime Charles V had determined to enforce peace and to pursue the
French, now beaten in Italy, into their own country, and in July his forces
entered Provence. At this very critical moment Francis did not lose heart; in
the same month Bernardino della Barba brought the
news to Rome that the King intended, at the head of his army, to invade upper
Italy in person. Even then the Pope kept neutral and persevered in his efforts
for peace.
On
the 12th of August the Emperor’s new Ambassador, de la Roche, arrived in Rome;
supported by Sessa, he tried to induce the Pope to enter into an alliance, and
to grant supplies of money. Clement would not give in, although he gave his
assurances that he would not desert the Emperor. He thus gave satisfaction to
neither party and put himself in an equivocal position. De la Roche, who was
exceedingly dispirited by the failure of his attempts, fell ill on the 25th of
August, so that the negotiations with him had to be put off. Clement did not,
on that account, give up his pacific efforts; he hoped that at least an
armistice for six months might be arranged, and that another mission under
Schonberg might carry this through. The Imperialists, however, would not then
hear anything of an armistice. De la Roche died on the 31st of August
Bartolomeo Gattinara, a nephew of the Chancellor, who was attached to the Embassy,
and several of Sessa’s servants, also fell ill; Sessa himself had to hasten
from Rome to attend on his dying wife. The Spanish Embassy being thus deserted,
it was impossible to proceed with the negotiations. Clement therefore decided
to send a Nuncio to promote the peace, now especially desirable on account of
the Ottoman aggression. On the 7th of September Nicolas von Schonberg crossed
the Alps a second time to visit the Kings of France, England, and Spain. In
itself the Pope’s diplomacy gave small ground for hope; on this occasion failure was complete; amid
the wild turmoil of war, his voice was lifted in vain.
The
invasion of Provence had miscarried owing to insufficient forces, and before
the walls of Marseilles the Imperialist fortune changed. In France the feeling
for King and country was running high; all that Francis had asked for had been
given him. Soon the alarming tidings overtook the Imperialists that the French
King with a great army was at Avignon. Thus the besiegers of Marseilles and the
invaders of upper Italy were equally threatened. In order to save Milan for the
Emperor, Pescara, on the 29th of September, raised the siege of Marseilles. He
crossed the maritime Alps by forced marches into upper Italy. At the same time
Francis, with a splendid army, pressed forward through the Cottine chain. It was a race for the most blood-stained spot on earth, the plain of the
river Po. Milan could no longer be held, for the plague was raging there.
Pescara, by the end of October, had to fall back on Lodi before the superior
strength of the French army, with his men dispirited and in the worst condition
the star of Charles V. seemed to be on the wane. It was a jest of Pasquino in Rome that an Imperial army had been lost on the
Alps; any honest person finding it was asked to restore it for a handsome
reward. Indeed, such was the state of things that if Francis had pursued his
operations with equal swiftness and precaution, upper Italy would have been
lost to Charles. But instead of taking advantage of the sorry plight of the
Imperialists and falling upon them, the ill-advised King turned aside to
besiege Pavia, strongly fortified and defended by Antonio de Leyva. The
historian Giovio relates that when Pescara heard of this momentous resolve he
cried out : “We were vanquished; in a short time we shall be victors”. The fate
of Italy hung on the fight around Pavia. Francis I did not understand this
sufficiently, otherwise he would hardly have determined to detach 10,000 men
from his army to be sent under the command of John Stuart, Duke of Albany,
against Naples.
While
the Imperialists and the French were entering the lists in upper Italy, the
diplomatists on each side were competing at Rome for the favour of the Pope.
Clement had seen Francis enter Italy with the greatest displeasure, for
together with his disapproval of the King’s conduct was associated the fear of
the victorious arms of France. The Pope seems still to have clung to the
possibility of a reconciliation between the two deadly enemies. Since the issue
of the conflict was totally unknown, he proceeded with extreme caution. On the
7th of October 1524 Baldassare Castiglione, whose appointment as Nuncio dated a
month before, left Rome. He was a true adherent of Charles, and a very
experienced diplomatist. In order to meet the French King also in a friendly
spirit, Aleander, recently raised to the Archbishopric of Brindisi, was
appointed as Nuncio to Francis. Another extraordinary mission to that King was
further given on the 13th of October to Count Roberto Boschetti,
with instructions to seek out Lannoy, the commanderin-chief of the Imperial troops in Italy, on his return. He was also to do what he could
on behalf of peace but owing to illness he was unable to start on his journey.
The
suspense with which all eyes in Rome were turned, in those days, on Lombardy,
is clearly seen from the diplomatic reports of the time. In Bologna, where calm
had hitherto prevailed, signs of ferment began to appear there was bitter
jealousy of Ferrara. The news of the entry of the French into Milan, which
reached Rome on the 28th of October, made the deepest impression. To the Pope
this turn of affairs seemed but small compared with what was yet to come; his
dread of France now reached its highest pitch. Under these circumstances the
mission of Giberti to Francis I was decided on; by the 30th of October he had
left Rome. On the same day Cardinal Salviati took his departure, as it was
stated, for his new legation, Modena and Reggio; it was at once surmised that
he also was charged with a special communication for Francis I. The Venetian
Ambassador had long interviews every day with Clement, and it was already
rumoured in Rome that the Pope and Venice had entered into alliance with
France; this report was premature, but things were tending in that direction.
Giberti,
who appeared, on account of his French sympathies, to be the most suitable man
for the business, received instructions drawn up under the impression that
Francis, by the capture of Milan, having become absolute master of the
situation, the duty of self-preservation called for an agreement with the
conqueror. When later information announced a pause in the French successes,
directions were sent after Giberti, telling him to find out Lannoy and Pescara
first, and, then, on learning their conditions, to lay them before the King. On
the 5th of November Giberti proposed an armistice to Lannoy at Soncino. The
answer was an unqualified refusal; Pescara replied in the same sense. When
Giberti met Francis before Pavia on the 9th of November, he found him in an
even less yielding disposition. That Giberti had already, at that time,
disclosed the terms of a secret treaty between Francis and Clement, is not
supported by any convincing evidence. It was not until the peace-mission of
Paolo Vettori to Lannoy had failed that the Pope held
the moment to have come when he ought to take this step in order to secure his
interests. On the 12th of December, but still in total secrecy, peace and
alliance were concluded between Francis I, the Pope, and Venice; this was
followed on the 5th of January 1525 by an official agreement between the French
King and Clement. In the preamble the necessity of a decided step on the part
of the Pope was grounded on the French successes in Milan and the great dangers
to which the States of the Church were exposed by the expedition to Naples. The
Pope bound himself, in his own name and that of the Florentines, neither
secretly nor openly to support the King’s enemies; he assured to the Duke of
Albany free right of passage and provision in the
territories of the Church, and indirectly gave his consent to the acquisition
of Milan. Francis promised the Pope the possession of Parma and Piacenza, the
Papal salt monopoly in the Duchy of Milan, the maintenance of the Medicean rule in Florence, and protection against
insubordinate vassals (Ferrara). Lastly, he made concessions of a political and
ecclesiastical nature within French and Milanese territory and promised aid
against the Turks. Fully half a year before, Girolamo Campeggio had foretold to
the representative of Ferrara that all this would come to pass. “Campeggio”,
wrote that diplomatist on the 21st of June 1524, “declares it to be a certainty
that, if the Pope and Venice can come to terms, we shall soon see a league
between Rome and France”. Nevertheless, it is certain that Clement took this
most important step “more from compulsion than from his own free will”. It was
the influence of Giberti and Carpi, who made adroit use of the position of
affairs, that gave the impetus to the anxious Pope. The promises and
expectations opened out by Carpi were extremely enticing, but they certainly
affected Clement less as a Pope than as a secular prince. Mendoza had once
given as his judgment: “Carpi is a devil; he knows everything and is mixed up
in everything; the Emperor must either win him over or destroy him.” How much
to the point this remark was, was now seen. There was no intrigue, there were
no means which the Ambassador of France was ashamed to use in order to draw and
force into the net of French diplomacy the Pope, trembling for the safety of
his States. Carpi intrigued with the Orsini and, as the Mantuan envoy relates
in a cipher letter of the 28th of November 1524, offered the Pope the free
disposal of Ferrara, although Alfonso was supporting the French with all his
might. Knowing Clement’s tendency to nepotism, Carpi
also about this time proposed a marriage between Catherine de’ Medici, the
Pope’s niece, and the second son of the French King. In support of Carpi,
Francis twice sent special couriers to Rome bearing the most comprehensive
concessions.
Sessa
was all the less likely to prove a match for his opponents, as he could do
nothing before the arrival of fresh instructions from the Emperor, and, it is
to be noted, believed that the English envoys were cajoling Clement, who was
almost entirely surrounded by French influences, when they told him that Henry
VIII had no intention of helping Charles in any way against the French. At that
time the belief was almost general in Rome that the victory of the French was
assured. Above all, there was the serious danger into which the States of the
Church were thrown by the expedition against Naples under John Stuart, Duke of
Albany. It now seemed that the speedy safeguarding of the Papal interests was
demanded for the sake of self-preservation, and thus, that which had for so
long been feared came to pass at last. On the 5th of January 1525 Clement
informed the Emperor of what had taken place in the most conciliatory and the
least definite way possible ; his affection for Charles was not lessened, but
the movement against Naples, undertaken by Albany contrary to his (Clement’s) will, had forced him into an agreement with
Francis for the security of his own interests. Clement VII evidently still
hoped to keep up a tolerable understanding with Charles; in this he was
completely deceived.
This
step of the Pope’s threw the usually cautious and moderate Emperor into a
bitterness of resentment unknown before. He could hardly conceive that this
same Medici who as Cardinal had always been on his side, should as Pope have
turned over to the French. “I shall go”, so he expressed himself, “into Italy,
and revenge myself on those who have injured me, especially on that poltroon,
the Pope. Someday, perhaps, Martin Luther will become a man of weight”. In the
Imperial Court the election of Clement was attacked on the grounds of his
illegitimate birth. In the council of the Archduke Ferdinand a proposal was
made that all diplomatic relations with the Holy See should be broken off. On
the 7th of February 1525 Charles answered the Papal letter; nothing in his
reply betrayed his inward agitation. The Emperor, such was its tenor,
reverenced the Pope as a father, and was well aware that he had been deceived
by the French party. But two days later he wrote a letter to Sessa, in which
his wrath against Clement, for whose election he had “poured out streams of
gold”, broke out afresh. The Ambassador was distinctly told to inform Clement
that the Emperor would carry his plans through, even if it cost him crown and
life. The letter closed with the threat, “The present situation is not the best
in which to discuss the affairs of Martin Luther”. Thus to the internal
confusion and warfare of Christendom was added a dangerous strain in the
relations between Pope and Emperor, and this exactly at the opening of the year
in which the social revolution broke out in Germany.
CHAPTER II.
Results
of the Battle of Pavia. —Quarrels between the Pope and the Emperor. —Formation
of a Coalition against Charles V (League of Cognac, May 22, 1526).
On
the 24th of January 1525 the Imperialists broke out of Lodi; in the first days
of February they appeared before the French army, still besieging the
stronghold of Pavia, with the intention of forcing a battle. Peals of bells and
beacon-fires from the towers of the old Lombard city welcomed the relief in
this hour of need. For three weeks the hostile forces faced one another. The
French camp was admirably protected by nature and art; on the right it was
covered by the Ticino, on the left by a large park surrounded by a high wall,
within which lay the famous Certosa.
On
the 24th of February, the Emperor’s birthday, his army, composed of Spaniards,
Italians, and the dreaded German landsknechts, opened the attack. At daybreak
the battle, which was to decide the “Italian imperium”, began. In a few hours
the murderous fight was over; the gallant troops of Francis were laid low
before the onset of the German landsknechts and Spanish veterans; the King
himself was a prisoner.
The
victory of Pavia made the Empire of Charles the ruling power in Europe. It is
impossible to describe the impression everywhere produced by this historical
catastrophe. The bloodshed and strife in which France and the houses of Spain
and Hapsburg had engaged for the mastery in Europe, seemed to be brought to an
end by this unexpected blow. France lay at the Emperor’s feet, while Italy, and
with her the Papacy, were surrendered defenceless to his power. In Rome men
were dumbfounded by the news of the great event. Clement, whose diplomatists
were seeking up to the last hour for accommodations that might lead to peace,
looked to Lombardy with indescribable anxiety. His position was in the highest
degree precarious. The loss of the independence of Italy meant also that of the
Holy See. With Milan and Naples in the Emperor’s hands, the Papacy was
threatened with enclosure in a circle of iron. But Clement, in his anxiety and
his statecraft, was as incapable of a great resolution, such as a Julius II
would have taken, as he was of any definite action.
Persuaded
by Giberti and Carpi, Clement had departed from his strict neutrality and
linked his fortunes, for the worse rather than the better, with those of the
French King, whose superiority at the moment had seemed to promise him a
lasting triumph. But the fortune of war is fickle; what would happen if Francis
were defeated? At the last moment Giberti and Clement seem to have perceived
their mistake. Hence the exhortations to Francis I not to put his fortune to
the proof, to refuse the wager of battle, and to have recourse to negotiations
instead. As late as the 19th of February Giberti asked Aleander, the Nuncio, to
represent matters in this way to the French King. He added, “As no sailor ever
risks the storm of the open sea with one anchor only, so the Pope, confident
though he be in the strength of Francis I, will not stake all upon the single
throw of his success before Pavia”. In saying this, Giberti condemned his own
policy, and a week later the news reached Rome that the cast of war had been
thrown—not in favour of Francis I and his ally the Pope.
On
the evening of the 26th of February Clement received, in a letter from Cardinal
Salviati, the first intelligence of the Emperor’s victory. To him, as well as
to all around him, the news seemed incredible; but later accounts, including
one by an eyewitness, put all doubt at an end. The Pope was as one dead; his
terror was increased by the reaction produced in his household by this event.
All the Imperialists, the Spaniards, as well as the Colonna, gave way to the
wildest rejoicing. Such a change of fortune surpassed their boldest hopes.
Cardinal Pompeo Colonna held a brilliant festival in his palace throughout the
city rang the echos of salvoes of congratulation, and
the cries of rejoicing of “Empire, Spain, Colonna”. The Orsini, who were of the
French party, had the very worst to fear their leaders were absent; they and
their levies were with the Duke of Albany, who had returned from his march to
Naples, to the immediate neighbourhood of Rome, and there had pitched his camp
about the loth of February.
All
thought of pursuing his expedition was given up, and Albany decided to return.
On the 2nd of March two thousand five hundred men, consisting of Frenchmen and
the Orsini, began their homeward march. Acting on a swift resolution, Colonna,
supported by some of Sessa’s retainers, fell upon them suddenly at the
monastery of Tre Fontane, and drove them in hasty flight within the city.
Wherever the Orsini sought refuge, the Colonna were at their heels; fighting
took place in the Ghetto and on Monte Giordano. The whole city was in an
uproar; the streets rang with the war-cries “Orsini—Colonna”. The terrified
inhabitants bolted their doors; artillery was placed to protect the Vatican,
and the Swiss stood under arms all night. The terror-stricken Pope did all he
could to restore quiet, and was successful in inducing Albany to disband his
forces. The Italians were left behind; the foreigners, under the Duke, fell
back on Civita Vecchia, and
at the end of March they were conveyed in French galleys to Marseilles. In the
meanwhile Schonberg, who had returned to Rome on the 5th of March, succeeded in
pacifying the Colonna.
All
these occurrences had made the deepest impression on the Pope. The fights,
especially between the Orsini and the Colonna, engaged in under his very eyes,
raised his alarm to the highest pitch. While in Rome the ground was trembling
under his feet, his fears for Florence were also aroused, where the ideas of
Savonarola were again springing into life. Still more precarious was the Papal
rule in the Romagna, where the Ghibellines were rejoicing over the victory of
Pavia. The Imperialists lost no time in taking advantage of Clement’s necessity. They held the trembling Pope, who in vain urged moderation, in a
vice of iron. Their troops carried fire and sword ruthlessly through the
territory of Piacenza; Lannoy even uttered the threat that he would lead his
soldiers on Rome. By such means Clement was forced first to pay 25,000 ducats,
and then to make a treaty of alliance.
The
most zealous opponent of an alliance between the Pope and the Emperor was
Giberti, who, supported by Lodovico di Canossa, who was in the service of
France, and by the Venetian Ambassador, was doing all he could at this time to
unite the whole of Italy, under Papal leadership, in a league against the
Spanish domination, and was also trying to bring England, the jealous rival of
Charles V, into the combination. There were moments when the Pope, in torments
of indecision, lent such a ready ear to his proposals that Giberti believed the
desired end to have been reached; but at the last moment the Imperialist
Schonberg upset his plans. The most immediate danger undoubtedly came from
Charles V, who had it in his power to wrest Florence from the Medici. At the
same time Piacenza was sending pressing appeals for help against the unbridled
licence of the soldiery. Lastly, the news concerning the social revolution in
Germany and the advances of the Turk was of an exceptionally disturbing kind.
Clement VII saw that, cost what it might, he must come to terms with the
Emperor.
On
the 1st of April 1525 a treaty, defensive and offensive, was concluded between
the Pope and Lannoy as Imperial Viceroy in Italy. The terms of the agreement
were that both should recognize Francesco Sforza as Duke of Milan, and that the
Emperor should take the States of the Church, Florence, and the house of Medici
under his protection, Florence paying in return 100,000 ducats. Lannoy,
moreover, undertook to withdraw his forces from the Papal States and to place
no garrisons therein in future without the Pope’s permission. In the event of
Charles not having ratified these conditions within four months, the 100,000
ducats were to be refunded by Lannoy. There were besides three other separate
articles, to the following effect:—
1. The
Pope was to hold, in the kingdom of Naples, the rights connected with benefices
as settled in the Bull of investiture.
2. Milan
was in the future to have the salt from the Papal salt-pits in Cervia.
3. Lannoy
was to insist on the restoration of Reggio and Rubbiera to the Church by the Duke of Ferrara on this restoration being made the Pope
was to pay 100,000 ducats to the Emperor and absolve the Duke from all
censures.
Without
waiting for the Imperial ratification, Lannoy had already, in April, published
the treaty in Milan. The Pope, who on receipt of favourable letters from the
Emperor’s court and from Lannoy had the best hopes of Charles’s conduct, did
the same in Rome in May. He combined with this solemnity his official Possesso of the Lateran. From the Spanish Nuncio
Castiglione came very reassuring accounts of the moderation of the victorious
Emperor, so that on the 5th of May Clement resolved to send Cardinal Salviati
to Spain as Legate in order to work for the restoration of peace, the execution
of the treaty, the prosecution of the Turkish war, and the suppression of
Lutheranism. Salviati at this moment was still in Parma; in order to accelerate
his journey, it was determined on the 12th of June that he should proceed by
sea instead of going through France, as at first intended; he was also instructed
to discuss the Emperor’s coronation and the question of a council. Accordingly,
the Legate left Parma on the 2nd of July and embarked at Genoa; on the 23rd of
August the Pope was able to give very favourable accounts of him in Consistory.
But in reality the Cardinal’s task was beyond his powers; he fell under the
fascination of Charles and saw everything in the rosiest light. The official
correspondence also between the Pope and Emperor was carried on in the
friendliest terms for some time longer the points of controversy were slurred
over as much as possible, and those of common interest emphasized.
It
was impossible, however, that each party should go on deceiving the other for
ever. In spite of all assurances of friendship, a breach was bound to come
soon, since the Pope was becoming more and more convinced that the arrogant
commanders of Charles’s army had no intention of carrying out the terms of the
treaty of April, and were, indeed, often acting in direct contradiction to
them. Instead of the withdrawal of their troops from the Papal States, fresh
occupations took place in the territory of Piacenza, whereby the country was
exhausted and laid waste. Lannoy certainly made daily promises to Clement that,
as soon as the 100,000 ducats were paid in full, the restoration of Reggio and Rubbiera would take place; but in secret he had already
secured the possession of these places to Duke Alfonso of Ferrara. He also
urgently advised the Emperor not to confirm the additional clauses of the
treaty. Charles took his advice; the restoration of Reggio and Rubbiera, in which towns Clement saw the keys of Parma and
Piacenza, the Papal salt monopoly in Milan, and the arrangements for Church
patronage in the kingdom of Naples, were consequently discarded and remained a
dead letter. Nevertheless, the Imperialists refused to repay to the Pope the
sums disbursed by him for the promised surrender of the towns. The more Clement
saw that this behaviour had the Emperor’s approbation, the greater became his
mistrust and indignation. When the Imperial ratification of the principal
treaty arrived, he declined to accept it, since it had not been executed within
the stipulated four months, and proceeded to demand back the 100,000 ducats
paid by Florence. This the Imperialists declined, under empty pretexts, to
refund. Clement, who was suffering from gout, was fully justified in saying
that he had been cheated, injured, and insulted. In addition to these
grievances came Charles’s heavy claims on the church patronage of Aragon. “If
the affairs of the Church are treated in this way”, said Clement to Sessa, “it were best that I should betake myself
back to Soracte”.
The
rumours concerning the intentions of Charles’s advisers and of his
commander-in-chief in Italy were of the kind most likely to throw the Pope into
fear and despair. The proposal which came from this quarter, with a view to
trampling underfoot the independence of the whole Apennine Peninsula, aimed at
nothing less than the total confiscation of the Papal States. Not merely were
Florence, Siena, and Lucca to come under the Emperor’s rule, but Modena also
was to fall to the Duke of Ferrara, and the Bentivogli were to be reestablished in Bologna. Lannoy, the
soul of the anti-Papal intrigues, demanded also that Parma and Piacenza,
Ravenna and Cervia, should be separated from the
States of the Church; the first two were destined for the Duke of Milan, the
two last for the Republic of Venice. The Pope was aware of these intrigues,
but, being powerless, had to play a losing game with a cheerful countenance;
for if the Emperor was able to come to terms with Francis at the expense of
Italy, then Clement was lost. This eventuality seemed to be very close at hand
when the captive King of France was removed to Spain (10th of June 1525).
In
Rome, in Venice, indeed throughout the whole of Italy, the impression prevailed
that the Emperor intended to become reconciled to his prisoner at the cost of
Italian independence, and the freedom of Italy would be destroyed for ever. The
decisive moment seemed to have come to run the last risk and throw off the yoke
of those whom they called “barbarians.” In the sphere of literature and art the
Italian of those days was unquestionably entitled to consider himself superior
to the Spaniard, and indeed to all the other nations in Europe. This
self-consciousness gave powerful nourishment to the revival of the national
idea. “All Italy,” declared Antonio de Leyva, the loyal general of the Emperor,
“is at one in combining to defend the common interests and to resist any
further increase of the power of Spain. There is not a single Prince among them
who thinks any longer of the favours received from Charles.”
In
other respects also affairs were tending more and more to the Emperor’s
disadvantage. After the defeat at Pavia, it had at first seemed as if the
French kingdom must fall in pieces. But afterwards a complete change came over
affairs. It was the Regent, Louisa of Savoy, the King’s mother, who held the
nation together and became its leader. She soothed the disaffected among the
nobles and generals, reconciled factions, organized the defences of the
country, and disclosed in all directions a capacity for rule which was as
determined as it was prudent. She it was, also, who succeeded in detaching
Henry VIII, envious of the good fortune of Charles, from the Emperor, and in
concluding at the end of August a treaty of peace and alliance between France
and England.
Some
considerable time before this, the Regent had also entered into communications
with the States of Italy. Her primary object was to win over the two most
powerful—the Pope and Venice. For this purpose Louisa of Savoy employed the
services of a man who, although by birth an Italian, was yet one of the most
fervent adherents of her son. This was Lodovico di Canossa, Bishop of Bayeux.
He was an intimate friend of Giberti, and was also held in great esteem at
Venice. At the end of 1524 and in the spring of the following year he was in
Rome, making himself personally active, and at that time he believed that he
had already fully secured the anxious-minded Pope. At the beginning of June
1525 Canossa gave out that he had to visit his family in Verona; he really went
in haste to Venice, which he reached on the 15th of June. Thither on the 23rd
came the French envoy, Lorenzo Toscano, with instructions from the Regent. On
the following day Canossa laid his proposals before the Signoria, but the
cautious Venetians declined to give a definite answer before the Pope had
declared himself. Canossa now worked with might and main, and his letters were
despatched in all directions; while urging the French Government to come as
quickly as possible to an understanding, he stirred up in Italy, wherever he
could, the fires of national hatred against the Spaniard. But his principal
object was to move the Pope, who still clung to his old policy of “I will and I
won't”, to declare himself openly.
The
confidant of Canossa’s plans and his best ally was Giberti, who, with Carpi’s
support, and with even greater perseverance than his friend, was working
against the Emperor behind Schonberg's back, in France, Switzerland, and
England, and, above all, trying to induce the Pope to come over finally to the
side of Francis. On the 25th of June 1525 Canossa wrote encouragingly: “All
points to a swift and satisfactory conclusion”. But it was precisely at this
juncture that the two friends met with the greatest difficulties. “Although the
Pope”, wrote Giberti to Canossa on the 1st of July, “is a good friend to the
emancipation of Italy, yet he will not fling himself headlong into an affair of
such weighty responsibility, and is, in the first place, determined to await
the arrival of Lorenzo Toscano”. At the same time, Giberti urged the closest
secrecy with regard to all their transactions, as success would be easy if they
succeeded in taking the Spaniards by surprise. In a letter addressed on the
same day to the Swiss Nuncio, Ennio Filonardi, Giberti confirms his account of Clement’s indecision. In consequence of the misconduct of
the Imperialists, Giberti here insists, especially with regard to their
infringements of the April treaty, war might easily arise; therefore the Nuncio
ought to take secret measures to have from eight to ten thousand Swiss in
readiness, in case of necessity, to fight, not only in Lombardy, but also in
Naples. Giberti was not less active in other ways as well. He told the Pope, in
the most emphatic language, that, if he let this opportunity go by, he would
bitterly repent it, and sink into a mere tool of the Emperor’s. Still Clement
was not to be moved to take any open steps, and Giberti, in desperation,
threatened that he would quit Rome.
Canossa
did not commit himself as long as the Pope and Venice refused to declare
themselves openly against Charles. On the 25th of June he explained to the
Regent that both the Pope and Venice were afraid lest France, thinking
exclusively of her own interests, should sacrifice Italy; even Giberti had his
misgivings of France in this respect. It was certainly strange that the agents
of France had never yet received full powers to conclude an alliance.
Consequently,
at Rome as well as at Venice, matters were taken in hand with the greatest
caution and reticence. Under cover of the closest secrecy, Giberti employed
Sigismondo Sanzio, one of Carpi’s secretaries, to
treat with the Regent, and Gregorio Casale to treat
with Henry VIII. One object was to ascertain the truth of a report emanating
from Spain, that the Emperor would probably visit Italy in person at the same
time, clear information was to be procured as to the help which “poor Italy”
might expect to receive. Sanzio and Casale left Rome almost simultaneously (9th and 10th of
July). In spite of all precautions, Sessa was informed of these movements. But
Clement VII managed, by the ambiguity of his language, entirely to deceive the
Spanish diplomatist.
The
shrewd Venetians proceeded with similar secrecy. They also put no trust in
France. Already, on the loth of July, Canossa had described to his friend
Giberti the hesitation of the Signoria, who awaited the decision of the Pope.
On the 18th he was able to report that Venice was prepared to enter into a
league with France on the conditions put forward by the Pope through Sigismondo Sanzio. For the present, however, this determination
was to be kept absolutely secret. The conditions were: Francesco Sforza to keep
Milan and marry a French Princess; the Pope to receive Naples and Sicily, and
France to pay monthly 50,000 ducats and supply 6600 land forces and 10 galleys;
the Italians in return to make an alliance, offensive and defensive, with
France, and to raise an army of 13,000 men for the liberation of the King.
By
the month of August the negotiations were at a standstill. Giberti’s and the Pope’s distrust of France had revived with increased strength. The
attitude of the Regent was, in fact, so suspicious that the fear that she might
treacherously surrender Italy to the Emperor was forced on men’s minds. She
prolonged the negotiations in such a way that it became more and more clear
that she was only making use of Italy in order to obtain the release of Francis
on more favourable terms. Not merely in Rome but also in Venice, where Canossa
was long kept waiting without any tidings from France being received, the worst
suspicions were aroused. Moreover, there came the news that Sigismondo Sanzio had been murdered in the neighbourhood of Brescia,
and all his correspondence stolen. Among the papers of this Ambassador were
some highly compromising documents relating to a plot to deprive the Emperor of
his ablest general.
The
iron hand of the haughty Spaniard lay with all its might on young Francesco
Sforza. The Duchy of Milan had been reconquered in his name, but he now saw
himself given over to the arbitrary rule of the Imperial governor and treated
with the most offensive insolence by the very men to whom, in their extreme
danger, he had been a firm support. Milan was under greater oppression than had
ever been known under French domination. The complete subjection of Sforza and
the incorporation of the Duchy into the Spanish Monarchy seemed now only a
question of time. To free his native land from the foreigner, the Duke’s
Chancellor, Girolamo Morone, devised a plan as clever
as it was daring. Pescara, the Emperor’s ablest general, felt himself ill-used
and pushed into the background by his master. Morone thus hoped to secure him. In deep secrecy, after the most cautious overtures,
he disclosed to Pescara his plan for delivering Italy from the Imperial sway,
and, in the event of success, promised him nothing less than the kingdom of
Naples, which the Pope would confer upon him. Although Pescara did not commit
himself to any definite assent, Morone was under the
impression that the Emperor’s general would yield to these brilliant promises.
The impetuous Italian believed that the game was in his hands, and put himself
into communication with Venice, Rome, and France. Soon all who were initiated
into the adventure were filled with the most overweening hopes. “I see the
world transformed”, wrote Giberti, “and Italy arising from the depths of misery
to the summit of prosperity.” Clement VII, who, at this time, saw everything
through the eyes of his present adviser, was of the same mind. But Pescara was
at heart a thorough Spaniard; he despised the Italians, and only wished to
become privy to their plots and to delay the crisis of the conspiracy. In
secret he betrayed all to the Emperor and promised to send him money and troops
so as to enable him with all possible speed to make peace with France. For never
had the danger been greater. Not only the Pope, Venice, and Milan, but also
Genoa and Ferrara were united in one common hatred of the Spaniard and fear of
the Imperial supremacy.
Pescara,
being in possession of conclusive evidence, threw off the mask. On the 14th of
October 1525 Morone, who had been lulled into
security, was suddenly seized, and all important places in the Duchy put under
military occupation. Against Francesco Sforza, who had taken refuge in the
citadel of Milan, a charge of felony was laid; the Milanese authorities were
bidden henceforward to execute their functions in the Emperor’s name.
The
news of these proceedings reached Rome on the 18th of October. They caused as
much perplexity, terror, and despondency as the victory of Pavia had done,
especially among those who were implicated in the intrigues. The Spaniards and
their partisans at once took up an aggressive attitude. To Cardinal Colonna,
who had left Rome a few days earlier, the remark was attributed that “with
100,000 ducats he would pledge himself to drive the Pope from his capital.” By
the 20th of October Mendoza had come upon the scene commissioned by Pescara to
explain the reasons for Morone’s arrest and the
necessity, arising therefrom, of occupying the Duchy. Clement was unable, at
first, to conceal his embarrassment; but afterwards he controlled himself, and
tried to justify his recent conduct: the restitution of Reggio and Rubbiera had not taken place, but had been indefinitely
deferred; in like manner the article concerning the salt monopoly had not been
complied with; further, the Imperial forces continued to occupy the Papal
States, to the ruin of the population. To crown all came the removal of the
French King into Spain and the suspicious visit of the Duke of Ferrara to the
Emperor. In view of the generally received opinion that Charles intended to
come to terms with his prisoner to the detriment of the Papacy and of the whole
of Italy, Clement had been filled with the greatest distrust, and had taken a
share in the movements against the Emperor, so as not to be left in total
isolation. Since the occupation of Milan by the Emperor’s troops he was fully
under the impression that Charles was aiming at the complete conquest and
subjugation of Italy. Mendoza and Sessa laboured in vain, during the following
days, to convince the Pope that such apprehensions were groundless. Clement was
emphatic in declaring that everything hung on the possession of Milan, and that
he should never reconcile himself to Lombardy being ruled by Charles or
Ferdinand. This possession of Milan clashed with the conditions of the
investiture of the kingdom of Naples it gave the Emperor unlimited power in
Italy, and rather than yield on this point, he would prefer to share the
downfall of all the princes of Italy. The Pope made no concealment of his
determination to act on the defensive with Venice, France, and England.
The
extent of Clement’s alarm at this moment is shown
from the fact that he at once gave orders to provide Parma and Piacenza with
troops, and that he saw to the fortification of Rome and to the enlistment of
additional troops.
There
were real grounds for the fears of Clement and the Italians. “The only remedy”,
wrote Mendoza to Charles on the 5th of November, “lies in this : to make peace
with France, to take possession of Milan, and —to wrest both Parma and Piacenza
from our Holy Mother the Church”. Thus wrote the man who had just been
imparting to the Pope the most pacifying assurances. Can Clement and the other
Italian powers be blamed if they sought to make their own position secure? “Intrigues
are more rife than ever”, Caracciolo reported to the
Emperor on the 10th of November from Venice. “All depends on separating Venice
and the Pope : it would be a very easy thing to win the latter”. Charles V
seems also to have taken this view hence the distinguished reception given, at
the beginning of October, to Cardinal Salviati at Toledo. The Emperor spoke so
convincingly of his peaceful intentions, of his plans against Turks and
heretics, of his filial reverence for the Holy Father, that not the least doubt
of his sincerity occurred to Salviati. The Emperor also gave tranquillizing
assurances with respect to Milan, Reggio, and Rubbiera in reality he meant very differently. But for the moment his one object was,
while keeping his hold on Clement and winning him over by fair words and
promises, to crush the dangerous movement towards freedom in Italy. For this
purpose he sent a special envoy to Rome in the person of Miguel de Herrera.
In
the meantime the opposite party pressed their suit on Clement not less
zealously. The Spanish envoys saw with special anxiety the strenuous efforts of
the Venetians to bring the Pope to a final decision. Their fears increased as
the couriers came and went incessantly between Rome and Venice. Clement was as
far as ever from any fixed determination. The alarm caused by the arrest of Morone influenced him powerfully. This procrastination
caused dissatisfaction not only to the anti-Imperialists but to the Roman
public, who attributed all their misfortunes to the Pope’s indecision and
stinginess. Just at this time a powerful impulse was given to the hopes and
spirits of the Italians; Pescara, the special object of their hatred and the
Emperor’s ablest general, was removed by death in the night between the 2nd and
3rd of December, while France had made fresh promises. Incessant pressure was
now put on the Pope to give his adhesion to the League for good and all.
The
position in the meantime was such that armed intervention in support of Italy
by France and England could not be expected with any certainty. To strike
singlehanded would have been foolhardiness. Under such circumstances even a
man of strong determination would have hesitated; much more Clement VII, whose
leading characteristics were timidity and indecision. No one has described his
strange character so strikingly as Guicciardini. Always slow in forming his
plans as well as in their execution, Clement was easily frightened by the
smallest difficulty. Hardly had he come, by good luck, to a decision, than the
reasons which had led him fell entirely into the background, and it seemed to
him that he had not sufficiently weighed those on the other side. He often gave
way to the representations of his advisers without being thoroughly-convinced
by them. If only his ministers had been at least of one mind! But Giberti had
always been a strong adherent of France, and Schonberg an equally strong
Imperialist; this made the confusion complete. The Pope’s attitude depended on which
of these two alternating counsellors was in the ascendant.
Giberti’s influence was now once more to be thwarted. If we may believe Guicciardini, the
day for the conclusion of the League against Charles V had been already fixed
when the news was brought that Herrera had landed at Genoa. This was enough to
reopen the whole question from the beginning. The Pope announced that he must
first hear the proposals which Herrera was bringing from the Emperor.
Herrera
reached Rome at last on the 6th of December, bringing with him very friendly
letters from Charles and drafts of a treaty which had been discussed with
Salviati. Schonberg was now at once in the ascendant. Giberti, who, on the 5th,
still had strong hopes of securing the Pope’s adhesion on the following day,
was now in such despair that he threatened to leave Rome. Perhaps, as the
opponents of Charles feared, an alliance between the Pope and Emperor might
then have been made, if Herrera’s offers had been satisfactory. This, however,
was not the case, and the negotiations took shape with difficulty. The Pope was
determined that with respect to Reggio and Rubbiera something more concrete and tangible than mere promises should be forthcoming.
Over the Milanese question, the turning-point of all, agreement was impossible.
Matters having reached this point, Sessa and Herrera proposed that the
negotiations should be suspended for two months, with the secret intention of
gaining time in which to make fresh preparations for war and arouse suspicion
among Clement’s previous friends. Schonberg and
Salviati managed to raise Clement’s distrust of the
French and other anti-Imperialists to such a pitch that he accepted the Spanish
proposal. The Pope, however, expressly declared at the time that if the Emperor
did not surrender Milan within the appointed term of adjournment he would enter
the League with France and Venice.
The
opponents of Charles in Rome, Giberti, Carpi, and Foscari, as well as the
ministers of the Queen Regent, were highly exasperated by this decision ; not
less so Guicciardini and Canossa. In this respect their complaints of the Pope
were hardly justified. The time gained by the adjournment was certainly of
advantage to the Emperor, but also to the Pope. Clement might well hope that in
two months’ time the state of things, especially the attitude of France and
England, would have become so much clearer that he might more easily make the
decision charged with such weighty issues.
Before
the two months were out, on the 14th of January 1526, the Peace of Madrid was
settled between Charles and Francis. By this agreement the captive King of
France consented to almost all the demands of the victor. He surrendered the
Duchy of Burgundy, the countship of Charolais, and the suzerainty over Flanders
and Artois Bourbon and the other rebels were amnestied; all claims to Naples,
Milan, Genoa, and Asti were renounced; and lastly, he promised to supply forces
on land and sea to accompany Charles on his expedition to Rome, or in warfare
against the Turk. After inexplicable delays the Emperor ratified the treaty at
last on the 11th of February. On the 17th of March Francis was exchanged for
his two sons, who were to remain with Charles as hostages. With the cry : “Now
I am once again a King!”—he set foot on French soil.
The
Treaty of Madrid was perhaps the gravest political mistake which Charles V had
made. Not without reason did his Chancellor Gattinara refuse to declare his
agreement with demands which he knew to be excessive and impracticable. The
treaty in fact laid upon the vanquished obligations of such vast extent that
their fulfilment from a man like Francis I could never be expected. Still less
was it to be supposed that such a nation as France would degrade itself to
become a power of the second rank and own vassalage to the Emperor. Public
opinion on the whole, so far as such a thing could then be spoken of, was now
steadily inclining towards Francis. In view of the almost brutal way in which
Charles was seizing the spoils of victory, hardly anyone believed that the King
would observe the peace. In Italy especially this opinion had wide acceptance.
Although
no one had any inkling of the secret protest made by Francis before the
conclusion of the treaty, he was counselled on all sides to break the oath he
had just sworn. Even Clement VII, the practical politician, was in this
instance no exception; he considered that treaty and oath, if extorted, were
not binding. The Pope wished in the first place to obtain clear information of
the intentions of Francis. He therefore sent, as Venice had done, an embassy to
the King, ostensibly to congratulate him on his release from captivity, but
really to discover his true intention and, in the event of his not keeping the
treaty with Charles, to form an alliance with him. On the 22nd of February 1526
Paolo Vettori was entrusted on the part of the Pope
with this mission. Vettori having fallen ill on the
journey, Capino da Capo, who was in the confidence of
Francis, was ordered to go to France on the 1st of March 1526. Yet a further
appointment was made on the 20th of April, when the Florentine
Roberto Acciaiuoli was nominated Nuncio-in-ordinary
at the French court.
Capino could
hardly travel quick enough to please the Pope; for safety his letters were
addressed to a merchant in Rome. By the end of March he arrived at the French
court, where at the same time Andrea Rosso, the representative of Venice, made
his appearance. The King received Capino most
graciously, and assured him that he would willingly do all in his power to
prevent Charles from putting his yoke on Italy; he would give a full and
definite answer as soon as the solemnities of Easter were over. On Easter
Monday, the 2nd of April, the formal negotiations began. By the 8th Capino was able to announce that France was won for the
League; Venice and the Pope had only now to send the full powers to conclude
the alliance. The news that Francis was prepared to support the work of “the
liberation of Italy” and to come to the help of Francesco Sforza, still
beleaguered by the Spaniards in the citadel of Milan, caused the greatest
excitement in all who were privy to the scheme.
The
great coalition against the Emperor was now only a question of time. I fit did
not become an accomplished fact until the 22nd of May, this was on account of
the gravity of the transaction and the mutual distrust of the contracting
parties. However great was the desire of all the Emperor’s enemies that he should
be vanquished, no one wished to take the first and principal part in his
overthrow. The Italians were still, not without reason, filled with jealousy of
France; they wished, therefore, that England should enter the League in order
to secure them from any defection on the part of Francis I. Henry VIII,
however, wished the League to be ratified in England, a proceeding which would
have meant the loss of much precious time. But bold action was called for under
any circumstances, for just at that particular moment the Emperor’s forces were
in a critical state owing to the want of money and provisions. Since Henry held
firm to his demand, the accession of England to the League had to be renounced.
In
Venice decisive measures were pushed on. At a very early date movements of
troops began, the object of which admitted of no doubt. Even the Pope now stood
firm, although his Spanish Nuncio, Castiglione, repeatedly besought him in
eloquent language to withdraw from an undertaking certain to bring ruin in its
train. “These clever persons”, wrote Canossa on the 19th of February to Giberti
from Venice, “who would persuade his Holiness that the league with France
involves his own ruin and that of Italy, and that no one is bound to sacrifice
himself in order to give freedom to others, ought simply to tell us what ruin
can ensue greater than that which we have to fear at
this present time”. The direct sovereignty of the Emperor over Milan, in the
opinion of a Sienese diplomatist, meant for the Pope and Venice the total loss
of independence.
Thus
Castiglione's warnings were unheeded. However favourably he and Salviati might
represent the Emperor’s intentions, facts in Italy told another story. The
whole country cried out for deliverance from the galling yoke of the Spaniards,
whose soldiery were driving the people of Lombardy to despair. “Hunt down these
wild beasts who have only the faces and voices of men”, exclaimed Macchiavelli. “Alas! poor Italy”, sighed a poet, “whither
hast thou fallen? Thy glory, thy fame, thy strength have perished”.
Guicciardini expressed the opinion of all patriotic men when he spoke of the
war of deliverance as a holy and necessary national event. Clement concurred
all the more willingly in the general voice since, duped by the Imperialists,
he saw the most important stipulations of the April treaty still left
unfulfilled. Parma and Piacenza were still overrun by the troops of Charles and
their inhabitants subjected to the heaviest exactions. If this was a cause of
resentment to the Pope, not less so were the Emperor’s encroachments, not only
in Naples but also in Spain, on the Papal prerogatives regarding presentation
to ecclesiastical posts. What turned the scale, however, was Charles’s
unmistakable endeavour to secure for himself the sovereignty of Milan and, with
it, of all Italy. The idea of European dominion was more and more inseparably
bound up with the possession of this noble land. “Let the Emperor,” said a
Roman diplomatist, “rule Italy, and he will rule the world”.
Thus
on the 22nd of May 1526 was brought about between Clement VII, Francis I,
Venice and Sforza, the so-called Holy League of Cognac. By this compact, which
was for the greater part the work of Giberti, it was settled that the Duchy of
Milan belonged to Francesco Sforza, who, thenceforward, was to pay 50,000
ducats yearly to France; all Italian states were to receive back the
possessions which they held before the war; Asti and the suzerainty of Genoa
were to fall to France; Venice and the Pope were to decide on the number of the
retinue of the Emperor on his journey to Rome for the coronation, and the sons
of Francis I were to be ransomed for a reasonable sum. If these terms were
refused by the Emperor, the members of the League were to declare war against
him and also wrest from him the kingdom of Naples, to be bestowed by the Pope
on an Italian prince, who should then pay to the King of France a yearly
tribute of 75,000 ducats. In the event of the hoped-for inclusion of England
taking place, further special stipulations were agreed upon. Two secret clauses
were added by which Florence was also to enjoy the protection of the League,
and Clement, in the event of the Emperor complying and retaining the Neapolitan
kingdom, was to receive from the revenues of that crown a yearly tribute of
40,000 ducats. “We have succeeded,” Capino reported
on the 24th of May to Umberto da Gambara; “the treaty
was concluded the day before yesterday; for God’s sake keep all as secret as
possible.”
CHAPTER
III.
Clement
VII and Italy at War with Charles V.—The Raid of the Colonna.
The
exorbitant demands made by the victor of Pavia were followed by a natural
reaction; this took the shape of the great coalition known as the League of
Cognac. To the Italians, in whom thoughts of nationality were stirring, the
long-wished-for moment seemed to have come to grasp their freedom and
independence. In the opinion of Giberti the war was not undertaken on behalf of
affronted honour, nor for revenge, nor to establish the supremacy of this or
that city—the stake was the freedom or the perpetual slavery of Italy; never
had a more favourable opportunity been given than now to clip the wings of the
ever-threatening eagle.
The
Pope’s confidant had deceived himself in a matter of the gravest consequence.
In the first place, the stipulations agreed to at Cognac were of such a
character that, even in case of success, far more influence would accrue to
France in the affairs of Italy than would be compatible with the real
independence of that sorely tried country. Still more prejudicial was the
diversity of personal aims among the members of the League. The Italians hoped,
with the help of France, to shake off the Spanish yoke, while Francis I really
only wished to make use of the Italians in order to set at naught the Peace of
Madrid. Lastly, as regards Francesco Sforza, hard pressed by the Spaniards and
in extreme danger in the citadel of Milan, the conclusion of the League was
premature, since the forces necessary for his relief were anything but ready; in Rome these circumstances were completely
overlooked. As soon as it was known for a certainty that the League was settled
there was an outburst of strong warlike feeling throughout the city.
Orders
were given without delay that the Papal troops should concentrate at Piacenza,
and everything was done to hasten the advance of the Venetians and Swiss
against Lombardy. Arrangements were made as if war against Charles had already
been declared. In the first week of June, Guido Rangoni, Vittello Vitelli, and Giovanni de' Medici were
enlisted in the service of Florence and of the Pope. Francesco Guicciardini,
who had distinguished himself, under very difficult circumstances, as Governor
of the ever-restless Romagna, undertook the post of Commissary-General with
almost unlimited powers over the army. In Papal circles the most comprehensive
plans were proposed for the expulsion of the Imperialists from Italy. The first
necessity was to guarantee the safety of Rome and the Papal States prisoners
were to be confined in the city itself; it was forbidden to carry arms; the
Spaniards were closely watched; no one could travel through the Papal States or
Florentine territory without special permission; no one was allowed to raise
troops for the enemy. As a safeguard against the Colonna there was a scheme
for seizing Paliano and cutting it off from Naples by
the help of the Conti and Gaetani. It was taken for granted that actual war
would begin with the capture of the citadel of Milan by Papal and Venetian
troops; this having been successful, the Milanese territory would be occupied
as thoroughly as possible, and there the arrival of the French and Swiss would
be awaited. But at the same time combined attack was to be made on the
Imperialists from many other quarters: in Genoa by Andrea Doria; in Siena with
the help of the exiles; in Naples by co-operation with the Orsini, and in
Apulia by means of a Venetian fleet. There were further projects of obtaining
aid from Savoy and the enemies of Charles in Germany. Moreover, to the Venetians
was given the task of blockading the passes of the Alps so as to prevent the
Imperialists being reinforced from Germany. By these united efforts it was
hoped to break down the Emperor’s power, and to replace Italy in the position
which she held prior to 1494.
The
Pope, who on other occasions was so extraordinarily nervous and apprehensive,
shared Giberti’s warlike spirit and his certainty of
victory. Both, however, were gravely in error concerning friends and foes
alike. They rated the strength of the former too high and that of the latter
too low ; neither of them weighed the fact that the last thing for which the
Papal finances were adequate was the cost of a war; both believed too easily
that their hopes would be realized, and allowed themselves to be drawn into an
undertaking the execution of which would have taxed to the utmost even the
capacities of a Julius II.
As
soon as Charles V became aware of the danger threatening him he determined to
break through the enemy’s circle. Ugo de Moncada, already distinguished in the
Spanish service by his craft and boldness, and hated for his cruelty towards
his foes, was appointed to carry out the enterprise. The choice seemed
unfortunate even to so sympathetic an Imperialist as Castiglione, for Moncada
belonged to the “Exaltados”, whose policy aimed at
the subjection of all Italy to Spanish military despotism.
Moncada
first turned to Francesco Sforza in order to induce him to desert the League.
On the failure of this mission he betook himself to Rome, which he reached on
the 16th of June. He came, “with a barrelful of promises”, too late, for three
days before, the College of Cardinals had approved the League of Cognac.
Charles
had instructed Moncada to try to bring the Pope to terms in a friendly way, or
else, following the suggestion of Cardinal Colonna, to compel him by raising
insurrection in Rome, Siena, and Florence, and driving him from the city. The
Imperial instruction, dated the 11th of June 1526, closed with the words: “If
you are unsuccessful in gaining Clement, speak secretly to Cardinal Colonna, so
that he may set in hand, as if on his own initiative, the matter recommended by
his agents, and give him privily every support.” The representations and offers
of Moncada and Sessa were quite ineffectual, as might have been foreseen from
the explicit declaration made to the latter by Clement on the 9th of June. The
Pope, prompted by Giberti, insisted on his treaty obligations. Without the
consent of his allies, he could not come to terms with the Emperor. The proud
Spaniards had not believed this to be possible, and, enraged at the blunt
rejection of the ample inducements offered by them, they left the Vatican. On
this occasion Sessa mounted a buffoon behind him whose grimaces gave expression
to the Ambassador’s feelings. In accordance with the Emperor’s instructions,
the Spanish envoys began at once to lay the train for a revolution in Rome.
The
circumstances were exceptionally favourable to such a scheme. The Romans were
exceedingly incensed by the many taxes necessitated by the preparations for
war. When, in the last week of June, the butchers were laid under a fresh
impost, they refused to pay and—a sufficiently significant circumstance—took
refuge from the threatened arrests with the Imperial Ambassador. Sessa, in
fact, forced the Papal police to withdraw without having attained their object.
Meanwhile Rome was full of excitement, and two hundred Spaniards gathered round
Sessa’s palace. The Government, in consequence, was weak enough to remove the
tax, but the levy of troops for the protection of Rome continued. The Pope also
called to his assistance the house of the Orsini, for he had not only the Roman
populace to fear but the great Imperialist family of Colonna. To all
appearances the latter had hitherto behaved peaceably; but the ashes were smouldering, and it only
needed a puff of wind to rekindle them into flame. Cardinal Colonna, Clement’s old enemy, could not forget that the latter had
taken from him the tiara. Although this ambitious man had received the
Vice-Chancellorship and numerous marks of favour from Clement, yet he thought
himself insufficiently rewarded and, indeed, even placed in the background. Since
the autumn of 1525 the breach between him and the Pope had become notorious.
The Cardinal, in wrath and muttering threats of vengeance, had withdrawn to the
strongholds of his family and there remained in spite of a Papal monition. The
anti-Imperial policy of the Pope had raised his anger to the uttermost, and he
repeatedly proposed to the Ambassadors of Charles to let loose a revolution
against Clement in Rome, Siena, and Florence. The Emperor had yielded, and his
representatives, Moncada and Sessa, protected by the right of nations, were now
proceeding to enter more closely into the arrangements. On the 27th of June
Moncada went to Gennezzano; Sessa, who had already,
on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, presented the palfrey, but without the
usual tribute, went immediately afterwards to Naples to collect money and
troops; both travelled with Papal passports.
While
the Imperialists were thus acting secretly against the Pope, the latter had
entered openly on his contest with Charles. His Brief of the 23rd of June 1526
brought this about. This document contained a complete account of the relations
which had existed between the Emperor and Clement since the election of the
latter. While endeavouring to justify his own policy he submitted the conduct
of the Emperor to a criticism which was not only severe but perhaps immoderate.
From the beginning of his pontificate he had made every reasonable attempt not
only to maintain the general peace of Christendom, but especially to preserve
friendly relations with Charles; but since these overtures had not been
reciprocated, and had even been repelled, and the Emperor, either at the
instigation of his advisers or from personal inclination and ambition, had
determined to diminish and overpower the states of Italy and the Holy See, the
Pope had been forced, after long delay and the final pressure of necessity, to
declare a war of self-defence. In order to substantiate this position, Clement
produced a long array of facts. While Cardinal he had been loyal to the
Emperor, and had shirked no sacrifice on his account; likewise, after his
elevation to the Papacy, although bound by his office to observe a strict
neutrality, he had supported to the best of his power the Imperial interests in
Italy, so far as was compatible with the due exercise of his functions as
universal Father of Christians and with the interests of the Church.
The
alliance with Francis had become a necessity owing to the pressure of
circumstances and the strong persuasion of many persons. It had also been represented
to him that by entering into the League he would secure great advantages. When
the victory of Charles seemed to put an end to the war, he had at once
concluded a treaty with him, assuring himself that thereby the greatest
blessings would accrue to Italy and the whole of Christendom, and had given
100,000 ducats for the Imperial army, on condition of repayment in case the
treaty should in any way be received with suspicion. Although the treaty had
never been fully ratified, and the Emperor had thus left the Pope in the lurch,
the latter had nevertheless, when informed of the secret intrigues concerning
Pescara, apprised and warned Charles, thereby giving him evidence of his
unchanging friendship. Again, when, to his sorrow and that of all Italy, Sforza
lay besieged in Milan, and the Pope was pressed on all sides to take steps
against Charles, the mission of Herrera had at once aroused the wish to come to
a good understanding with the Emperor and caused all other counsels to be
brushed aside. Herrera's proposals he had accepted almost without alteration ;
and in a letter to Charles, written in his own hand, he had adjured him to
disprove the charge of immoderate ambition by giving guarantees of peace to
Italy, pardon to Sforza in the case of his surrender, and to afford protection
to Clement himself.
In
return, however, for all these and countless other marks of goodwill, the Pope
received at the hands of the Imperialists only the most discourteous treatment.
Clement VII could point to the calumnies and insults of the Imperial agents in
Italy, in whose words Charles puts more trust than in his; the violence offered
to his adherents in Siena, against which he had in vain called to the Emperor
for aid; the non-fulfilment of the treaty with Lannoy, of which all the
articles favourable to Charles had been complied with while those of advantage
to the Pope had been discarded; the delay in repaying the 100,000 ducats; the
quartering of Imperial troops on Papal territory contrary to the treaty
stipulations and accompanied by brutal oppression on the part of the soldiery;
the want of consideration shown in concealing from him the conditions of the
negotiations with Francis I; the unjust treatment of Sforza, who had been
condemned without any preliminary inquiry; the attacks on the ecclesiastical
rights of the Holy See; the concealment from the Papal agents of Lannoy’s dealings with Francis; the long sojourn of Moncada
in France; the attempt to snatch Parma from the Pope, and so forth. All these
circumstances had, of necessity, filled Clement with deep distrust of the
Emperor and induced him to transfer his friendship from the latter to other
monarchs better disposed towards him. Therefore, when Moncada, late and after
long delay, came to him with fresh proposals, their acceptance was no longer
possible, and nothing was left for the Pope to do but to take up arms perforce,
not as a personal attack on the Emperor, but to beat off a threatening
servitude and to restore a general peace. Once more he adjured the Emperor not
to force him into this hard necessity, and no longer to be led by the lust of
power, but to give back rest and peace to Christendom, and so gain for himself
praise as the most virtuous of princes.
The
Pope at once felt that in this despatch he had gone too far. On the 25th of
June, before the Cardinals gathered in Consistory, he produced the draft of a
short letter to the Emperor, couched in gentler terms, in which he announced
that his Nuncio, Baldassare Castiglione, would explain the reasons compelling him
to protect by force of arms the freedom of Italy and the Apostolic See. The
Cardinals gave their approval to this document, and, in a Consistory on the 4th
of July they resolved that on the following Sunday, the 8th, the League should
be formally made public. After solemn ratification by the Pope on the 5th the
publication took place amid such pomp and ceremony that Carpi reported that he
had never in his life seen such a festival held in Rome.
In
the meantime the war in upper Italy had begun.
At
first the position of the Imperialists was one of great danger. The Imperial
generals, almost wholly without money, found themselves opposed to the superior
forces of their enemies in the midst of a population driven to the extremities
of hatred and downright despair by the cruelties of the Spanish tyranny.
Everything turned on the use that the Leaguers made of this fortunate moment
for seizing the citadel of Milan by a sudden assault. No one saw this more
clearly than the Commissary-General of the Papal troops, Francesco Guicciardini.
His plan was to move the troops swiftly and simultaneously on Milan, and to
fall without delay on the Imperialists, even if the arrival of the Swiss and
French did not take place; for to remain inactive would ruin all. Giberti was
also of the same opinion, having already begun to feel anxious at the
non-appearance of French help.
The
Commander-in-Chief of the Venetians, Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, took an entirely different view; he found Guicciardini’s plan much too bold, and would do nothing
without the Swiss. In consequence of this division days were lost when every
hour was precious. On the 21st of June Canossa wrote: “Our victory was assured,
but is now so uncertain that I, for my part, have lost hope”.
While
the allies were making excuses for their inaction, the Imperialists were able
to repress a rising in Milan and to take measures for defence ; but their
position was still very precarious, especially now that Pescara was gone, and
they had not more than ten or eleven thousand men to set against the strong
force of three-and-twenty thousand opposing them. On the 24th of June the
Imperialists lost the town of Lodi through treachery. The passage of the Adda
was now secured to the allies, and the conjunction of the Papal and Venetian
troops might have taken place by the end of June. Giberti rejoiced; he saw in
spirit the country of his birth freed from the Spaniard. As a matter of fact,
no obstacle lay between the army of the League and the walls of Milan, where
the people awaited them, in the anguish of suspense, as deliverers from the
inhumanity of the Spaniards; the hapless Sforza still held out in the citadel. But
the Duke of Urbino obstinately refused to give battle before the arrival of the
Swiss, therefore his advance was very slow. His procrastination gave the
Constable de Bourbon time to send money and fifteen hundred Spaniards to the
help of the Imperialists. On the 7th of July the Duke of Urbino at last
ventured on an attack; because he was not at once successful, he gave orders to
fall back in spite of all Guicciardini’s counterrepresentations. His retreat was very like a
flight. To such a leader might be applied in an altered form the saying of
Caesar: “He came, saw, and fled.” After the arrival of five thousand Swiss the
Duke made a fresh advance, but with extreme slowness. On the 22nd of July he
took up a strong position before Milan; on the 24th he was still considering
his plan of action when the news came that the garrison of the citadel, reduced
to starvation, had surrendered to the Spaniards, who had begun to think of
leaving the city. The strange conduct of the Duke of Urbino gave rise at the
time to the suspicion that he wished to revenge himself on Clement VII for what
he had undergone at the hands of Leo X.
Simultaneously
with these occurrences an unfavourable turn occurred on the scene of war in
central Italy. The possession of Siena was at stake, a city of peculiar
importance owing to its situation between Rome, Florence, and Lombardy. There,
after the battle of Pavia, the party friendly to the Pope, after having
obtained a position of mastery with the help of the Duke of Albany, was
overthrown and driven out. The new Ghibelline government was entirely on the
Emperor’s side, who claimed the city as his own. On the advice of Salviati,
Clement made an attempt to recover this important position, and at the
beginning of July a simultaneous attack from five quarters was made on the
Sienese territory. The Count of Pitigliano advanced
from the Maremma, Virginio Orsini through the Val d’Orcia, the troops of Perugia
and the Florentines through the Va. d’Arbia; the
remainder of the Florentines through the Val dell’Elsa;
the seaports being attacked by Andrea Doria, who succeeded in at once taking Talamone and Porto Ercole. On
land also everything at first went well; but afterwards Ugo de Moncada had the
good luck to delay the march on Siena by introducing negotiations for peace. In
the meantime, the leaders of the expedition fell out among themselves, each one
having a different object in view. But the fatal error was the General’s want
of forethought in neglecting to make his camp sufficiently secure. On the 25th
of July the Sienese made a sortie, took thirteen cannon and routed the
besiegers.
The
news of the failure of the attack on Siena reached Rome at the same time as
that of the surrender of the citadel of Milan. The consternation was great, and
Clement VII’s grief at these misfortunes in the field was proportionate to his
previous confidence. He complained bitterly of the Duke of Urbino, the
Venetians, and Francis I; he had been deserted, he declared, by those for whom
he had placed himself in danger. Among the Emperor’s friends hopes arose that
the Pope might be led to abandon the League.
The
Pope’s complaints were only too well justified. The help promised from France
had, at this time, not yet arrived. The time of year favourable to military
operations had gone by, and the Italians waited in vain for the succour of
their French allies. This made a deep impression everywhere; even so blind a
partisan of France as Canossa began to have a glimmering notion that his
country was being betrayed by Francis I. His position in Venice became
intolerable; by the middle of July he was urgently asking for his recall.
Clement VII thought that one more attempt must yet be made; on the 19th of July
he sent Sanga, a confidant of Giberti’s, to the
French King to remind him, by earnest representations, of his obligations, and
if possible to move him to give more supplies of money, and especially to
undertake an expedition against Naples. All was in vain; the fickle King seemed
to have repented of all his martial zeal and was squandering his time and his
revenues on the chase, gambling, and women. England, moreover, held coldly
aloof; the Italians and the Pope were isolated.
The
Duke of Urbino had in the meantime begun the siege of Cremona, but conducted it
with his usual timidity and dilatoriness. On the 3rd of September the Marquis
of Saluzzo at last arrived, bringing with him only
four thousand five hundred Frenchmen. Guicciardini was now urgently calling on
the Duke to raise the siege of Cremona in order that he might devote himself to
the capture of Genoa, in Giberti’s opinion an object
of the first importance. Before the city a fleet of Papal, Venetian, and French
ships had assembled and the siege had begun; but capture was out of the
question without the co-operation of land forces. The distress within the city
had reached the highest pitch, and the appearance of the Duke’s army before the
walls would certainly have led to the surrender of this stronghold, but he
seemed only to seek for pretexts to avoid action. When Cremona at last
capitulated, on the 25th of September, the League gained little thereby. In
Rome, meanwhile, the certainty of victory had given place to fears of defeat;
Giberti himself had well-nigh lost all heart. The war dragged on while the
allies, and especially the Pope, were finding the want of money almost
insupportable. On the 1st of August the secretary of the French Embassy, Raince, described the condition of Clement VII: “I was with
his Holiness yesterday, and do not think that I ever before saw a man so
distracted, depressed, and careworn as he was. He is half ill with
disappointment, and said to me several times that he had never thought he could
have been treated in such a way. You have no idea what things are said about us
by persons of high standing in the Curia, on account of our delays and our
behaviour hitherto. The language is so frightful that I dare not write it. The
ministers of his Holiness are more dead than alive. You can picture to yourself
that the enemy will make use of the situation.”
To
Moncada, who had never left the Colonna, the moment appeared to have come to
carry out the Emperor’s advice, and to take vengeance on the Pope. The way in
which he set to work betrayed the politician trained in the school of the
Borgia. His plan was to lull Clement into security by means of a reconciliation
with the Colonna, to bring about the disarmament of his troops, and then to
fall upon the defenceless Pope.
The
enterprise succeeded beyond all expectation. The first step of importance was
to discover exactly the Pope’s feelings and position and to deceive him as
regards the intentions of the Colonna. The sojourn of Moncada in the castles of
this family was likely to arouse strong suspicion, therefore throughout July
the Colonna maintained an appearance of perfect quiet. That he might keep in touch
with affairs in Rome, Sessa, who had fallen ill at Marino, asked the Pope’s
leave to return in order to have medical treatment. Clement VII, himself a
sufferer at the time, gave his permission. In the Eternal City, where the
plague was raging, Sessa's illness soon took a fatal turn but he still had time
to show gratitude for the favour granted to him by letting the Colonna and
Moncada know in what straits the Pope found himself, especially in his finances.
The Colonna had been busily increasing their forces, but to outward appearance
had kept perfectly quiet. On the 12th of August the Florentine envoy reported: “No
anxiety is felt from the quarter of the Colonna nor from Naples. They are much
more frightened for themselves on account of the Venetian fleet expected at Civita Vecchia”. On the 18th of
August Sessa died. Shortly before, a fresh Ambassador from Francis had
presented himself before Clement, the historian, Guillaume du Bellay, Sire de Langey. It was soon understood that he only brought general
assurances of his master’s goodwill. The Florentine envoy who reports this
adds: “Here all is quiet, and no suspicions are aroused”. Instead of bringing
the expected help, the French agent produced fresh claims on behalf of Francis;
he demanded a tenth of the Church revenues of France for his sovereign and a
Cardinal’s hat for the Chancellor Du Prat. This must have put the Pope in great
ill humour.
Moncada
now held that the moment was propitious for entering into negotiations with
Clement. At the same time, the Colonna were suddenly to assume a threatening
attitude and take possession of Anagni. Moncada asked Clement to give him a
free hand in the settlement of the affairs of Italy, but afterwards backed out
of the transaction, leaving it to the Colonna alone to draw the Pope into the
trap laid for him, since by a settlement of their quarrel Clement would not
formally violate his pledges to the League. Vespasiano Colonna, son of Prospero, played the part of mediator. In him, from an early
period, Clement VII had placed special confidence; hard pressed by want of
money, he listened to the proposals of reconciliation made by Vespasiano in the name of his whole house. In spite of Giberti’s warnings a treaty with the Colonna, to which
Moncada was a party , was signed on the 20th of August 1526; they undertook to
evacuate Anagni and withdraw their troops into the kingdom of Naples. The Pope
pardoned all past injuries, removed the monition against Cardinal Colonna, and
guaranteed to the whole house the possession of their properties. On the 26th
of August the secretary of the Spanish Embassy, Perez, wrote in triumph from
Rome that the Pope, since his treaty with the Colonna, felt himself perfectly
safe; he was in great want of money, and dissatisfaction in Rome was
increasing.
Relying
on the treaty, Clement, whose first object was to reduce expenditure,
notwithstanding warnings of all sorts from those around him, cut down the
garrison of Rome to five hundred men, and resumed his negotiations with the
Ambassador of France. With a reference to the untrustworthy accounts given by
Sanga, he complained bitterly that French support was slow in coming, and in
order to stimulate Francis to some enthusiasm for the war, he proposed that the
latter should have Milan as his share of the booty, thereby totally
surrendering all thought of Italian independence.
While
these discussions were taking place came the disastrous news of the total
destruction of the Hungarian army by the Turks at Mohacs. Clement was
profoundly shaken, and in a Consistory on the 19th of September 1526, spoke of
going to Barcelona to treat of peace in person. Yet he was still anxious, first
of all, to break the excessive power of the Emperor, who at that very moment was
equipping his fleet with all energy and, according to reports current in Rome,
was threatening to pass over into Italy and to renounce his obedience.
Clement
had not yet recovered from the alarm caused by the Turkish victory when he was
prostrated by the announcement that the Colonna, with more than five thousand
men, had appeared at Anagni with the avowed intention of marching upon Rome.
The Pope, who had hitherto refused to believe in the treachery of Vespasiano, gave orders that the gates of the city should
be closed and that troops should be raised on the following morning. But it was
already too late; the enemy, led by Vespasiano and
Ascanio Colonna, as well as by Cardinal Pompeo, had marched with such furious
speed —they must have covered sixty miles in four-and-twenty hours—that in the
early morning of the 20th of September, they were already before the walls of
the defenceless city. By a stratagem they got possession of the Porta S.
Giovanni and two other gates and made their way, without meeting any hindrance,
through the city as far as the SS. Apostoli. Their rendezvous was the Colonna
palace, where they rested for three hours and refreshed themselves with food
and drink. On hearing of the raid, the Pope, who was in deadly terror, sent two
Cardinals to the Colonna, and two others to the Capitol to call upon the Romans
for protection. These messengers effected nothing; the people, bitterly
incensed by the recent taxation, attributing every hardship and irregularity of
government to Clement himself, and hating him besides for his excessive
parsimony, showed themselves much less inclined to take up arms than to allow
the Colonna to proclaim themselves their masters. The latter had done no one
any harm; it was much more likely that they had come to free Rome from Papal
tyranny. This feeling, indeed, was so widespread that the cry for freedom found
many echoes, and the Colonna were hailed with joy. Thus it was that the Romans
quietly watched the inroad of these marauders as if it were a spectacle; they
showed the same inaction when, towards midday, the wild hordes again set
themselves in motion and advanced further into the city with shouts of “Empire,
Colonna, Freedom!”. They took possession of the Ponte Sisto,
moved quickly along the Lungara, stormed the Porta S.
Spirito, stoutly defended by Stefano Colonna, who adhered to the Pope's
service, and spread themselves in plundering parties over the Vatican quarter.
The
Pope, who had at first intended, like Boniface VIII, to await his enemies
seated on his throne, had, by midday, yielded to the persuasions of those
around him and taken flight, by the covered way, to the castle of St. Angelo.
The few Swiss who remained in the Vatican offered no serious resistance. Soon
the Vatican, St. Peter’s, and a great portion of the Borgo were in the hands of
the marauders, plundering and destroying unchecked. They shrank from no infamy
or sacrilege. Relics, crosses, sacred vessels, and vestments were stolen, and
even the altar of St. Peter was stripped of its costly ornaments and profaned.
Soldiers were seen wearing the white garments and red cap of the Pope, and
giving in mockery the solemn Papal blessing. “Such deeds of shame”, wrote a
German, then dwelling in Rome, in his diary, “have not been heard of for
centuries, and are an abhorrence to all Christian men”. A Venetian recalled a
prediction that the altar of St. Peter would be plundered, and compared the
ravages of the Colonna with those of the Turks.
The
costliest loot was found in the Vatican, where Raphael’s tapestries and the
Papal tiara fell into the plunderers’ hands. Girolamo Negri, Secretary of
Cardinal Cornaro, has described in detail and as a spectator the havoc wrought
in the Vatican and its precincts in the late afternoon of that horrible 20th of
September 1526. “The Papal palace”, so recounts this eye-witness,” was almost
completely stripped even to the bedroom and wardrobe of the Pope. The great and
the private sacristy of St. Peter's, that of the palace, the apartments of
prelates and members of the household, even the horse-stalls were emptied,
their doors and windows shattered; chalices, crosses, pastoral staffs,
ornaments of great value, all that fell into their hands, was carried off as
plunder by this rabble; persons of distinction were taken prisoners. The
dwelling and stable of Monsignor Sadoleto were
plundered; he himself had taken refuge in St. Angelo. Almost all the apartments
on the corridors were treated in like manner except those of Campeggio, which
were defended by some Spaniards. Ridolfi lost everything; Giberti had removed
some of his articles of value, but lost not a few. Among other damage, his
porcelain, worth 600 ducats, was broken in pieces. Messer Paolo Giovio, in his
History, will be able to recall misfortunes like those of Thucydides, although
he, with a presentiment of harm, had concealed in the city, some days before,
the best of his belongings. Members of the Emperor’s party, such as Vianesio Albergati and Francesco Chieregati, found that circumstance availed them nothing as
regarded the safety of their persons or their property. Berni was plundered out and out; they searched for his correspondence with Giberti,
which he had carried on as Sanga’s substitute, but had to desist owing to an
alarm. The coffers of all the clerical offices, those of the Piombi, of the Secretariat, and so forth, were cleared out
Very little, in short, was left uninjured. A good round sum for drink money
saved the library.” While all the houses in the Borgo Vecchio were plundered,
their inhabitants ill-treated and carried off as captives, the plunderers did
not venture to molest the Borgo Nuovo. That was swept by the heavy artillery of
the fortress, and everything that showed itself there or along the walls of the
approach to St. Angelo was within range of fire. “At last,” says Negri in
conclusion, “whether the enemy were tired out, or had had enough of pillage, or
were afraid that the Romans might, after all, come to the rescue of the Pope,
they withdrew in such disorder that a very small body of troops could have
routed them and taken their booty from them. A few lingered behind the others
as far as the Ponte Sisto, but afterwards betook
themselves back to the haunts of the Colonna faction.” The total damage was
estimated at 300,000 ducats.
The
Pope had thought, for a moment, of acting on the defensive; but since the
castle of St. Angelo, owing to the carelessness of the castellan, Guido de’
Medici, and the greed of the treasurer, Cardinal Armellini,
was not sufficiently provided with either victuals or soldiers, he was forced
that very evening to confer, through the Portuguese Ambassador, with Moncada.
The latter, much to the disgust of Colonna, who had thought of besieging the
Pope in St. Angelo, visited the Pontiff, handed back to him his silver staff
and the tiara which had been stolen, and assured him that Charles had never
sought the supremacy over Italy. Nevertheless, their negotiations had no
result. On the following morning Moncada returned and had a long interview with
the Pope, while the Cardinals waited in an adjoining room. The treaty which
Clement, on the 2 1st of September, in spite of the counter-representations of
Carpi and the Venetian envoys, considered himself forced to accept, was very
unfavourable. The terms were: an armistice for four months; the Pope to
withdraw his troops and fleet; full pardon for the Colonna and their
dependents; their troops to accompany Moncada to Naples; as sureties Filippo Strozzi, the husband of Clarice de' Medici, and a son of
Jacopo Salviati to be given as hostages to Moncada.
On
the 22nd of September the Colonna, in great confusion and laden with precious
spoils, withdrew to Grottaferrata. Their leaders,
especially the Cardinal, were extremely dissatisfied; they had hoped to have
become complete masters of Rome and to have deposed and perhaps killed the
Pope. Moncada, on the other hand, who had sent the Emperor a triumphant account
of the success of the raid, considered that his object, the disruption of the
League, had been accomplished. He deceived himself; neither the Colonna nor the
Pope intended to keep their treaty. The former protested, as they thought that
Moncada had overreached them, while the latter could not get over the
humiliation inflicted on him by his own vassals, and thought it his duty to
vindicate his reputation by the punishment of the guilty on the first
opportunity. Clement felt specially grieved at the ingratitude and disloyalty
of Vespasiano Colonna, whom he had treated like a
favoured son; nor was he less distressed by the behaviour of the Romans he even
spoke of leaving Rome for a length of time in order that the inhabitants might
know what Rome was without the Pope. The Cardinals, too, were highly indignant
at the unheard-of acts of violence and sacrilege that had been committed, and
called for summary punishment.
In
such a state of feeling special representations, such as were now made to the
Pope by the Venetian envoy, were hardly necessary. Domenico Venier pointed out in spirited terms that in the matter of cunning Moncada was no
better than the Colonna; that preparations for war must be made, since the
Emperor, on the first possible opportunity, would lead his army into Italy, now
that he saw how easy it was to take possession of the city and bring the head
of the Church into subjection. In Rome it was said that if the Pope submitted
tamely to the unprecedented insult offered to him he might as well lay down the
triple crown and withdraw from the world as a solitary. Guicciardini, the
Commander-in-Chief of the Papal troops, was, on the contrary, most urgent in
his counsels that he should adhere to this disgraceful treaty that had been
extorted from him. Clement, as a matter of fact, soon showed that he had no
inclination to do so. It was not his intention either to leave the Colonna
unpunished or to withdraw from the League. He certainly ordered Guicciardini to
withdraw across the Po, but he gave him secret instructions to leave as many
troops as possible with Giovanni de’ Medici, who, as he was in the French
service, was still a member of the League.
In
order to get help from France and England, Clement sent, by the 24th of
September, Paolo d’ Arezzo to Francis I and Girolamo Ghinucci to Henry VIII. At the same time he addressed personally to the French King, who
had hitherto confined himself to empty promises, a long letter containing a
harrowing account of the inroad of the Colonna, accompanied by the most
pressing appeals for help. On the 26th of September a monition was published
against participation in the raid. Two days later the Pope assembled the
Cardinals in Consistory to discuss his own situation as well as that of
Hungary. He declared himself ready for extremities; his own wish was to take
part in the Turkish war or to proceed to Nice to arrange a peace between
Francis and Charles. The majority, especially the older Cardinals, recommended
that he should take his departure soon and go on board the galleys lying ready
at Civita Vecchia, “with
what ulterior thought in their heads, God knows!”, remarked the French
Ambassador’s secretary. Farnese, on the contrary, who was considered the
cleverest and most experienced of the Cardinals, raised objections which gave
Clement so much ground for reflection that he again gave up his schemes of
travel. The news from upper Italy also influenced him in this decision.
The
determination of the Pope to remain in Rome necessitated measures to prevent
another onset of the Colonna; this appeared to be all the more necessary as in
the beginning of October they were again arming, and their friends were
plundering boldly in the Campagna. But the task was a difficult one in view of
the enormous expenses already caused by the war. A sale of seats in the Sacred
College was proposed; Clement, however, who on this point felt much more
strongly than his contemporaries, gave a decided refusal. A committee of
Cardinals now made other proposals for raising the money required; the Roman
and Tuscan clergy were to contribute; in that way the city would be fortified
and garrisoned most expeditiously. By the 13th of October seven thousand men
had been collected in Rome. In the presence of these preparations Moncada gave
way to open threats which only strengthened the Pope in his determination to
take measures of precaution. One night the whole garrison of Rome was given the
alarm in order to prove with what rapidity the male population could assemble
in the event of a second raid.
By
the end of October Clement thought himself strong enough to undertake the
chastisement of the Colonna. New and far-reaching promises of the French King,
who had expressed his definite intention of entering Italy at the head of his
forces to protect the Apostolic See, had filled him with confidence and
courage. On the 7th of November the Cardinals, assembled in Consistory,
determined to issue citations upon Pompeo Colonna and the other members of his
house who had taken part in the raid. The Apostolic Chamber opened in due form
the process against the collective participators in the raid. The proceedings
against the Cardinal were held before the Consistory. As Pompeo, who was at
Naples, disregarded the citation, but appealed to a Council, proceedings
against him were begun on the 16th of November, ending, on the 21st, with
sentence of deprivation of all his dignities.
The
campaign against the Colonna had, meanwhile, begun before the expiration of the
four months’ armistice agreed upon in the treaty of the 21st of September.
Vitello Vitelli commanded the Papal troops, which advanced victoriously amidst
frightful devastation: Marino, Montefortino, Gallicano, Zagarolo, and other
places were taken and partly destroyed. Only Paliano and Rocca di Papa withstood all attacks.
The
proceedings at the scene of war in Lombardy occupied the attention of the Pope
no less than the fighting in the Campagna; there the allies, in spite of the
withdrawal of the Papal forces, were still stronger than the Imperialists; yet
the Duke of Urbino did nothing decisive, and the Marquis of Saluzzo maintained a like inactivity; thus time was given to Charles V to prepare
himself. Important aid came to him from Germany through George von Frundsberg. The famous leader of the landsknechts pawned
his towns and possessions in the Tyrol, even his beloved castle of Mindelheim, the cradle of his race, together with the
personal ornaments of his wife. By this means he was able, it is true, to raise
only 38,000 gulden; but none the less, when his trumpet sounded the rally,
there streamed to him from all sides young men fit to carry arms, especially
those of the new creed. “Many enemies, much honour”, said George ; he was
determined with God’s help to come to the rescue of the Emperor and his people,
since it was clear as day that the Pope was oppressing Charles, his noble army,
and the house of Colonna. He held to it that it would be pleasing to God and
mankind that the Pope, the instigator of the war, the Emperor’s greatest enemy,
should be punished and hanged, should he have to do it with his own hand.
Within three weeks more than ten thousand lusty soldiers, eager for plunder,
had been gathered in the Southern Tyrol, each provided with the fee of a golden
gulden. Stout and valorous captains such as Schertlin von Burtenbach and Conrad von Bemelberg likewise joined him.
The
passes between the Lago di Garda and the Adige were held by the troops of the
Duke of Urbino. But Frundsberg’s brother-in-law
pointed out to the wild bands of landsknechts a way over the mountains between
the lakes of Idro and Garda, a breakneck path where
the men had to clamber like the chamois. By this passage they, on the 19th of
November, reached the territory of Brescia without mishap, and thence, with
little molestation from the enemy, into the confines—the so-called Serraglio—of Mantua. Here, enclosed on the west by ditches
and a wall, on the south by the Po, and on the east by the Mincio, the
landsknechts ought, according to the plans of the Marquis of Mantua, to have
been entrapped and taken.
When Frundsberg, on the 23rd of November, reached Borgoforte, he found that the ships promised him by the
Marquis were not there. As he saw that he had been deceived, he took care to
secure the bridge of Governolo, the only egress from
the Serraglio. Into what danger they had fallen the
Germans found out for themselves when, on the following morning, the allies,
commanded by the Duke of Urbino and Giovanni de' Medici, appeared at Borgoforte and tried to drive off Frundsberg’s troops from the narrow causeway leading to Governolo;
but the landsknechts, armed with their hand guns, stood like a wall, turned at
once to face the enemy, and when the latter drew near, made them retreat and
drove them back. Thus they reached Governolo in
safety, where money, provisions, and some artillery belonging to Ferrara fell
into their hands. Duke Alfonso, who had been treating, for a long time, with
both parties, went over finally to the side of the Emperor. At the very
beginning of the fight the bold Giovanni de' Medici, the leader of the “Black Band”,
was wounded, and on the 30th of November the man on whom the League and the
Pope had placed all their hopes died of his wounds. Frundsberg,
who had previously, on the 28th of November, effected his passage across the
Po, now advanced on Guastalla; from this point he
threatened the Papal forces encamped at Parma and Piacenza.
The
news of the advance of the landsknechts, the accession of the Duke of Ferrara
to the Imperialist side, and the fatal injuries of Giovanni de' Medici, reached
Rome in the last days of November, when the city was in dangerous agitation
owing to taxation, plague, and famine. Almost at the same time yet another
alarming piece of intelligence arrived; Charles de Lannoy, with the Imperial
fleet, was approaching the coasts of Italy. Clement now saw himself threatened
from the sea, just as on the north he was exposed to the landsknechts bent on
plunder and filled with hatred of the Pope. His fear was greater than ever, and
he knew not whither to turn.
According
to the report of the Milanese envoy Landriano on the
28th of November, Clement was most deeply affected by the desertion of the Duke
of Ferrara to the Emperor. “The Pope”, wrote Landriano,
“seemed struck dead. All the attempts of the Ambassadors of France, England,
and Venice to restore him were in vain. Unless something unexpected takes place
he will make a peace or someday take flight. He looks to me like a sick man
whom the doctors have given up. From France nothing is heard, and this drives
everyone to desperation”. A few days later the same envoy wrote in bitter
derision that neither gold nor troops come from
France, nor any news other than that the King is amusing himself well with
dancing, “and we are more dead than alive. Here, in Bologna and Modena, we are
arming in frantic haste, but it will avail nothing. The extreme necessity of
the hour will force us to an agreement with the enemy”. The situation was such
that even the Secretary of the French Embassy, Raince,
admitted frankly that without speedy help from Francis I, the Pope could make
no further resistance or stay longer in Rome. Clement himself had done all that
was possible ; foreign help, in all probability, would now come much too late.
On
the 30th of November the Cardinals consulted what was to be done. Three courses
were proposed: pardon, flight, or an armistice. The opinions were divided;
pardon was seen to be impossible, flight was ignominious and full of danger; it
was determined as the best expedient to open negotiations. Quiñones, the
General of the Franciscans, who was much beloved by the Emperor, was entrusted
with the difficult mission, and by the 2nd of December he had started to meet
Lannoy. The Pope waited with indescribable anxiety for further reports. All
thought of flight from Rome seemed closed to him, for he knew that Cardinal
Colonna would either summon him before a Council or procure his own election as
antipope. Schonberg and his friends never ceased to work upon the harassed Pope
by representing to him these dangers, while Carpi, Cardinal Trivulzio,
Giberti, and the rest of the French party exerted themselves in the opposite
direction. The fate of Florence lay nearest to Clement’s heart, for there disturbances had broken out and the advance of the
landsknechts had caused many to flee, taking with them their wives, children,
and goods.
In
Rome also a panic of the same kind had arisen on the arrival of Lannoy in the
harbour of San Stefano, from whence he could also march either on Florence or
Rome. On the evening of the 29th of November Lannoy again set sail, and on the
1st of December he reached Gaeta. The galleys of the League which had been
intended to hinder his approach reached San Stefano two days too late. “It
really seems,” wrote the Secretary of the French Embassy, Raince,
to Montmorency, “that all reasonable calculations are miscarrying, and that
things could not turn out better than they are doing for the Imperialists.”
By
a special Nuncio the Pope, on the 6th of December 1526, let Francis know what
the dangers were into which he had fallen. All, except Giberti, were then
advising the Pope to come to terms with the Emperor’s party. That even this
partisan of France took the worst view of the situation is clear from his
correspondence. “We are,” Giberti wrote on the 7th of December to the English
Nuncio Gambara, “on the brink of ruin; fate has let
loose upon us every kind of evil, so that it is impossible to add to our
misery. It seems to me as if sentence of death had been passed upon us, and
that we are only awaiting its execution, which cannot be long delayed.” But
with the arrival of more favourable news concerning the help to be expected
from France, Giberti at once changed his mind.
Clement,
a prey to anxiety and impatience, had in the meantime sent Schonberg also to
Naples to treat with Lannoy as to terms. The Pope himself was wavering : on the
11th of December he told the Florentine envoy that his heart was no longer in
the war, since the allies were so tardy in their support and the conflict only
increased the Emperor’s power. The conditions offered by Lannoy, which Quiñones
brought back on the evening of the 12th of December, seemed to Giberti very
hard and only acceptable in the last extremity. Lannoy demanded a six months’
truce, besides a war indemnity to be agreed upon later on, Ostia and Civita Vecchia or Parma and
Piacenza being in the meantime held as preliminary guarantees; at the same time
he seemed inclined to force on this exceptional peace by armed force. Still
stronger pressure was used by Perez, the Secretary of the Spanish Embassy,
acting probably on an understanding with Lannoy, who on the same day, the 12th
of December, presented to the Pope with all official formality a series of documents
setting forth with unprecedented harshness all the Emperor’s complaints of the
Papal policy, and threatening Clement with a Council.
CHAPTER
IV.
The
Anti-Papal Policy of the Emperor. —Advance of the Imperial Army on Rome.
In
order to form a just estimate of Charles V in his opposition to Clement VII, we
must represent to ourselves the part played by the Emperor in connection with
the raid of the Colonna. Before Charles had been more fully informed of the
Pope’s hostile intentions he had already, on the 11th of June 1526, instructed
his Ambassador in Rome that if Clement did not show himself compliant he should
be driven out by means of the Colonna and a revolutionary movement set up in
the States of the Church. While the Emperor, in this way, signified his
approval of the treacherous and piratical manoeuvre so unworthy of him, which
Moncada carried out by means of the Colonna on the 20th of September, he was
giving the Papal Nuncio Castiglione assurances of his filial submission to the
Holy See. As soon as the raid had successfully taken place, Moncada advised the
Emperor to express to the Nuncio and Clement his great grief at the acts of
violence done by the Colonna and to make known to the princes of Christendom
how repugnant such occurrences had been to his views and wishes. Before the
Emperor, then staying in Granada, could give effect to this advice, he had
already taken a fresh step against the Pope. On the 13th of August he announced
publicly, for communication to the Christian world, that the aggression of the
French, the Pope, and other Italians forced him to take up arms. Moncada was
fully empowered to confirm the Duke of Ferrara in the possession of all his
fiefs held from the Empire.
In
pursuing his contest with the Pope, Charles had recourse also to the advice of
learned canonists. The latter were to expound to him in particular how far and
under what circumstances an Emperor owed obedience to the Pope, and whether the
former would be justified in refusing payment of half the annates and in
declaring war against the supreme Pontiff, if he were called upon to do so.
Castiglione, who reported upon these consultations, said the views differed,
yet all had aimed at pleasing Charles. In a report in cipher he also observed
that most secret consultations had been held as to the way in which the Emperor
could proceed against the Pope, and whether he was bound to subject himself to
excommunication and censures and a thousand other evils.
Such
was the state of opinion when the severely worded Brief of the 23rd of June was
handed to Charles. The presentation of this all-important document was made on
the 20th of August by Castiglione, who had not yet received the second and
milder communication with the order to withhold the first. The Brief caused
Charles deep resentment, especially as there were about him those who knew how
to fan his justifiable agitation into extreme anger; Gattinara, who was sore at
not receiving the Cardinalate, was active in this direction. Charles concealed
his inward displeasure; he spoke, it is true, of a council before which he
would vindicate himself from the Pope’s charges, but, on the whole, he remained
outwardly calm, and used, as he had done previously to Castiglione, the most
fervent expressions of devotion to the Holy See. Meanwhile a bulky state-paper
was drawn up which exceeded in its language even that of the Brief, and opposed
to the one-sided statement of the Pope another not less one-sided on the part
of the Emperor.
In
the opening of this document, dated “Granada, September 17, 1526,” prominence
was given to the fact that the Brief of the 23rd of June, handed in by the
Nuncio on the 20th of August, was couched in language neither becoming in the
Chief Shepherd of Christendom nor consonant with the “filial devotion” which
Charles had always shown towards the Apostolic See and the Pope. It was
necessary to reply in some detail, as the Emperor was not conscious of blame
and could not allow his unsullied reputation to be assailed. He had always
shown himself to be a great lover of peace, and had aimed only at the peace and
freedom of Italy. Let the Pope consider whether his present behaviour was in
keeping with his pastoral office; whether he ought to have drawn the sword that
Christ had ordered Peter to replace in its sheath; whether he had a right to
weaken the forces of Christendom and to strengthen its enemies, the heretics.
When his Holiness, at the beginning of his Brief, lays stress on the necessity
of pardon, the position is not an intelligible one, since no one has injured
the Pope’s honour and dignity. In order to make his statements more credible,
the Brief describes a “long tragedy,” recounts what is in keeping with the
Papal conception, but passes over in silence everything that explains the real
course of affairs. To show clearly the real sequence of facts, the state-paper
refers back to the position assumed by the Papacy in the question of the
Imperial election the many marks of favour shown by the Emperor to Clement when
he was Cardinal are stated with clear precision the events of the most recent
years are set forth very thoroughly The object of the whole representation is
to brand Clement VII with disloyalty, and to justify Charles in his treatment
of disputed Italian questions (Milan, Reggio, Modena). This is done in
exceedingly “energetic, compact” language, not without an admixture of
sophistry. Many passages are marked by a refinement of sarcasm as when it is
said that it is incredible that the Vicar of Christ on earth should acquire for
himself worldly possessions at the cost of a single drop of human blood, since
this would be in direct contradiction to the teaching of the Gospel. In another
place it is specially pointed out that the Pope would not have lost the praise
due to a good shepherd and father if he had kept himself aloof from plots and
alliances against the Emperor. In other respects also severe charges are
brought against Clement. His conduct has not tended to protect the safety of
Italy and Christendom, nor even that of the Holy See, which—seeing that no one
was coming forward to attack it—stood in no need of weapons and troops. In
consequence of this the Pope has destroyed the means of protecting the Holy
See, has squandered the treasure of the Church, and acted in opposition to
Christ Himself and to the hurt of Christendom. The Pope cannot justify his
deeds before God or men. It is evident—if such language may be used—that he has
only occasioned scandal and destruction to the Christian commonwealth. Clement
VII might remember that the Curia draws greater revenues from the Emperor's
dominions than from any other countries. If the Pope is as anxious for peace as
is the Emperor, let him lay down his arms, and it would then be easy to combat
the errors of the Lutherans and other heretics. If, on the contrary, his
Holiness disregards the Emperor’s defence, insists on maintaining war and
opposing himself to the general peace—in which case he is acting not as a
father but as a party leader, not as a shepherd but as a hireling—the Emperor
will then be forced, seeing that no other higher judge can be appealed to, to
turn to a Holy General Council of collective Christendom, in whose hands it
shall be left to decide on all questions in dispute. At the end of his
indictment Charles solemnly appeals to the judgment of this Council, which the
Pope shall summon in some safe and fitting place within limits of time to be
definitely settled.
Since
the days of Frederick the Second and Louis of Bavaria no ruler of Germany had
addressed such language to Rome. There were many passages in which Charles used
language “of which no follower of Luther need have been ashamed”. It was at one
with the notions of the draftsman of the paper, Alfonso de Valdes, who was
steeped in the spirit of Erasmus the humanist.
On
the 18th of September 1526 the document was officially handed over to
Castiglione, the Papal Nuncio, who entered a protest against such an uncivil
reply, and then went on to point out that it was only in consequence of belated
instructions that the Brief of the 23rd of June had been presented, and that he
was most painfully surprised. Hitherto Charles, in his conversations with him,
had always evinced a most conciliatory temper; even as regards the Brief of the
23rd of June he had shown diplomatic selfrestraint;
the second and more temperate Brief of the 25th had, Castiglione felt certain,
restored the Emperor to perfect composure. Charles, indeed, had solemnly
assured him that his answer, even if he appealed to a council, would be so
gentle that the Pope would have no cause to complain of it. And now there came
this official paper! In great anger Castiglione complained to Gattinara and to
Charles that he had been deceived, and felt it an affront that he should have
been expected to transmit such a violent and insulting reply. It was of really
little use that the Imperial Chancery, on this very 18th of September, drew up
an answer, in corresponding terms, to the more moderately expressed Brief. The
conciliatory and friendly words which the Emperor continued to address freely
to Castiglione and others had quite as little meaning. He adhered inflexibly to
the standpoint of his paper of the 17th of September. Indeed, in the letter
addressed to the Cardinals on the 6th of October, he went still further and
endeavoured to stir up an anti-Papal schism. If his Holiness, he wrote, will
not summon a council, then the Cardinals, “in conformity with legal right”,
must do so.
In
thorough keeping with the Emperor’s embittered feeling was the insulting manner
in which Perez, the Secretary of the Embassy, communicated to the Pope his
master’s message. Perez had received the document on the 9th of December. He
kept its existence a close secret until the 12th, when a Consistory was held.
On that day he appeared unexpectedly with a Spanish notary and Spanish
witnesses before the Cardinals surrounding the Pope and handed to Clement the
state-paper, and to the Cardinals the letter of the 6th of October. Immediately
after leaving the hall he had an act to notify their delivery drawn up by his
notary. Consequently the news of the Emperor's demand for a council was at once
spread through Rome.
Two
days later Perez had an audience of Clement VII in order to communicate to him
a letter which the Emperor had written to Cesare Fieramosca. “Why”, asked the
Pope irritably, “have you not brought a notary with you on this occasion as
well, so that the delivery of this letter might also be certified?”. Perez,
according to his own account, had the audacity to deny altogether the notarial
act of the 12th of December. “But”, so he himself relates, “when I perceived
that the Pope had observed the whole proceeding and had seen the notary, whom
he knew quite well by sight, and the witnesses, I was obliged to admit that I
was acting by the express command of your Majesty”. “In that case”, answered
the Pope, “if you had given me notice beforehand, I should not have prevented
the letter being read in Consistory”. Further excuses from Perez he cut short
by bringing the audience to a close; but to the Portuguese Ambassador he
remarked that he would, in case of necessity, make use of the Emperor's letter
in self-defence.
That
the Imperialists were determined on going to extremities is shown by the fact
that Lannoy, step by step, increased his demands and ordered his troops to
advance on Frosinone. The acceptance of his conditions, which, in their final
form, called upon the Pope to give up, as guarantees of peace, Parma, Piacenza,
Ostia, and Civita Vecchia,
and demanded the surrender by the Florentines of Pisa and Leghorn, would have
meant the practical abolition of the temporal possessions of the Holy See. In
great agitation the Pope declared that, since they were determined to rob him
of everything, it should be done only by force and not under the guise of fair
play.
The
recruiting of troops for the Papal army was pushed on in haste. In Rome, where
the inhabitants, with a view to taking their share in the defence, were
employing the best means for the security of the city, the famous engineer
Sangallo, in whom the Pope placed special confidence, was active. On the 10th
of December the warlike Legate Trivulzio joined the
troops intended to oppose Lannoy. Soon afterwards a monition was issued against
all invaders of the Papal territories. In closest alliance with Lannoy were the
Colonna, still breathing vengeance, who always found strong support among the
Imperialists in Naples. Perez had already, on the 4th and 5th of December,
informed the Emperor that, sooner or later, the Colonna, with the help of the
Viceroy and Moncada, would once more make war on the Pope and try to drive him
out of Rome.
Still
greater than the danger threatening in the south was the peril slowly drawing
nearer from the north.
It
was of the utmost importance for the development of events in upper Italy that
the Pope, in spite of all negotiations, was unsuccessful in coming to an
agreement with the Duke of Ferrara. It was only with Alfonso’s support that Frundsberg was able, at the end of November 1526, to make
the difficult passage of the Po and to carry the ravages of war into the states
of Parma and Piacenza. Guicciardini, who was stationed here with Papal troops,
implored the Duke of Urbino, but in vain, to come to his aid. The Duke remained
on the other side of the Po to cover the territory of Venice. “The Emperor's
luck”, said Guicciardini, “is boundless ; but the limit has been reached,
inasmuch as his enemies have neither the wits nor the will to make use of the
forces at their disposal”.
Frundsberg did
not seize any of the fortified towns on his route, but encamped in the
territory of Piacenza, to await the arrival of the Constable de Bourbon and his
army. The latter had the greatest difficulties to surmount with his mutinous
and savage troops, who were clamouring with threats for their arrears of pay.
On the 1st of February 1527 he had been able at last to satisfy at least the
army in Milan after, so he wrote to the Emperor, he had drained the city of its
blood. De Leyva remained behind in Milan with twelve thousand men; the
remainder went south with Bourbon. In the days between the 7th and 12th of
February the conjunction of Bourbon’s army with that of Frundsberg took place not far from Piacenza. The host of nearly twenty-two thousand men
took, on the 22nd of February, the ancient Emilian Way; the advance was slow
owing to bad weather and the painful scarcity of provisions. If the Duke of
Ferrara had not sent frequent supplies of money and victuals, the highly
dissatisfied and to some extent mutinous horde would undoubtedly have broken
up. Never was there such a good opportunity of attacking the Imperial forces;
nevertheless, the Duke of Urbino lay idle. Thus the former were able, although
amid the greatest hardships, to march through Parma and Modena and to cross the Panaro, the old river boundary of the States of the
Church. On the 8th of March they encamped at San Giovanni, hardly a day’s
journey from Bologna.
In
the meantime there had been constant alternations in Rome of fear and hope,
military preparations and negotiations for peace. During the first days of the
year of misfortune 1527 Clement had addressed to Lannoy and the Colonna a
solemn admonition to lay down their arms under pain of excommunication and, at
the same time, had released Orazio Baglioni from his
three years’ imprisonment in St. Angelo and taken him into his pay. On the 4th
of January Lannoy’s ultimatum was presented to the
Pope. Four days later the long-expected envoy of Francis I, Renzo da Ceri,
arrived, but without soldiers and without money. “It would not have been so
bad,” thought even a friend of the French, Canossa, “if he had not come at
all.” Instead of the necessary help Renzo brought fresh demands from his
self-seeking sovereign : the cession of Naples to France. The dissatisfaction
and alarm of Clement were still more increased at this time by the growing
scarcity of money and the incessant appeals of the Florentines to come quickly
to terms with the Imperialists. His fellow-countrymen depicted in the blackest
colours the infernal horrors which might be let loose on Florence at any moment
by Spaniards and landsknechts. Schonberg made similar representations;
moreover, Clement was daily besought, with tears, by Clarice de' Medici, to
deliver her husband, held fast in Naples as a hostage; so that, as the Mantuan
envoy remarked, the poor Pope, assailed thus on every side, was to be compared
to a ship tossed hither and thither on the high seas by conflicting winds.
Cardinal
Farnese advised flight from Rome. “Things cannot go on thus”, said the Venetian
Ambassador; “the Pope has not a soldo left”. Clement openly confessed his
despair. He even declared that he would like to withdraw entirely from politics
and confine himself exclusively to his ecclesiastical functions.
The
Pope’s cares were made still heavier by the representations of a member of the
Sacred College, who urged him to raise the necessary funds by a nomination of
Cardinals and to anticipate the Emperor by summoning a council. The sale of
Cardinals’ hats had, at an earlier date, been decisively rejected by Clement;
and even now he would hear nothing of it “from an honourable conscientiousness”.
The thought of bringing these important affairs into his own hands by means of
a council was one which in itself pleased him; yet he held back through the
fear that his hands would be completely tied in respect of the nomination of
Cardinals. So nothing definite was settled, and the plan came to nothing. But
the situation was one which imperatively demanded that he should make himself
safe in Rome. On the 14th of January 1527 Renzo visited the Papal forces
encamped to the south of Rome and afterwards returned to the city, where the
citizens were armed and organized on a war footing with all possible haste. Lannoy’s answer consisted in the reopening of hostilities
by the siege of Frosinone, although the limits of the armistice had not
expired. Thereupon Clement, on the 23rd of January, called upon all the Neapolitan
fief-holders to take up arms for the States of the Church. At the same time he
entered into closer communication with the Voivode of Siebenbürgen, Joannes Zapolya, who was contesting the crown of
Hungary against the Emperor’s brother. While these warlike measures were in
progress the negotiations of that strange time went steadily on. On the evening
of the 25th of January, Cesare Fieramosca, accompanied by Schonberg and Quiñones,
arrived in Rome with proposals for an armistice from Charles. They at once went
to see Clement in the Belvedere.
Fieramosca
brought from the Emperor, who also continued to employ very friendly language
with regard to Castiglione, the best assurances of his good-will towards the
Holy See, but very hard conditions for the conclusion of a three years’ peace:
the restoration of the Colonna; the payment of 200,000 ducats by the Pope and
Florence, and, as security, the surrender of Parma, Piacenza, and Civita Vecchia into the hands of
a third party. In spite of the opposition of the Cardinals, Clement VII, in his
necessity, entered into the agreement on the 28th of January, but the
ratification of the treaty was postponed in order to allow of Venice being
asked to give her adhesion; an eight days’ armistice was to be observed
provisionally.
Before
the latter had run its course the state of affairs had undergone a fresh
change. The ink of the treaty was hardly dry before the news arrived that Rene,
Count de Vaudemont, the champion of the claims of the
house of Anjou on Naples, had come from France with 30,000 ducats, and that the
envoy of Henry VIII, Sir John Russell, with a like amount, was on his way to
Rome. This was enough to rekindle Clement’s warlike
spirit—who very rightly placed no trust in Lannoy—to such an extent that
Giberti, on the 29th of January, disregarding the armistice, gave orders to
Cardinal Trivulzio to make an offensive movement. On
the 1st of February came Vaudemont, and on the 2nd
the Rector of the University of Rome mustered the students, fifteen hundred
fine well-armed youths eager for service. On the evening of the 4th, beacons on
the hills of Tivoli announced the defeat of Lannoy, “the greatest enemy of the
Holy See,” at Frosinone. After so many misfortunes, Giberti and the Pope
rejoiced at this gleam of sunshine. On the 7th of February Andrea Doria
arrived, and it was resolved to turn the victory to account by attacking
Naples; and yet a conspiracy had first been discovered at Rome which ought to
have been a warning to use extreme caution
In
order to create disturbances on the rear of the Papal army, Lannoy and the
Colonna had joined themselves with the chief of the Orsini, Napoleone,
Abbot of Farfa. This turbulent man was offered pay in
the Imperial service and the daughter of Vespasiano Colonna with a dowry of 30,000 ducats. In return Napoleone bound himself to give free passage through his domains to the troops of Charles
V, commanded by Ascanio Colonna, and to procure, by means of an adherent in
Rome, the opening of one of the city gates. At the same time Orsini was to
assemble all his troops and to appear with them in the Leonine city under
pretext of protecting the Pope ; in reality, in order to murder him together
with eight Cardinals. The attempt had all the more prospect of success as
Orsini, the traitor, enjoyed the full confidence of the Pope. Luckily, however,
Clement was told of the danger threatening him by the Count of Anguillara, whom Orsini had asked to participate in the
plot. The Abbot was therefore arrested at Bracciano on the 1st of February, and brought to the castle of St. Angelo, where, after a
struggle, he made a full confession.
The
miscarriage of this plot, the defeat at Frosinone, and, lastly, the Papal
advance on Naples, made such an impression on Lannoy that he renounced all his
previous demands for money payments, the surrender of strongholds, and the
restoration of the Colonna. Although the envoys of France and Venice were even
now still averse to an armistice, the arrangements for one might very likely
have been carried out had not the English representative insisted that the
opinion of Venice must first be heard. For this they had to wait, and in the
meantime first one and then another messenger of disaster reached Clement.
The
King of France had not fulfilled one of all his glittering promises. His
auxiliaries arrived late and in insufficient numbers; for the monthly payments
of the war subsidy the Roman treasury waited in vain; although a tenth of the
ecclesiastical revenues of the whole of France had been granted him, Francis
only sent the ridiculous sum of 9000 ducats. Also, the support intended for the
expedition against Naples was so insignificant in men and money that the whole
enterprise, started with such hopes, came to nothing. This frivolous Prince was
so absorbed in hunting and other pleasures that no time was left to him for
things of serious importance. To the Italians Francis was as prodigal as ever
of fair words, but he did nothing, and his indifference threw the Papal
Ambassador, Acciaiuoli, into sheer desperation. This indifference
did not grow less as affairs in Italy turned more and more in favour of the
Imperialists; even so true a partisan of France as Canossa had to admit that
Francis let the Pope’s business go to rack and ruin. The behaviour of the
Venetians was not much better; they certainly did all they could to prevent an
agreement between the Pope and the Emperor, but showed no sign of procuring for
the former means to prosecute the war. “Venice”, as Canossa had written to
Giberti on the 28th of November 1526, “cares for nothing but her own interests:
help from that quarter is to be expected as little as from France”.
Meanwhile
the danger from the north was drawing ever nearer; Florence and the Romagna
were seriously threatened, while Venice and the Duke of Urbino only thought of
themselves. In the south the advantages gained against Naples could not be
followed up owing to the ever-increasing poverty of the Pope, now left in
straits by his allies. In consequence the Papal troops were not only left
without pay, but without that bare necessity of life—bread. The
half-famished soldiers deserted by the score; the remainder had at last to make
their way back to Piperno. At Terracina a plot was
discovered to deliver the town to Pompeo Colonna.
In
these difficulties Clement, on the 6th of March, forwarded a safe-conduct to
Cesare Fieramosca, and five days later this agent of the Emperor entered Rome.
Du Bellay also arrived on the same day; he brought many fine promises but not
the longed-for 20,000 ducats. According to his wont Clement hesitated for some
days but at last, driven to extremity, nothing remained for him to do but to
accept the conditions offered by Fieramosca and Serenon as Lannoy’s plenipotentiaries. In the night between
the 15th and 16th of March an eight months’ armistice began, the terms of which
were that each party should give up their conquests, although the territory
wrested from the Colonna remained in the Pope’s possession during the truce. On
the other hand, Clement promised to absolve the whole house from the censures
passed upon them, to reinstate Cardinal Pompeo, and to pay, as ransom for the
hostages Strozzi and Salviati, 60,000 ducats to the
Imperialist army, who were, in return, to evacuate the Papal States. Lannoy was
to come to Rome in person to ratify the treaty; the Pope saw in that a
guarantee that Bourbon also would respect the agreement.
Lannoy
came to Rome on the 25th of March. The Pope received him with great honour and
assigned him rooms in the Vatican. Charles V’s opponents tried at the last hour to change Clement’s mind; they represented to him how dangerous it was to sacrifice himself for the
good-will of the Imperialists. The whole convention, thought John Russell, was
only a trick to separate Clement from his allies. But Clement, after Lannoy’s arrival, held that the execution of the treaty
would be quite safe; he repeatedly said in tones of decision to the Ambassadors
when they warned him, “Quod scripsi scripsi”. On the 27th of March, in a secret consistory, he
addressed the Cardinals on the state of affairs; on the 28th he excused himself
to the Doge, referring to the failure of all his means of help; on the 29th
followed the ratification of the treaty.
Trusting
to the loyalty of Lannoy, Clement VII carried out his treaty obligations at
once in the most conscientious manner. There can be no doubt that his pacific
intentions were serious. In order to put an end finally to all questions in
dispute, the mission of Giberti to England and France was taken into
consideration. Although Clement had the advantage
in the Neapolitan war, he withdrew his troops both by land and sea. He even
went so far, in order to save money, as to reduce the total of his forces to a
hundred light horsemen and two hundred foot soldiers of the so- called “Black
Band”. All these measures show how certainly he counted on Bourbon also
accepting the treaty. In order to settle this Fieramosca had already, on the
15th of March, arrived at the Imperialist camp fully empowered to take all the
necessary steps. It is certain that both the Pope and Giberti had not the least
presentiment that the danger threatening them from the Imperial army was not
yet fully removed. When the news first reached Rome that Bourbon's army refused
to accept the treaty concluded with Lannoy, Giberti saw only a daring attempt
to extort more money.
Of
all the illusions under which Clement VII and his adviser laboured, none was
more momentous than their attributing to the Imperial generals an influence
over the army which, for a long time past, had got entirely out of control.
On
the very first rumour of Lannoy’s negotiations with
the Pope, the German and Spanish soldiers, who had bivouacked at San Giovanni,
near Bologna, since the 8th of March, were thrown into great excitement. The
troops were in a wretched condition they had endured up till then four months
of poverty, hunger, and cold, and no end to their hardships was in sight. Heavy
downfalls of snow and rain had turned the ground almost into a swamp, where in
damp, miserable clothing the soldiers were encamped, many without shoes to
their feet, all without pay and a sufficiency of food. The prospect of booty,
the riches of Florence, the greater riches of Rome, had alone kept them
together and given them courage amid their misery. It can easily be imagined
what an impression was made on them by the news that they were to be “thrust
out of Italy like beggars” and the prizes of victory snatched from them. As the
increasing hurricane lashes the sea into greater and greater agitation until
the conflicting tumult of the waves resembles chaos, so the rumour of a
disastrous peace, passing from mouth to mouth through the Imperialist host,
produced a scene of unparalleled excitement and passion. The Spaniards, to whom
the Emperor owed eight months’ pay, were the first to mutiny. They flung themselves
in fury on Bourbon’s tent, demanding payment in full with wild uproar. Bourbon
had to hide himself in a horse-stall; one of his gentlemen was murdered; his
tent was plundered. The Germans, stirred up by the tumult, quickly assembled;
they also shouted “Pay, pay”, refusing to march a step further unless they had
their money. “All the men were in a kindling temper which burned like fire.
They were ready to kill the captains and leaders”.
An
attempt to get sufficient money from the Duke of Ferrara failed. Thereupon “Father Frundsberg”, on the 16th of March, gathered the
Germans together and gave them an address “so earnest” in its tone that he “must have moved a stone”.
But all the representations of the man who, for a generation, by the power of
his presence, of his will, of his word, and of his successes, had held the
landsknechts together, were unavailing. “Pay, pay”, shouted the frenzied
soldiers. They even turned their pikes against their captains. Then Frundsberg’s giant constitution suddenly gave way; overcome
by grief and anger, he fell speechless on a drum. He had been struck down by
apoplexy .
The
party of Clement VII saw in the unexpected fate of Frundsberg the judgment of God on one who had presumptuously declared his willingness to
lay hands on the Pope’s person. But if they hoped that the landsknechts,
deprived of their leader, would disband, they soon found themselves bitterly
undeceived. The Germans only wished to escape as quickly as possible from the
scene of misfortune. The whole army was of one mind that, under any
circumstances, an advance must be made on districts that still lay open to
plunder and offered a prospect of provision and booty. Bourbon had given each
soldier a ducat and promised him unlimited pillage—"the law of Mohammed”.
Such
was the situation when, on the 20th of March, Fieramosca produced the treaty of
the 15th and 30,000 ducats, but this sum could not satisfy the soldiers; it was
only like a drop of water on a hot stone. The reception given to the messenger
of peace was in keeping with the soldiers’ mood ; “they were like raging lions”,
Fieramosca reported to the Emperor, and he only saved his life by taking flight
to Ferrara. Bourbon had lost all power over his army. He stood helpless before
the chaos, in which the only element of unity was the desire to be let loose.
Forward at any cost, forward to Florence, forward to Rome! On the 29th of March
Bourbon sent a message to Lannoy that he was forced of necessity to advance; at
the same time he informed the Pope of this decision, by which the armistice was
broken. Soon afterwards he raised his demands to 150,000 ducats. “Three
things,” wrote Guicciardini on the 29th of March to Giberti, “remain open to
you; to accede to everything by a new treaty, to take flight, or to defend
yourselves to the death.”
After
provisions and munitions had come from Ferrara the Imperialist army set forward
on the 30th of March. Many thought that the fierce horde would throw itself
immediately on Florence. But the Apennines were still covered with snow, and
well protected by troops. They therefore went by way of Bologna, plundering and
burning slowly on the ancient Emilian Way as they drew nearer to the Romagna.
Guicciardini had, in the meantime, succeeded in getting the Duke of Urbino—who,
hitherto solely occupied in guarding Venetian territory, had remained near the
Po—to follow up the enemy, although at a considerable distance. This induced
Bourbon to turn to the Apennines. He chose the road leading over Meldola into the upper valley of the Arno. The rain fell in
torrents; but on went the army, up into the mountains, having to leave behind
all their baggage waggons. The hope of the “glorious plunder of Florence” gave
wings to the steps of the soldiers, who on the 16th of April reached Santa
Sofia, that belonged to Florentine territory.
On
the entreaty of Clement VII, Lannoy, with 60,000 ducats from the Pope and
20,000 raised from his own resources, had left Rome for the Romagna on the 3rd
of April to try and persuade the Imperialist forces to return. Letters from
Bourbon caused him to alter his course and to go direct to Florence. Here he
succeeded in arranging with Bourbon’s agents that the Florentines should pay
the Imperialist army 150,000 ducats; on receipt of the first half the army was
to begin its return march. Clement VII, meanwhile, had continued to dismiss his
soldiers. He had hardly had news of the Florentine arrangement when, from
misdirected economy and disgust at their insubordination, he parted with the
last of his forces, the men of the Black Band. Vaudemont,
with his contingent at Civita Vecchia,
sailed for Marseilles just as if peace had been securely concluded; all
warnings had been in vain. “The imprudence and carelessness”, wrote Francesco
Gonzaga on the 11th of April, “is too great; before the armistice has taken
effect the Pope has entirely disarmed himself. All this has been done only to
save a little money. Everyone is astonished at such proceedings. But without
doubt God's will has so ordered this, that the Church and its leaders may be
destroyed”.
A
feeling of uneasiness, such as almost always precedes great catastrophes,
prevailed in Rome. Old predictions of overwhelming judgments on the seat and
centre of the Church’s government revived again with increased force.
Extraordinary accidents, regarded as portents, a flash of lightning which
occurred as Lannoy arrived at the Vatican, caused disturbance in anxious minds;
such things were looked upon as a premonition that the wrath of Heaven was
about to strike the sinful city.
A
still more powerful, if momentary, impression was made on the Romans by one of
those fanatical preachers of repentance who even then were constantly trying to
add to the excitement of the Italian people, terrified already by prophecies,
and sorely visited by war, plague, and Other calamities. On Holy Thursday (18th
April 1527), when Clement VII, after the reading of the Bull In Coena Domini, was giving the pontifical blessing to a
devout multitude of ten thousand persons, a man with the demeanour of a maniac,
almost entirely naked, save only for a leathern apron, clambered on to the
statue of St. Paul in front of St. Peter's and shouted to the Pope : “Thou
bastard of Sodom, for thy sins Rome shall be destroyed. Repent, and turn thee!
If thou wilt not believe me, in fourteen days thou shalt see it”.
A
prophet of this sort was nothing new to the Romans; as far back as the summer
of 1525 a hermit had declared to them his strange visions. The prophecies of
this new herald of misfortune, who was known by the name of Brandano,
surpassed, however, in many respects anything of the kind known before. The
appearance of this enthusiast was a highly characteristic episode of this
agitated time. Bartolomeo Carosi, called Brandano, was a native of Petrojo near Siena. After leading for a long time an evil life in the world, he was
suddenly converted and gave himself up, as a hermit, to severe acts of penance.
Later on he quitted his solitude and passed through the towns of his native
district holding up before the inhabitants their sinful manner of life. The
wrath of God would burst upon them, war, plague, and other visitations would
follow on the general iniquity. This was on the whole the substance of his
penitential preaching. Sometimes in his fiery zeal he gave utterance to more
concise discourse. Perhaps his outward appearance produced more effect than his preachings and prophesyings. Clothed only so far as
decency demanded, barefooted and with long red hair hanging dishevelled to his
shoulders, the prophet went his rounds. His frame was muscular, but emaciated
by fasting; his face wan and deeply furrowed, the greenish-yellow eyes hollowed
by tears and nightly vigils; his movements were abrupt and uncouth. When
preaching he held a crucifix in his right hand, in his left a skull. Some thought him a crazy fool, others a
prophet and saint. The common folk had many a tale to tell of his severe
exercises of penance, his frequent pilgrimages to Santiago in Spain, even of
miracles he had worked. In Siena he had preached in the cathedral ; now, with
cries of woe, he was announcing in the streets of the Eternal City the certain downfall of its priests and
inhabitants and the renewal of the Church.
On
Easter Eve 1527 Brandano went from the Campo di Fiore
to St. Angelo, and, like a second Jonas, cried with a loud voice, “Rome, do
penance! They shall deal with thee as God dealt with Sodom and Gomorrha”. Then he said quietly, as if to himself: “He has
robbed the Mother of God to adorn his harlot, or rather his friend”. On hearing
of this scandalous speech the Pope put an end to his doings by ordering Brandano to be placed in confinement. He was soon
afterwards set at liberty and started afresh on a career which brought upon him
renewed imprisonment.
The
destruction foretold by this prophet of evil was drawing nearer and nearer with
the certainty of fate. Notwithstanding the arrangement with the Florentines,
Bourbon’s army continued to march on Rome. After extraordinary exertions the
crest of the Apennines was surmounted; the eight field-pieces, attached to
ropes, had to be dragged along by hand. On the 18th of April the half-starved
troops reached S. Maria in Bagno, on the south side
of the mountains, and on the 20th Bourbon encamped at Pieve di S. Stefano in the upper valley of the Tiber. Here Lannoy met him. The latter
had left Florence on the 15th of April, and on the 19th had been attacked by
the inhabitants of Santa Sofia and forced to take refuge in the abbey of the Camaldoli, S. Maria in Cosmedin.
Two days later he suddenly appeared in the Imperialist camp. It was soon
discovered that he and Bourbon were trying to deceive the Florentines, who
thereupon made energetic preparations for the defence of their city.
When
Bourbon now raised his demand for money to 240,000 ducats, this, it was
evident, was because he knew his enemy was unprepared. His army was in such a
condition that necessity forced him to go forward. Only the hope of plundering
Florence held his men together. Bourbon advanced all the more joyfully as he
knew that he was thus meeting the Emperor’s wishes, whose first object was to
get hold of money to pay his troops and to wring from the Pope the most
favourable treaty possible.
Clement
VII was highly indignant at the non-observance of the armistice. “To produce
240,000 ducats”, Giberti exclaimed, “was as impossible as to join heaven and
earth together”. Bourbon replied by raising his demand to 300,000 ducats. In
the meanwhile the Papal and Venetian troops, under the Duke of Urbino, the
Marquis of Saluzzo, and Guicciardini, had come to the
relief of Florence, already strongly fortified, so that Bourbon, having regard
for the condition of his necessitous and wearied soldiers, felt compelled to
renounce his purpose of attack. With rapid decision he recalled his troops, who
were already making inroads in the valley of the Arno, disencumbered himself of
his last pieces of artillery, and on the 26th of April struck the road to Rome.
Not
only necessity and the conviction that at Rome he would meet with less
opposition, but his ambition to become Viceroy of the whole of Italy urged
Bourbon forward on the city. His soldiers, anticipating the plunder of
Florence, at first showed signs of mutiny, but he succeeded in quieting them
with visions of Rome, where he would “make all of them rich”. In hot haste they
came to Montepulciano and Montefiascone. Neither the slow operations of the
army of the League, nor the unwonted rain-storms, nor the gnawing want of
provisions, could keep back the Imperialists, who were joined on the way by
many adventurers eager to have a share in the spoils. On the 2nd of May they
had reached Viterbo.
Clement,
who up till now had almost intentionally shut his eyes and refused to see his
danger, perceived at last that Bourbon had tricked him and that nothing could
save him except a desperate struggle. On the 25th of April he rejoined the League. The Duke of Urbino was implored to
render help; Giovanni Antonio Orsini was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the
newly organized Papal cavalry, while to Renzo da Ceri was entrusted the defence
of Rome. But for this the one thing necessary was lacking—money. In vain the
Pope called upon the well-to-do citizens to give voluntary contributions. Greed
and infatuation were so great, that Domenico Massimi himself, the richest man in Rome, only offered to lend the sum of 100 ducats!
The
Pope was besought on every side to raise money for the defence of Rome by the sale
of Cardinals’ hats. But Clement, even at this moment incapable of decision,
refused his assent. But when, on the 3rd of May, he was informed that Bourbon
had already advanced beyond Viterbo, he was driven to take the step so
repugnant to him. But it was already too late to obtain the payments from his
nominees; these were Benedetto Accolti, Niccolò Gaddi,
Agostino Spinola, Ercole Gonzaga, Marino Grimani, and the French Chancellor Du
Prat. The Pope could not make up his mind to fly to Civita Vecchia. Quite in contradiction to his usual
character, he now displayed an extraordinary confidence. On the 3rd of May he
rode through the city, encouraging the citizens, who were determined to defend
Rome to the uttermost, and on the 4th he placed Bourbon under the ban of the
greater excommunication.
If
Clement entirely underrated his danger, the principal blame must be laid on his
blind confidence in Renzo da Ceri. The latter, with the utmost assurance, set
all fears at naught, and declared that the four thousand men he had raised were
ample protection, for so great a city as Rome, against the undisciplined and
famished hordes of Bourbon; he went so far as to boast that the city itself
could hold out, even were the enemy so successful as to possess themselves of
the right bank of the Tiber; he therefore even refused to destroy the bridges.
That Renzo placed the greatest confidence in his hastily organized bands,
recruited from stablemen, mechanics, and all sorts of persons inexperienced in
the ways of war, is shown from the fact that on the 4th of May he sent a
message through Giberti to Guido Rangoni, who had
brought more than eight thousand men from the army of the League, that Rome was
so perfectly secure that from six to eight hundred men, armed with guns, would
be a sufficient reinforcement; he advised Rangoni to
return to the League with the remainder of his forces, as he would there be of
much greater use than at Rome!
A
herald of Bourbon, coming to demand the 300,000 ducats from the Pope, received
no answer. From the Vatican Clement VII could see the enemy advance across the
Neronian fields; but even then he saw no serious danger, especially as they
were not supported by artillery. Besides, there was the hourly expectation of
the arrival of the army of the League.
Clement
VII was confirmed in his mistaken conception of the state of things by the
defeat of a troop of landsknechts at the Ponte Molle by Orazio Baglioni. The Mantuan envoy, who reported
this on the 5th of May, added, “The Pope is in the best spirits”. Yet on the
4th of May such a panic had broken out in the city that it seemed as if the
enemy were already within the walls. Thousands tried to find a safe
hiding-place for their property. Many, in spite of prohibitions, fled from
Rome.
Meanwhile
the Imperialist army had surrounded Rome as far as the Janiculum. The main body
encamped in the vineyards behind St. Peter’s. In the cloisters of S. Onofrio, the headquarters of Bourbon, a council of war had
decided that the Leonine city should be stormed on the following morning
without further preparation. The state of the army was desperate. Deprived of
the necessities of life, in an empty and barren country with an enemy in their
rear, they now saw before them their only means of deliverance: this was the
capture of Rome by storm, the walls of which were defended, as they knew, by
only a handful of brave soldiers. Victory or death was Bourbon’s watchword.
With longing eyes his soldiers, craving for booty, counted up the prize of
victory, now, at last, lying before them. The goal to which they had pressed
through so many unheard-of hardships was now reached. The rays of that setting
sun of the 5th of May lit up for the last, time all the magnificence of the
Rome of the Renaissance, then the fairest and richest city in all the world.
CHAPTER
V.
The
Sack of Rome. —Captivity of the Pope.
On
the morning of the 6th of May, Monday after Misericordia Sunday, a thick fog
covered the low, damp levels of the Tiber. In Rome, all through the night, the
great bell of the Capitol had rung the tocsin and called the defenders to their
posts. They stood along the walls in fighting order, but tried in vain to
discern through the impenetrable vapour the movements in the enemy’s camp. Yet,
distinctly audible, there rose from the sea of mist a wild tumult of sounds
mingled with signals of war. The Imperialist army was getting ready for the
assault.
Sciarra
Colonna, with light cavalry and Italian infantry, advanced against the
fortifications of the Milvian Bridge, while Melchior Frundsberg made an attack on the Trastevere at S. Pancrazio. The chief attacking party, meanwhile, moved on
the Leonine city. The north and west sides, where the Belvedere and the Porta Pertusa lay, were attacked at the same time as the south
side; there the Spaniards advanced and, on their right, against the Porta S.
Spirito, the landsknechts did the same. The attack on the Belvedere and the
Porta Pertusa, where Prince Philibert of Orange
commanded, was, however, only a feint intended to deceive the defenders and
turn their attention from the south side. Here, at the Porta Torrione (now Cavalleggieri) and
the Porta S. Spirito, the weakest points of the fortifications, the attack was
heaviest, undertaken without artillery, only with spears, pistols, and ladders
hastily constructed out of garden palings and bound together with withes. It
was a rash enterprise, but the outcome of counsels of despair.
The
first onset was successfully repelled by the defenders, although the latter
were firing at random into the fog. The Spaniards as well as the landsknechts
were forced to withdraw with heavy losses; a second attack also failed.
Bourbon, who saw that everything was at stake, thereupon placed himself at the
head of the assailants. He succeeded in reaching the walls of the Porta Torrione, near the site, in later days, of the Cesi gardens and villa (now the Collegio di S. Monica). Here there was a very badly secured position, easily exposed to
attack. One of the first of the storming party to fall was Bourbon himself, who
had pressed forward with headlong rashness. A bullet struck him down; although
mortally wounded, he yet had the presence of mind to ask those around him to
cover his body with a cloak. In spite of this precaution, the fall of the
Commander-in-Chief became known immediately to the Imperialist army. It caused
such consternation and alarm that the fighting was for a while suspended. But
the enemy, now breathing vengeance, soon resumed their attack on the walls,
from which a deadly fire was pouring. This time the hazard was successful,
being favoured by the fog, now so thick that it was hardly possible for a man
to recognize his neighbour; for the same reason the heavy guns on St. Angelo
were kept entirely out of action. About 6 A.M. the Spaniards succeeded in
breaking through the walls of the city at the Porta Torrione by making skilful use of a badly guarded position ; almost at the same time the
landsknechts scaled the walls of S. Spirito.
Fierce
street fighting was carried on in the Borgo, especially near St. Peter’s and S.
Spirito. The Roman militia, in their desperate resistance, rivalled the loyal
Swiss Guards, who had taken up their position near the obelisk, then still
standing not far from the German Campo Santo; these troops were nearly
annihilated. A testimony to their valour may still be read today in an
inscription near the Church of S. Spirito, which relates that there the Papal
goldsmith, Bernardino Passeri, fell fighting for the
sacred cause of the city of his fathers, after having slain many of the enemy
and captured a standard.
The
whole Borgo was soon ringing with the cries of victory of the Imperialists,
who, as they rushed irresistibly onwards, cut down all who crossed their path,
without regard to age or sex. Almost all the sick in the hospital of S.
Spirito, even the inmates of the neighbouring orphanage, were murdered. Blood
flowed before the altars in St. Peter's. Already in some places plundering was
set on foot, not indeed by soldiers but by the camp rabble for commands had
been given to refrain from plunder until the city was completely taken. These
were so strictly carried out that the soldiers were under orders to slaughter
all beasts of burden found in the Leonine city in order to prevent the
transport of booty, and therewith the disorganization
of the bodies of troops. The Imperialists were prevented from crossing the
bridge of St. Angelo by the hail of cannon balls from the guns of the fortress.
The
rush of the enemy into the Leonine city had taken place so suddenly, in the
midst of the rolling vapours, that Renzo da Ceri lost his head and fled
distractedly to the Vatican. There Clement was praying in his private chapel,
when the approaching sound of the cries of battle told him what had happened.
The Pope up to this moment had trusted implicitly in Renzo’s promises. The
latter had pledged his head that the enemy would not make their way into Rome.
Nothing but rapid flight could now save the chief Pastor of the Church. A
Spanish account says that if he had lingered as long as the time it takes to
say three Credos, he would have fallen a prisoner. With sobs and lamentations
he hastened along the covered way leading to St. Angelo; from the small windows
of the castle he saw the panic-stricken knots of fugitives cut down in pitiless
fury by Spaniards and Germans. The historian Paolo Giovio was of help to
Clement in his flight. He flung his violet prelate’s mantle over the white
clothing of the Pope so that the latter should not be an easy mark for his
enemies as he hurried across the open wooden bridge connecting St. Angelo with
the covered way.
To
the same asylum of refuge fled the non-Imperialist Cardinals, also Giberti,
Jacopo Salviati, Schonberg, the Ambassadors of France and England, the officers
of the Papal Court, and a throng of men, women, and children. Cardinal Pucci,
who, in his flight, had been thrown from his horse and trampled upon, yet
managed to reach the castle at the last moment; Cardinal Armellini was drawn up in a basket. When the drawbridge went up and the rusty portcullis
fell, three thousand persons were computed to have found shelter in the
stronghold. Even then, many others pressed forward, and fell into the moat. “We
stood there”, narrates the sculptor Raffaello da Montelupo, who, like Benvenuto Cellini, was manning the
castle guns, “and looked on at all that passed as if we had been spectators of
a festa. It was impossible to fire, for had we done so, we should have killed
more of our own people than of the enemy. Between the church of S. Maria Transpontina and the gate of the castle more than from four
to five thousand persons were crowded together, pell-mell, and, as far as we
could see, hardly fifty landsknechts behind them. Two standard-bearers of the
latter forced their way through the turmoil with uplifted banners as far as the
great gate of the castle, but were shot down at the head of the bridge”.
Many
inhabitants of the Leonine city sought refuge in flight ; so reckless was the
rush on the boats that many were swamped and sank ; not a few persons flung
themselves in despair into the Tiber. The Imperialists were forced to withdraw
from the Leonine city, where the guns of St. Angelo made occupation impossible.
The commanders accordingly determined to transfer the attack to the second suburb
on the right bank of the Tiber, to Trastevere, from
which three bridges (Ponte Sisto, Ponte Quattro Capi, and Ponte S. Maria) led into Rome proper. Since the
Imperialists could now make use of the captured artillery, they quickly
attained their object, the resistance they encountered being at the same time
very much weaker. St. Angelo indeed kept up a repeated fire, but the guns had
not sufficient range to do serious damage to the besiegers and prevent the
capture of Trastevere.
It
was now the chief object of the Imperialists to act with the utmost possible
despatch before the army of the League drew near and the Romans recovered from
their panic and broke down the bridges. The commanders had difficulty in
keeping together their men, eager for plunder, and ordered the separate
divisions to advance on Ponte Sisto. It was about
seven in the evening when the first columns arrived there. Although it sounds
incredible, it is yet a fact, that the means taken to secure even this most
important point were utterly inadequate. The bridge had not been blown up, and
the gate-house was only weakly defended. The question may be asked How was this
possible? The Roman Marcello Alberini, who as a young man had lived through the
capture of the city, supplies the answer. The defence was organized as badly as
possible ; from the beginning there was no one central command. Apart from
this, the defenders, who were none too numerous, were dispersed along the
entire distance of the long line of the city walls and kept watch at points
where the least danger threatened. Many deserted their posts because no one
brought them their victuals. Others paraded the streets pompously with military
airs, and believed, Alberini adds in bitter irony, that they were thus
defending their native land. Besides, the Ghibellines and satellites of the
Colonna thought that they had nothing to fear if the Imperialists were
victorious; many even wished that Rome might come under the rule of Charles V.
Then, again, the consequences of Bourbon’s death were greatly exaggerated, and
some were convinced to a certainty that the enemy’s army, having lost its
leader, would immediately break up.1 When, at last, the magnitude of the danger
was recognized, attempts were made to open negotiations which, from the nature
of the case, could have no result. But the populace, as if bewildered by fear,
ran about the streets, and people of substance tried to conceal their property
in the houses of Imperialist persons. Only a few high-minded and spirited men
resolved to raise a couple of hundred horsemen to defend the Ponte Sisto. But those brave men were not able to check for long
the inroad of the enemy. From the roof of the palace of the Cancelleria,
Alberini saw how Pierpaolo Tibaldi,
Giulio Vallati, and Giambattista Savelli fell like heroes, whereupon the leaders gave up all for lost and fled.
The
Imperialists now rushed like a mountain torrent in flood through the streets of
the capital. “All were doomed to certain death who were found in the streets of
the city ; the same fate was meted out to all, young or old, woman or man,
priest or monk. Everywhere rang the cry: Empire! Spain! Victory!”
Nevertheless,
the Imperialists did not yet feel secure. At any moment the army of the League
might appear before Rome. Even if a few, here and there, had begun to plunder,
the generals were still able to keep control over the nucleus of the army in
its appointed divisions. The landsknechts held the Campo di Fiore, the
Spaniards the Piazza Navona, while Ferrante Gonzaga watched St. Angelo. These
measures of precaution proved, however, to be unnecessary. Guido Rangoni had, indeed, appeared in the evening at the Ponte Salaro with five hundred light cavalry and eight hundred
musketeers, but on hearing of the fall of Rome had immediately fallen back on Otricoli. When the victorious soldiery saw that no one
disputed their quickly won success, their leaders were no longer in a position
to hold them together. The first to break away in their hunger for booty were
the Spaniards; they were soon followed by the landsknechts. Twenty thousand
disorganized soldiers, to whom a rabble of vagabonds and banditti had attached
themselves, now spread through the streets of the ill-fated capital of the
world, to plunder, burn, and kill in accordance with “the rights of war.”
Carrying lighted wax candles in their hands, these savage bands passed from
house to house in the darkness of the night; they took, however, only gold and
silver; whoever offered resistance was at once cut down.
On
the morning of the 7th of May, Rome presented a spectacle that baffled
description. It was, in the words of Francesco Gonzaga, a sight that might have
moved a stone to compassion. Everywhere there was the most ruthless
devastation, everywhere rapine and murder. The air re-echoed to the wailings of
women, the plaintive cries of children, the barking of dogs, the neighing of
chargers, the clash of arms, and the crash of timber from the burning houses.
All accounts, even the Spanish, agree that no age, no sex, no station, no nationality,
neither Spaniard nor German, neither church nor hospital, was spared.
The
soldiers began by carrying off from the houses and palaces all objects of
value; they then set a price of ransom on all those whom they had robbed, on
men, women, and children, and even on servants; those who were not able to pay
were first tortured in the cruellest manner and then murdered. But even the
payment of their ransom did not help these wretched victims; this only led to
fresh exactions and fresh suffering. Often, when a house was stripped clean of
its contents, it was then set on fire. “Hell,” said a Venetian report of the 10th
of May 1527, “has nothing to compare with the present state of Rome”. In many
places the streets were covered with dead bodies; beneath them lay many a child
under ten years of age who had been flung out of the windows by the soldiers.
Still
more terrible was the fate of defenceless women and maidens. Neither tender
youth nor venerable age nor noble birth shielded the unhappy victims from
brutal ill-usage and dishonour. Many were violated and murdered before the eyes
of their husbands and fathers; even the daughter of the wealthy Domenico Massimi, whose sons had been slain and his palace burned,
fell a victim. More than one contemporary declared that the deeds of the
Vandals, Goths, and Turks were outdone. Many young girls, driven to despair by
the dishonour wreaked upon them, flung themselves into the Tiber; others were
put to death by their own fathers to save them from the extremity of shame. Spaniards,
Germans, and Italians rivalled one another in cruelty towards the unhappy
inhabitants ; but all accounts coincide in giving to the Spaniards, among whom
were many Jews and “Marani,” the palm for ingenuity
in unearthing treasure and contriving tortures, although the Italians, and
especially the Neapolitans, were, on the whole, scarcely second to them.
A
letter of the Venetian, Giovan Barozzi,
written to his brother on the 12th of May 1527, describes with appalling truth
and directness the unspeakable misery of the Romans. “I am”, he says, “a
prisoner of the Spaniards. They have fixed my ransom at 1000 ducats on the
pretext that I am an official. They have, besides, tortured me twice, and
finished by lighting a fire under the soles of my feet. For six days I had only
a little bread and water. Dear brother, do not let me perish thus miserably.
Get the ransom money together by begging. For God’s sake do not abandon me. If
I do not pay the ransom, now amounting to 140 ducats, in twenty-six days they
will hack me in pieces. For the love of God and of the Blessed Virgin help me.
All the Romans are prisoners, and if a man does not pay his ransom he is
killed. The sack of Genoa and of Rhodes was child’s play to this. Help me, dear
Antonio; help me for God's sake, and that as quickly as possible”. The
sufferings here spoken of were by no means the most severe; the French
physician, Jean Cave, in his account of the sack, remarks that no method of
torture was left untried; he gives some examples, in illustration, which the
pen shrinks from transcribing. Luigi Guicciardini relates things of, if
possible, even greater atrocity. A form of torture which seems to have been
especially in favour with the Spaniards was to bind their prisoners fast and
leave them to die of slow starvation. The excesses of German landsknechts were
not marked by such inventive cruelty. They gave way rather to a stupid and
brutal vandalism. Sots and gamblers, knowing nothing of Italy and its language,
they were systematically overreached by the shrewd Spaniards, who knew how to
single out for themselves the richest houses. The Germans also, in their
simplicity, were satisfied for the most part with much smaller ransoms. In
disorderly companies they passed through the streets of the city, not sparing
even their own countrymen, dressed up in a ridiculous manner in magnificently
embroidered silk raiment, with gold chains round their necks and precious
stones twisted through their beards, while their faces were begrimed with
powder and smoke.
Since
the landsknechts were for the most part Lutheran, they did not neglect this
opportunity of heaping scorn and ridicule on the Papacy. With the red hats of
Cardinals on their heads and the long robes of the Princes of the Church flung
round them, they paraded the streets mounted on asses and indulged in every
conceivable mummery. A Bavarian captain, Wilhelm von Sandizell,
even dressed up as the Pope and bade his comrades, masquerading as Cardinals,
kiss his hands and feet. He gave his blessing with a glass of wine, a
salutation which his companions acknowledged by drinking to him in return. The
whole gang then made their way to the Leonine city, to the sounds of trumpets
and fifes, and there proclaimed Luther as Pope in such a way that the inmates
of St. Angelo became aware of their doings. A .landsknecht called Grünwald was said to have shouted up to the fortress that
he wished he could devour a bit of the Pope’s body, because he was a hinderer
of the Word of God. Another carried about a crucifix fastened on the point of
his pike before finally breaking it in pieces.
It
is almost impossible to describe the destruction and sacrilege wrought by the
landsknechts in the churches yet the Spaniards and Italians did not fall far
short of them. Every church, even the national churches of the Spaniards and
the Germans, was plundered. What the generosity and piety of centuries had
amassed in costly vestments, vessels, and works of art, was, in the space of a
few days, carried off by this rude soldiery, flung away on play or wine or sold
to the Jews. The precious settings of relics were torn off; in many instances
even tombs were broken open and ransacked in the search for treasures. Hands
were laid on the Blessed Sacrament of the altar itself; the consecrated species
were flung on the ground and desecrated in all manner of ways. “Unbelievers”,
says a Spanish account, “could not have behaved worse”. It was reported that
some soldiers clothed an ass in bishop’s vestments, led him into a church, and
tried to force a priest to incense the beast solemnly, and even to offer him
the Sacred Host. The priest, on refusing, was cut in pieces.
The
desecration of churches was carried to such a pitch that they were turned into
stables; even St. Peter’s did not escape this fate, for there also tombs were
violated, among others that of Julius II. The head of St. Andrew was thrown on
the ground, the napkin of St. Veronica, a relic deeply venerated during the
Middle Ages, was stolen and offered for sale in Roman hostelries. A famous
crucifix belonging to one of the seven principal altars of St, Peter’s was
hidden away in the clothes of a landsknecht countless relics and costly objects
were at this time purloined; the Holy Lance was fastened by a German soldier to
his pike, and carried in derision through the Borgo. Although the resting-place
of the Princes of the Apostles was desecrated, yet the actual tomb of St. Peter
was left uninjured. The chapel Sancta Sanctorum, declared in an inscription to
be the most sacred spot on earth, was plundered; happily the special treasure
of the chapel remained undisturbed in its huge enclosure of iron.
The
fury of the captors wreaked itself with special cruelty on all persons of
ecclesiastical status. A large proportion of the priests and monks who fell
into the hands of the landsknechts were murdered. Many were sold publicly as
captives of war; others were made to put on women’s clothing and exposed to
shocking ribaldry. The Spaniards made it their main business to extort money
from the clergy. The landsknechts declared that they had promised to God to
murder all priests, and they acted accordingly; Patriarchs, Archbishops,
Bishops, Protonotaries, Abbots were ill-treated, fined, and murdered. Venerable
priests well stricken in years were treated with violence. The Bishop of
Potenza, eighty years of age, being unable to pay his ransom, was at once put
to death. The Bishop of Terracina, in his ninetieth year, failing to give the
30,000 ducats demanded of him, was publicly put up for sale, with a truss of
straw on his head, like a beast in the cattle market. Other ecclesiastics had
their noses and ears cut off, and were forced to perform the lowest services.-
Still
more terrible were the sufferings endured by the nuns. Some succeeded at the
last hour in securing safe places of concealment. More than a hundred and sixty
who had taken refuge in a convent near S. Lorenzo in Paneperna were, on payment of money, protected by a company of landsknechts from their
own comrades. One of the nuns of S. Cosimato in Trastevere, all of whom had fled there in a body, describes
the deadly agony which she and her companions, mostly women of noble birth,
went through. The same chronicle gives a vivid description of the spoliation of
the rich church of S. Cosimato, where an image of the
Infant Christ Himself, carved in wood, was shattered in pieces. But what was
all this compared with the fate of those religious houses of women whose
inmates had no hope of escape, as, for example, the nuns of S. Maria in Campo Marzo, S. Rufina, and others! It can easily be understood
that the atrocities committed were indescribable. The victims of this bestial
rapine were to be counted happy who, after being robbed of all, were slain; the
majority of those who survived were reserved for a fate harder than death.
Half-naked, or huddled up, in mockery, in Cardinals' robes, they were dragged
through the streets to the houses of ill-fame, or sold singly in the markets
for two ducats, or even less, apiece. Here again the Spaniards committed the
worst abominations. The German landsknechts, at first, were content for the
most part with extorting ransoms and securing precious belongings and sometimes
they even protected persecuted innocence from their own comrades; but later on
they followed the example of the others, and, in not a few cases, tried,
indeed, to outvie them in their excesses.
The
landsknechts, among whom were many Lutherans, had shown no pity, from the
first, for the clergy and the Cardinals, who, moreover, had been handled badly
enough by the ruthless Spaniards. Even the Cardinals with Imperialist
sympathies did not escape wholesale robbery, savage ill-usage, and cruel
mockery. For eight days the palaces of Cardinals Piccolomini, Valle, Enkevoirt,
and Cesarini, situated in the Rione S. Eustachio,
were spared, their owners having secured the protection of Spanish officers,
who declared that they would take nothing from the Cardinals themselves, but
demanded large sums from the numerous fugitives who found asylum in those
palaces. At first they asked for 100,000 ducats from each palace; but
afterwards were satisfied on receiving 45,000 from Cesarini, 40,000 from
Enkevoirt, and 35,000 from Valle and Piccolomini each. These sums had to be
paid in ducats to the full amount ; all other coins and also precious stones
were rejected. But the landsknechts were now also anxious to visit these
palaces, and finally the Spaniards announced that they could not guarantee any
further protection. The landsknechts fell first on the palace of Cardinal
Piccolomini, who thought himself perfectly safe, as he and his family were,
from old times, friends of the Emperor and the Germans. After a four hours’
fight the palace was taken and plundered. The Cardinal, who had to disburse
5000 ducats, was dragged, with his head uncovered, amid blows and kicks, to the
Borgo. In consequence Cardinals Cesarini, Valle, and Enkevoirt also felt no
longer safe, and fled to the Palazzo Colonna. They had hardly left their
residences before looting and destruction began. Not content with the huge
booty they found there, the landsknechts laid a heavy ransom on every Roman who
had taken refuge in these palaces. In addition to this the three hundred and
ninety persons in the Palazzo Valle had been fined already, on the 8th of May,
by Fabrizio Maramaldo, a captain in the Imperialist
army. The Cardinal and his household on this occasion had been mulcted in 7000
ducats ; the other fugitives had been rated individually according to their
means. The total sum raised in this one palace alone—of an Imperialist
Cardinal—amounted to 34,455 ducats.
Cardinals
Cajetan and Ponzetti were also dragged through the
streets, fettered, and subjected to ill-usage and ridicule. Ponzetti,
who was also an Imperialist, had to pay a ransom of 20,000 ducats he died in
consequence of the injuries he had received. The Franciscan Cardinal Numai, then suffering from serious illness, was carried on
a bier through the streets by Lutheran landsknechts singing dirges. They then
took him to a church, where a mock funeral service was gone through, and
threatened to fling him into a grave if he did not pay a ransom. He was
afterwards carried to some friends who were bound over to be his sureties. Cristofero Marcello, Archbishop of Corfu, was called upon
to pay 6000 ducats; not having the money, he was flung into imprisonment at
Gaeta under threats of death.
A
heavy ransom was demanded even from the Portuguese Ambassador, who was very
nearly related to Charles V, and on his refusing to pay, his palace was
plundered. As several bankers had transferred their property thither for
safety, the soldiers came into possession of an exceedingly rich haul. The
Florentine banker, Bernardo Bracci, was taken by
Spanish soldiers to the Bank of the Foreigners, where he had to pay down his
ransom of 8206 ducats. On the Ponte Sisto he met the
captain. La Motte, who had been appointed governor of the city, who threatened
to fling Bracci into the Tiber unless he laid down an
additional 600 ducats; Bracci paid and so saved his
life. Even Perez, the Secretary of the Imperial Embassy, was in danger of his
life at the hands of savage landsknechts, and suffered heavy losses in money
and property. The Emperor's procurator, George Sauermann,
was so completely despoiled that he was reduced to beggary, and died in the
street from hunger and exhaustion. No place afforded safety; the very
hospitals, among them even that of the Germans, were not spared.
The
Venetian Ambassador, Domenico Venier, and the envoys
of Mantua, Ferrara, and Urbino, had fled to the great palace of Isabella,
Marchioness of Mantua, at SS. Apostoli. This high-minded Princess had also
given asylum in her fortress-palace to a multitude of men and women of noble
birth. While it was still night her son, Ferrante Gonzaga, came in haste to
protect her; he was unable, however, to prevent the sum of 60,000 ducats being
levied as ransom on those to whom his mother had given shelter. Although a
watch of Spaniards and landsknechts now guarded the house, it was repeatedly
threatened by turbulent bands of the captors. The Marchioness was in deadly
fear. On the 13th of May she fled to Civita Vecchia with her escaped the Venetian Ambassador, disguised
as a porter. In the letter in which Venier announced
his safety to the Doge, he remarks, “The destruction of Jerusalem could not
have been worse than that of Rome”.
Pompeo
Colonna appeared in Rome on the 10th of May. He found his palace sacked, and
the streets covered with dead bodies the scene of cruel desolation moved even
this hard man to tears. Giovio states that Colonna took urgent steps to
mitigate the misery and gave protection to several fugitives ; but with him
some thousand peasants from the environs had made their way into Rome, ready to
seize on what had been left over from the pillage of the soldiery. Not only the
iron railings, but even the very nails were wrenched by them from the walls of
the houses. The Pope's villa on Monte Mario was now given to the flames.
The
Frenchman Grolier, who betook himself for safety to the house of a Spanish
Bishop, has described, in striking words, the scene that met his eye as he
looked, from the terrace of his place of refuge, over the city now given up to
fire and sword : “From every side came cries, the clash of arms, the shrieks of
women and children, the crackling of flames, the crash of falling roofs. We
stood motionless with fear and listened, as if fate had singled us out alone to
be the spectators of the ruin of our homes”. There was hardly a house in Rome
at last which was not injured. Even the wretched huts of the water-carriers and
porters were not spared. “In the whole city”, ran one account, “there was not a
soul above three years of age who had not to purchase his safety”. Several paid
ransoms twice or even three times over many were in such bodily suffering that
they preferred an immediate death to further torture.
It
is hardly possible to compute the number of deaths with certainty. In the Borgo
and Trastevere alone, two thousand corpses were cast
into the Tiber, nine thousand eight hundred were buried. The booty of the
soldiers was incalculable. At the lowest estimate it must have amounted in
money and objects of value to more than one million ducats, in payments of
ransom to three or four millions. Clement VII estimated the total damage at ten
millions in gold. Many soldiers had plundered coin in such quantity that they
were not able even to drag their booty away; each vagabond camp-follower had as
many ducats as he could fill his cap with.
With
a pitiless coolness which makes one shudder, the Protestant hero Sebastian Schertlin von Burtenbach relates
in his autobiography the misery of the Romans whereby their victors were
enriched: “In the year 1527, on the 6th of May, we took Rome by storm, put over
6000 men to the sword, plundered the whole city, seized all that we could find
in all the churches and anywhere, burned down a great part of the city, and
seldom spared, tearing and destroying all copyists' work, registers, letters,
and state documents”.
The
last clause touches on an aspect of the sack of Rome which moves the historian
to grief: the destruction, namely, of historical documents and literary
treasures. The library of the monastery of S. Sabina, the precious private
collections and manuscripts of many learned scholars, were scattered or burnt.
Six books of Giovio’s history perished. Cardinal Accolti lost his whole library. The remarkable gaps in the
private and monastic archives of Rome; the poverty, above all, of the
Capitoline records, are certainly a consequence of the destruction wrought at
this time. In many despatches of this period it is expressly stated that
original Papal documents and valuable manuscripts were lying about the streets,
or were used as litter for the horses. Cardinal Trivulzio mentions in particular the destruction of the Apostolic Camera, where many
volumes of registers were torn up and the leaden seals of Bulls melted down for
bullets. Clement VII himself mentions that all the deeds of the Secret Chancery
fell into the soldiers' hands. The Vatican Library, containing the most precious
collection of manuscripts in the world, barely escaped destruction; this was
saved only owing to the circumstance that Philibert of Orange had his
headquarters in the palace; nevertheless, it sustained serious losses.
Orange
occupied the Papal apartments. He caused his charger to be stabled close to him
lest the animal should be stolen; the most beautiful chambers in the Vatican,
even the Sixtine Chapel, were turned into
horse-stalls. There is also no doubt that works of art, especially marble statues,
were destroyed or taken away. Such famous antiques, in the Vatican, as the
bronzes of the Capitol, the masterpieces of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and other
artists of the Renaissance, luckily suffered no serious damage. This can be
quite well explained by the fact that the soldiery only laid hands, for the
most part, on those works of art which attracted them by their adornments of
gold, silver, and precious stones. Thus the sack caused irremediable loss among
the numerous specimens of the goldsmith's and jeweller’s craft. The gold cross
of Constantine, the golden rose presented by Martin V to the Church of St.
Peter, and the tiara of Nicholas V were stolen.
For
eight days, according to the lowest reckoning, the work of robbery and murder
went on unchecked. An order, issued on the third day, that plundering was to
cease, was totally disregarded. The want of discipline among the pillaging
soldiery was such that if the army of the League had arrived suddenly, it would
have hardly met with serious resistance; the gates of the city were never once
guarded. Philibert of Orange was nominally the Commander-in-Chief; La Motte was
Governor of the city. If the latter extorted money under threats of death, it
can easily be supposed that his subordinates would also exact ransom from their
captives. This form of torture was unending; many must have redeemed themselves
six times over. The thirst for blood had been quenched, the thirst for money
remained the very sewers were searched, and yet many a hidden treasure escaped
the robbers.
While
dogs were gnawing the corpses around them, the soldiers gave themselves up to
dice and wine. At the Ponte Sisto, in the Borgo, and
on the Campo di Fiore, relates a Roman notary, gold-embroidered garments of
silk and satin, woollen and linen cloths, rings, pearls, and other costly
articles in a confused medley, proceeds of the sack, were sold, German women
had whole sacks of such things, which they traded in at stiff prices; but, once
sold, all was soon stolen again. “Children and beggars were rich; the rich were
poor”. “I”, says this narrator in conclusion, “was taken prisoner together with
my wife by the Spaniards, and had to pay 100 ducats. After losing all my
property, I fled first to Tivoli and then to Palestrina”. The same fate befell
thousands; the unhappy victims of the sack left Rome half naked, and sought in
the surrounding districts the means wherewith to appease their hunger. Among
them were citizens who, a short time before, had stalled ten horses in their
stables.
Many
soldiers made off with their booty at once and went to Naples; others soon
gambled it all away, and, as Brandano, the prophet of
Siena, now set at liberty by the Imperialists, had once foretold, “the gains of
priests, and the plunder of war, quickly come and quickly go”. With menaces
they demanded their pay. Moreover, on the 17th of May, some cases of plague had
begun to appear. As all provisions had been destroyed in the most wanton
manner, a food famine threatened to break out; eatables were worth their weight
in gold an egg cost a giulio, a loaf two ducats. Bloody quarrels, also, were of
daily occurrence between the Spaniards and landsknechts. Scattered over the
whole city, the army was on the verge of total disruption. In a case of alarm
the officers had to go from house to house and seek out their men one by one.
All
these conditions must have made Philibert heartily anxious to come to terms of
peace with the Pope. Clement VII, who found his position in the castle of St.
Angelo a desperate one, had already, on the 7th of May, entered into
communication with the Imperialists. Bartolomeo Gattinara came to the castle,
where the Pope, with tears in his eyes, told him that he flung himself on the
Emperor's magnanimity. On the 9th of May a treaty was proposed, in accordance
with which the fortress of St. Angelo, Ostia, Civita Vecchia, Modena, Parma, and Piacenza were to be
surrendered, 150,000 gold scudi paid to the Imperialists, 200,000 ducats levied
on the States of the Church, and the Colonna family reinstated; the Pope and
the Cardinals were to be conveyed to Naples. But the Germans now made
difficulties; they announced that they would not leave Rome until their arrears
of pay, amounting to 300,000 ducats, were paid. Gattinara was at his wits’ end;
the army of the League might appear at any moment, and the whole question would
be reopened.
On
the night of the 12th of May two leaders of the League party made an attempt to
rescue the Pope; this bold enterprise was baulked only by an accident. New
negotiations now ensued, but Clement was, as always, undecided. Du Bellay
described the Pope's attitude in the phrase, “Today peace, tomorrow war; today
action, tomorrow rest”. Meanwhile, in the hard-pressed castle of St. Angelo,
the position grew more difficult day by day. The arrival of the forces of the
League, with whom communication had been opened by means of beacon signals, was
hoped for in vain.
Clement
VII would have liked best to treat with Lannoy, who was lying in Siena; on the 18th
of May he asked the Duke of Urbino to give the Viceroy a free-conduct to Rome.
On the 19th, Gattinara, the Abbot of Najera, and Vespasiano Colonna came again to St. Angelo, where the Pope, after long consultation with
the Cardinals, decided to surrender. Nothing was wanting to the new terms of
capitulation, which had undergone alteration in some particulars, save the
signatures, when the news was brought that the army of the League was drawing
near. Thereupon the French party succeeded in bringing the Pope to a change of
mind. During the night the Imperial council of war had determined to begin the
actual siege of the castle. Entrenchments were at once thrown up,
reinforcements ordered from Naples, and every disposition taken to repel any
attempt at relief on the part of the Leaguers. The latter, with a force 15,000
strong, had at length, on the 22nd of May, reached Isola, nine miles from Rome,
where Cardinal Egidio Canisio also joined them with
auxiliary troops. But notwithstanding the eloquent representations of
Guicciardini and the appeals for help from St. Angelo, the council of war
decided not to make any attempt at relief. The soldiers, many of whom had
already gone over to the enemy, were not to be trusted, and on the 2nd of June
the camp was broken up and the retreat on Viterbo begun.
The
departure of the army of the League, without striking a blow, has been branded
by Ariosto in scathing words :
Vedete gli omicidii e le rapine
In ogni parte far Roma dolente;
E con incendi e stupri le divine
E le profane cose ire ugualmente.
II campo de la lega le ruine
Mira d' appresso, e 'l pianto e 'l grido sente,
E dove ir dovria inanzi, torna in dietro,
E prender lascia il successor di Pietro.
The
Pope’s enemies, burning for a fight, planted their cannon on Monte Mario and
laid mines in order that they might, in the last extremity, blow up the Pope
and all about him.
Such
was the situation when, on the 1st of June, Schonberg left the castle and
approached the Imperialists; at the same time Pompeo Colonna was invited to
have audience with Clement VII. The two enemies soon stood face to face with
tears in their eyes. Colonna did all in his power to facilitate an
understanding. On the 5th of June an agreement was reached; the conditions
were: the surrender of the castle, of the strongholds of Ostia, Civita Vecchia, Civita Casteliana, as well as of
the cities of Piacenza, Parma, and Modena; the payment of 400,000
ducats—100,000 at once, 50,000 within twenty days; the remainder to be
collected by means of a levy on the States of the Church. The Pope, with the
thirteen Cardinals who were with him, was still to remain, for the time being,
a prisoner in St. Angelo. As soon as the 100,000 ducats were paid, the
surrender of the strong places carried out, and plenipotentiaries appointed for
the surrender of the cities, he would be allowed to withdraw to Naples. As
security for the money payments, the following were made hostages: Giovanni
Maria del Monte, Archbishop of Manfredonia, Onofrio Bartolini, Archbishop of Pisa, Antonio Pucci, Bishop
of Pistoja, Giberti, Jacopo Salviati, the father of
the Cardinal, Lorenzo Ridolfi, and Simone Ricasoli. Further, the Pope was to
restore to the Colonna all their possessions, to reinstate Cardinal Pompeo in
all his dignities, and to remove all censures from the Imperialists.
On
the 7th of June the Papal garrison left the castle of St. Angelo, whereupon
four companies of Spanish and German troops marched in. The Pope was entrusted to
the custody of Alarcon, who had once been also the jailer of Francis I. Among
the Germans who occupied St. Angelo was Schertlin von Burtenbach, who describes with ruthless brutality the
sad plight in which he found the Pope and Cardinals in a narrow chamber. “They
were making a great lamentation and weeping bitterly ; as for us, we all became
rich”.
CHAPTER VI
The
Anarchic Condition of the Papal States. —The Efforts of Henry VIII and Francis
I to deliver the Pope. — The Attitude of Charles V. The Flight of Clement VII to
Orvieto.
“The
Pope”, wrote Guicciardini on the 21st of June 1527, “is treated as an actual
prisoner. Only with the greatest difficulty can entrance into the castle or
egress from it be obtained, so that it is almost impossible to have speech with
him. They have not left him ten scudi worth of property. He is beset daily with
fresh demands, and not the slightest attention is shown to his wishes regarding
those of his servants who remain in the city”.
There
was no limit to the rapacity of the Imperialists. A Ferrarese agent reports
that Bartolomeo Gattinara went the length of taking from the Pope’s finger a
diamond ring worth 150,000 ducats and of forcing him to sign a paper containing
a promise of the Cardinalate. Clement himself told Roberto Boschetti that “the Spaniards had robbed him before his eyes of the chalice he used at Mass”.
Clement could only regain his freedom by consenting to the hard conditions of
the treaty. But in respect of these very conditions the most serious
difficulties at once arose. In the first place, the Spaniards only held Ostia.
In the upper parts of the Papal States not the slightest concern was shown for
the commands of the captive Pope. Civita Castellana was held by the troops of the League; Andrea
Doria held Civita Vecchia and refused to surrender the town until the 14,000 ducats he was called upon to
raise were paid. Parma and Piacenza refused flatly to open their gates to the
Imperial plenipotentiaries, and by the beginning of June Modena was in the
hands of the Duke of Ferrara. The Venetians, “the allied associates” of the
unfortunate Pope, in their desire to acquire territory, had taken advantage of
the situation to lay hands on Ravenna and Cervia.
Sigismondo Malatesta, favoured by Duke Alfonso, had made himself master of
Rimini, while Imola had fallen to the lot of Giovanni da Sassatello,
and Perugia to the sons of Giampaolo Baglioni. Not less painful to Clement than
these losses in the States was the rebellion of his native Florence.
Drawn
into the anti-Imperial alliance by the Pope, the Florentines had had to make
the heaviest pecuniary sacrifices. Cardinal Silvio Passerini,
who had resided in Florence since 1524, a man as inconsiderate as he was selfish
and avaricious, was not fitted to quell the rising discontent. His hardness and
lack of understanding embittered the spirits of all. To the news of the
storming of Rome the Florentines replied by an insurrection against Medicean rule, and on the 17th of May Cardinal Passerini was obliged to leave the city, taking with him
his wards, Ippolito and Alessandro, the cousins of Clement VII. This was
followed by the restoration of the republican government as it existed prior to
1512. Niccolo Capponi was chosen Gonfaloniere.
He repressed the more serious forms of disorder, but was unable to prevent the
Florentine youth, whose heads were turned by their newly acquired freedom, from
destroying all the armorial escutcheons of the Medici and even the wax effigies
of Leo X and Clement VII in the Church of the Annunziata.
At
this time Bologna also was very nearly lost to the Pope. The situation grew
worse from day to day. The provinces, in Guicciardini’s opinion, were virtually without government. “Our distress”, wrote Giberti to Gambara on the 27th of June, “passes all imagination”.
Nowhere was this more felt than at Rome.
The
outlook in the Eternal City, a month after the sack, is described by a Spaniard
in the following words :
“In
Rome, the chief city of Christendom, no bells ring, no churches are open, no
Masses are said, Sundays and feast-days have ceased. The rich shops of the
merchants are turned into stables; the most splendid palaces are stripped bare;
many houses are burnt to the ground; in others the doors and windows are broken
and carried away the streets are changed into dunghills. The stench of dead
bodies is terrible; men and beasts have a common grave, and in the churches I
have seen corpses that dogs have gnawn. In the public places tables are set
close together at which piles of ducats are gambled for. The air rings with
blasphemies fit to make good men, if such there be, wish that they were deaf I
know nothing wherewith I can compare it, except it be the destruction of
Jerusalem. I do not believe that if I lived for two hundred years I should see
the like again. Now I recognize the justice of God, who forgets not, even if
His coming tarries. In Rome all sins are openly committed, sodomy, simony,
idolatry, hypocrisy, fraud. Well may we believe, then, that what has come to
pass has not been by chance but by the judgment of God.”
A
speedy Nemesis, however, was to overtake the victors for the cruelties they had
perpetrated. Rome became their destruction; dissension, hunger, and plague
threatened to annihilate the Imperialist army. The soldiers no longer obeyed
their commanders; always in uproar, they demanded their pay with threats.
Because the landsknechts received the first distribution of Papal payments in
cash, the Spaniards felt themselves injured; nor were occasions of friction and
strife wanting in their drinking bouts, and at the gaming tables. On the loth
of June a bloody affray took place between Spaniards and Italians on the one
side and Germans on the other. “The game”, wrote Perez on the 11th of June to
Charles V, “is now entirely in the hands of the landsknechts, who, not content
with having pillaged the houses of Roman citizens, are now plundering those of
the Spanish and Italian officers on the pretext of looking for corn, meal, and
wine”. In order to prevent further excesses Prince Philibert of Orange ordered
a daily patrol of the city by three Spanish and three German officers with
their companies, a measure which restored order to a certain extent. This was
all the more necessary as hunger and pestilence were pressing daily with
increasing severity on the Imperialists.
Already
on the 30th of May Perez reported to the Emperor that the want of food was so
great that, if the army remained much longer in Rome, thousands must die of
hunger. A measure of wheat cost 50 ducats and more, and it was only by force of
arms that the price could be kept at this figure. Those of the inhabitants who
could, fled. If this state of things lasted no one would be left in Rome except
Imperialists. On the 11th of June Salazar sent a like account to Gattinara: “A
couple of eggs cost six giulios. One can say with truth that, as far as food
and clothing are concerned, the pillage of Rome is still going on, especially
by the landsknechts, who lay hands on everything they find. No one can imagine
the cruelties that are committed every day. Without respect of rank, age, and
nationality, people are ill-used, tortured, and slain daily. If a man cannot
pay he is sold—be he an Italian or a German—in open market as a slave, and if
he does not fetch a purchaser, they cast dice for him. The soldiers are
absolute masters of the city. They obey no man”. The landsknechts suffered most in consequence
of their mad manner of living. “Many of our men die here of plague”, wrote Kaspar Schwegler on the 11th of
June. “Many drink heavily, become delirious, and so die; the wine here is very
strong”.
The
warm season of the year and the effluvia from the many bodies of men and
animals, to which the hastiest burial had been given, turned Rome into a “stinking
slaughter-pit”. By the 22nd of July two thousand five hundred Germans had died of
the plague, and the streets were covered with dead and dying. The pestilence
made its way into the castle of St. Angelo and exacted fresh victims among the
servants of the Pope.
Clement,
in the meantime, was making strenuous efforts to collect the promised sums of
money with which to recover his freedom. The Papal tiaras—only that of Julius
II was spared,—after their precious jewels had been taken out and concealed,
had already been melted down by Benvenuto Cellini in a wind furnace hastily
constructed on the top of the castle near the statue of the angel. Now all the
rest of the gold and silver plate, even chalices and images of the saints,
found its way into the melting-pot. In this way 70,000 ducats were forthcoming
in the second half of June. But the troops, now completely out of hand,
demanded with menaces further sums. To obtain them, Clement, on the 3rd of July
1527, turned to all the Bishops of the kingdom of Naples with prayers for help.
He bitterly bewailed his necessities. He was bound by the treaty to pay 400,000
ducats, but since the assets in gold and metals in St. Angelo could only
produce 80,000, he was compelled to appeal to the benevolence of others.
Meanwhile no time was left to await the success of these requests. On the 6th
of July Clement was forced, under extremely burdensome conditions, to borrow
from the Genoese banker Ansaldo Grimaldi and the Catalonian merchant Michael
Girolamo Sanchez. The loan amounted to 195,000 gold scudi. It was
characteristic of the Pope’s position that the lenders at once deducted from
this sum the enormous accommodation charge of 45,000 scudi. Clement had,
besides this, to pledge as securities the town of Benevento, the quit-rents and
the church tithes of the kingdom of Naples, as well as valuables worth 30,000 scudi.
To pay still further sums immediately was, in spite of the Pope's good-will,
impossible, which drew from the landsknechts fearful threats.
Meanwhile
hunger and pestilence had reached such a pitch in Rome that the city became
uninhabitable. Those who could not fight for their daily bread at the point of
the sword had to die of hunger. Men dropped down dead in the street like flies.
A Venetian report put the cases of death on several days at five hundred, on
others at seven hundred, and even, in some instances, at a thousand. The burial
of the dead could not be thought of.
Under
such circumstances the Spanish and Italian troops left the city about the
middle of June and made for the more distant neighbourhood. The landsknechts
remained and threatened to murder all their officers and reduce Rome to ashes.
Orange and Bemelberg were in a very difficult
position, but at last, on the loth of July, they succeeded in inducing their
utterly disorganized troops to cross to the further side of the Tiber and there
encamp on ground free from plague and wait for the Pope’s remittances. Only the
garrison of St. Angelo remained in Rome.
Orange,
with a hundred and fifty horsemen, went to Siena. Bemelberg and Schertlin von Burtenbach,
with the landsknechts, marched on Umbria. The generals were quite powerless to
cope with their tumultuous soldiery; by the time they reached Orte there was mutiny in the distrustful ranks and the
general’s tent was destroyed. It was only upon the threat of laying down his
command that Bemelberg brought the mutineers to their
senses. The inhabitants of the small town of Narni refused to admit the wild horde and made a desperate resistance. They were
cruelly chastised (17th July). “With two thousand landsknechts we made the
assault without firing a shot, took the town and castle by God’s grace, and
then put upwards of one thousand persons to death; women and men”.
Besides
the General of the Franciscans, Francesco Quiñones, who had been appointed
previous to the great catastrophe, the Pope, under the pressure of his
intolerable situation, had, by the middle of May, matured his plan of sending
Cardinal Farnese to Charles V, in company with the Portuguese envoy, Don
Martin, in order to urge on his liberation. Farnese received comprehensive instructions
drawn up in justification of the Papal policy towards Charles. After hearing,
on the 24th of June, of the birth of Prince Philip, afterwards King, Clement
wrote a letter of congratulation to the Emperor; he did not omit to include
some references to his distress, and besought Charles to show his gratitude to
God by giving freedom to the Vicar of Christ.
The
mission of Farnese was displeasing to the Emperor’s commanders; they would have
liked better that Schonberg and Moncada should have gone to Spain. But Clement
had not sufficient confidence in Schonberg, whose devotion to Charles was
notorious, to entrust him with such a charge; therefore, on the 11th and 12th
of July, the letters of safe-conduct were prepared for Don Martin and Cardinal
Farnese. The Cardinal started on his journey but remained in upper Italy.
Cardinal Salviati also, who was still resident in France, made pretexts for
evading the embassy to the Emperor for which the Pope had intended him, and
threw the burden on Giacopo Girolami.
His instructions for the latter, dated the 10th of July 1527, are preserved in
the Papal secret archives, but they do not exactly give evidence of Salviati’s diplomatic talent. In reading them it is
especially strange to note how, among other things, the Cardinal is at pains to
show that Clement and Charles had never really been enemies, but rather had
worked reciprocally for each other’s interests. Among the negative services for
which Salviati, quite seriously, gave his master credit, is the fact that Clement
had never done the Emperor all the harm which it was in his power to do. In
conclusion, Salviati appealed to the magnanimity of Charles, and pointed out to
him that the liberation of the Pope would be to his own advantage, since
thereby the Imperial army in Rome would be set free and be able to oppose the
French forces then advancing into Lombardy.
Francis
I was not the only sovereign then threatening Charles V. Henry VIII also seemed
determined to do all that was possible to restore Clement to freedom. The
alliance between the French and English sovereigns, which had already found
expression in the treaty of Westminster, concluded in April 1527, had become
still closer under the pressure of events in Italy. The English King promised,
on the 29th of May, to pay a monthly subsidy of 32,000 crowns to the French
army, and gave Cardinal Wolsey full powers to treat with Francis regarding the
further steps to be taken towards the Pope’s release. “The affairs of the Holy
See”, Henry declared, “are the common concern of all princes. The unheard-of
outrages that See has undergone must be avenged”.
Henry’s
concern for the Holy See was in no way disinterested; for he was afraid that
the Pope’s captivity might impede his contemplated divorce from Catherine of
Aragon, the Emperor’s aunt. Wolsey also had his own objects to serve in
intervening in favour of the Pope. On the 3rd of July he left London with a
great retinue on his journey to France. In Canterbury he celebrated Mass at the
altar of St. Thomas, the martyr of ecclesiastical freedom, and published, as
Papal Legate and representative of the King, an edict ordering fasts and
processions during the Pope’s captivity. A copy of this ordinance was sent to
Salviati for promulgation in France, and the same was done in Venice. It was
hoped that this course of action would make a great impression even in Spain,
and that in this way the Emperor, under the pressure of a popular movement,
would set the chief ruler of the Church at liberty.
Wolsey
was welcomed at Calais by Cardinal Jean de Lorraine, who conducted him to
Amiens to meet Francis I. The interview between the French King and the English
Cardinal took place in that city on the 4th of August, with exceptional marks
of respect on the part of Francis. This meeting was looked forward to all the
more hopefully because Francis, who hitherto, in spite of all warnings, had
maintained his light-hearted indifference, had, after the sack of Rome,
appeared to have become a changed man. At the first moment the King had been
completely dazed; afterwards he determined to act. His chief inducement,
however, was certainly less the liberation of the Head of the Church, than his
alarm at the supremacy of the Emperor and his hope of recovering his sons,
still kept as hostages. Steps were taken, on a large scale, to recruit the
army. Orders were issued to the French fleet in the Mediterranean to prevent,
in every way, the removal of the Pope to Spain, and Andrea Doria was taken into
the French service, in command of eight galleys. Lautrec was given full powers
to carry on the war in Italy; he had already, on the 30th of June, left the
French Court in order to join the army then assembling in the neighbourhood of
Asti. “After all”, wrote Salviati to Castiglione, who was living as Nuncio at
the Court of Charles V, “this victory, or rather this massacre of Rome, has not
been of much use to the Emperor. On the contrary, it has roused the princes to
greater activity, and”, he adds in a tone of vexation, “for all this poor Italy
must pay the bill”.
At
Amiens Wolsey discussed matters thoroughly with Francis I, Salviati, the
English nuncio Gambara, and the Florentine envoy Acciaiuoli. “Although”, remarked the latter, “the Cardinal
displays publicly a somewhat exaggerated and ostentatious pomp and state, yet
his talk, bearing, and manner of transacting affairs show a truly large and
enterprising mind. He is a man of attractive character, full of noble and lofty
thoughts. I do not remember since the days of Alexander VI to have seen anyone
who filled his position so majestically; but, in contrast to that Pope, it must
be stated that the Cardinal's life is without blame”.
Wolsey
explained the aim of his mission to be the liberation of the Pope, the
maintenance of the Italian States in their independence and integrity, and the
overthrow of the Emperor’s supremacy. He brought with him 300,000 scudi for the
war and made extensive proposals in regard to it. Casale was to go into Italy to watch carefully that the monthly subsidies promised by
Henry VIII were applied to the right uses, and that Vaudemont,
with ten thousand landsknechts, took part in the campaign. From Francis I,
Wolsey obtained a promise that he would make no treaty for the surrender of his
sons so long as the Pope remained a prisoner. On the 18th of August was
concluded the alliance between France and England which was to wring by force
from the Emperor the liberation of Clement VII. In this treaty of Amiens the
allied sovereigns bound themselves to refuse their assent to any summons of a
council as long as the Pope was not free, and to offer a common resistance to
any attempt to make the Papal power subservient to the advantage and interest
of Charles.
While
he was still at Amiens, Francis I issued strict orders that no Frenchman should
proceed to Rome on business relating to Church benefices, and that no money
from France should be sent there before the Pope recovered his entire
freedom. Wolsey made one more special proposal : that all the Cardinals
who were at liberty should assemble at Avignon and, while the Pope’s captivity
lasted, assume the reins of government. “The assembly of the Cardinals”, such
was the opinion of Acciaiuoli, “had two aims in view.
On the one hand, the Emperor would be brought to see that if he transported the
Pope to Spain or Naples, or kept him a prisoner, the government of the Church
and the ordering of ecclesiastical affairs in France and England would be cared
for by the Cardinals; on the other hand, in the eventuality of Clement’s death, the Cardinals who were in the Emperor’s
power would be prevented from electing a new Pope, since, in such a case,
France and England would set up an antipope”. Clearly, it would be proved to
the Emperor that, although he held the Pope, he did not hold the Church in his
grasp, and that Clement as a prisoner was a useless prize.
“Wolsey”,
declared one of his confidential servants to Cardinals Cibo, Passerini, and Ridolfi, “is acting more in the
interests of the Church and Italy than of his King, for he is mindful of his
dignity and his obligations to the Holy See and the house of Medici”. As a
matter of fact the intentions of the English Cardinal were not so
disinterested. This did not escape even Cardinal Salviati; in the official
correspondence, in which he invited Cardinals Cibo, Passerini, Ridolfi, Egidio Canisio, Trivulzio, Numai, and Cupis to assemble at Avignon, he only set forth in general
terms the advantages of such a plan. But in his confidential letters to
Castiglione and Guicciardini he did not hold back his real opinion: “The
pretext is not a bad one, but the thing itself I dislike. I fear a schism or
some other incurable misfortune”. “Wolsey, during the Pope’s captivity, might
become his substitute for the whole of Christendom, or at least for England and
France.” This shows that the English schism was already casting its shadow
before. The ambitious Cardinal aimed at nothing less than becoming, at least
for England, the acting Pope; as such he would gratify the will of his monarch
by declaring his marriage invalid.
Wolsey’s
well-known ambition gave rise in many minds to the worst suspicions. Sanchez
thought that Wolsey was certainly aiming at the tiara, in the event of Clement’s death. Canossa expressed his serious doubts to
Francis I whether the assemblage at Avignon was for the good of France, as a
schism might easily spring from it; Wolsey sought the Papacy, and if the King
were unfavourable to this scheme, he would incur his enmity; if the scheme
succeeded there would be a Pope far more ill-disposed than Clement.
Wolsey’s
ambitious designs encountered at once the greatest obstacles. Although the
Kings of England and France sent most pressing solicitations to the Italian
Cardinals to meet Wolsey, and promised them every conceivable security and even
compensation for their travelling expenses, yet they were opposed to meeting in
France. The Cardinals who were at large had first assembled in Piacenza, and
determined on a congress at Bologna, Ancona, or Parma to discuss measures for
the Pope’s liberation. On the 10th of August Cardinal Cibo informed Henry VIII of this determination; in the beginning of September the
free Italian Cardinals met at Parma. Clement VII exhorted them to be firm in
their opposition to the removal of the conference to France, but warned them,
at the same time, to go to work with caution.
Wolsey
in the meantime had carried his plans yet further. He was, indeed, so incapable
of putting a check on his ambition that he had already usurped the coveted
functions of a Papal Vicar-General before they had been conferred upon him.
Together with Cardinals Bourbon and de Lorraine and the Papal Legate Salviati
he came to Compiegne and did not hesitate at once to assume Papal privileges,
since, in spite of Salviati’s remonstrances, he
handed the insignia of the Cardinalate to the Chancellor Du Prat, who had been
nominated in a Consistory held before the sack of Rome. Thus he had at his
disposal four of the Sacred College, in whose name he addressed, on the 16th of
September 1527, a protest to the Pope, which was at once entrusted for delivery
to the Protonotary Uberto Gambara.
This document set forth, in language full of unction, that the signatories,
following the example of the first Christians during the imprisonment of St.
Peter, had assembled themselves in the power of the Holy Ghost at Compiegne in
order to take preventive measures against the manifold evils which might accrue
from the bondage of the head of the Church. Since the Emperor held the Pope in
his power and every man was mortal, they were bound to make solemn protest
against any alienation of the Church’s rights or property, and against any
nomination to the College of Cardinals during the captivity of Clement VII.
They declared further that, in the event of the Pope’s death, they would,
without regard for the Cardinals now in imprisonment or for any new Cardinals
appointed by the Pope while deprived of freedom, repair to some safe place to
choose his successor, and would refuse obedience to any Pope who might be elected
during the present captivity. In conclusion, Clement VII was called upon to
delegate his authority during his imprisonment in order that the free
government of the Church might be firmly maintained.
It
must be matter for surprise that Salviati should have consented to sign this
protest of a minority of the free Cardinals suggesting to the Pope a temporary
abdication and containing within it the germ of schism. On the 28th of
September he wrote to Gambara asking him to make
excuses on his behalf to Clement VII for his participation in Wolsey’s action.
All had arisen only from his good intention of compassing, as soon as possible,
the liberation of the Pope; if he had refused his signature, great ill-feeling
would have been caused and Wolsey’s zeal for the Pope’s deliverance would
probably have been chilled or altogether extinguished. A private letter
addressed to Castiglione on the 18th of September shows how little Salviati was
deceived by Wolsey’s schemes. In this he describes the protest of the 16th as a
dangerous move preliminary to enfranchisement from obedience to the Church; he
had concurred only to avoid greater evils and to gain time. If he had opposed,
then undoubtedly an English and French Patriarchate with Papal authority would
have been set up, and thereby, perhaps, the unity of the Church for ever rent
asunder. His action had at least averted this. Before the Pope’s answer
arrived, a long time would elapse, during which Clement might be set at
liberty. “By this, you see”, Salviati continues, “I was compelled to agree in
order to prevent a much greater evil. You know Wolsey’s ambition and the bold
assurance with which he asks Clement to appoint him his vicegerent. The French
agree because he is useful to them. If the Pope refuses, Wolsey will find means
to attain his object through his Bishops, a step bound to bring after it the
greatest conceivable confusion in the Church. But I have hopes that in the
meantime Quiñones will have returned to Rome and Clement been set free. This is
the only cure for all these evils.”
At
that moment, then, all the efforts of Castiglione, Salviati, and the other
Papal diplomatists were directed to securing the Pope’s freedom. What was the
attitude of the Emperor towards this question?
Charles
V first received news of the capture of Rome in the latter half of the month of
June. His joy at this great and unexpected success must have been lessened by
the accounts, at first inexact, of the unbridled excesses of the troops. The
unheard-of ferocity with which the soldiery had laid waste the city was
antagonistic to his interests, since it covered his name with shame and
reproach. He certainly had wished to punish the Pope and to render his enmity
innocuous; but destruction such as that wreaked by his army on the time-honoured
capital of Christendom he had not intended. He therefore, in the beginning of
August, protested to the Christian princes against the burden of responsibility
for these outrages being laid upon him. But this declaration did not do away
with the fact that Charles had allowed his army to fall into a state of
insubordination from which, if continued, the very worst was to be expected. He
had also expressed himself so ambiguously that it might well be supposed that
he would see without displeasure his troops requiting themselves with the
plunder of Rome; nor must it be forgotten that for many a long day the enemies
of Italy had acted on the principle that “war supports itself.” Charles had now
to pay in person for his own shortcomings. The spirit of mutiny took hold of
the victorious soldiers after the sack of the city to such a degree that the
Emperor could no longer call his army his own. Rome was taken, the Pope was a
prisoner, but the Imperial army was threatened from within with complete
disruption.
It
soon became evident that the crimes committed in Rome were in the highest
degree prejudicial to the Emperor’s cause, for they gave to all his enemies an
opportune handle for serious accusations which, at the first glance, seemed
justified. The spectacle of the army of the secular head of Christendom, the
protector of the Church, carrying murder, fire, and outrage into the city of
its spiritual head, was turned to account to the fullest extent. Even in the
heart of Charles’s empire, in Spain, a by no means inconsiderable opposition
was raised to a policy which had ended at last in turning him into the jailer
of the Pope.
The
full recognition of the extremely difficult situation brought about by the sack
of Rome, and the Catholic conscience of the Emperor, were the motives which
restrained him from taking advantage of his victory to the uttermost. That he
would have done so was the expectation of many, and exhortations even were not
wanting directing him on this course. Already, on the 25th of May 1527, Lope de
Soria had written to the Emperor from Genoa to try and convince him that it
would be a meritorious and not a sinful action to reform the Church, in such a
way that the power of the Pope should be exclusively limited to his own
spiritual sphere, and secular affairs placed under the sole jurisdiction of the
Emperor, since “the things of God belong to God, and the things of Caesar to
Caesar”.
Many
wished to go further. A letter of Bartolomeo da Gattinara shows clearly that
among the Imperialists the question was seriously discussed whether Charles
should allow the seat of the Papal government to remain any longer in Rome.
Gattinara and others found that any experiment of this sort would be too
dangerous, since England, France, and other countries would then choose Popes
of their own; but they advised the Emperor to weaken the Roman See to such an
extent that it should always be subservient to the Imperial Majesty.
Lannoy
on his side pressed the Emperor with earnest representations. It was necessary
that his undertakings should be directed towards something else than the ruin
of an institution belonging both to the divine and human order the army must
not win everything and the Emperor lose all no more violence must be done to
the Pope, with the probable result of a schism; the confusion of the spiritual
with the temporal power must not continue, and the temporal must no longer
obstruct the spiritual by pragmatic sanctions and in other ways; Rome must no
longer be an occasion of scandal to the whole world, and heresies and sects
must be removed; in a word, what is God’s must be given to God, and what is Caesar’s
to Caesar”. Charles should retain possession of the States of the Church only
until such time as his affairs with the Pope were put straight and he could put
trust in his Holiness; only the towns belonging to Milan and Ferrara must be
claimed as fiefs of the Empire. For the rest, the settlement of these points
was to be left to a general council or to a congress such as that held at
Mantua under Julius II, and the same tribunal was to decide in detail on points
connected with the heresies in Germany.
Ferdinand
I also recommended a council in a letter of the 31st of May 1527, in which he
urged, at the same time, that the Pope should not be set free before order and
security were restored: “For if he were out of your hands, I fear that he might
behave as he always has behaved, and as the King of France has behaved, only
still worse, for he avoids and shuns the council. Apart from this and your
presence here, I see no possibility of finding means to oppose the Lutheran
sect and the accursed heresies”.
Amid
the various influences brought to bear upon him, the Emperor was long in coming
to any fixed decision. At first his inactivity was such that it was supposed to
arise from some strong physical reaction; this extended to all his Italian
affairs. After Bourbon’s death the first necessity was obviously the
appointment of a new Commander-in-Chief. Charles’s council was insistent on
this point, since the Prince of Orange was too young and inexperienced for the
post. Charles handed over the chief command to the Duke of Ferrara, although
the latter had already declined the honour in the autumn of 1526. As might have
been foreseen, the Duke, on this occasion also, refused to place himself at the
head of a “gang of mutineers”. The consequence was that the army, if such it
could be called, remained through the greater part of the year 1527 without a
generalissimo, and shrank in numbers more and more from sickness and
desertions.
The
Imperial army in Milan was also in the worst condition. The faithful Leyva
reported “that there was not a farthing’s worth of pay for the troops”. The
army was more like a swarm of adventurers than a force in Imperial service. The
commanders were powerless, the soldiers did what they liked. No wonder that the
Imperial troops had to give way on all sides, when Lautrec appeared with his
army.
Nor
did less embarrassment await the Emperor on account of the imprisoned Pope, for
whom the most active sympathy was being shown, not only in France and England,
but in Spain itself. The deep Catholic feeling inherent in the Spanish people
had long since expressed a growing repugnance to the policy of Charles towards
the Pope. “All ranks, high and low”, wrote Castiglione from Granada in November
1526, “are indignant at the raid of the Colonna”. In his later letters he
returns repeatedly to the loyal attachment of the Spanish people to the Pope. “If
he were to come to Spain, he would be worshipped”, writes Castiglione on
hearing rumours concerning the movements of Clement VII. In March 1527 it was
reported that the prelates and grandees had openly announced that no more money
could be voted, since such grants would be spent on waging war against the head
of the Church. The Chancellor made vain attempts to establish the Emperor’s
innocence by means of printed publications, but the opposition to the war
against the successor of St. Peter increased; the grandees and bishops
earnestly urged that peace should be made with Clement. “The loyal dependence
of the nation on the See of Peter”, Castiglione reported from Valladolid on the
24th of March, “is more apparent than ever”.
What
must have been the impression now made by the news of the Pope’s imprisonment
and the sack of Rome! Not only the great ecclesiastics but the grandees of
Spain as well made known their indignation. Strong reproaches were addressed to
the Emperor by the Archbishop of Toledo and the Duke of Alba. Charles threw all
the blame on the undisciplined army. “But”, reported the Venetian envoy on the 16th
of July 1527 from Valladolid, “these excuses produce no effect here the
prelates and grandees are daily interceding for the Pope with the Emperor.
There is a great conflict of opinions. Some say that Charles must show his
abhorrence by setting the Pope at liberty; others that the Pope must come to
Spain; others again, such as Loaysa, the Emperor’s
confessor, maintain that Charles cannot yet trust Clement and must hold him
prisoner”. In the meantime the Emperor gave the Nuncio nothing but fair
speeches; but he came to no decision. It was credibly reported that Spanish
opinion was in favour of the suspension of divine worship in all the churches
of the kingdom so long as the Pope’s captivity lasted, and also that the
bishops in a body, clad in mourning, intended to present themselves before the
Emperor and beseech him to set Clement free. Through the influence of the Court
these reports were suppressed, but the general agitation was not abated.
Some
decided step became more necessary day by day even Lannoy was pressing on this
point. On the 6th of July he wrote to the Emperor : “The present situation
cannot go on much longer. The more victories God sends you the more
embarrassments you have, the domains of your kingdoms grow less and the
ill-will of your enemies grows greater. Some envy your greatness, others hate
you for the ill-treatment they have received from your soldiers, who have
plundered Genoa and Milan, laid waste the country, and at the present hour
brought destruction on Rome”.
Quiñones,
who had reached Valladolid in the last weeks of July, after having been held up
by pirates, told Charles to his face that if he did not fulfil his duty to the
Pope he could no longer claim to be called Emperor he must rather be regarded
as the agent of Luther, since, in his name and under his banner, the Lutherans
had committed all their infamies in Rome. Quiñones believed it to be his duty
to speak thus strongly as he knew that Charles was determined to get as much
advantage as possible from the Pope’s imprisonment, and to secure for himself a
position which would make the independence of the Church a nullity.
The
Papal Nuncio Castiglione, on whom Cardinal Salviati set all his hopes,
supported the efforts of Girolami with all his
energy; nevertheless, the latter failed to get from Charles any definite
decision with regard to Clement’s liberation. The
envoys of England were also unsuccessful in their endeavours at the Imperial
Court, although they could not have shown more zeal if they had been the Pope's
representatives. The representations of Quiñones made more impression on
Charles, but even he made little way at first. At the end of July Charles wrote
to the Roman Senate and people, to the Legate Salviati, to the Cardinals and
Roman nobility, lastly, to all the Christian princes, disclaiming all
responsibility for the sack of Rome, to which he was not accessory, and laying
the whole blame on Clement VII. At the same time he used strong expressions of
sorrow and regret for the injuries inflicted on the Holy See, and declared that
he would rather not have won the victory than be the victor under such
conditions.
About
this time Charles was informed of Henry VIII’s schemes of divorce; on the 31st of
July he instructed Lannoy to speak to the Pope on this business, but with
caution, lest greater complications should arise if the Pope were to hold out a
bait to King Henry in the matter or enter into any mischievous practical
understanding with him. Charles wished Clement to make any further advance in
the business of the divorce impossible by the issue of Briefs to Henry VIII and
Wolsey. This private affair of the Emperor, calling for the full support of the
Pope’s spiritual power, warned the former to act with great caution towards
Clement, as did also, in no less degree, the threatening attitude of France and
England, now joining in close alliance.
Thus
influenced, Charles, who, from motives of selfregard had long hesitated before taking any decisive step, wrote from Valladolid on
the 3rd of August 1527 two autograph letters to the Pope. In the first of these
remarkable communications he laid great stress on his efforts to secure the
general peace of Christendom, to reform the Church, and abolish heresy and
unbelief. In the attainment of these objects all private interests must be put
aside and a unanimous course of action pursued. On these grounds the Pope would
be justified in summoning a council for the extirpation of heresy, the
destruction of unbelievers, and the exaltation of Holy Church. Charles, in
conclusion, pledged his royal word to his prisoner that he would not suffer the
council to undertake in any way the deposition or suspension of the Pope; any
attempts in that direction, whether they came from a secular or ecclesiastical
quarter, he would oppose, while protecting Clement in every way.
In
his second letter, of which Quiñones was to be the bearer, Charles reminded
Clement of the summons of a council. He besought the Pope in the most urgent
way to undertake the promised visit to Spain; such a step would strike terror
into the heretics and at least advance the prospects of peace between the
Emperor and France. The Emperor’s projects for a council were without result,
for before his letters reached Rome, France and England had agreed to refuse
their consent so long as the Pope was a prisoner.
Over
the demand for Clement’s liberation Charles hesitated
still longer. To the Nuncio Castiglione bespoke in such a friendly way that the
latter was filled with sanguine hopes. But the instructions received at last on
the 1 8th of August 1527, by Pierre de Veyre, who
awaited them with Quiñones at Barcelona, did not correspond with these
assurances. They were certainly not wanting in regrets for the misfortunes that
had befallen the Pope in Rome or in wishes for the peace of Christendom, the
reformation of the Church, and the uprooting of Lutheran errors; but with
regard to the Pope’s restoration to freedom, it was stated in the most definite
terms that under this head nothing was to be understood beyond his liberty in
the exercise of spiritual functions. Moreover, as a preliminary, the
instructions of the envoys emphatically declared that Lannoy must receive
securities, as certain as any human securities could be, against the
possibility of Papal treachery or Papal vengeance. Lannoy was left to specify
the conditions. But Charles indicated what he believed himself entitled to
demand in this respect, namely, Ostia, Civita Vecchia, Parma, Piacenza, Bologna, Ravenna and, in exchange
for the castle of St. Angelo, Civita Castellana. The Emperor demanded besides, in return for the
restoration of the Pope’s spiritual jurisdiction, nothing less than the
surrender of several of the more important towns of the Papal States. But he
insisted, at the same time, that he was not making these demands for his own
personal advantage, but in order to hold guarantees until such time as general
peace should be attained, a council summoned, and the reform of Christendom set
on foot.
Clement,
meanwhile, had passed through a terrible time. Within the narrow confines of
the castle, kept under closest watch by a fierce soldiery, he spent his days as
in a living tomb. He sought comfort in prayer, trusted to the Emperor’s
magnanimity, then again looked for the help held out by Francis I, yet through
all preserved his calmness of mind. This is shown by the Bull prepared on the
15th of July 1527, in which the regulations for the Papal election in Rome, or
elsewhere in Italy, or even in some foreign country, were drawn up, in the case
of his death during imprisonment. The Bull shows that Clement took all these
contingencies into account; the object of this document was to secure freedom
of election and to prevent a schism. The Cardinals were empowered to meet in
conclave elsewhere than in Rome and enjoined to wait during a certain time for
those of their colleagues who should be absent.
The
life of Clement VII was, in fact, at this time seriously threatened. It is
clear from the reports of Perez that the Spaniards and Germans were continually
hankering after the possession of Clement and the Cardinals; the landsknechts
did not wish the prisoner to be taken to Spain, but were anxious to carry him
off themselves.
Rome
was now in the full heat of summer, and the plague at its height. Pestilence
and famine made havoc among the inhabitants churches and streets were soon
filled with dead bodies. Frightful malaria arose from these “shambles”; if the
wind blew from the city, relates one of the captives, it was impossible to
remain on the walls of the castle.
The
plague had made its way into the fortress long before and helped, together with
the sufferings and agitations of captivity, to thin the ranks of the prisoners.
Cardinal Rangoni died in August; he was followed in
October by Francesco Armellini, broken-hearted at the
loss of his riches. The situation of the captive Pope became more and more
unbearable. He waited in vain for the envoys of the Emperor as well as for the
return of the army of the League to deliver him, and his dread lest the
Spaniards or Germans should carry him away increased every day. When Alarcon
and Muscettola insisted on his giving adequate
security for the payment of the promised 250,000 ducats, he exclaimed with
tears in his eyes, “For the love of God do not exact from me promises which
must be known to all the world and become engraven on
the memories of men for ever! So great is my misfortune and my poverty, that
the three Franciscans who are with me would be in want of their daily bread if
they were not able to borrow money from some compassionate souls. I leave it to
you and your consciences to say whether such conduct is worthy of an Emperor.”
In
the first days of September it was reported that Clement in despair had ordered
a Bull to be drawn up exhorting the Church to pray for her imprisoned head and
bidding the Bishops publish the canonical censures against her persecutors. The
draft, couched in language of extreme severity, is preserved in the State Archives
of Florence. This Bull, however, was never put into official shape and
published. In the hands of the masterful Popes of the Middle Ages such a
transaction would undoubtedly have been completed, but Clement VII had not the
requisite courage. According to one account it was Alfonso del Vasto who held the Pope back from this extreme step.
When Veyre at last landed at Naples on the 19th of
September 1527, Lannoy lay ill of the plague which he had contracted in Rome.
His death (September 23rd) brought everything
to a standstill, as fresh instructions had now to be received from the Emperor.
This was all the more necessary since the situation, in other respects, had
entirely changed from what Charles supposed it to be at the moment of Veyre’s departure. The latter reported to Spain that the
Pope had paid only 100,000 ducats of the 400,000 owed by him, while the
Florentines had not yet paid anything of their 300,000. Alarcon, from scruples
of conscience, had renounced his plan of bringing the Pope to Gaeta. The
commanders of the Imperial army had been forced to fly, and their mutinous
soldiers, instead of being on the march to meet the French in Lombardy, were
again on the road to Rome, where they intended to extort their pay by force.
They got there on the 25th of September, and subjected the unhappy city to a
second pillage. The same horrors which had accompanied their first onslaught
were now repeated, and in some ways increased. The soldiers, according to a
German account, did everything they could think of, burning, extorting,
robbing, thieving, and doing violence. The money raised by Clement by the
sacrifice of his own silver vessels and those of the prelates was insufficient
to appease the demands of the furious horde; they threatened Rome with utter
destruction and the Pope and Cardinals with death if they were not paid.
Clement
had now to make up his mind to give up to the Germans the hostages named in the
treaty of June. Gumppenberg has described, as an
eyewitness, the surrender of these unfortunate men. The Pope exclaimed with
tears, “There they stand, take them with you. I will accompany them”.
The
account-book of Paolo Montanaro, expeditor of Clement
VII, now preserved in the Roman State Archives, enables us to realize directly
the fearful plight to which the Pope had been brought. This account-book, which
comprises the quarter from October to the 31st of December, shows clearly how
scarce and dear provisions were. Since the treaty of June the Spaniards, who
had at first determined to starve out the inmates of St. Angelo, had allowed
communications to be renewed. It is a peculiar testimony to the economical bent
of Clement VII that the regular account of expenditure begins again as early as
the 1st of October. With the most conscientious exactitude Montanaro notes down the smallest sum spent on the table of the imprisoned Pope, and, in
like manner, the Master of the Household, Girolamo da Schio,
Bishop of Vaison, submits each office to a searching
examination.
While
the soldiers were robbing in every nook and corner of Rome, Veyre and Ouiñones, in the beginning of October, approached
the Pope. Like Alarcon and Morone, they negotiated
with a delegation of Cardinals, del Monte, Campeggio, and Lorenzo Pucci; Pompeo
Colonna, whom Clement had won over to his side, did all he could to attain a
successful result; but in spite of these endeavours no progress was made.
Meanwhile the soldiers became more and more furious. In their rage they dragged
the hostages to newly erected gallows on the Campo di Fiore and threatened them
with death. At the last moment they changed their mind; they were unwilling to
lose the last security remaining to them, and the hostages were taken in chains
to the Palazzo Colonna.
Although
in Rome the scarcity of provisions made itself felt increasingly every day, and
the approach of the French troops under Lautrec was a cause of growing anxiety,
the army could not be induced to leave the city, since the soldiers
held out for payment of their arrears in full. The final
result of the total paralysis of the Emperor’s authority was the
defection of the Duke of Ferrara and the Marquis of Mantua who, in
November, deserted the cause of Charles for that of France.
At
this time a decided reaction set in at the Imperial Court. At the end of
October the Ambassador of Henry VIII, in the name of his King, “the Defender of
the Faith”, presented a solemn protest against the Pope’s imprisonment. In
November the Spanish Council discussed the matter; no less a personage than the
Chancellor Gattinara there declared that if the Emperor looked upon Clement as
the legitimate Pope, he ought no longer to detain him captive. Praet called attention to the danger that the French might
set the Pope at liberty; it would be better that the Emperor should do this
and, in so doing, set his troops free; on this ground he recommended that
Moncada should be ordered to abide, only “as far as was practicable”, by the
instructions of Veyre. The result of the deliberation
was that the Council of State determined that, in any case, the Pope must be
given his freedom.
In
the meantime the negotiations in Rome had been endlessly protracted. In despair
Clement VII, on the 15th of November, deplored his misery to the Archbishop of Toledo.
Moncada, the new Viceroy of Naples, tried to exact as much as possible from the
Pope. Clement hoped, not without grounds, that the approach of the French army
under Lautrec would force the Imperialists to make more favourable terms; he
also succeeded by promises in bringing Quinones and Morone entirely round to his side.
After
proposals and counter-proposals had been bandied to and fro amid tedious delays, a basis of agreement was reached at last, and on the 26th
of November the terms were settled. In the first place, a treaty was concluded
between the Pope and the Cardinals on the one hand, and the representatives of
the Emperor (Veyre, Moncada, Quiñones) on the other.
It was herein stipulated that Clement should be restored to his spiritual and
temporal rights on condition that he—while remaining neutral— advanced the
peace of Christendom and convoked a general council for the reform of the
Church, the uprooting of Lutheran teaching, and the pursuance of the Turkish
war. As securities the Emperor was to hold six hostages—Giberti, Jacopo
Salviati, Galeotto and Malatesta de’ Medici, as well
as Cardinals Trivulzio and Pisani—and the towns of
Ostia, Civita Vecchia, Civita Casteliana, and Forli. All
the remainder of the Papal States, with
the exception of the territories ceded to the Colonna, was, on the other hand,
to be restored as before the sack of Rome. The Imperial army would quit Rome
and the States of the Church as soon as the troops of the League evacuated the
latter.
No
one was named in this treaty to execute the restoration of the territories
severed from the States of the Church. As a matter of fact, the restoration of
the temporal possessions, although conceded in theory, lay practically at the
good pleasure of the Emperor. On the other hand, the Pope was free to fix his
own time for the convocation of the council.
A
second agreement settled in detail the sums payable by the Pope to the
Imperialist generals ; in the first place, within ten days 73,169 ducats, as
the price of the evacuation of the castle of St. Angelo, and immediately after
that 35,000 ducats more, on receipt of which the troops would quit Rome. After
fourteen days 44,984 ducats were to be paid, and then in three monthly
instalments 150,000, and again finally, at the same rate, 65,000. In order to
collect these sums the Pope made new Cardinals and alienated Church property in
the kingdom of Naples. On the payment of the 44,984 ducats the Imperialist
forces left the Papal States.
Since,
in spite of the nomination of Cardinals, sufficient money was not forthcoming,
the landsknechts again threatened the hostages with death and rose in mutiny
against their leaders, who took refuge in the Alban hills with the Colonna. At
the end of November the hostages managed to make their warders drunk and
escaped. On hearing this the landsknechts flung down their arms, but order was
soon restored. An arrangement was subsequently made with the Pope that he
should pay from the 1st of December 100.000 ducats to the Germans, with the
exception of the leaders and those in receipt of double pay, 35,000 ducats to
the Spaniards, and furnish fresh securities. Accordingly, after Cardinals
Orsini and Cesi had been handed over to Colonna, and
Cardinals Trivulzio, Pisani, and Gaddi to Alarcon as
hostages, and further securities given for the above-mentioned sums of money, the
Imperialists left the castle of St. Angelo on the 6th of December 1527.
With
this the hard captivity of the Pope, which had lasted full seven months, came
to an end. Clement wished to leave Rome at once, where Campeggio was to remain
as Legate ; Alarcon advised him to wait a few more days on account of the
insecurity of the roads, but this delay seemed very dangerous to Clement, who
was afraid of the soldiers awaiting their pay in Rome, and, moreover, he did
not trust Moncada. Between the 6th and 7th of December he left St. Angelo
suddenly, by night, dressed in the clothes of his majordomo,
but certainly not without previous knowledge on the part of the Imperialist
commanders. Luigi Gonzaga waited for him on the Neronian fields with a troop of
arquebusiers, and under this escort he went in haste to Montefiascone, and from
there to the stronghold of Orvieto.
CHAPTER VII.
Clement
VII in Exile at Orvieto and Viterbo.—The Imperialists leave Rome. — Disaster to
the French Army in Naples.—The Weakness of the Pope’s Diplomacy.—His Return to
Rome.
In
the old town of Orvieto, guarded by its strong citadel on the cone-shaped hill
which separates, like a boundary stone, the Roman and Tuscan territory, the
personal freedom of the Pope was secure; yet his situation must still be
described as a deplorable one. His ecclesiastical rank excepted, he had lost
all he could call his own : his authority, his property, almost all his states,
and the obedience of the majority of his subjects. Instead of the Vatican
adorned with the masterpieces of art, he was now the occupant of a dilapidated
episcopal palace in a mean provincial town. Roberto Boschetti,
who visited the Pope on the 23rd of January 1528, found him emaciated and in
the most sorrowful frame of mind. “They have plundered me of all I possess”,
said Clement VII to him; “even the canopy above my bed is not mine, it is
borrowed.” The furniture of the Papal bedchamber, the English envoys supposed,
could not have cost twenty nobles. They describe with astonishment how they
were led through three apartments bare of furniture, in which the hangings were
falling from the walls. In this inhospitable dwelling Clement was confined to
bed with swollen feet; there were suspicions that poison had been given him by
the Imperialists, but the mischief was caused by his unwonted exertions on
horseback on the night of his flight.
At
first only four Cardinals, then, on a special summons from the Pope, seven
betook themselves to Orvieto. Their position was also a hard one, for no
preparations had been made for the fugitives in the town; provisions could only
be got with difficulty and at the highest prices, and there was such a scarcity
of drinking water that the Pope had at once to give orders for the construction
of four wells.
In
spite of the distress in Orvieto, little by little numerous prelates and
courtiers made their way thither. The business of the Curia, for a long time
almost wholly suspended, was again resumed. On the 18th of December 1527 a Bull
relating to graces bestowed during the captivity was agreed to in secret
Consistory. The conduct of the more important affairs lay in the hands of
Jacopo Salviati and of the Master of the Household, Girolamo da Schio, Bishop of Vaison.
The
poverty and simplicity of the new court at Orvieto were such that all who went
thither were filled with compassion. “The court here is bankrupt,” reported a
Venetian; “the bishops go about on foot in tattered cloaks: the courtiers, take
flight in despair; there is no improvement in morals; men here would sell
Christ for a piece of gold.” Of the Cardinals only Pirro Gonzaga was able to live as befitted his rank; the rest were as poor as the
Pope himself, who, in the month of April, was still without the most necessary
ecclesiastical vestments. The congratulations on his deliverance, addressed to
him in writing by the Cardinals assembled in Parma, personally by the Duke of
Urbino, Federigo Bozzolo,
and Luigi Pisani, and in letters or by special envoys from nearly all princes
and many cities, must have seemed to him almost a mockery. As Clement had only
a few troops at his disposal and the neighbourhood of Orvieto was rendered
insecure by the bands of soldiery, he was practically shut up in his mountain
fortress. He had to complain repeatedly that even communication by letter had
become difficult, while any attempt to escape into the surrounding territory
was out of the question. The care-laden Pope, wearing the long beard which he
had allowed to grow during his captivity, was seen passing through the streets
of Orvieto with a small retinue. Rumour exaggerated his poverty still further;
he was compared to the Popes of the infant Church.
In
spite of spoliation and exile the Pope continued to represent a mighty power.
This was best seen in the eager competition of both the forces inimical to him
to obtain his patronage. The attempts of France and England in this direction
were well known to the Emperor, who made it a matter of express reference in
the letter of congratulation addressed to Clement. In his answer of the nth of
January 1528 Clement thanked him for the restoration of freedom, assured him
that he had never held him guilty of the occurrences in Rome, and declared
himself ready to do all that lay in his power to aid him in the questions of
peace, the Council, and all other things which Charles desired for the highest
good of Christendom; the Emperor, moreover, would see for himself how powerless
the Pope was, as long as the hostages were retained and the ceded cities still
occupied; Francesco Quiñones would report in detail on all other circumstances
under consideration. To an Imperial envoy who had come to Orvieto as early as
December 1527 to propose a formal alliance with Charles on the basis of the
restoration of the States of the Church, the answer was given that the question
could not be considered until the occupied cities had been given back and the
hostages set at liberty.
Clement
was as little willing to give definite pledges to the League as to the Emperor.
In the autograph letter in which, on the 14th of December 1527, he announced
his release to Francis I, he certainly thanked the King for the help he had
rendered, but showed in no ambiguous terms how insufficient, in reality, it had
been. Yet Lautrec’s army had not hastened a step. It was clear from this letter
that the Pope had no intention of giving pledges to France; he excused his
treaty with the Imperialists as a measure wrung from him by force. “For months,
together with our venerable brethren, we had endured the hardest lot, had seen
all our affairs, temporal and above all spiritual, go to ruin, and your
well-intentioned efforts for our liberation end in failure. Our condition grew
worse, indeed, day by day, the conditions imposed upon us harsher, and we saw
our hopes threaten to vanish away. Under these circumstances we yielded to the
pressure of a desperate state of things. Neither our personal interest nor the
peril in which each one of us stood was the mainspring of our action; for eight
long months we suffered ignominious imprisonment, and stood daily in danger of
our lives. But the misery in Rome, the ruin of the States which had come down
to us unimpaired from our predecessors, the incessant affliction in body and
soul, the diminished reverence towards God and His worship, forced us to take
this step. Personal suffering we could have continued to endure; but it was our
duty to do all in our power to remove public distress. Our brothers, the
Cardinals, have not shrunk from submitting, as hostages, to a fresh captivity
in order that we, restored to freedom, may be in a position to ward off from
Christendom a worse calamity.” The bearer of this letter was Ugo da Gambara, who together with Cardinal Salviati was to give
fuller information by word of mouth. On the same day (December 14) Clement
wrote in similar terms to the Queen, Louisa of Savoy, to Montmorency, Henry
VIII, and Cardinal Wolsey, referring also in these letters to Gambara’s information.
Ever
since January 1528 Clement had been besieged with the most pressing entreaties
to join the League, whose army persisted in its wonted inactivity. In company
with Lautrec, who had advanced as far as Bologna, were Guido Rangoni, Paolo Camillo Trivulzio,
Ugo di Pepoli, and Vaudemont.
In February they were joined by Longueville, who brought the good wishes of
Francis I. As envoys of Henry VIII, Gregorio Casale,
Stephen Gardiner, and Fox were active; the last-named was especially occupied
with the question of the divorce on which the English King was bent.
The
League made the most tempting promises to the Pope. Not only should he receive
back the Papal States, but also designate to the kingdom of Naples and be
compensated for all damages and costs of the war. But the events of the past
year had made Clement very cautious. Despite all the pressure brought upon him,
he would give no decided answer, and insisted that he was of more use outside
the League than within it. His inmost sympathies at this time were certainly
with the League, for he feared the power of the Emperor, who, in possession of
Naples and Milan, was the “Lord of all things,” and wished for the expulsion
from Italy of those who had done him such unheard-of wrong. But from any
attempt of this kind he was deterred by weighing closely the actual state of
things; a waiting attitude, giving to both parties a certain amount of hope,
appeared to the Pope to be the best, and this policy was also in accordance
with his natural indecision.
Perhaps
the conduct of the League itself had even more influence on Clement than his
feeling of helplessness when pitted against the victorious Spaniard. He could
not trust a confederacy, the members of which, each engrossed in his own
interests, had left him to his downfall in the year of misfortune 1527. Might
not this trick be played again at any moment? Above all—and this was
decisive—the League had assumed a character which made it quite impossible for
the Pope to enter into it. Florence, from which his family had been expelled,
was supported by France, Venice had seized Ravenna and Cervia,
the Duke of Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio. Both were unwilling to give back their
plunder, and yet such were the allies whom Clement was to join against the
Emperor!
In
view of this situation, the Pope and his diplomatists directed their efforts towards
securing the restoration of the States of the Church under a guarantee of
neutrality.
On
New Year’s Day 1528 Cardinal Salviati informed the French Government that the
League must be satisfied with a benevolent neutrality on the part of the Pope,
deprived, as he was, of all material resources. At the same time he made it
clear that Clement insisted on the restoration of the cities taken by Venice,
and would consent to no dishonourable agreement with the Duke of Ferrara, the
originator of all the misfortunes of the Church. On the 12th of January Gambara arrived in Paris; and, together with Salviati, made
the most urgent appeals to the French Government to compel the Venetians and
Ferrara to surrender their plunder; if they failed to do so, then the Pope would
be forced to try some other means of getting back his possessions. Salviati did
not let the matter drop, but afterwards forcibly renewed his representations.
But he gained little at first, since the French were afraid that Venice might
quit the League, and hesitated to take any steps. It was not until France and
England had formally declared war against the Emperor that a stronger pressure
was put on Venice.
It
was almost coincident with this turn in affairs that Clement determined to send
a new Nuncio to Spain in the person of Antonio Pucci, Bishop of Pistoja, who together with Castiglione was to open up the
way to a general peace. If Charles, declared Sanga, now Clement’s chief adviser in place of Giberti, would not agree to Pucci’s conditions of peace,
then the Pope would join the League, but only after his own just grievances had
been redressed. The League, so ran the fuller instructions, must undertake to
restore Ravenna, Cervia, Modena, and Reggio, settle
upon whom Naples should devolve, and finally bring about a general pacification
in Florence. Pucci was to travel through France, to treat personally with
Francis I, and explain why the Pope was obliged, for the time being, to remain
neutral. The French King, however, was by no means disposed to carry out the
wishes of which Pucci was to be the exponent; the mission of the new Nuncio to
the Emperor made him uneasy, and he made a plan to put obstacles in his way.
Lautrec’s
successes certainly encouraged Francis in his projects. The former had at last
left Bologna on the 10th of January 1528, and was pressing towards Naples
through the Romagna. Clement now recovered Imola, and, somewhat later, Rimini
also. On the 10th of February the French army crossed the Tronto and entered the kingdom of Naples. In Rome, and throughout Papal circles
generally, this advance of the French was coupled with the hope that a final
deliverance from the dreadful incubus of the landsknechts was at hand. Lautrec
gave assurances on all sides that, after reducing Naples, he would set free the
Papal States; since his whole course of action was only undertaken in the
interest of the Pope, he renewed his insistent entreaties that Clement would now
resume his place in the League.
The
Imperialists, at first, had not feared Lautrec; now they recognized the peril
threatening them. If they were unable to move their army from Rome, then Naples
would fall without a blow into the hands of the enemy. Philibert of Orange, who
had been in chief command since January, Bemelberg,
and Vasto negotiated with the mutinous troops. Money
was scraped together in every possible way, and even Clement had to raise
40,000 ducats. Thus, on the 17th of February 1528, the soldiery, who up to the
last indulged in acts of violence and depredation, were induced to move. The
army, which eight months previously had numbered twenty thousand men, had
melted down to one thousand five hundred cavalry, two or three thousand
Italians, four thousand Spaniards, and five thousand Germans; so great had been
the ravages of the plague among the troops. On the 13th of January Melchior Frundsberg fell a victim; his tomb in the German national
church of the Anima recalls one of the most terrible episodes in the history of
Rome. “The troops,” says a German diarist, “had destroyed and burnt down the
city; two-thirds of the houses were swept away. Doors, windows, and every bit
of woodwork even to the roof beams were consumed by fire. Most of the inhabitants,
especially all the women, had taken flight.” The neighbourhood for fifty miles
around was like a wilderness. The columns of flame, rising up from Rocca Priora and Valmontone, showed the
road which the landsknechts had taken for Naples.
The
sufferings of the unfortunate Romans were even then not yet at an end. On the
afternoon of the same day (February the 17th) on which the Imperialists
departed, the Abbot of Farfa, with a leader of a band
from Arsoli, accompanied by a pillaging rabble, who
were soon joined even by Romans themselves, entered the city. The streets rang
with shouts of “Church, France, the Bear (Orsini)!” and plundering began anew,
where anything was left to plunder, especially in the houses of the Jews. All
stragglers from the Imperial army were put to death, even the sick in the
hospitals were not spared.
On
hearing of these fresh outrages Clement sent Giovanni Corrado,
and afterwards a detachment of troops under the Roman Girolamo Mattei, to restore order. At the same time the Pope made
strenuous efforts to mitigate the distress in Rome caused by the scarcity of
provisions and to guard against the danger of plague. The letters of Jacopo
Salviati to the Cardinal-Legate Campeggio, who had remained in Rome, throw
light on the difficulties which had to be encountered in revictualling the
city; transport on land as well as by sea was extremely difficult, and there
were those in Rome who did not scruple to take advantage of the existing
necessity to sell corn at prices advantageous to themselves. But Clement VII
persevered; the extortionate sale of corn came under the sharpest penalties,
and to ensure free carriage to Rome Andrea Doria was appointed to guard the
coasts.
In
the beginning of March a deputation came from Rome to Orvieto to invite the
Pope to return to his capital, where the desecrated churches had already been
purified. Clement replied that no one longed more eagerly than he to return to
Rome, but the scarcity and disorder then prevailing, as well as the uncertainty
of the issue of the war in Naples, made any immediate change of residence
impossible. Thereupon the Roman delegates begged that at least the officials of
the Rota and Cancelleria might go back. Clement,
after long hesitation, gave way, on the advice of Cardinal Campeggio; but the
officials in question delayed complying with the Papal orders on account of the
famine in the city. But by the end of April the majority of the officials of
the Curia had to return, though the situation in Rome continued to be critical,
and Cardinal Campeggio’s position was beset with difficulties.
The
Pope’s own position was so harassing that Jacopo Salviati wrote to Cardinal
Campeggio, “Clement is in such dire necessity that, like David, he must,
perforce, eat the loaves of proposition” (1 Kings XXI. 6). In the beginning of
March, Brandano, the prophet of misfortune of the
year 1527, appeared in Orvieto. He foretold for Rome and Italy new and yet
greater tribulations; these would continue until 1530, when the Turk would take
captive the Pope, the Emperor, and the French King and embrace Christianity;
whereupon the Church would enter on a new life. The Papal censures, the hermit
went on to say, were void, inasmuch as Clement, having been born out of
wedlock, was not canonically Pope. When Brandano proceeded to incite the people of Orvieto against the Pope, the latter gave
orders for his arrest. On Palm Sunday (April 5) Clement addressed the Cardinals
and prelates then present in earnest language on the need for a reform of the
Curia, exhorted them to a better manner of life, and spoke emphatically of the
sack of Rome as a chastisement for their sins. On Holy Thursday the customary
censures on the persecutors of the Church were published.
Lautrec,
in the meanwhile, had achieved successes beyond all expectation. The towns of
the Abruzzi hailed him as their deliverer; but after that his operations came
to a standstill, for Francis I sent no money for his troops; besides, this
valiant soldier was deficient in promptness of decision. Consequently, the Imperialists
found time to put Naples in a state of defence; they judged rightly that here
the decisive issue must be fought out. Lautrec did not realize this, and wasted
time in reducing the towns of Apulia, and not until the end of April did he
approach Naples from the east. But the luck of the French did not yet desert
them; dissensions, especially between Orange and Vasto,
divided the Imperialist generals, the landsknechts were as insubordinate as
ever, and hated the Spaniards. On the 28th of April the Imperial fleet was
totally destroyed by Filippino Doria off Capo d’Orso, between Amalfi and Salerno. Moncada and Fieramosca
fell in the battle; Vasto and Ascanio Colonna were
taken prisoners. The fall of Naples, where great scarcity of food was already
making itself felt, seemed to be only a question of time. The Emperor’s enemies
were already busy with the boldest schemes, and Wolsey, through the English
envoys, called upon the Pope to depose the Emperor without delay.
Clement
VII watched with strained attention the result of the great contest, on which
for him so much depended. The Neapolitan war filled the unfortunate Romans with
renewed alarm; they dreaded a repetition of the sack; the landsknechts had, in
fact, threatened to return and burn the whole city to the ground. Clement sent
Cardinal Cesi to support Campeggio, and later on some
troops. The Pope’s anxieties were increased by the stormy demands of the
English envoys insisting on the dissolution of their King’s marriage, and by
the not less stormy entreaties of the League, especially of Lautrec, to declare
immediate war on the Emperor. To crown all came the pressure of famine in
Orvieto, which the Sienese would do nothing to relieve on account of their
enmity towards the house of Medici. Since a return to the capital, so much
desired by the Romans, was impossible, owing to the insecure state of the
country, the Pope was counselled to change his residence to Perugia, Civita Casteliana, or Viterbo; it
was decided to remove to the last-named place, the fortress having come into
the Pope’s possession at the end of April.
On
the 1st of June Clement reached Viterbo and was received by the pious and aged
Cardinal Egidio Canisio; he first occupied the
castle, and afterwards the palace of Cardinal Farnese. Here too, at first,
suitable furniture was wanting, while, at the same time, there was great
scarcity in the town; but a return to Rome seemed impossible until the Pope
should be again master of Ostia and Civita Vecchia. In place of Campeggio, who was under orders to go
to England, Cardinal Farnese was appointed, on the 8th’of June, the Legate in
Rome; three hundred men were to garrison the castle of St. Angelo, and Alfonso
di Sangro, Bishop of Lecce, was sent to the Emperor
to effect the release of the three Cardinals detained as hostages in Naples.
On
the 4th of June Gasparo Contarini, as Venetian envoy,
and Giovanni Antonio Muscettola, commissioned by the
Prince of Orange, made their appearance in Viterbo; the latter was instructed
to try and induce Clement to return to Rome. The Pope, shrinking from thus
placing himself in the hands of the Spaniards, laid the matter before the
Cardinals, who were unanimous in declaring the return to Rome desirable but
impossible of execution so long as the Spaniards were masters of Ostia and Civita Vecchia. Just then a
prospect of recovering these places was opened up; a French fleet appeared off Corneto, and Renzo da Ceri made an attempt, but an
unsuccessful one, to take Civita Vecchia;
the Pope, unmindful of his neutrality, gave material assistance towards this
attempt.
In
the meantime Contarini had done all he could to persuade the Pope to surrender
his claims on Ravenna and Cervia, but his endeavours
were unsuccessful; Clement stood firm, and insisted that he was pledged by
honour and duty to demand the restoration of those towns. The support lent by
Venice to the Pope’s enemy, Alfonso of Ferrara, and the provocation given to
Clement himself by the excessive taxation of the clergy of the Republic and the
usurpation of his jurisdiction, did not lessen the difficulties of Contarini’s position. On the 16th of June the Pope
complained to Contarini of such actions as constituting a breach of the treaty
made with Julius II; he had bestowed the bishopric of Treviso on Cardinal Pisani,
but the Republic had not allowed the latter to take possession of his see. His
disposal of patronage was entirely disregarded in Venice, and it seemed as if
the Venetians wished to show him how little he was considered by them. “You
treat me,” he said, “with great familiarity ; you seize my possessions, you
dispose of my benefices, you lay taxes upon me.” The Pope’s irritation was so
great that, a few days later, in the course of another interview with
Contarini, he said to himself in a low voice, but so that the Ambassador could
understand him plainly, that, strictly speaking, the Venetians had incurred
excommunication.
All
doubt as to Clement’s determination to recover the
captured towns vanished in the course of Contarini’s communications with Sanga, Salviati, and other influential personages of the
Papal court. The Master of the household, Girolamo da Schio,
informed the Venetian Ambassador that he had spoken in vain to the Pope of some
compensation in the way of a money payment; Clement had rejected the suggestion
at once with the greatest firmness and, moreover, had complained not only of
the conduct of Venice but also of France.
Clement
VII had good grounds for displeasure with Francis I, who had supported Alfonso
of Ferrara and at last taken overt measures against the Pope. Seized with alarm
lest the new Nuncio, Pucci, should prepare the way for an understanding between
Pope and Emperor, Francis I determined to detain the Papal envoy by force.
To
this, however, his English ally would not agree; Henry VIII, who had more need
than ever of the Pope’s favour in the matter of his divorce, was doing all in
his power to arrive at some accommodation with Clement in his demands on
Venice. The French Chancellor, on the other hand, told Pucci that Francis I could
not permit him to make his journey to Spain, since he was certain that he would
otherwise lose the support of Venice, Ferrara, and Florence; rather than give
up such indispensable allies, France would sooner dispense with the aid of the
Pope and England. The arrogance of the French increased with the news of
Lautrec’s successes.
At
the end of April the French Chancellor gave the Nuncio, Pucci, to understand
that the king insisted on an immediate declaration from the Pope. Salviati
replied that his master would make his intentions known if Ravenna and Cervia were surrendered at once, and Modena and Reggio
after the war. In consequence of the firm behaviour of the Papal representative
the French court at last became aware that something must be done, at least in
the case of Cervia and Ravenna. Strong
representations were made to the Venetians but at the same moment a grievous
wound was inflicted upon Clement by the formation of an alliance of the closest
kind with the Pope’s bitterest enemy, Ferrara: Renee, the daughter of Louis
XII, was betrothed to Ercole, the hereditary Prince
of Ferrara.
The
French proposals to the Venetian Government proved futile. Contarini had, as
hitherto, to try and justify the robbery. The Pope, however, prone as he was in
other respects to give way, showed in this instance inflexible determination.
He repeated his declaration that an agreement with the League was impossible
while Venice and Ferrara withheld from him his legitimate possessions.
Contarini thought he saw signs of. a leaning towards the Emperor on the part of
Clement, although the latter feared the power of Charles and placed little
trust in him.
A
step, however, in this direction was taken after the opening of hostilities on
the scene of war in Naples. The victory of the 28th of April had destroyed the
Imperialist fleet, and since the 10th of June Naples had been completely cut
off at sea by Venetian galleys; the necessaries of life were hardly procurable
in the great city. With the rising heat of summer came a new enemy with whom
not only the besieged but also the besiegers had to engage. Typhus and a bad
form of intermittent fever broke out and spread daily.
In
July, when the disease was at its worst, an event occurred bringing with it
far-reaching results; this was the rupture between Francis I and his Admiral,
Andrea Doria. Charles consented to all Doria’s demands; the Genoese squadron set sail, and Naples, which the French had looked
upon as certain to fall into their hands by the end of July, was thus set free
by sea. Later, Genoa also, so important on account of its situation, was lost
to France.
Lautrec
had made the greatest exertions to bring about the fall of Naples. By the 5th
of July it was believed, in the French camp, that further resistance was
impossible. But the Imperialists held out and defended themselves so skilfully
that Philibert of Chalon, Prince of Orange, who had succeeded on Moncada’s
death to his command, was able to report to his master : “The French in their
entrenchments are more closely besieged than we in the city.” The Imperialists’
best ally, however, was the sickness which made great strides in the marshy
encampment of the French. “God,” said a German, “sent such a pestilence among
the French hosts that within thirty days they well-nigh all died, and out of
25,000 not more than 4000 remained alive.”
Vaudemont,
Pedro Navarro, Camillo Trivulzio, and Lautrec fell
ill, and on the night following the Feast of the Assumption Lautrec died. As Vaudemont also was carried off by the disorder, the Marquis
of Saluzzo assumed the chief command. He soon
perceived that the raising of the siege had become inevitable, and on the night
of the 29th of August, amid storms of rain, began his retreat. The Imperial
cavalry at once rode out in pursuit; Orange, with his infantry, turned back to
meet them; but the sickly French soldiers could not face the onslaught; quarter
or no quarter, they were forced to yield; they were stripped and disarmed and
then left to the mercy of God and to the peasantry, “who put nearly all of them
to death.” The wretched scattered remnant of the great French army wandered
about in beggary; a few bands made their escape as far as Rome, where they were
compassionately succoured, but forced to depart by the landsknechts. A German
resident in Rome relates how he had supplied the sick and naked with food and
clothing, and how in the streets and environs the corpses of those who had
perished miserably lay exposed.
“Victoria, victoria, victoria,” wrote Morone on the 29th of August 1528 to the Imperial envoy in
Rome. “The French are destroyed, the remainder of their army is flying towards
Aversa.” Cardinal Colonna and Orange at once informed Clement of the victory,
and at the same time sent more special messages. Orange added that he had tried
persistently to describe as faithfully as possible the position of affairs, and
had always foretold the issue as it had come to pass; he besought the Pope to
attach himself as much as possible to Charles V. The complete triumph of the
Emperor was, in fact, no longer in question. Although the campaign still
lingered on in Apulia and Lombardy, yet, such was the weakness of the French
and the lukewarmness of the Venetians, that the end could be foreseen with
certainty.
Clement
thanked God that he had not accepted the baits of the League. “If he had acted
otherwise,” wrote Sanga, “in what an abyss of calamity should we now be.” In
the beginning of September Clement VII and Sanga determined, in spite of Contarini’s warnings, to make serious approaches to the
victorious Emperor. “The Pope,” as Contarini expressed it on the 8th of
September 1528, “is accommodating himself to the circumstances of the hour.”
His own position, as well as that of Italy, left him, in fact, no other choice.
In letters and messages Orange expressed his loyalty to the Pope; he assured
Clement, in a letter of the 18th of September, that he might look upon the
Imperial forces as his own and return without anxiety to Rome: “in case of
necessity we are ready to sacrifice our lives in defence of your Holiness.”
Charles also tried to gratify the Pope in circumstances of a different sort,
for he gave a promise, through Orange, to restore the Medicean rule in Florence. But from Venice came the tidings through the French envoy,
that all his efforts to induce the Signoria to give back Ravenna and Cervia were unavailing. So great was the acquisitiveness
and lust of possession of the Venetians that, instead of giving back the Pope
his own, they were more likely to make further aggressions.
In
September Clement made up his mind to return to Rome, in accordance with the
Emperor’s strong desire, although Civita Vecchia and Ostia were still occupied by the Spaniards.
Contarini vainly tried to dissuade him. Orange had given his solemn oath to
protect the Pope, if the latter would only go back to Rome and save the
Emperor, who was actually and in intent a faithful son of the Church, from the
contumely which would certainly accrue to him if Clement VII refused, from
distrust, to return to his See. Already, on the 17th of 1528, the Pope had sent
Cardinals Sanseverino and Valle to Rome. His own return was delayed owing to a
violent feud between the Colonna and Orsini, whereby the neighbourhood of Rome
was laid waste.
At
the last hour France made an attempt to thwart this beginning of an
understanding between the Pope and the Emperor. On the 1st of October a
messenger from Carpi approached the Pope. He brought a promise of the immediate
restoration of Ravenna and Cervia as soon as Clement
gave his adhesion to the League; while Modena and Reggio would be given back
simultaneously with his acting in the interests of France. The Pope sent a
refusal. On the 5th of October he left Viterbo with his whole court, under the
protection of about a thousand soldiers, and on the following evening, amid
torrents of rain, re-entered his capital. He forbade any public reception on
account of the distressing state of the times; he first paid a visit to St.
Peter’s, to make. an act of thanksgiving, and then repaired to the Vatican.
The
city presented a truly horrifying picture of misery and woe. Quite four-fifths
of the houses, according to the computation of the Mantuan envoy, were
tenantless; ruins were seen on every side—a shocking sight for anyone who had
seen the Rome of previous days. The inhabitants themselves declared that they
were ruined for two generations to come. The same authority, quoted above,
emphasizes the fact that of all his many acquaintances, inmates of or
sojourners in Rome, hardly anyone was left alive. “I am bereft of my senses”,
he says, “in presence of the ruins and their solitude.” The churches were one
and all in a terrible condition, the altars were despoiled of their ornaments,
and most of the pictures were destroyed. In the German and Spanish national
churches only was the Holy Sacrifice offered during the occupation of the city.
A
Papal Encyclical of the 14th of October 1528 summoned all Cardinals to return
to Rome. Clement wrote in person to Charles, on the 24th of October, that,
relying on the promises of Orange and the other representatives of his Majesty,
to whom this intelligence will be certainly acceptable, he had returned to
Rome, “the one seat ” of the Papacy. “We too,” he added, “must rejoice on
coming safe to shore, after so great a shipwreck, even if we have lost all
things; but our grief for the ruin of Italy, manifest to every eye, still more
for the misery of this city and our own misfortune, is immeasurably heightened
by the sight of Rome. We are sustained only by the hope that, through your
assistance, we may be able to stanch the many wounds of Italy, and that our
presence here and that of the Sacred College may avail towards a gradual
restoration of the city. For, my beloved son, before our distracted gaze lies a
pitiable and mangled corpse, and nothing can mitigate our sorrows, nothing can
build anew the city and the Church, save the prospect of that peace and
undisturbed repose which depends on your moderation and equity of mind.”
CHAPTER
VIII.
Reconciliation
of the Emperor and the Pope.—The Treaties of Barcelona and Cambrai.
On
the day after his return to Rome, Clement assembled the Cardinals and
conservators in order to confer with them on the restoration of the city. The
Pope’s first care was to provide for the most pressing necessity, the import of
articles of food, of which there was the greatest scarcity. Steps were also
taken to set in order the despoiled churches, and to repair the destruction
wrought on buildings. The business of the Curia now resumed its regular course;
persons belonging to the court tried to install themselves as best they could.
Life in the city showed signs of a complete change; the luxury and frivolity of
previous days had vanished, for the general poverty stamped an impress of
seriousness and gloom on everything. Instead of the throng of showy equipages,
religious processions made their way through the deserted streets. The unlucky
inhabitants were in want not only of nourishment but of clothing; traders from
Venice and other places came in numbers, but hardly anyone had money to make
purchases. Strangers were especially struck by the wretched plight of most of
the Cardinals. Ecclesiastical ceremonies, even those in which the Pope took a
part, were shorn of their splendour owing to the lack of ornaments and
vestments. Yet, notwithstanding the general misery, the Pope was glad to be
back in Rome, his own See.
While
in Viterbo, Clement had published the nomination of Quiñones, the General of
the Franciscans, then at the Emperor’s court, to the Cardinalate. He awaited
his return, with more precise information as to the Emperor’s intentions, with
anxious impatience. In the meanwhile the agents of the League, led by
Contarini, were active in trying to hinder the advances of the Pope to the
Emperor, and a new French envoy was also busy in the same direction as
Contarini. These attempts were not, at the time, altogether without hope of
success, for Charles V, with icy reserve, let the Pope feel that he was
dependent on his favour. The Emperor’s servants in Italy did not fail their
master in keeping up this impression. The return of Quinones was delayed in
such a remarkable manner that the Pope was nearly worn out with impatience.
Expressions made use of by Clement VII and by his advisers as well, in November
and the first half of December, show how heavily the Emperor’s preponderance
weighed upon him, and how gladly he would have seen a weakening of the Imperial
power, whether from the side of Bavaria or from that of the Voivode of Siebenbürgen.
The
Pope had begun to despair of Quiñones’ return when, on the 17th of December
1528, came the intelligence that the latter had landed at Genoa in the company
of Miguel Mai. This was welcome news, for now there seemed a certainty of
ascertaining the Emperor’s position. On the 30th of December Quinones reached
Rome, and was immediately provided with a lodging close to the Papal
apartments. The hopes that the Emperor’s attitude would now be clearly
explained proved illusory, for Quinones brought with him only civil speeches; all
matters of detail were to be discussed with the Viceroy of Naples.
Contarini
considered this a favourable moment for expending all his gifts of eloquence on
the Pope in order to persuade him to renounce his claims on Cervia and Ravenna, and to win him over to the League. He thought it necessary to show
all the more energy in the matter as a report was current that the Pope had a
mind to lay Venice under an interdict. On the 4th of January 1529 he entered
the Papal presence; he announced that he had come not as the envoy of Venice,
but as an Italian, as a private personage and as a Christian, in order to
submit to his Holiness his opinion on the state of affairs. The Pope having
invited him to speak freely, Contarini set forth, in impressive language, that the
whole question resolved itself into one point, namely, that at that given
moment the Head of the Church should not, like the rulers of secular states,
pursue particular interests only, but fix his eyes on the general welfare of
Christendom, and thereby divert the other princes of Europe also from their
purely selfish systems of policy. Proceeding further, Contarini suggested to
the Pope nothing less than the renunciation of a portion, nay, even of the
entirety, of the Papal States. “Let not your Holiness suppose,” he said, “that
the welfare of the Church of Christ stands or falls with these morsels of
worldly dominion. Before their acquisition the Church existed, and, indeed,
existed at her best. She is the common possession of all Christians; the Papal States
are like any other states of an Italian prince, therefore your Holiness must
set in the forefront of your responsibilities the welfare of the true Church,
which consists in the peace of Christendom, and allow the interests of the
temporal states to fall for a time into the background.” The Pope made answer:
“I well perceive that you are speaking the truth and that I, as one faithful to
his trust, ought to act as you exhort me; but then, those on the other side
ought to act in like manner. Nowadays it has come to pass that the craftiest
man is held to be the most capable, and wins most applause in this world; of
anyone who acts otherwise, all that is said is that he is a good-natured but
impracticable fellow, and, with that, they leave him to himself.” Contarini rejoined: “If your Holiness were to explore all the
contents of Holy Scripture, which cannot err, you would find that nothing is
prized therein more highly than truth, virtue, goodness, and a noble purpose.
On many private occasions I have tested this standard and found it true. Let
your Holiness take courage and go on your way with a good intention, and God,
without doubt, will support you and give you glory, and you will find the right
path without toil and without intrigue.”
In
his reply the Pope kept to his former standpoint. He referred to the danger of
an alliance of the Emperor with Florence, Ferrara, and Venice. “You,” he added,
“would be allowed to keep all that you have got, while I, as the good-natured
man, who has been robbed of all his belongings, would be left where I am
without a chance of recovering one single thing.” To Contarini’s assurance that Venice would not conclude a separate treaty with Charles apart
from the other members of the League, the Pope replied with the remark, “With
you everything depends on a single ballot.” All further representations of the
Ambassador were in vain, although his words had not been without a certain
effect. “I admit,” said Clement, “that the course you recommend would be the
right one; otherwise Italy falls entirely into the power of the Emperor, and
you will try to get some advantage from the Turkish danger. But I tell you, we
have no common ground to meet on, and the good-natured man is treated as a
simpleton.”
Contarini’s advice certainly sounds like that of an idealist; but a dispassionate critic
will admit that the Venetian was confusing the interests of his native city and
the still unrecovered independence of Italy with the welfare of Christendom.
The Medici Pope did not try to conceal that he was a practical politician to
the core; if, in an age when hardly anything was respected except material
power, when political considerations controlled every question, even the purely
ecclesiastical, he refused to renounce his secular sovereignty, he certainly
was acting intelligibly from a merely human standpoint; but higher and more
Christian conceptions were demanded in one holding the office of the Vicar of
Christ. The pursuit of temporal power was to a certain extent fully justified,
but ought always to have been subordinated to the supreme interest, that of
devotion to the supernatural claims of the Church. That Clement only too often
forgot this, throws a heavy shadow over his pontificate.
In
January 1529 Quiñones went to Naples in order to negotiate on the spot for the
surrender of Ostia and Civita Vecchia,
the liberation of the hostages, and an understanding between the Emperor and
the Pope. Clement also appointed Schonberg as his colleague, and sent a token
of high distinction to the Viceroy. At this time Miguel Mai arrived in Rome to
represent the Emperor, “a bold, unscrupulous character, wholly devoted to his
master’s interests.” Mai announced that he had full powers to give back Ostia
and Civita Vecchia; the
restitution would take place as soon as he had spoken with the Pope. This was
impossible, for, just at this juncture, Clement was taken with a serious
illness, the consequence, very probably, of the agitation and suffering of the
previous year.
In
spite of a cold, contracted on the Feast of the Epiphany, in the Sixtine Chapel, Clement VII had held a Consistory on the
8th of January; thereupon he fell ill; on the evening of the 9th he was in a
state of high fever, and the following morning his life was despaired of.
Although an improvement set in, the case seemed to give so clear a warning of
his approaching end that on the night of the 10th of January the Pope summoned
the Cardinals to him and with their approval bestowed the purple on Ippolito
de’ Medici. Somewhat earlier the same honour had been intended for Girolamo
Doria, nephew of Andrea Doria, who had promised to relieve the scarcity of food
in Rome. After some hesitation, all the Cardinals assented to this nomination
also. On this occasion Clement declared to the Sacred College that if God
restored him to health it was his intention to journey into Spain in order to
restore peace to Christendom. During the next few days the condition of the
sick Pontiff continued to be very critical, and on the. evening of the 15th of
January Clement was so weak that it was not believed he could live through the
night.
The
sudden assembling of the Cardinals at the Vatican had already thrown the Romans
into dismay, and the excitement was increased by the spread of more and more
alarming accounts of the Pope’s illness. Not a few believed that he was already
dead; the citizens began to arm. The Cardinals met together in the Palazzo
Monte for consultation, as the doctors had for the moment given Clement up.
Since Ostia and Civita Vecchia were still in the Imperialists’ hands, and the unruly host under Orange was
still encamped at Naples, the freedom of a Papal election seemed in serious
danger. The majority of the Cardinals were therefore of opinion that the
conclave ought not to be held in Rome. Even Quiñones, with his Imperialist
sympathies, took this standpoint, and feared a schism, the responsibility for
which would be thrown on the Emperor. Miguel Mai declared later that Wolsey had
roused the anxiety of the Cardinals as to the freedom of the conclave in order
to induce them to transfer it to Avignon, where this ambitious churchman
considered his election would be sure.
However
that may be, it is a fact that the Cardinals took into consideration the issue
of a Bull in which the seat of the conclave should be assigned to Bologna,
Verona, Civita Casteliana,
or Avignon. Cardinals Enkevoirt and Quiñones approached Mai secretly, and told
him that if the fortified places were not given up immediately there would be
an uproar in Rome. Almost all the Sacred College threatened him with dismissal
in the event of the Pope’s death. “The majority of the Cardinals,” Mai was
forced to inform the Emperor, “are unfriendly to me on account of the ruthless
havoc committed by our soldiery throughout Italy, from Piedmont to Apulia.” It
was seen on the Imperialist side that something must be done to allay the
excitement. Accordingly, the Cardinals kept as hostages in Naples were set
free, and the order was given for the surrender of Ostia and Civita Vecchia.
In
the meantime Clement had made a remarkably quick recovery from his illness,
although the fever did not wholly leave him; his condition varied from day to
day, but remained so far stationary that it was impossible for him to grant
audiences. It was feared in the Vatican that the constantly recurring fever
would at last wear out the Pope’s strength, and a commission of Cardinals was
appointed to despatch the most pressing business. On the 18th of February
Clement had another bad attack, and the question of the freedom of election came
once more to the front. The negotiations of the Cardinals over the delivery of
Ostia and Civita Vecchia proved as fruitless as ever, for, in spite of the orders from Orange,
communicated by Mai, the commandants of the fortresses refused to evacuate them
until their soldiers’ clamours for pay had been satisfied. “If the Pope were to
die,” reported Quinones to the Emperor, “before the fortresses belonging to him
are given up, a schism will be inevitable.”
By
the middle of February the report gained ground that the Emperor was making
serious preparations for his descent upon Italy. These tidings aroused great
excitement among the diplomatists resident in Rome; the Pope was greatly
alarmed, and declared himself ready to visit Spain and France in person, accompanied
by six or seven of the Cardinals, on a mission of peacemaking,
in order to show his impartiality towards King and Emperor alike.
The
Pope’s neutrality was displeasing to the representatives of the Emperor and of
the League. The former saw in the Pope’s projected journey only an attempt to
thwart the expedition of Charles; the latter hoped that Clement, in his alarm
at the Emperor’s coming, might be drawn to their side. Thus the Pope, not yet
wholly recovered from his illness, became the occasion of a sharp diplomatic
struggle in which neither threats nor enticements were spared on either side.
The
Emperor’s agent, Miguel Mai, had been commissioned to obtain the Pope’s consent
to an offensive, or, if this was not possible, at least to a defensive alliance.
The League hoped to attain its object by inviting Giberti, who had so often
already won Clement over to France, to come to Rome. On the 23rd of February
the Bishop of Verona arrived. He was at once able to corroborate Contarini,
that Clement was now more inclined to a general peace. But, he added, two
things are necessary: in the first place, no one must try to force him to
change his views; and, secondly, no one must give him cause for fresh
complaint. This last hint referred to Ravenna and Cervia,
which the Venetians, in spite of the pressure brought to bear on them,
especially by England, had no intention of giving up.
Giberti
was almost all day with the Pope, who was showing marked improvement. Even
though their conversation has not been reported, it is yet easy to conjecture
its import. The Imperialists were fully aware of the danger threatening them.
Miguel Mai wrote angrily to the Emperor that “these devils of Leaguers are
besieging the Pope might and main, and spinning round him a web of lies and
artifices of all sorts.” Andrea da Burgo, the representative of Ferdinand I,
also saw with anxiety how the Pope, in his alarm and indecision, was being
plied with every possible promise by the French and English, and encouraged in
his distrust of the Emperor. Already, on the 2nd of March 1529, he reported
that the French were promising Cervia and Ravenna,
and anything else that the Pope wished, if he would only declare himself for
the League. From his timidity, and the wholly French character of his surrounding
influences, Andrea, and many others with him, inferred that Clement would
certainly not make any advances towards the Emperor and Ferdinand I; they ought
to be glad, thought Andrea, if he remained neutral.
In
the meantime the Pope’s condition had improved so much that on the 7th of March
he was able to leave his bed, and his audiences, although on a limited scale,
were resumed. On the 9th of March Burgo sent a report to Ferdinand on Mai’s
negotiations with the Pope and Schonberg. Clement, in his conversation with
Charles’s envoy, insisted on his duty of remaining neutral, and on his poverty,
which was so great that he was hardly able to afford the upkeep of his
household. He refused an alliance, offensive or defensive, with the Emperor. At
the same time he again went over his plan of visiting France and Spain in
person, and, with this object in view, he spoke of sending Schonberg to the
Emperor, and Giberti to Francis I. To Burgo the absence of Schonberg seemed
dangerous, for the latter was the Emperor’s most loyal representative in Rome,
and in his audiences with the Pope expressed himself in the same way.
Miguel
Mai was in close communication with the Cardinals as well as with the Pope: but
he found out that the former were for the most part inclined towards France.
Even if Mai, occasionally, had recourse to threats, yet his chief endeavour was, by meeting the
Pope’s wishes, especially in financial matters, to induce him to renounce his
neutrality and ally himself with Charles. But in all their efforts to gain the
Pope, the Imperialists sought to drive home the argument that Charles could
give assistance towards the restoration of the Medici as rulers of Florence. To
play on Clement’s fears, the League made use of the
reports, then taking definite shape, of the approaching arrival of the Emperor
in Italy. He was told that in the end Charles would make himself master of the
whole of the Papal States.
The
excitement occasioned by these transactions and the more threatening aspect of
the divorce suit of Henry VIII brought on a relapse, and Clement was unable to
celebrate Mass in St. Peter’s on Easter Day. On Easter Monday 18,000 ducats
were paid into the hands of the Imperial envoy, whereupon Ostia and Civita Vecchia were restored to
the Pope. At the same time came the sorrowful news of Castiglione’s death; this
was a heavy loss for the Pope, for none stood higher in the Emperor’s favour
than this gifted diplomatist.
The
repeated promises of the Imperialists to render service to the Pope both in
respect of the restoration of the Medici as rulers in Florence, and of the
restitution of Cervia and Ravenna, could not fail to
make a deep impression on Clement. But, amid the uncertainty of affairs in
Italy, nothing was less easy than a decision, and thus he continued to
hesitate. The feeling that, notwithstanding the surrender of Ostia and Civita Vecchia, his hands were as
much tied as before, weighed heavily in the balance in favour of
procrastination. On the whole, shrewd diplomatist that he was, Clement did not
betray this; but sometimes his emotion had the mastery of him. Thus on the 9th
of April he complained to Cardinal Trivulzio,
whose sympathies were French, of the way
in which the Emperor’s agents tried to hurry him into a treaty with Charles. He
would gladly withstand them if he could, but his position in this matter was
still just as bad as it had been during his imprisonment in St. Angelo; the
only difference consisted in this, that now, at least, he had personal liberty;
in the former condition of things he had no other choice left him than to fly
from Rome, leaving the Papal territory to its fate, or to come to the least
disadvantageous terms with those whose troops were so close at hand that they
might at any hour have overwhelmed him. “What the Pope will do in the last
resort, I do not know”, wrote Trivulzio ; “it is
certain that he is in the greatest anxiety and perplexity, and will avoid a
settlement as long as possible. When at last he does make one he will be driven
to it by main force, pulled along, as it were, by the hairs of his head.”
Trivulzio was
mistaken, for a few days after his despatch was written, the Pope made up his
mind. He had been greatly influenced by a personal letter from the Emperor,
dated Toledo, the 28th of February, the contents of which were communicated to
Contarini by the Pope on the 12th of April. Charles first of all congratulated
his Holiness on his recovery, and then announced definitely his speedy voyage
to Italy; he wished to start from Toledo as early as the 8th of March, since
personal negotiations with his Holiness could alone conduce to that general
peace for which the initial preparations must begin in Italy, the victim of so
much calamity. Therefore by the 16th of April a new Nuncio to the Imperial
court with full legatine powers was appointed to succeed Castiglione; this was
Girolamo da Schio, Bishop of Vaison,
Master of the Papal Household. This staunchly Imperialist diplomatist, who had
kept up assiduous intercourse with Miguel Mai and Andrea da Burgo, received
secret instructions from the Pope.
The
complete reconciliation, the alliance between Emperor and Pope, was now close
at hand, and with good reason, since the members of the League seemed
deliberately to be doing their best to drive Clement into their adversary’s
arms. Venice and Ferrara, now as before, refused to hand back their spoils,
while France kept up a lingering warfare in upper and lower Italy, encouraged
the obduracy of Florence, and even gave trouble to Clement in his own territory
by protecting his enemies Malatesta Baglioni and the domineering Abbot of Farfa. “The misdeeds which can be laid to the account of
the Leaguers”, said Salviati, “are such
that they must force the Pope to side with the Emperor.”
In
addition to these considerations, it had been known in Rome since the beginning
of April that France was prepared to make, single-handed, conditions of peace
with the Emperor. Even Giberti said at the time, “I am afraid that the French
may make a treaty of their own with the Emperor, and then put off their allies
with fair speeches.” Contarini was not willing to believe this, but it was soon
made evident that Giberti had discerned aright. With a full knowledge of the
state of affairs, a further sojourn in Rome seemed superfluous to this skilled
politician; under the pretext of compliance with the duty of residence in his
diocese, he earnestly begged for permission to return. Contarini and the Pope
detained him for some time longer, but he soon gave up all hope, and on the
26th of April, regardless of the entreaties of his friend Contarini, left Rome.
Undoubtedly
the Pope’s attitude towards the Emperor was greatly influenced by the hope
that, through the help of Charles, Florence would once more be governed by the
Medici. With what dissimulation Clement tried to disguise this anticipation is
described in the reports of Contarini and other diplomatists. He tried to keep
the plan a secret even from his most trusted and intimate friends, but without
success, for in the beginning of March Girolamo Balbi said to Andrea da Burgo that Clement wished nothing so much as a change of
government in Florence.
Just
at this moment news reached Rome of a turn in Florentine affairs which Clement
attributed wholly to the help of Charles.
For
a long time the Pope had hoped to attain his object in Florence by peaceable means.
As long as Capponi, a well-disposed and moderate man, stood at the head of
affairs there, this expectation was by no means altogether visionary,
especially when the timid character of the Pope, then in such sore distress, is
taken into consideration. Capponi formed a scheme for freeing his native city
by means of an arrangement with the Pope; with Jacopo Salviati as a go-between,
he opened up secret communications with Rome; their discovery led to his fall
on the 17th of April 1529. His successor was Francesco Carducci, a violent
partisan, in whose circle Clement was spoken of only as the tyrant and bastard.
The hatred of this democrat towards the Medici made any accommodation
impossible. The fate of Florence was thus decided; everything was done there to
exasperate the Pope to the utmost. The half-forgotten fact of his illegitimate
birth was dragged to light; he was made the butt of scorn and ridicule in
verses and pictures, and his Papal authority was often repudiated.
On
the 18th of April, Clement, as feudal lord of Perugia, had forbidden all its
citizens, under threat of the severest penalties, to take foreign service.
Nevertheless, on the 4th of May the Florentines appointed as their captain
Malatesta Baglioni; further, they paid two hundred soldiers to occupy Perugia.
Clement was carried away by anger, and declared to the English envoy he would
rather be the Emperor’s chaplain or equerry than allow himself to be insulted
by his rebellious subjects and vassals. To Contarini he declared that the disgraceful
mortifications inflicted on him by the Abbot of Farfa and Baglioni were instigated by the French and Florentines. They had compelled
him to look to his private interests and no longer to maintain an indeterminate
position. He did not wish to be made prisoner a second time and be carried off
to Florence. To the counter-representations of Contarini the Pope replied,
“What ought I, in your opinion, to do? I have taken no decided course, and
thereby given satisfaction to none; rather have I exposed myself to the
contempt of all.” He feared that the peace negotiations between France and the
Emperor would end badly for Italy, that both one and the other would leave him
in the lurch as one who could not be safely relied on. “For appearance’ sake
there will be a stipulation that I am to be the protector of the peace, and
with that they will rest satisfied. I tell you, Ambassador,” said Clement in
conclusion, “I am forced to act as I do. What do you wish me to do? I cannot
act otherwise.”
The
decisive step was taken in the first days of May. On the 7th of that month the
Pope sent to the Emperor an autograph letter of thanks for the restoration of
the fortresses. His illness had hindered him from sending an earlier answer; he
now sends to him his Master of the Household, Girolamo da Schio,
Bishop of Vaison, whom his Majesty can trust as he
would Clement himself, since the Nuncio knows all the secrets of his heart. Schio, who carried together with this letter the Bull of
the Cruzada and other tokens of grace, had full
powers to conclude a treaty with the Emperor; he left Rome on the 9th of May.
Two days later, Andrea da Burgo reported to Ferdinand I. this mission of such
decisive importance, and the favourable dispositions of the Pope. Miguel Mai
wrote at the same time to Charles V. that the choice of a Nuncio could not have
fallen on a better man than Schio, since he was a
person of marked distinction, and a good Imperialist at heart.
Schio embarked on the 25th of May at Genoa for Barcelona, where Charles had been staying
since the 30th of April. The Emperor ordered preparations to be made to receive
the Papal Nuncio with every mark of honour. He arrived on the 30th of May; the
negotiations began at once, and ran very smoothly, and on the 10th of June
Charles committed to Mercurino dl Gattinara, Louis de Praet, and Nicholas Perrenot the necessary powers. By the 23rd of June a compact relating to the marriage of
Alessandro de’ Medici with Margaret, the Emperor’s natural daughter, had been
concluded. There was no longer any possible doubt for whom Florence was
intended. On the 29th the signatures were attached to the treaty, to which the
Emperor on the same day bound himself by oath before the splendid high altar of
the Cathedral of Barcelona.
In
view of the Turkish encroachments and the trouble arising from heresy, a
defensive alliance was struck between Pope and Emperor. The Emperor promised
his help towards restoring the Medicean rule in
Florence and reinstating the Church in her temporal possessions, by insisting
on the restitution of Ravenna and Cervia on the part
of Venice, and of Modena, Reggio, and Rubbiera on the
part of Alfonso of Ferrara, the rights of the Empire being left unimpaired. The
Duke of Ferrara was to be declared forfeited of his duchy, a fief of the
Church, and the Emperor’s support was to be given to the execution of the Papal
sentence. In taking possession of the Duchy of Milan, “the fountain-head of the
troubles of Italy,” Charles, in the event of Sforza being found guilty of
felony, would act in conjunction with the Pope, although not bound to do so
legally. All arbitrary usurpation of the patronage of the Neapolitan bishoprics
on the part of the Imperial Government would cease. All amicable means of
dealing with the reform in Germany having been exhausted, Charles and
Ferdinand, his brother, who was included in the terms of the treaty, were to
take forcible measures for the suppression of that movement. The Pope, on his
side, supported these undertakings. In the renewed assumption of the Neapolitan
fief he contents himself with the palfrey tax (chinea,
in Spanish hacanea), hands over to the Emperor
and his successors the nomination to four-and-twenty Neapolitan-bishoprics, and
permits the passage of Imperialist troops through the Papal territory. Two
additional articles relate to the Pope’s support of the war against the Turks.
Besides the spiritual means at his disposal, Clement promises to further the
work by guaranteeing to Charles and Ferdinand, for this purpose, a fourth of
the ecclesiastical revenues of their countries, on the same scale as under
Adrian VI, and absolves the Imperial army from all the ecclesiastical penalties
incurred in consequence of the attack on Rome. Lastly, Clement increases the
privileges of the recently issued Bull of the Cruzada.
At
the first glance it seems astonishing that Charles should have conceded such
favourable terms to the despoiled and vanquished Pope. But on closer inspection
the leniency of the Emperor admits of an easy explanation. In spite of all
humiliation, the status of the Papacy in human society was still one of high
importance. The friendship of Clement was an imperative necessity to Charles,
unless his interests in England, in Scandinavia, in Switzerland, in Hungary,
and Germany were to suffer the most grievous injury. Moreover, the exhaustion
of the Imperial finances and the doubtful outlook of the continuation of the
campaign in Italy came into consideration. Lastly, Charles hoped that his
alliance with the Pope would deal a mortal blow to the League; and even if his
concessions to Clement were considerable, his own interests in Italy were not
nullified by the treaty.
The
treaty of Barcelona accelerated the peace negotiations between Francis and
Charles.
The
contradictory reports from Lombardy had caused the French king to fluctuate
between one policy and another. Sometimes he unfolded before the Italian envoys
far-reaching plans of campaign, and spoke of attacking the Emperor in Spain or
of leading in person a great army into Italy. But these were passing paroxysms
of warlike ardour. One look at his kingdom would have told Francis that the
burdens of war were no longer endurable. Then there was the dissatisfaction of
the French Government with their English allies, who were liberal of critiism but not of money. The scheme for entering on peace
negotiations grew in popularity at the French court. In November 1528 there
were thoughts of appealing to the Pope’s mediation, but the notion was soon
given up. There was a greater leaning towards the Regent of the Netherlands,
the Archduchess Margaret, and the Queen Mother, Louisa of Savoy, entered into
direct communication with the Archduchess in order to bring about a peace.
Cardinal Salviati, in May 1529, was still disinclined to believe in the
seriousness of these negotiations. Nevertheless, these two women, distinguished
alike for intellectual qualities and political experience, succeeded in their
difficult task.
The
French Government showed consummate skill in concealing their transactions from
the other members of the League. On the 23rd of June 1529 Francis declared to
their envoys that he would sacrifice his own life and that of his son to save
the allied Leaguers; the Queen and the Admiral, Anne de Montmorency, spoke in
the same sense. On the 10th of July the latter made the most solemn disclaimer
of the report that France intended to desert Venice. Twelve days later the
King, with equal solemnity, swore that Florence would be included in the treaty
of peace, and on the 3rd of August Francis still affirmed that nothing would be
concluded without the consent of his allies. On the 5th the treaty was signed
at Cambrai in which he completely threw them over. Up to the last there were
still great difficulties to be overcome, but matters were brought quickly to a
conclusion by the news that de Leyva’s victory over St. Pol at Landriano (21st of June) had made Charles master of
Lombardy and at one with the Pope.
The
treaty concluded by Francis was highly disadvantageous; he saved nothing except
the integrity of his own country. He had to promise that thenceforward he would
abstain from all interference in Italian and German affairs; within six weeks
all his troops were to be withdrawn from Italy; he was to compel Venice and
Ferrara to surrender the stolen cities; in case of necessity to expel with arms
the Venetians from Apulia; he was to pay Charles for the expenses of his
coronation journey 200,000 thalers and furnish him with twenty galleys, and his
son was to be set free at a ransom of two million crowns.
In
Rome the result of the negotiations at Barcelona and Cambrai had been watched
with anxious attention, above all by Contarini, who, with the tenacity of a
born diplomatist, had up to the last moment urged the cause of the League, but
without the least success, on the Pope, who was still unwell. On the 17th of
June Andrea da Burgo could report that Salviati, by order of the Pope, had told
him that the latter rejected all the offers of the League. Two days earlier
Schonberg had left Rome in order to take part in the negotiations at Cambrai.
On the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul the Pope, in presence of all the Cardinals,
received the “Chinea” from Miguel Mai; on the same
day came the news of the overthrow of the French at Landriano.
The reports then current as to the Emperor’s frame of mind justified Clement in
having the best hopes. On the 15th of July the conclusion of the treaty with
the Emperor was made known for certain in Rome through the Abbate de’ Negri. On
the following day came the decision on the divorce suit of Henry VIII, which
the Pope cited before the court of the Rota in Rome.
The
treaty of Barcelona was conveyed to Italy by the Emperor’s special messenger,
Louis de Praet, who arrived in Rome on the 22nd of
July, where he was visited at once, by command of the Pope, by Salviati, Sanga,
Alessandro de’ Medici, and Cardinal Ippolito. Nor was the remainder of the
Sacred College, the majority of whom now showed Imperialist leanings, wanting
in marks of attention. In the afternoon of the 24th of July, Praet, together with Mai and Burgo, had an audience of the
Pope, whom they saw in bed, bearing evident traces of his long illness. Clement
read the Emperor’s letter, brought to him by Praet,
and expressed his delight at the peace, and his hope that Charles, on his arrival
in Italy, would be a protection to the Holy See. For Florentine affairs he
referred the Imperial envoys to Cardinal Pucci. After a conversation with this
Prince of the Church, whose devotion to the Emperor and the Medici was entire,
they had a second audience, on the 25th of July, in which the Pope, still
forced to keep his bed, swore fidelity to the Treaty of Barcelona Salvos of
musketry from the Vatican, St. Angelo, and the palaces of the Imperialists
announced the great event to Rome. Clement’s condition
having much improved by the end of July, the envoys were able to discuss with
him personally the Florentine enterprise which Praet had warmly advocated with the Emperor. On Sunday, the 1st of August, the Pope
participated in person at the thanksgiving service in St. Peter’s on the
occasion of the conclusion of peace.
Some
days before, Philibert, Prince of Orange, had made his entry with a body of
fifteen hundred foot. The negotiations concerning the submission of Florence,
with which those relating to Perugia were combined, now reached a definite
stage. Since the Treaty of Barcelona contained no terms relating to the cost of
the war with Florence, serious difficulties were not wanting. It was said that
the ambitious Orange demanded for himself nothing less than the hand of
Catherine de’ Medici, the Pope’s niece—a marriage which would have made him
master of Florence. In Clement’s immediate circle it
was pointed out to him that he would be exposing his native city to great peril
if he turned against her an army composed of such different nationalities.
Among those who opposed the Florentine expedition, Jacopo Salviati, Roberto
Pucci, and Sanga were named—those, in fact, who were in the Pope’s confidence.
No
wonder that Clement fell back on his usual vacillation. If there were
difficulties in coming to an understanding, the blame lay to a great extent
with the Florentines, who kept up their methods of provocation towards the
Pope. They were not only in the closest alliance with Malatesta Baglioni, but also
with that Abbot of Farfa who had already caused
Clement so much trouble.
To
this turbulent leader of faction they sent 3000 ducats towards the recruiting
of troops; this sum, however, was intercepted by the Papal party, whereupon the
Abbot determined on revenge. In the beginning of August Clement had sent
Cardinals Farnese. Medici, and Quinones to greet the Emperor on his arrival at
Genoa. Quinones was set upon in the hill forest of Viterbo and kept prisoner
until the 3000 ducats were repaid. How bitterly the Pope must have resented this unprecedented occurrence1 can
easily be understood. An agreement on the question of the subjection of
Florence and Perugia was arrived at by the special interposition of Cardinal
Pucci, who from his private resources advanced such a considerable sum that
Clement was able to dispose of 36,600 scudi. But with this he could only at
first clear off a small instalment of his obligations, for, on the 17th of
August, Clement had to concede the demands of Orange: 80,000 scudi to be paid
down, 50,000 to be added after the capture of Florence, and a final 150000 to
be raised by taxation on the city. The Pope, besides, was to support Orange
with artillery and recruits, and once more Rome and the Papal territory became
the scene of active military movements. The Pope’s thoughts henceforward were
absorbed in this unhappy enterprise against his native city. On the 13th of
August Mercurino da Gattinara received from Clement,
now fully restored to health, the long-coveted rank of Cardinal, as a reward
for his services in bringing the Treaty of Barcelona to a conclusion.
CHAPTER
IX
The
Meeting of Clement VII. and Charles V. at Bologna. —The Last Imperial
Coronation.—Restoration of the Medicean Rule in
Florence.
On
the 12th of August, 1529, Charles V, with a stately retinue of Spanish
grandees, had landed at Genoa, where he was welcomed with shouts of “Long live
the Ruler of the World!”. The coming of the Emperor raised the hopes of his
followers to the highest pitch. Typical of the pride with which Charles was
regarded by the Germans in Rome is the diary of Cornelius de Fine, who even
associates the plenteous harvest of the autumn of 1529 with the coming of the
Emperor. By command of the Pope, Cardinals Farnese, Medici, Quiñones, and his
nephew Alessandro de’ Medici awaited his coming at Genoa. The Imperial troops,
twelve thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, landed for the most part at
Savona. With this force Charles might have attacked Venice and Sforza
successfully, had not his brother Ferdinand at this very moment reported the
threatening advance of the Turks in Hungary. This intelligence forced Charles
to act with foresight and caution; he gave up the idea of an aggressive
movement against the Venetians and expressed himself in a pacific sense. The
hopes of the anti-imperialists in Italy, those of Venice before all, were, in
fact, based on the victory of the Turks; the Venetian Senate instructed their
Ambassador at Constantinople, on the 25th of August, to stir up the Moslem to
push on against Ferdinand. In this state of things Charles was thrown more than
ever on his friendship with the Pope; this accounts for the rude treatment of
the Florentine envoys at Genoa who had come to plead for a postponement of the
expedition against the city. Charles refused this peremptorily as an engagement
undertaken without the cognizance of the Pope; he exhorted them, but certainly
in vain, to come to terms with Clement. Gattinara spoke even more clearly,
since he told the Florentines that they would have to reinstate Clement and his
family in their former position. This, indeed, was the whole end and aim of the
Pope; heedless of all warnings and dangers, he pursued without scruple the
policy of the aggrandizement of the house of Medici.
Orange
had left Rome in the middle of August. His troops were gathered in the flat
country between Foligno and Spello;
there were three thousand landsknechts, the remnant of Frundsberg’s army, and four thousand Italians under Pierluigi Farnese, Camillo Marzio, Sciarra Colonna, and Giovan Battista Savelli; the Spanish infantry were to be
brought up from Apulia by Vasto.
The
expedition against the rebellious Malatesta Baglioni was carried out swiftly.
While reconnoitring near Spello, Giovanni d’ Urbino,
the bravest of the Spanish captains, was indeed killed, but Spello surrendered in September. Vasto had now come up; on
the 6th of September the army crossed the Tiber and pitched camp before
Perugia, and by the 10th this stronghold had also capitulated. The conditions
were very favourable to Malatesta Baglioni: he was allowed free egress for
himself and his artillery, protection for his property, and permission to take
service for Florence. Perugia returned to its former relations with the Holy
See, retaining its privileges, and, on the evening of the nth of September,
Cardinal del Monte took possession of the city in the Pope’s name.
The
hopes of the Florentines, that the campaign would be concentrated on Perugia,
were thus baffled; once more the war was confined exclusively to their own
territory. They also failed completely in their attempts to drive Orange off by
means of negotiations. Since Malatesta had betaken himself to Montevarchi without giving a thought to the protection of
the Florentine frontier towns, little resistance was offered to the Imperialist
troops. In a short time they became masters of Cortona, Castiglione Florentino,
and finally of Arezzo. The further advance of Orange into the valley of the
Arno was very slow; this gave the inhabitants of Florence time to defend
themselves. Orange laid himself open to the suspicion of acting with a view to his
own interests rather than to those of the Pope, but there is no adequate proof
of this; on the contrary, his delay arose from altogether different causes. The
letters of Charles V to Orange show that the former expressly wished for a
protracted advance against Florence, in order that, if possible, an agreement
might be reached between the Pope and the citizens of his own town. Only in the
case of this being altogether unsuccessful did the Emperor, that he might not
incur the loss of Clement’s friendship, consent to
carry the expedition through.
Up
to the last, Clement had hoped that the Florentines, isolated from all help,
would surrender and avoid the issue of a struggle with the fierce soldiery. He
was doomed to see how far he had deceived himself. With admirable heroism, the
Florentines had made preparations to fight for their freedom to the death. With
their own hands they had devastated the fair surroundings of their city in
order to deprive the enemy of any points of advantage. By every means in their
power, even to the sale of Church property, money had been raked together to
provide pay for the troops. They would rather, declared some, see their city in
ashes than stoop to obey the Medici. The walls were manned by soldiers ready to
resist any assault of the Imperialists. Orange had to make up his mind to
invest the city, and at the end of October his artillery fire was trained upon
the heights of San Miniato. Michael Angelo, who, on
the 6th of April 1529, had already been appointed overseer of the fortifications,
had transformed the noble basilica, on its lofty eminence, into a bulwark of
such strength that the fire from Orange’s guns was ineffectual.
The
success of their measures of defence filled the Florentines with fresh courage.
Preachers of the order of which Savonarola had been a member sought zealously
to revive the old belief in the inviolable security of the city; the holy
angels, it was declared, would be the saviours of Florence; to gainsay such
teaching was deemed a transgression against the State. The popular excitement
was fanned especially by the Dominicans Fra Zaccaria of San Marco and Benedetto
da Fojano. Like Savonarola, once the object of their
heated adulation, these religious made their pulpits resound with politics.
Their sermons, according to the testimony of Varchi,
were filled with derisive gibes against the Pope and flattery of the government
in power. The hatred of the Medici in some amounted at last to madness. It
reached the length of a proposal that vengeance in a shameful form should be
visited on Catherine de’ Medici, a child of ten, who was then detained as a
hostage in a convent.
While
in Genoa, Charles V. had sent a request to the Pope that his coronation might
be solemnized at Bologna. Such threatening intelligence had come from Germany
that it became more necessary than ever that the head of the Empire should
speedily have recourse thither. The pressure to which Ferdinand was exposed
from the Turks had altered the situation in such a way that it appeared
impolitic for Charles to be at too great a distance from the hereditary domains
of the Hapsburgs. Nor could Clement deny the force of this argument; but the
state of his health, only just restored, and the cost of the journey were
against it Moreover, an Imperial coronation outside the walls of Rome was
something unknown, contrary to all precedent, the closest adherence to which
was in Rome a fixed and unchanging principle. Many of the Cardinals, the Curia,
and the Romans, almost without exception, were against the journey. But the
Legates who had followed Charles to Piacenza supported him in his wish, to
which he gave renewed expression in a letter of the 20th of September 1529.
They also announced that Charles had sworn at Piacenza, as at Parma, to
undertake nothing to the detriment of Holy Church. Clement was strongly
influenced by the knowledge that he was dependent on Charles for the Florentine
enterprise and the restoration of the Papal territory. He had also repeatedly
previously announced his intention of going into Spain in the cause of peace.
How could he now decline to make a comparatively trifling journey? By the end
of August he had made up his mind to gratify the Emperor’s wish; but he kept
his resolve a secret for some days, and allowed the belief to prevail that the
notion of a Roman coronation had not been given up. On the 19th of September
the Treaty of Cambrai was officially announced in Rome; before the Pope
proceeded to the ceremony of its publication he made known to the Cardinals his
intention of going to Bologna, but he left it optional to the members of the
Sacred College whether they accompanied him or not. On that the Cardinals
withdrew any opposition, and the Romans were pacified by the arrangement that
the Rota and Cancelleria were to remain in Rome.
The
date of the journey, for which preparations were now beginning to be made,
depended a good deal on the news from Florence. The frightful danger hanging
over his native city was a source of increasing agitation to Clement. He still
hoped for a peaceful solution, and this hope was encouraged by Contarini. On
the 22nd of September a Florentine envoy arrived in Rome. As he was the bearer
only of general expressions, the Pope determined to send Schonberg to Orange
and to Florence with the task of arranging a peaceful settlement, if such were
by any means possible. Schonberg, who had only returned from Cambrai on the
19th, was once more on his way by the 23rd. But his mission was as unsuccessful
as was that of one of the Papal Chamberlains despatched by Clement when he was
already on the road to Bologna.
The
obstinacy of the Florentines occasioned alterations in the Pope’s travelling
arrangements. Instead of going through Tuscany, he had to take the road through
the Romagna. Before starting, Clement drew up a series of precautionary
regulations. By a special Bull the freedom of the Papal election, in case he
died at Bologna, was secured. Cardinal del Monte was made Legate in Rome, and
special Nuncios were ordered to go to France and England to acquaint their
respective governments with the circumstances of the Pope’s journey, and to ask
that full powers should be sent to Bologna for dealing with the Turkish
question. Cardinal Cibo was instructed to make the
necessary preparations in Bologna.
On
the afternoon of the 7th of October the Pope left Rome amid torrents of rain.
In immediate attendance were Cardinals Accolti, Cesi, Cesarini, and Ridolfi; most of the remaining
Cardinals as well as the Ambassadors followed. The insecurity of the road made
an escort necessary and considerably impeded the progress of the journey, which
the Emperor, with renewed insistence, begged might be accelerated. The Pope’s
route lay by Civita Casteliana, Orte, Terni, Spoleto, and Foligno to Sigillo on the Via del Furlo. On the way, important
despatches were brought by members of the Imperial court. They contained
Charles’s wish that the settlement of Italian affairs might be made as quickly
as possible, seeing that the Turks were advancing on Vienna. He therefore would
give up Parma to the Pope, although still in his (the Emperor’s) possession,
and would deal with the affairs of Milan in conformity with Clement’s advice. At Sigillo the new Imperial envoy, Gabriele Merino, Bishop of Jaen and
Archbishop of Bari, together with Praet and Mai, had
his first audience with the Pope, whom he found full of confidence in the
Emperor’s good intentions.
On
the 20th of October Clement was at Cesena, where a Florentine deputation
appeared, to announce that their city would make a willing submission if
honourably treated. On the 21st the distinguished travellers were welcomed at
Forli by the Bolognese envoys. On the 23rd feux de joie and peals of bells informed the inhabitants of Bologna that the
head of the Church had reached the convent of the Crociferi,
one mile distant from the city. On the following day the solemn entry, for
which preparations on a vast scale had been undertaken, was made.
The
road to San Petronio was overspread by draperies from
which hung green garlands enclosing the arms of the Medici. Magnificent
triumphal arches in the Doric order of architecture, with allegorical reliefs, paintings,
and stucco groups of figures, had been constructed at the Porta Maggiore, the
Palazzo Scappi and on the Piazza Maggiore. The Pope
made his entrance borne on the sedia gestatoria; sixteen Cardinals, numerous Archbishops and
Bishops, as well as bodies of Bolognese officials, went with him to San Petronio, from whence, after giving his solemn benediction,
he betook himself to the Palazzo Pubblico, where
splendid apartments had been prepared for him. A special messenger of the
Emperor, Pedro de la Cueva, greeted Clement VII, a compliment acknowledged by
the Pope in an autograph letter.
In
a secret Consistory held on the 29th of October, six Cardinals were appointed
to make all the needful preparations for the Emperor’s coronation, and it was
decided, in the event of the rite being performed in Bologna, that a Bull
should be issued declaring the solemnity to have the same validity as it would
have had if carried out in Rome. At the same time the Pope was able to proclaim
the joyful news that the Turks had abandoned the siege of Vienna. In
celebration of this event a solemn function was held in San Petronio on the last day of October, at which the Pope gave his benediction and
absolution.
The
entry of Charles V was looked for on the 5th of November. He had left Piacenza
on the 27th of October. In Borgo San Donnino he
received a letter from his brother announcing the complete failure of the
Turkish attack on Vienna. Thus Charles’s position in Italy was remarkably
improved, and his enemies, who had reckoned on the Turks, lost spirit.
With
renewed hopes Charles went by Parma to Reggio, where the Duke Alfonso of
Ferrara besought him on his knees to support him against the Pope. This crafty
Prince made lavish promises in order to gain the favour of the powerful
Emperor, whom he accompanied as far as Modena. The personal intercourse between
them was destined to have important results. When Charles reached Borgo Panigale on the 4th of November, he found almost all the
Cardinals and a numerous company of prelates there assembled ; Cardinal Farnese
welcomed him in the Pope’s name and escorted him to Certosa.
On the following day the Emperor made his state entry into the second city of
the Papal territories.
On
this occasion the decorations of Bologna far surpassed those employed on the
arrival of the Pope. If on the former occasion the ecclesiastical element was
the most prominent, the chief place was now occupied by secular pomp. In
correspondence with the character of the Renaissance, now at its zenith, the
festal decorations were marked by the utmost prodigality. Architects,
sculptors, and painters competed in the creation of a scheme of ephemeral
decoration striking the eye with magnificence and colour and transporting the
spectator into the very heart of ancient Rome. From the windows of every house
hung coloured tapestries, and awnings overspread the streets ; garlands of
green leaves formed an admirable contrast to the arches which make Bologna a
city of arcades. On the ravelin of the Porta S. Felice, through which Charles
was to enter, was seen, on one side, the triumph of Neptune surrounded by
tritons, sirens, and sea-horses, and on the other, Bacchus in the midst of
satyrs, fauns, and nymphs, with the inscription, "Ave Caesar, Imperator invicte!”. On the gateway itself were conspicuous the Papal
keys and the Imperial eagle, inscriptions in imitation of those of ancient
Rome, medallion portraits of Caesar, Augustus, Titus, and Trajan, and lastly
the equestrian statues of Camillus and Scipio Africanus. The architectural
illusions were also, on this occasion, of exceptional splendour; the triumphal
arches erected in the Doric style were all profusely adorned with stucco
figures and paintings, mostly in chiaroscuro. Besides the painters of Bologna,
those of other cities, such as Giorgio Vasari and a Flemish pupil of Raphael,
were employed on these works.
At
three o’clock in the afternoon the head of the Imperial procession reached the
Porta S. Felice: first came lancers, then the artillery, two hundred
landsknechts, cavalry, and again numerous foot-soldiers, followed by many
princes and knights on horseback and in gleaming armour. Cardinal Campeggio,
recently returned from England, as bishop of the city, met the Emperor at the
gate, before whom were borne the standard of the Empire, the banner of St.
George, and an unsheathed sword. Surrounded by Spanish grandees in magnificent
attire rode Charles, on a white charger, in flashing armour inlaid with gold.
His baldachino was carried by nobles and senators of
Bologna. Behind him came the Count of Nassau, Alessandro de’ Medici, the
Marquis of Montferrat, Andrea Doria, the Cardinal Chancellor di Gattinara, Cles, Bishop of Trent, Bishop George III of Brixen, Antonio Perrenot, Bishop
of Arras, his confessor Garcia de Loaysa, and
numerous ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries; the rearguard was composed of Spanish troops. While treasurers flung coins and medals to the
closely packed crowds, who were shouting “Cesare, Imperio”,
the procession slowly made its way to San Petronio,
before which a richly decorated platform had been raised; here the Pope, in
full pontifical garb, the triple crown upon his head, with five-and-twenty
Cardinals around him, awaited the Emperor, on whose approach fanfares from
trumpets were blown, all the city bells pealed, and the cannon thundered forth
salutes. Two members of the Sacred College led Charles to the platform, where
he knelt, and kissed the foot, hand, and forehead of the Pope. Thus, for the
first time, the two men came face to face who had been engaged in such a long
and bitter contest until their common interests brought them together. Charles
addressed the Pope briefly in Spanish, and Clement made a friendly reply. The
Emperor was then conducted to the church by the Pope, who afterwards withdrew.
A Te Deum was sung in San Petronio.
It
was six o’clock in the evening when the Emperor left the church and betook
himself to the Palazzo Pubblico, where his lodgings
also had been prepared. His apartments immediately adjoined those of the Pope.
A private door of communication enabled them both to hold intercourse, at any
time, free from interruption and observation. A well-known picture in the
palace of the Signoria in Florence represents the Emperor and Pope in animated
conversation.
Charles
as a politician was more than a match for Clement in shrewdness; nevertheless
he made most careful preparation on each occasion of conference with the Pope,
noting down on a slip of paper all essential points. Italian writers of
despatches were struck in Charles, who was not yet full thirty years old, by
his seriousness, his sense of religion, and a certain slow deliberation of
speech. Contarini, who had followed the Pope to Bologna, was impressed by the
Emperor’s absorption in affairs while there; he seldom left the palace except
in order to hear Mass. Of the Pope, then in his fifty-first year, he says that
the traces of the long and dangerous illness he had gone through were plainly
visible on his countenance. Among the Pope’s advisers the Venetian Ambassador
mentions as the most influential Jacopo Salviati, French in his sympathies, but
now accommodating himself to the conditions of the time; then Sanga, the friend
of Giberti; Cardinal Pucci, entirely occupied with the Florentine business; as
well as Schonberg and Girolamo da Schio, both
Imperialists.
The
negotiations of Clement VII with Charles were made easier by the conclusion of
the treaties of Barcelona and Cambrai. But there still remained certain points
which were very difficult of adjustment between them. The Pope was still
distrustful of Charles, and, if Contarini is to be believed, it was not until
after long intercourse with him at Bologna that Clement’s opinion in this respect underwent a change.
Clement
insisted, as was to be expected, on an exact fulfilment of the stipulations in
his favour of the Treaty of Barcelona. Charles, for his part, was determined,
to retain the Pope’s friendship in any event, on account of the Turkish danger,
not as yet by any means extinct, the condition of Germany, and the exhaustion
of his resources. But his views regarding Milan and Ferrara differed
essentially from those of Clement. The expedition against Florence gave rise to
difficulties only in so far as Orange was incessant in his demands for money
and reinforcements; an understanding on this point was made easier because
Charles saw in the Florentine alliance with France a standing menace to his
supremacy in Italy. It was otherwise with the Milanese question, to a
favourable settlement of which Charles attached the greatest value. Previous to
the meeting at Bologna, negotiations on this matter had already begun. In
September and October the Imperialist envoys had proposed to Clement that
Alessandro de’ Medici should be given Milan; but they received the negative
reply that the Pope could not commit himself to so great an undertaking,
productive as it would be of perpetual difficulties to those of his own house.
Nevertheless, the Emperor at Bologna returned to this proposal, but with no
better success; on the other hand, influences were at work to secure Milan for Federigo Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. As things were, any
investiture of the duchy on another than Francesco Sforza would have kindled
afresh another war in Italy. It was therefore fortunate that Charles listened
to the representations of the Pope, Gattinara, and Contarini, and summoned
Sforza to appear at Bologna to vindicate his claims. On the 23rd of November
1529 Sforza had his first audience with the Emperor; he conducted his case with
such skill that the Pope succeeded in bringing Charles completely round. By the
3rd of December the investiture of Sforza with Milan was practically settled.
The
Venetian Government having already, on the 10th of November, given full powers
to Contarini to restore Ravenna and Cervia to the
Pope, now declared themselves also ready to evacuate the Apulian towns; they
objected, however, at first to enter into the defensive Italian league desired
by the Emperor. On the 26th of November the Senate determined to make this
concession also, in the hope that Charles would then make reductions in his
demands for money from Milan and Venice. On the representations made to him by
Contarini, the Emperor consented to a substantial reduction of the war
indemnity payable by the Republic; but from Sforza he demanded as before,
together with enormous sums of money, the castles of Milan and Como as security
for payment. On the 12th of December a messenger from Venice arrived with
instructions to Contarini to comply with the Emperor’s wishes.
The
Pope, yielding to the requests of Venice, recognized the right of the Duke of
Urbino to the possession of his entire dominions. The Emperor, made uneasy by
the news from Germany and the renewal of danger from Francis I, now decided to
bring the negotiations to an end at once. The interests of Ferdinand were no
longer considered, and his representatives were obliged, perforce, to agree
with the Emperor’s determination. Thus, on the 23rd of December 1529, it became
possible to conclude a treaty of peace, the parties to which were Clement,
Charles, Ferdinand, Venice, Sforza, Mantua, Savoy, Montferrat, Urbino, Siena,
and Lucca. On New Year’s Day the treaty was solemnly proclaimed in the
Cathedral of Bologna, and on the 6th of January 1530 ratified on oath by all
the contracting parties.
The
only points still left unsettled were the dispute between Clement and Alfonso
of Ferrara, and the conclusion of a confederacy against the Turks. The Pope’s
antagonism to Alfonso had been made all the more vehement by the encroachments
of the latter on purely ecclesiastical matters. With regard to political
controversies, Clement let Alfonso understand that he was quite willing not to interfere
with him, but if he were to renounce his claim to Modena and Reggio, Parma and
Piacenza would then be separated from the Papal States in such a way that it
would be almost equivalent to their alienation. Clement appealed expressly to
the promises given by Charles at Barcelona; but in vain, for Alfonso had
succeeded in completely winning over to his side the Emperor’s advisers, as
well as the Emperor himself. In this he was greatly helped by the secret
intention of Charles to curb the power and independence of the Papal States. In
public Charles spoke threateningly to Alfonso’s envoys; but they knew very well
that his anger was all assumed. The Pope, in his irritation, said to the French
Ambassador, “I am being betrayed, but I must act as if I were unaware of it.”
Yet he declared expressly that under no circumstances would he allow Alfonso to
participate in the coronation of the Emperor.
For
a long time the claims of Rome to be the scene of this solemnity had been
seriously considered; but at last, after lengthy deliberation, the choice had
fallen on Bologna. The reason for this decision was principally the gloomy
account of the state of Germany sent by Ferdinand I, which rendered necessary
the presence of Charles, as speedily as possible, in that portion of his
empire.
Burgo
and Salinas, representing Ferdinand I, convinced him that there was no longer
any time to await their arrival. Ferdinand, wrote the envoys on the 12th of February
1530, could make excuses for his brother to the German princes and show them
that it had not lain in Charles’s power to fix beforehand the date of the
coronation, which he was now compelled to proceed with without preparation in
order to accelerate his arrival in Germany.
All
the necessary arrangements were, in fact, made in great haste.2 On the 16th of
February the Pope confirmed, in a Bull, the election of Charles and his
coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle, and gave orders that he should be crowned with
the iron and the golden Imperial crowns. As early as the 22nd of February, the
festival of St Peter’s Chair at Antioch, Charles received in the chapel of the
Palazzo Pubblico the iron crown of Lombardy, which
had been brought from Monza. Two days later the coronation as Emperor was to
take place in San Petronio; Charles had chosen this
day because it was his birthday and the anniversary of the victory of his
forces at Pavia.
Except
as regarded the customary place for the enactment of this solemn rite, all
other observances of the coronation were carried out with painstaking
exactitude. In San Petronio the very side-chapels and
the rota porphyrea itself were copied from St.
Peter’s, so that the entire ceremony could be held as if at the tombs of the
Apostles Peter and Paul in Rome. A wooden bridge decorated with tapestries and
garlands, and high enough to allow the passage of vehicles beneath, led from
the palace to the church, which was adorned with Flemish tapestries of great
value. Four hundred landsknechts guarded the bridge, two thousand Spaniards and
ten pieces of artillery were drawn up on the piazza. All the city gates also
were guarded by landsknechts and Spaniards.
At
nine o’clock the Pope, clad in a mantle embroidered with gold and studded with
precious stones, and wearing the triple crown, was borne to the church; the
Cardinals and all the members of his court followed him. In the meantime the
secular dignitaries, all, especially the Spanish grandees, wearing the most
costly garments, had assembled in the palace to meet the Emperor. Pages and
servants of the princes and the Emperor opened the procession; then came the
nobles, the Imperial bodyguard, and all the envoys. Before the Emperor, the
Marquis of Montferrat carried the golden sceptre; the Duke of Urbino, the
sword; the young Count Palatine Philip, the nephew of the Elector, the orb of
the Empire; the Duke of Savoy, the kingly crown. Charles wore the iron crown of
Lombardy; having on his right Cardinal Salviati, and on his left Cardinal
Ridolfi; the Counts of Lannoy and Nassau followed with a great train of nobles,
mostly Spanish.
Before
the church, on the right-hand side, a wooden chapel had been erected,
representing S. Maria in Turri at Rome. After the
Papal Bull relating to the coronation had here been read aloud by the Bishop of
Malta, Charles swore on a book of the Gospels held before him by Cardinal
Enkevoirt, to be the faithful champion of the Holy Roman Church, whereupon he
was received into the Chapter of St. Peter’s. Charles had hardly crossed the
wooden bridge when a portion of it fell in. In spite of this perilous incident
he maintained his composure, and knelt down in the portal of the church, where
two Cardinals recited the customary prayers. He was then conducted into yet a
second chapel, to which the Roman name of S. Gregorio had been given, and was
there clad in the Deacon’s tunic and a pluviale sown with pearls, rubies, and diamonds. He then took his place at the rota porphyrea, going on to a spot arranged in
imitation of the confession of St. Peter’s, and finally passing into a chamber,
representing the chapel of S. Maurizio at Rome, to be anointed with the holy
oil. During these proceedings a sharp dispute arose between the envoys of Genoa
and Siena as to precedence; not until this had been composed could the
ceremonies proceed.
The
solemn act of the coronation itself was reserved for Clement. After the reading
of the Epistle, Charles was girt with the sword; then he likewise received from
the hands of the Pope the orb and sceptre, and lastly the Imperial crown;
whereupon Clement spoke the words: “Receive this symbol of glory and the diadem
of the Empire, even this Imperial crown, in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that thou, despising the ancient enemy and
guiltless of all iniquity, mayst live in clemency and godliness, and so one day
receive from our Lord Jesus Christ the crown of His eternal kingdom.” Before
the oblation the Emperor offered the three customary gold pieces and served as
Deacon, bringing to the altar the paten with the wafers and the cruet of water,
“in so seemly and devout a fashion, as one long accustomed to fulfil such
services, that all standing around were filled with wonder and joy.” After
receiving Holy Communion the Emperor kissed the Pope’s forehead, after which
the latter bestowed the benediction. Together the two heads of Christendom, in
all the pomp of their respective dignities, left the Church. Although Clement
tried to prevent him, the Emperor insisted on holding his stirrup and on
leading his palfrey a few paces forward; then with youthful alacrity he mounted
his own charger.
Then
came the great cavalcade. “Under the same golden canopy,” says a contemporary,
“shone, like sun and moon, these two great luminaries of the world.” In the
procession, the gorgeous outlines of which the artists of the day were swift to
fasten on their canvases, were conspicuous, first the banners of the Crusade,
then those of the Church and of the Pope, followed by the standards of the
Empire, of the city of Rome, Germany, Spain, the New World, Naples, and
Bologna. Treasurers flung gold and silver coins among the vast crowds with
which all the streets were filled. At San Domenico the Pope left the
procession, while the Emperor from a throne conferred knighthood on about a
hundred persons. Not until four o’clock in the afternoon was Charles, amid the
jubilant greetings of his troops, able to regain his apartments. The coronation
banquet brought the celebrations to an end.
At
nightfall bonfires blazed everywhere. The Duke of Milan, although suffering
from illness, allowed these demonstrations to last three days. On the 1st of
March a Papal Bull was issued declaring the coronation as fully valid as it
would have been if solemnized at Rome, and renewing the dispensation permitting
Charles to combine the possession of Naples with that of the Imperial dignity.
Since
Florence remained stubborn in her resistance, Clement saw that he must make two
further concessions of great importance to Charles; first of all by nominating
three Cardinals acceptable to the Emperor. The appointments were made public on
the 19th of March. These were Bernhard Cles, Bishop
of Trent, on whose behalf Burgo had been active for some time past; the
Emperor’s confessor, Garcia de Loaysa; and the
Savoyard, De Challant. With much greater reluctance
Clement granted his permission that Alfonso of Ferrara should, after all, come
to Bologna. But although on this point also he gave way, the Duke was not
allowed to make his entry in state. Clement also demanded once more the
restoration of Reggio, Modena, and Rubbiera. An
agreement was at last reached on the 21st of March; Alfonso was to cede Modena
to the Emperor, who, on the expiration of six months, should pronounce a final
decision as to the ownership of the three towns and the computation of the assessment
of Ferrara. This gave Charles, who had never acquired a real trust of Clement,
a decided influence over the fortunes of the Papal States; the exceptional
favour shown by him to the Duke of Urbino was also of service in this
direction.
Charles,
moreover, knew how, in a masterly way, to widen the firm foundations of his
power in Italy by means of the possession of Naples and the dependent position
of the Duke of Milan, and to link closely to himself the minor states of the
Peninsula. In order to secure Alfonso absolutely he invested him with the fief
of Carpi, wrested from Alberto Pio as a punishment for his attachment to
France. He gave Asti to his brother-in-law, the Duke of Savoy, who was at
Bologna during his stay, and the marquisate of Mantua was erected into a duchy.
He could reckon besides on the republics of Siena, Lucca, and Genoa with
certainty. For centuries no Emperor had wielded so much power in Italy;
national independence was practically at an end. By no means the least share in
this guilt belongs to Clement VII, even although a good deal may be said to
excuse his ultimate reconciliation with Charles. But the Pope was not the only
culprit; all the heads of the Italian states without exception contributed
towards the subjection of their fair lands to the supremacy of the alien
Spaniard. Yet in the existing state of things even this was a boon; for
otherwise Italy must have fallen a prey to the Turks, to whose aid not only
Venice but even Florence had appealed.
When
Charles left Bologna on the 22nd of March to take his journey into Germany he
was able to do so with feelings of satisfaction. Not so the Pope. The Papal
territories had certainly been restored in essentials, but in many respects
they were dependent on the Emperor. More galling even than this was the
continued resistance of Florence, for when he made his way to Bologna, Clement
had expected its speedy subjection. During his residence there his impatience
had grown greater day by day; now, after five months, the heroic spirit of the Florentines
flouted, as at the first, all the efforts of their besiegers. It was reported
that as Clement’s distrust of Orange grew more
intense the latter might have fallen upon him in Bologna and renewed the
lessons of the sack of Rome, and that this suspicion hastened the Pope’s
departure. He left early on the 31st of March, touching Urbino, Gualdo, and Foligno on his way,
and by the 12th of April he was once more in Rome; his entry, however, was
unaccompanied by any public reception.
Consumed
with impatience, Clement now waited daily for the capitulation of his native
city, whose inhabitants were defending themselves with the courage of despair. The
war was consuming vast sums of money; besides, since June, the Pope had been
engaged in attempts to suppress the Abbot of Farfa,
so that his finances, deplorable enough in any case, were threatened with total
bankruptcy. There was also the fear that France and England might help the
Florentines; but, on the other hand, in the city on the Arno things might be pushed
to the last extremity and Florence be stormed and plundered. What would then
happen might be presaged from the frightful havoc and cruelty perpetrated by
the ungovernable troops of the besieging army. With these fears mingled the
consciousness of the heavy reproaches levelled far and wide against this
almost fratricidal enterprise. When the French envoy, Gabriel de Gramont, Bishop of Tarbes, in April 1530, represented this
fully to Clement and earnestly exhorted him to come to terms, the Pope exclaimed
distractedly, “Would that Florence had never existed!”
Yet
this same Florence still held out. As it was in May, so it was in June; as it
was in June, so it was in July. Neither the enemy without nor dissension
within, neither hunger nor pestilence, could break down the desperate
resistance of the inhabitants. They were resolved to carry it on to the last
extremity; better that Florence should be reduced to ashes than that their city
should fall into the hands of the Medici. There were even rumours that a plot
had been made to put the Pope to death by poison.
Affairs
began to take a final turn after the failure of Francesco Ferruccio in his heroic attempt to raise the siege. On the 3rd of August an engagement
was fought at Gavinana, in the hills of Pistoja, in which Ferruccio, as
well as Orange, met their death. Florence, ravaged by famine and plague, was
now lost. Malatesta Baglioni, who since the beginning of the year had chief
command of the Florentine troops, made further resistance impossible by turning
his guns against the city. On the 12th of August the final capitulation was
agreed upon: within four months the Emperor was to appoint a constitution with
“safeguards of freedom”; the exiles were to return home, 80,000 scudi to be
paid to the Imperial troops, and the Florentine territory preserved without
diminution; a complete amnesty to be declared for all who had acted as
opponents of the house of Medici.
After
Malatesta’s departure (12th of September) two hundred landsknechts, under the
Count of Lodron, occupied the city, where the Medicean party, in shameful violation of the terms of
capitulation, began to take savage reprisals on their enemies. Carducci,
Bernardo da Castiglione, and four other members of the former government were
beheaded; numerous sentences of exile and confiscation were passed. The
Dominican, Benedetto da Fojano, who had inveighed
heavily against the person of the Pope, was handed over to Rome by Malatesta,
where, if Varchi is to be believed, Clement allowed
him to suffer lingering imprisonment, on bread and water, in the foul dungeons
of St. Angelo.
The
Pope, at first, gave Bartolomeo Valori, Francesco
Guicciardini, and Roberto Acciaiuoli permission to
rule the sorely visited city as they thought best, but afterwards he took
things into his own hands. Valori was made governor
of the Romagna, Guicciardini of Bologna; but in February 1531 Schonberg was
sent to Florence. The Emperor made no haste to despatch Florentine affairs; he
allowed nearly a whole year to pass before paying attention to the wishes of
the Pope, whose impatience grew from day to day. In the summer of 1531 he at
last issued a decree which secured to the Medici “a sort of hereditary
presidentship” in the Florentine republic, but also contained a reassertion of
the Imperial supremacy. Alessandro de’ Medici, bearing the decree, appeared in
Florence in July 1531. In the following year Clement succeeded in doing away
with the Republican forms of the constitution, although their preservation was
recognized by the Emperor’s decree. In attaining this end he acted, as in other
cases, according to the well-known saying of Varchi,
that “he could sling a stone so that no one should see the hand of the
slinger.” On the 27th of April 1532 the new constitution was made known, whereby
Alessandro de’ Medici became hereditary Duke of Florence. The actual reins of
government remained, none the less, in the hands of Clement VII.
CHAPTER X.
The
Religious Divisions in Germany.
The
grave political complications with which the first six years of the Pontificate
of Clement VII. were filled reacted with decisive influence on the spread of
the Lutheran heresy throughout Germany.
Immediately
after his election Clement received disquieting reports on the subject; the
adherents of the new belief were steadily increasing in numbers, and, the
decentralization of the Empire having made great strides, it was practically
impossible to put the Edict of Worms into execution. Consequently, in his first
consistory, held on the 2nd of December 1523, Clement spoke of the dangers
menacing Christendom, quite as much from the side of the Lutherans as from that
of the Turks. In accordance with his own proposal, a commission of Cardinals,
which soon included the names of Egidio Canisio and Numai, was appointed to deal with both aspects of the
question. The immediate result of their deliberations was, that the commission,
on the 14th of December, recommended the despatch of two Nuncios, one to
Germany and a second to Switzerland.
Clement,
in his anxiety concerning the advance of Lutheranism, also invited men
thoroughly acquainted with German affairs, such as Eck and Aleander, to furnish
him with reports as to what should be done with regard to the heretical
movement While Eck laid before him what was substantially a summary of his
conversations with Adrian VI, Aleander composed a special memorandum on the
means to be employed to suppress heresy in Germany. In this he requested the
Pope to remove the abuses in the Curia, and to punish unworthy priests with the
extreme penalty of deprivation; he further advised him not merely to summon the
Emperor and the other temporal princes to take steps against the heretics, but
also to exhort, under pain of censure, the negligent German bishops to the
performance of their duties. The concordats should be strictly observed, and
diocesan and provincial synods held under the presidency only of men of
approved loyalty to the Holy See. The Inquisition Aleander wished to see
transferred, not to princes or monks, who were objects of popular hatred, but
to the bishops. He deprecated the total abolition of indulgences, but urged
that they should be issued sparingly and with caution. The Nuncios in Germany
should narrowly watch the monks, the men of learning, and the printers, since
with these classes they would have to reckon before all others if they wished
to provide an effectual antidote to the diffusion of poisonous doctrine. He
then made very detailed proposals for dealing with the above-named classes of
persons in order to foster the good in them and counteract the evil. In cases
of contumacious heresy, Aleander counselled, with a reference to the procedure
of a Gregory VII and an Innocent III, the application of the severest
penalties: the interdict and an embargo on trade for the cities of the Empire,
withdrawal of privileges from the University of Wittenberg, and the
proclamation of the Ban of the Empire and deposition against the Elector of
Saxony. Since all the good-will of Leo X and Adrian VI had proved fruitless,
lenient measures were no longer of any avail; they only helped to spread the
evil, until it had at length reached Rome itself. For the sins of Christendom
God had permitted this affliction to fall upon the Church; therefore the only
real and lasting succour must be sought in the revival of her ancient virtues.
The
report of an anonymous writer is occupied with a thorough examination of the
complaints of the German nation presented to the Diet of Nuremberg in the year
1523. The author, evidently a member of the Curia, seeks to throw the
responsibility, for the most part, on the German Bishops. With a strange
hallucination, he will admit no guilt on the part of the Roman Curia, and only
recommends an improvement of the existing system in a few points. The report
comes to a point in the proposal to send a Nuncio of unimpeachable character
and eminent learning, with the powers of a Legate a latere,
to the German Empire, there to use his authority with moderation and firmness
towards the patrons of the erroneous teaching.
Clement
VII followed the advice given in this document, but it was not easy to find the
personage fully qualified for the German legation. The Pope’s choice fell at
last on Cardinal Campeggio, who had proved himself to be an experienced diplomatist
and to have a knowledge of German affairs; a staunch Churchman, he was yet
profoundly convinced of the necessity of thorough reforms. At the same time, at
the end of December 1523, Clement VII. determined to send his chamberlain,
Girolamo Rorario, as a Nuncio to Germany, to be
Campeggio’s forerunner and to prepare the way.
For
the instruction of the Legate, Aleander prepared a memorandum on the measures
to be adopted in dealing with Luther. He here lays great stress on the
necessity of the Legate and those with him being conspicuous for their good
reputation and observance of all the laws and customs of the Church. The Legate
himself must use his faculties with moderation and circumspection; all
benefices are to be conferred only on good and learned men of German birth; in
his demeanour he must show the utmost modesty, friendliness, seriousness, and
dignity, and, above all, discretion; he is not to be drawn into disputations
concerning truths of the Faith ; he must be thoroughly acquainted with the points
of controversy, and draw his proofs from the Scriptures and the Fathers rather
than from the scholastic system, then in great odium in Germany; and especially
he must avoid sophistries and paradoxes. Aleander examines in close detail the
grievances of the German nation, declaring them to be only in part justifiable;
for these redress should be promised; but he complains of the superfluous
trouble caused to the Holy See by the manufacture of gravamina. For the
refutation of unfounded complaints he gives full and thorough recommendations.
He does the same with regard to dealings with the bishops and the mendicant
Orders. On no account whatever is the Legate to show his instructions to
anyone, so that he may not undergo experiences similar to those of Chieregati at Nuremberg. He is neither to promise nor
refuse a Council; if he calls attention to the difficulties standing in the way
of one, let him point out, in that connection, that, in the meantime, the laws
against heresy must be put in force. Aleander tries to refute in detail the
objections made to the collection of annates, and then concludes by once more
imparting counsels to the Nuncio concerning his behaviour: he is not to be
arrogant or violent, neither is he to show timidity, but to maintain a steady
courage and, above all, a wise discretion. Especially must he and his personal
following avoid all cause of scandal or offence, adapt themselves as much as
possible to the customs of Germany, and with unbiassed minds recognize the
existing good in that nation.
Campeggio,
whose appointment as Legate a latere for the
whole of Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, and the three northern kingdoms was
ratified in a consistory held on the 8th of January 1524, was primarily and
before all other considerations to represent the Catholic interests in the
forthcoming Diet at Nuremberg, but also to urge on the support of Hungary
against the Turks. In order to make fitting preparation for Campeggio’s
mission, and in support of it, Clement VII. undertook a series of steps the
success of which had at first to be waited for. For this reason the Legate did
not leave Rome until the 1st of February, and then travelled slowly; on the
26th of February he was at Trent, on the 3rd of March at Innsbruck, on the 9th
at Augsburg, and on the 14th he reached Nuremberg. In the course of this
journey he had already an opportunity of realizing the critical and increasing
alteration in popular feeling, due to the unscrupulous agitation conducted
against Catholic institutions from the pulpit and the printing press, at the
instigation of the Lutheran leaders. In Augsburg he was made the object of
popular derision. At Nuremberg the ecclesiastical ceremonies of his reception
were omitted, while the preacher Osiander was allowed
to discourse on the Roman Antichrist.
In
the presence of these hostile dispositions towards the Holy See, which were
almost general throughout the Empire, and were specially dominant in Nuremberg,
Campeggio thought it wise to proceed with great caution. His first speech in the
Diet, on the 17th of March, was therefore conciliatory in tone; nevertheless he
spoke quite distinctly of the task assigned to him, for he called for the
execution of the Edict of Worms. To the question of the Princes concerning the
joint complaints of the German nation presented at the Diet of the previous
year, Campeggio explained that the Pope had no official knowledge of the
document, which had been transmitted to Rome only in a private manner; he,
Campeggio, had seen a copy, but did not believe that a document of such
“exceeding impropriety” could have been agreed to by the Estates. If he had no
present instructions concerning this particular missive, yet he had full powers
to treat with the Estates on the question of the national grievances; in his opinion,
it was to be recommended that the Germans, like the Spaniards, should send
envoys to Rome; he did not doubt that the Pope would meet the just demands of
their nation. Thereupon the old complaints, with some fresh ones added, were
presented.
Although
Campeggio, supported by learned Italians and Germans, such as Cochlaus and Nausea, was zealously active in the Diet, the
negotiations over the new doctrines entered upon a new phase which was, to him,
highly unacceptable. The Estates did not, indeed, deny their obligation to
carry out the Edict of Worms, but at the same time they demanded a National
Council empowered to deal, not merely with the complaints against the Curia and
the complaints of the laity against the clergy, but with the controversies on
religious doctrine. This proposal, full of danger to the Catholic cause, if not
directly put forward by Bavaria, was at any rate supported by that Catholic
country.
The
Cardinal-Legate, who represented the view that the reformation of the Church
would be better carried out in any other way than by a General Council, must
have been still more averse to an independent authoritative National Council.
In consequence of his opposition, concessions were so far made that, in the
resolutions presented at the recess of the Diet, only a provisional settlement
of controversial questions was assigned to the National Council, the final
ruling being reserved for the General Council; also the expression “National
Council” was dropped, and “General assembly of the German nation”—to meet at
Spires in November—substituted for it. To this also the Legate objected, but
without result. The Lutheran towns and nobles protested, on their side, against
the renewal of the Edict of Worms in the final decree, although to please the Estates
the execution of the Edict was qualified by the significant phrase “as far as
is possible.” Campeggio disclosed his attitude towards the decree of the Diet
by promising to use his influence with the Pope in favour of a General Council,
and declaring himself ready to enter into negotiations over the German
grievances and the reform of the clergy; to the assembly at Spires he refused
to give his approval. His standpoint seems to have been, so far, the correct
one; for, if the Edict of Worms held good, a fresh investigation of the
doctrines therein repudiated was an absurdity.
During
his stay in Nuremberg, Campeggio was kept closely informed of the serious
defects of the German Church by men who had the Catholic cause deeply at heart;
he had also convinced himself of the pressing necessity for that reform of the
German clergy demanded by so many of the princes, if Lutheranism was to be
successfully encountered. On the receipt of his report at Rome, Clement VII, on
the 14th of April 1524, gave him full authority to hold a convention in Germany
for the reform of the national clergy. This Assembly, in which the Archduke
Ferdinand, the Bavarian Dukes, many bishops of South Germany, and the most
important literary champions of German Catholicism (Cochlaus,
Eck, Johann Faber, and Nausea) took part, opened in June at Ratisbon. A scheme
of clergy reform prepared by Campeggio and already produced at Nuremberg was
here discussed, accepted, and published for the whole of Germany in a legatine
decree with full apostolic authority on the 7th of July. The ordinances formed
a first and important step towards a reformation of the Church from within; in
carrying them out she would be freed from many defects, and many grievances
would be removed. At the same time Campeggio succeeded at Ratisbon in combining
for the first time the forces of at least the South German Catholics (the
Archduke Ferdinand, the Bavarian Dukes, and twelve bishops) by an act of union.
The above-named pledged themselves to uphold the Edict of Worms, and to resist
all religious innovations.
At
Rome the proceedings at Nuremberg had been followed attentively. The fatal
delusion that only Saxony was on the side of Luther had soon to give way in the
face of facts. In the beginning of May, Clement and the Cardinals consulted as
to the measures to be taken to meet the resolutions of the Diet, and Cardinals
Monte and Numai drew up special reports. It was
determined not to refuse the demand for a General Council absolutely;
attention, of course, was to be drawn to the hindrances in the way arising from
the warlike complications in Europe, but at the same time the prospect of
negotiations was to be held out. With regard to the grievances, redress was
promised by the suspension of the regulations of the Lateran Council, and the
appointment of a commission of Cardinals to investigate further. If on these
two important questions an understanding was come to with the German
opposition, the execution of the Edict of Worms was all the more strongly
insisted on, and the National Council at Spires was not the less strongly
opposed. Not merely the Emperor, but even foreign sovereigns, such as the kings
of England, France, and Portugal, were asked to protest, and a series of
briefs, couched in this sense, was despatched in May. At the same time also the
Nuncios were ordered to take action; especially full instructions were sent to
the Papal representatives at the Emperor’s court.
This
action of Clement had as its result that Charles V. repeatedly and in sharp and
peremptory terms prohibited the National Council of Spires, and ordered the
observance of the Edict of Worms and the avoidance of all religious innovation.
If Charles directed his envoys at Rome to acquaint the Pope with these
measures, he made it plain at the same time that he considered that it would be
of advantage to summon a General Council; he recommended Trent, a place which
was practically a German town, although within Italian territory; but the Pope
would be at liberty to transfer the Council to Italy at some later date.
The
union of Ratisbon and the reforms undertaken there, the Emperor’s strict
insistence on the observance of the Edict of Worms, and the obstruction of the
National Council at Spires were undoubtedly remarkable successes. Campeggio,
who remained in Vienna until the 8th of December, actively engaged from thence
in his campaign against the Lutherans in Germany and in his reconciliation of
the Bohemian Utraquists, might well be proud of them
; he believed that half of his principal task had been achieved. But the great
social revolution so soon to break out in Germany brought all his fair hopes
again to an end.
Clement
VII was thoroughly informed by the reports of Girolamo Rorario,
Nuncio to Ferdinand I., and through various private persons, of the bloodshed
which was turning Germany into a second Bohemia. Campeggio also, who remained
in Ofen till well on in June, sent him numerous
communications. The Pope was greatly alarmed, and informed Ferdinand on the
29th of May of the despatch of a subsidy to the amount of 20,000 ducats; the
Emperor, who, unfortunately, was still lingering in Spain, he exhorted to more
strenuous action in order to avert yet greater dangers. The disorders in
Germany and the enmity between France and Spain were adduced by the Pope as
reasons which prohibited him from convening a Council.
Notwithstanding
the detailed reports received in Rome, as in foreign countries generally, of
the peasants’ insurrection, there was no correct conception of the real state
of affairs. The accounts that came in were fatally misleading, and men were
under the delusion that Lutheranism had, to all intents and purposes, been
suppressed simultaneously with the sanguinary extinction of the social
revolution, in which both friends and foes of the new teaching had co-operated.
The only person who did not share in this delusion, Campeggio, was recalled
because, in the opinion of many, his mission had not been sufficiently
successful, and also, as is most probable, because his sympathies were too
Imperialist.
The
functions of the Nunciature were now concentrated in the person of Rorario, the Nuncio to Ferdinand. And yet, in face of the
difficult and complicated situation, not merely was the presence of a permanent
Cardinal-Legate necessary, but also the despatch of a fresh Nuncio in the
interests of accurate information. How defective information was as to the real
state of affairs in Germany is best shown from the fact that, when Clement VII
on the 23rd of August 1525 wrote numerous letters of congratulation to the
German princes on their victory over the Lutherans, one of those thus addressed
was the Landgrave Philip of Hesse. The Pope, and the Cardinals appointed to sit
as a commission on Lutheran affairs had evidently not the slightest notion that
since the end of 1523 Philip had been a patron of the new teaching. The affairs
of Bohemia also had been grossly misrepresented in Rome. The sanguine hopes
fostered by Campeggio of the return of the Utraquists to the Church and of the defeat of Lutheranism were soon shown to be entirely
futile.
What
random and, in some instances, nonsensical reports obtained credence in the
Curia, is illustrated by the circumstance that in the consistory of the 6th of
September 1525 it was stated that Catholic worship had been restored at
Wittenberg and that Luther had narrowly escaped capture. It was excusable that
the sentiments of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order should long have
deceived the Roman court; for this prince had allayed with consummate ability
the early awakened distrust of Clement VII. The first certain intelligence of
the apostasy of Albert of Brandenburg was brought to Rome in letters from
German bishops in the latter half of March 1525. Of the alliance of the Grand
Master with King Sigismund of Poland so little was known that the Pope intended
to present the latter with the consecrated sword on the 27th of March. It was
not known until the beginning of May that Albert had broken his oath to the
Church, the Order, and the Empire, that he had constituted himself secular lord
of the territory of the Order, and had received the latter as a fief from the
Polish king. The consternation of the Pope and his advisers was very great on
the subsequent receipt of a letter from King Sigismund, in which he tried to
justify his behaviour and made protestation of his Catholic zeal. Clement
comforted himself with the assurance that the king, whose intentions were so
good, would, if he could once more gain the ascendancy over Prussia, make
amends for his faults and again help on the ancient faith to victory. In a
Brief of the 20th of July 1525 he urgently appealed to Sigismund to this
effect. On the 31st of January 1526 the Pope approached Charles with the
entreaty that he would not give his sanction to Albert’s alteration of the
constitution of the Order. A commission of Cardinals examined the whole case
thoroughly, whereon Clement, on the 21st of January 1527, empowered the loyal
remnant of the Teutonic knights to elect a new Grand Master.
Although
the Bishop of Trent and the Nuncio Rorario himself
had asked in August 1525 for the despatch of a special representative of the
Holy See to Germany, this had not been done. Consequently the final decrees of
the Diets of Augsburg and Spires (9th of January and 27th of August 1526) were
framed in a sense unfavourable to Catholic interests. The resolution of the
Diet of Spires, that in the matter of the Edict of Worms each Estate, pending
the summons of a General Council, should act in such a way as they could answer
for before God and the Emperor, did not certainly afford a legal basis for the
self-development of the Protestant system of State Churches, but it was used as
a starting-point for their formation. A change was in process of
accomplishment, the vast scope of which was hardly understood in Rome, where
purely political concerns were more and more absorbing men’s attention. Luther
conceded to the princely and civic authorities a power over their territories
far greater than that hitherto possessed by the Pope. Not merely the
constitution and government, but the worship and doctrine of the Church were
surrendered to the princes and civic magistrates as State bishops; the latter
forthwith determined what their subjects had to believe as their “Evangelium.” From this absolute episcopate of the rulers of
the State was reached, as a logical conclusion, the application of the axiom
which flouts all freedom of conscience: “Cujus regio illius religio”.
The
development of the Lutheran State Church system and the forcible suppression of
the Catholic Church, first in Hesse and the Saxon Electorate, and then in many
of the territories belonging to the princes and cities of Germany, were
singularly favoured by the unhappy strife between Emperor and Pope; while they
were alternately checkmating one another, the half-political, half-religious
opposition unfriendly to them was securing a firm footing in Germany. The Protestants
rejoiced to see the heads of Christendom at warlike variance with each other,
and made full use of this circumstance to spread their doctrines and apply
coercive measures against Catholics. The conflict between Emperor and Pope
weakened also the resistance of the Catholics, and checked the progress of the
reform of the Church from within begun by the latter in 1524, and thus the
fruits of Campeggio’s labours were, for the most part, again wasted. In
consequence of the same struggle, the activity of the Catholic scholars in
defence of the ancient faith, so zealously encouraged by the Cardinal, and the
significant action of Erasmus in taking part openly against Luther, failed to
have the anticipated effect. Political troubles made such claims on the attention
of the Curia that the affairs of Germany gradually passed out of sight. It was
a sign of the times that the Papal briefs dealing with Germany became fewer and
fewer; for a considerable length of time the relations between Germany and the
Roman Curia were practically broken off.
At
last, in 1529, the regular representation of the Holy See in Germany was
resumed by the mission of Gian Tommaso Pico della Mirandola, a layman, to the Diet of Spires. This nobleman
announced on the 13th of April that the Pope was prepared to give hearty
support to Germany against the Turks, to make efforts for the restoration of
peace, and, finally, to summon a Council for the ensuing summer. But this
declaration made no impression on the Estates. To what an extraordinary extent
things had altered to the disadvantage of Catholics was shown in the
deliberations on the recess of the Diet. Although the latter confirmed to the
Protestant States the retention of the new forms of doctrine and Church order
within their own boundaries, and only asked for toleration towards the
Catholics among them, a protest was raised on the 19th of April by the Elector
of Saxony, the Margrave George of Brandenburg-Kulmbach,
the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, the Dukes Ernest and Francis of Lüneberg, and Prince
Wolfgang of Anhalt. On the 25th of April the protesting party appealed from all
existing and future grievances to the Emperor and the forthcoming free council.
This set the seal on the religious severance of the German nation.
Two
months later came the conclusion, at Barcelona, of the treaty of peace between
Charles V and Clement VII, coupled, in the February of the following year, with
the meeting of the Emperor and the Pope at Bologna. At this conference,
Charles, who had never lost sight of the conciliar question even during the
recent troubles, obtained Clement’s consent to a
General Council, to be held as soon as this means of overcoming heresy and
restoring the unity of the Church should be proved to be necessary. It was the
Emperor’s object to induce the Protestants to submit temporarily to the
authority of the Church, so that on this basis some reasonable expectation
might be founded that the Council would terminate once for all the religious
divisions of Germany. In the hope of attaining this end with the co-operation
of the States of the Empire, Charles wrote from Bologna, on the 21st of January
1530, appointing a Diet to be held at Augsburg on the 8th of April.
Charles
left Bologna on the 22nd of March on his journey to Germany. He was accompanied
by Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio, who had been appointed Legate to Germany in the
Consistory of the 16th of March 1530. At Innsbruck, where the Emperor arrived
on the 3rd of May with the intention, at first, of staying a few days in order
to acquaint himself more fully with the state of affairs in Germany, his halt
lasted until the 6th of June. Here Charles was awaited by his brother Ferdinand
and the Cardinals of Salzburg and Trent, while the Dukes of Bavaria and George
of Saxony came later. Charles found special gratification in the reconciliation
to the Church of his brother-in-law, Christian of Denmark, which took place in
the capital of the Tyrol. On the other hand, the reports brought in from the
States of the Empire as to the religious conditions there existing were
disquieting. On the ground of the information then received, Campeggio wrote on
the 4th of May to Rome, to the Pope’s private secretary, Jacopo Salviati, that
Germany was, as he had supposed, in great disorder. A principal difficulty concerning
the Council wished for by both parties was whether it should now be a General
Council of the Church or a council of the nation; the Dukes of Bavaria,
prominent Catholic princes, especially looked upon the council as the most
effectual means of salvation. There were weighty reasons for opposing a
national council; as regards a General Council, he would do his duty. On the 8th
of May the Emperor asked Campeggio to lay before him a written opinion on the
most suitable means to be resorted to for the removal of the religious
contentions—a request which was complied with on that or the following day.
Campeggio
did not expect much from the good-will of the Protestant princes; he was much
more in favour of decisive measures against the innovators. He advised, in the
case of failure to restore unity by measures of kindness, the use of force,
especially by the execution of the terms of the Edict of Worms. He also
expressed himself in the same sense a few days later in conversation with the
Emperor and King Ferdinand. He was particularly opposed to negotiations on the
subject of the Council; the Protestants, in demanding one, were not actuated by
an honourable intention of submitting to its decisions, but only of keeping the
Emperor in check so that, during his sojourn in Germany, he could take no
serious measures against them. Thereupon the Emperor himself explained to him
that he had come to an agreement with the Pope at Bologna that the Council
should be held at a time of general peace and quiet in Christendom; but he
hoped that, despite the many difficulties, all would yet go well, if the Kings
of England and France did not encourage the Protestants in their opposition.
Campeggio also discussed the circumstances with the other Catholic princes in
Innsbruck, who were in favour of a council being held; he was successful in
convincing Duke George of Saxony of the dangers therein involved.
On
the 15th of June the Emperor entered Augsburg, and on the 20th the Diet was
opened. After the Mass of the Holy Ghost the Papal Nuncio, Vincenzo Pimpinella,
who had accompanied Campeggio, delivered an oration on the war against the
Turks, and the unity of belief which that undertaking demanded. In the second
session, on the 24th of June, Campeggio made a speech on the removal of
disunion, in which he avoided any expression likely to offend the Protestants.
On the 25th of June the Augsburg Confession, as it came to be afterwards
called, was read to the Diet. It began with a demand on the part of the
Protestants that a “general free Christian council” should be held in the event
of their failing to come to an agreement in the present Diet. The document,
which was signed by the protesting princes of the Diet of Spires, and on behalf
of the cities of Nuremberg and Reutlingen, attempted to mitigate and disguise,
as much as possible, the deeply rooted points of controversy, in order to keep
up the delusion that the innovators only formed a party within the Church,
which could easily be reconciled by means of a mutual understanding. Immediately
after the presentation of the Confession the Emperor had written to Rome
declaring that it afforded an excellent beginning for the return of the
Protestants to the Church. In Papal circles the arrival of the Emperor in
Germany and his accord with Campeggio on the religious question had given great
satisfaction. As early as the 3rd of June, Clement, in a letter addressed to
the Emperor, had expressed the hope that the latter, after the expected fall of
Florence, would devote himself without interruption to the Turkish war and the
cleansing of Germany from heresies. With reference to the reconciliation of
Christian of Denmark through Charles’s influence, the Pope remarked that
already, on his first appearance, his resplendent virtue had begun to scatter
the darkness. Christian’s example would have an incalculable influence; he
hoped in God that Charles would bring to a glorious conclusion an undertaking
so happily begun for the welfare of Christendom and the Apostolic See.
This
sanguine hope was stimulated by false reports of the decline of Lutheranism, as
well as by the Catholic attitude of the Emperor, who was acting hand in hand
with the Cardinal-Legate, and by the moderate terms of the Augsburg Confession.
How great the optimism of the Roman Curia had become is shown by a report of
the Venetian envoy on the 10th of July; it was hoped that the Emperor’s
appearance on the scene would soon make short work of Lutheranism. Another
noteworthy symptom of Roman opinion is apparent in a letter of Charles’s former
confessor, Garcia de Loaysa, who relates that in a
Consistory held on the 6th of July the Emperor was hailed by almost all the
Cardinals as an angel sent from heaven for the salvation of Christendom. In
this Consistory a despatch from Campeggio, dated the 26th of June, was read,
containing the triumphant announcement that the Protestant princes had agreed
to the Emperor’s prohibition of Protestant preaching in Augsburg. Campeggio,
who saw in this a first and hopeful step towards the attainment of his object,
reported further that the Emperor, in matters of religion, and in a scheme for
confuting the Augsburg Confession, was acting on his, the Legate’s, advice. “I cannot
write more today,” he added, “but this I can say: things are in a good way.”
With regard to the Protestant demands, Campeggio in the same letter reports
that they concern, apart from the Council, three points : communion under both
kinds, the marriage of the clergy, and the reformation of the Canon of the Mass
and many ecclesiastical ceremonies.
The
concession of these demands was the subject of close deliberation in the
Consistory of the 6th of July; the decision arrived at was a refusal. The
demands were incompatible with faith and discipline, and in contradiction to
the principles of the Church; they must therefore be rejected. It was decided
further, however, to thank the Emperor for his zealous endeavours to bring back
the adherents of error to the truth. In order to accomplish this there was a
willingness to make concessions, but none so prejudicial as those just dealt
with could be considered.
All
other decisions would depend on the course of the negotiations at Augsburg,
where the Cardinal-Legate was indefatigable in his exertions, not only with the
Catholic members of the Diet and the theologians engaged on a rejoinder to the
Confession, but with the Emperor.
Campeggio,
to whom Charles had given a Latin copy of the Confession, wrote for him on the
28th of June an opinion in Italian and Latin on the treatment of the religious
question. In this he opposed the Council in terms similar to those employed in
his letter from Innsbruck of the 20th of May. On the receipt of this memorial
from the Legate Charles summoned his council, who handed him a written opinion
on the 30th of June or thereabouts. In this the Emperor was strongly advised to
ask the signatories to the Confession if, in the first place, they would accept
his adjudication on the religious questions. If they declined to do so, and if
it appeared that a betterment could only be reached by means of a General
Council, then the proposals for the latter would be made at the suitable time,
but on condition that in the interval all innovations contrary to the belief
and institutions of the Catholic Church should be put on one side and the Edict
of Worms observed to the letter. Besides this, it seemed absolutely necessary,
in order to gain the Lutherans more easily, that by means of the Papal and
Legatine authority a stop should be put as soon as possible to the abuses in
the Church and in the lives of the clergy. No public disputation was to be
allowed; but the Legate might choose men of learning to examine the articles of
the Confession. Not until the Protestants showed themselves unwilling to submit
either to the authority of the Emperor or to that of the Council, and remained
stubbornly contumacious, should forcible measures against them be considered,
subject to the express opinion of the Legate.
Campeggio,
with whom the Emperor had a long conversation as to this view of his advisers,
gave a general assent, but declared himself decidedly against a Council, while
the Emperor explained that he still held to the standpoint agreed upon at
Bologna between himself and the Pope; namely, that a Council would be good and
useful if Christendom were at peace, but not under present circumstances, and
that the convening of such a synod might be effective for good, provided that
there was a recurrence to the former state of things.
On
the 4th of July, Campeggio handed to Charles V his written reply to the
Imperial suggestions. In this he proceeded to show in detail that a Council
would be of no avail to restore religious order, even if, at first sight, the
contrary appeared to be the case. As the Lutherans had openly discarded
previous Councils and their decisions, it was not probable that they had any
serious intention of submitting themselves to a future synod. They persisted in
their demand for one only in order to gain time in the meanwhile to push
forward without hindrance their monstrous schemes, since they knew well that it
would be a very long time before the Council itself could assemble. But the
Emperor, if such were his pleasure, might consult the Pope further on the
matter. Campeggio was in full agreement with the Emperor and the Catholic princes
in their intention to insist on the observance of the Edict of Worms. As
regards the removal of abuses, he recommended that men of approved virtue and
pure life should be sent to Rome to report on these matters to the Pope; there
was no doubt that the latter would prescribe remedies where proof of actual
abuses was forthcoming, and he, as Legate, would not be wanting in his
co-operation when cases were presented to him which, on due examination, were
shown to be genuine abuses. To bring the religious division of Germany to an
end, Campeggio held that the right and necessary way was to act with requisite
firmness.
The
Catholic princes, to whom Charles presented the answer of the Legate on the 5th
of July, approved, in their reply of the 7th, and also in a second
communication on the 13th, of the Emperor’s proposal concerning the Council.
On
the evening of the 13th of July, Campeggio once more stated his objections, in
the sense of his former declarations, to Granvelle, who had been sent by the
Emperor to inform him that he was on the point of writing to the Pope on the
subject of the Council. Thereupon, on the 14th, the Emperor sent to Clement a
full account of the state of the negotiations at Augsburg. As things then
stood, the Protestants refused to accept the Emperor as judge in religious
questions; on the contrary, they held out for the Council, and if their wishes
were not granted in this respect they would grow yet more obdurate; therefore
the Emperor, in agreement with the Catholic princes, was also of opinion that
this should be promised them on the condition that, in the meanwhile, they
returned to the obedience of the Church. Charles had also written shortly
before to his Ambassador in Rome in similar terms. On the 24th of July he again
had a long conversation with Campeggio, in which he gave his opinion on the
seat of the Council, expressing his strong preference for an Italian city, in
opposition to the view of the princes, who were desirous that it should be held
in Germany. He mentioned Mantua in particular, that city having already been
spoken of in his discussions with the Pope at Bologna.
On
the 18th of July, immediately after the receipt of the Emperor’s letter to the
Ambassador, Clement called together the twelve Cardinals specially commissioned
to deal with German affairs to hear their views on the question of the Council;
no final decision was come to, as the Cardinals held that the matter was one
for the full Consistory to consider. “Although many of the Cardinals,” wrote Loaysa, one of the twelve, on the same day, in his report
of the conference to the Emperor, “object to the Council for factitious
reasons, yet the most of us in this congregation held it fitting that a Council
should be promised, on the condition that the Protestants in the meanwhile
abandon their errors and live as their forefathers lived before them. It would
be much better, however, if the Protestants would accept the Emperor as their
arbitrator, since the success of a Council is in itself doubtful, and even its
meeting perhaps impossible, owing to the difficulties that other Christian
princes may in some way raise, and to the dangers of the Turkish invasion.” Loaysa feared, however, that they would not accept the
Emperor’s arbitration with a good will, and that in the end no other means
would remain but to have recourse to force.
On
the arrival of the Emperor’s letter of the 14th of July, Clement, at the end of
the month, once more assembled the twelve Cardinals and acquainted them with
its contents. Both the Pope and the Cardinals received it, as Loaysa wrote to the Emperor, with great satisfaction. Loaysa had not, indeed, been present at the meeting owing
to illness, but he had a private interview with Clement afterwards, to whom he
spoke in support of the Emperor’s opinion. Clement replied that Charles was
right, the Council could not be avoided; it was Loaysa’s opinion, however, that Clement wished in his heart of hearts that it might not
take place. He would certainly agree to one, and even go the length of
convoking it, but in the meantime he would secretly use his influence with the
Christian princes in order to put hindrances in the way. He was led to this
presumption by the conduct of the French Cardinal, Gabriel de Gramont, Bishop of Tarbes, who in the first meeting of the
Cardinals had spoken strongly in favour of a Council, while in the second
conference he dwelt on all the difficulties, especially on those which had
arisen on the part of the King of France; this inconsistency, Loaysa surmised, was due to the influence of the Pope. In
spite of this “evil” suspicion, as he himself calls it, Loaysa was still in hopes that Clement, “on perceiving the truthfulness and
uprightness of your Majesty’s behaviour in this matter, and how necessary a
Council is for the quieting of his conscience and the avoidance of lasting
dishonour,” would eventually control events in accordance with the Imperial
wishes.
In
two audiences held on the 28th and the 30th of July, Clement addressed Andrea
da Burgo in terms favourable to the Council, provided that the conditions fixed
by Charles should be fulfilled, namely, that until it assembled the Lutherans
should desist from their innovations; Rome he considered suitable as the seat
of the Council; but, if the Emperor objected, he would propose Mantua,
Piacenza, or Bologna. In this sense Clement sent a reply to the Emperor on the
31st of July.
He
first of all went thoroughly into the reasons against a Council adduced by some
of the Cardinals, but, trusting to the good sense and insight of the Emperor,
whose sojourn in Germany had made him a better judge of the situation than
those at a distance, he promised to convene the Council when he deemed it
necessary, and under the conditions of which he had already written, namely,
that the Protestants should renounce their errors and return immediately to the
obedience of their Holy Mother the Church and the observance of her customs and
doctrine, so long as it was not otherwise appointed by the Council, to the
decisions of which in all points and unreservedly they were willingly to
submit. Apart from these conditions, a Council could only cause scandal and set
a most evil example. It was therefore absolutely necessary that the Emperor
should insist on these conditions being accepted, so that there might also be
certainty of their actual fulfilment; for otherwise, not the removal of error,
but only pernicious and deadly effects, were to be expected. The Pope then
promised that, as soon as the Emperor informed him of the acceptance and
observance of these conditions by the Protestants, he would summon a Council at
such time as appeared to him suitable; the Emperor might feel assured that the
earliest possible date would be appointed, and that certainly no postponement
would be allowed. Regarding the seat of the Council, since it was highly
necessary that it should not be held anywhere else than in Italy, Rome had the
first claim to consideration—a claim, moreover, favoured by the circumstance
that, after all the misfortunes the city had undergone, another lengthened
withdrawal of the Curia would involve total ruin. But if Rome were not
acceptable, then the Pope proposed Bologna, Piacenza, or Mantua. Concerning
abuses, Clement remarked in conclusion, he was waiting for the reply of the
Legate, who would report wherein a reformation was called for; on receipt of
this reply he would take such measures that everyone would acknowledge his
intention to reform what was amiss, and to meet where it was possible the wise
and charitable exhortations of the Emperor.
In
the Curia the greatest difference of opinion on the question of the Council
prevailed. Clement VII, partly from personal and partly from higher reasons,
had such strong apprehensions that it seemed to him even less dangerous to
tolerate the prolongation of the existing state of affairs in Germany than to
summon a Council. That the Pope’s anxiety was to a certain extent justified was
admitted by the Imperial envoy Mai himself. On this account many doubted
whether the Council would be held; but others looked upon this as certain. It
was not surprising that such an assembly, bound to take into consideration the
question of reform, should be displeasing to the many prelates of a worldly
type. The latter took comfort in the supposition that the Protestants were not
in earnest in their demands for a General Council. The envoy of the Duke of
Mantua had special satisfaction in knowing that his city was eligible as a
meeting-place. “A reformation,” he said in closing his report, “is certainly
necessary in view of the great corruption. God grant that it may not be brought
about by the Turks instead of by the Council.”
The
Papal letter of the 31st of July reached Augsburg on the 7th of August, where a
few days before the refutation of the Augsburg Confession had been publicly
read. This important document was presented by Campeggio to the Emperor on the
9th; but, in consequence no doubt of Loaysa’s letter
of the 31st of July already mentioned, he found Charles biassed against the Pope and distrustful of his good intentions. The Emperor himself no
longer held to his former tenacious insistence on the Protestant acceptance of
the conditions, but now asked that, waiving the latter entirely, the Council so
necessary for the general welfare of Christendom should, under any circumstances,
be summoned as soon as possible, without prejudice to the objections and
representations made by Campeggio in the sense of their former agreement. As
regards the seat of the Council Charles avoided any definite pronouncement on
the choice of Rome, as desired by Clement and recommended by the Legate, by
calling attention to the Pope’s own alternative suggestion of Bologna, Mantua,
or Piacenza.
Charles,
meanwhile, was still possessed by the delusive hope that he might succeed in
arriving at a temporary suspension of the religious strife until such time as a
general synod should assemble. On the 7th of September he once more ordered the
promise of the Council under the specified conditions to be tendered to the
protesting Estates, who thanked him for his exertions and urged speedy action,
but refused in round terms the abandonment for the time being of the
innovations. On the 23rd of September Charles once more had a discussion with
Campeggio on the Council; after his experience, during this very month of
September, of the obstinacy of the Protestant princes, he again declared to the
Legate that the Council, quite irrespective of the Lutheran situation, was
absolutely necessary, or otherwise, within the space of ten years, there would
be no obedience left in Germany. He added, however, that, if Clement
nevertheless thought otherwise, he, as an obedient son, would submit; but in
that case he hoped the Pope would inform him openly and as soon as possible, as
this would be better than that the Council should be hindered by the King of
France, when in the general opinion the blame would still be laid upon the
Pope.
In
the draft of the decree of the Diet which Charles laid before the protesting
Estates on the 22nd and 23rd of September, he once more charged the latter “to
discuss and consider among themselves, until the 15th of April of the
forthcoming year, whether, as regards the articles on which there was still
disagreement, they would reunite themselves with the Christian Church, the
Pope, the Emperor’s Majesty, and the princes of the Empire and other heads and
members of Christendom at large, until such time as the future Council should
open its discussions.” The protesting princes rejected this message finally;
their spokesman, the Elector of Saxony, at once left the Diet, from which the
Landgrave of Hesse had already withdrawn on the 6th of August in precipitate
haste. Duke Ernest of Lüneburg, Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt, the Chancellor
Bruck, and the Saxon theologians also left Augsburg. They thus destroyed all
further possibility of reconciliation.
CHAPTER
XI.
Negotiations
as to the Council, to the Pacification of Nuremberg, 1532.
In
Rome the transactions of the Diet had been followed with strained attention.
Even if as early as the beginning of August the provocative attitude of some of
the Protestant princes had made the armed interference of the Emperor a
possibility to be reckoned with, there was still a desire to await fuller
information, and a temporary hope of a peaceful agreement, especially as
Melanchthon continued to show his previous conciliatory disposition. When
afterwards the Catholic princes succeeded in once more setting in motion
negotiations for a settlement, Salviati wrote, on the 8th of September, to
Campeggio that the Pope was ready to permit communion in both kinds and the
marriage of the clergy if the protesting party would give way on the remaining
points.
Clement
VII wished by these means to facilitate the Emperor’s negotiations for a
settlement. At this time he was especially active in his endeavours to gratify
the wishes of Charles V; only in the matter of the Council did he raise
difficulties. “This,” wrote the Roman correspondent of the Duke of Mantua on
the 7th of September, “will be a tedious matter, even if the Council takes
place, which I do not believe.” The longer the question was treated in the Diet
the greater grew the suspense in Rome. On the 4th of October came the
announcement of the departure of the Elector of Saxony; it was now as clear as
day that all attempts at union had miscarried. To the whole Sacred College it
now appeared that force was the only resource available, and it was hoped that Charles
would have recourse to it.
The
Emperor had certainly promised the Pope, in the Treaty of Barcelona, that, in
the case of contumacy on the part of the Protestants, he would terminate the
schism, which had been the cause of so much violence towards Catholics, with
the sword. But such a policy was alien to his character; nor was he adequately
prepared for it, and the support of the Catholic Estates was by no means
certain. Urgent as were the recommendations of Campeggio to apply force,
Charles still persisted in his preference for peaceful methods. His patience
seemed to have no limits, and only when he could no longer shut his eyes to the
fruitlessness of all his efforts at peace did he turn his thoughts to a policy
of repression, but without being able even then to come to a firm decision in
its favour. “Force,” he wrote to his Ambassador in Rome on the 4th of September
1530, “would certainly be the most productive of results, but the necessary
weapons are not forthcoming.” The insulting departure from the Diet of the
Elector of Saxony was certainly the cause of this change in the Emperor’s
feelings. Further obstinacy on the part of the Protestant princes, so he
declared to the Cardinal-Legate, he was determined to punish, but it was an
undertaking which he could not carry out single-handed. On the 4th of October
he addressed a letter to Clement VII in which he expressed himself still more
clearly and incisively. In it he announced his intention of putting forth all
his power to subdue in open warfare the contumacious Protestants; the Pope
would see that the other princes were invited to co-operate with him and
support him with contributions in money.
Clement
VII met this communication in a most characteristic way. Already, on the 13th
of October, when the Ambassador Miguel Mai made known the contents of the
Imperial letter, Salviati had emphasized the Pope’s confidence in the Emperor’s
course of action, since the latter had already exterminated by his might other
and even greater heresies than those of Luther. But after the letter had been
received Clement relapsed into his habitual indecision and pleaded various
objections. Besides the considerable pecuniary resources required he referred
to the danger of an invasion of the Turks, with the Lutherans as confederates;
but, on the other hand, the Pope realized the extreme danger of allowing the
Lutherans to remain unpunished; the Imperial authority as well as the Catholic
cause would, in such a case, suffer incalculable injury. Soon afterwards
Charles ordered Muscettola to unfold his plans more
minutely in Rome. The defiance of the Lutherans, he was charged to explain, had
been on the increase since the disbanding of the Imperial army; he therefore
intended to collect a force of ten thousand Spaniards and Italians for service
in Germany, in order not merely to strike fear among the Lutherans but also, if
circumstances should call for it, to act on the offensive towards the Turks; to
keep up such an army he must have financial help from the Pope and the princes of
Italy. Clement now called on the Italian States to help, while Charles, in a
letter of the 25th of October, in which he requested the Cardinals to further
the cause of the Council, solemnly declared that he would, in the affair of
Luther, spare neither kingdoms nor dominions in order to accomplish what was
necessary.
Immediately
after the Emperor’s first announcement Clement had invited the opinion of the
Venetian Government concerning warlike operations against the Protestants; that
their answer would be in the nature of a refusal he was led to infer from the
objections previously tendered by the Ambassador of the Republic. The remaining
Italian states showed no enthusiasm in the matter, notwithstanding the Pope’s
advocacy, and to Clement’s great disgust the Republic
sent a direct refusal. The whole scheme fell through, for the Emperor, in view
of the unreliability of the Catholic Estates, soon abandoned it. On the 30th of October he sent his majordomo, Don Pedro de la
Cueva, to Rome to inform the Pope that owing to the advanced season of the year
it was no longer possible to think of an immediate undertaking against the
Lutherans, for which Clement might be engaged in preparations. Cueva was also
instructed to represent to Clement that, since all hopes of converting the
heretics by friendly means had been shattered by their obstinacy, the summons
of a Council was the only means remaining of saving Germany from permanent
apostasy; his Holiness should therefore take the necessary steps to convene the
same as soon as possible, since every delay was detrimental. The choice of
locality was left by the Emperor to the Holy Father; but the Ambassador was to
do his best to secure the choice of some place as near as possible to German
territory, say Mantua or Milan.
Charles
spoke in a similar sense in the letter to Clement to be personally handed to
him by the Ambassador. He thanked the Pope for his reply of the 31st of July,
and showed him that he had left nothing undone to bring the Protestants to
accept the conditions on which the Council was to depend. But notwithstanding
the failure of these endeavours he was now or opinion that the Council, the
demand for which came not only from the Protestant but also from the Catholic
princes, must not be abandoned as, in view of these very circumstances, it
offered the only remaining means of salvation. He held it to be his duty to
declare plainly and distinctly “that the meeting of the Council must take place
for the cure of the present errors, the welfare of Christendom, the settlement
of belief, the elevation of the Apostolic See, and the personal honour of your
Holiness; failing this, no adequate course is open, and far greater are the
evils contingent on the Council not taking place than those which, it is
supposed, would accrue from its deliberations, for the present errors are many,
various, and daily increasing in number.” Nor could the danger of the Turkish
war be made a valid argument against the Council, for, on the contrary, it
would afford the best means of uniting the whole of Christendom in effectual
opposition to the infidels. Charles V therefore begged the Pope, in the most
urgent terms, to sanction the summons of the Council as soon as possible, and
to obtain the agreement of the other Christian sovereigns. In the meanwhile
Clement might also consider what steps could be taken against the Lutherans.
The Emperor accounted for his wish that the Council should be held near German
territory on the ground that, in this way, the Lutherans would be deprived of
any excuse for non attendance. Cueva reached Rome on
the 15th of November, and on the following day he waited on the Pope together
with the Imperial Ambassador. In addition to the letter already referred to, he
presented a second touching the election of Ferdinand I. as King of the Romans,
and a communication on Florentine affairs.
Clement
VII sent an answer to Charles as early as the 18th of November, without at
first committing himself definitely. He had so much confidence in the Emperor’s
sympathy and discretion that he would like nothing better than to be guided by
his advice entirely; but, as a matter of decorum, he must first consult the
Cardinals; yet, seeing how important the matter was for Christendom in general,
he would give a definite reply as soon as possible. Accordingly the deputation
of Cardinals was summoned to meet on the 21st of November. The “pros” and
“cons” were thoroughly considered. Opinions differed so greatly that the final
vote was postponed until the 25th of November. The interval was made use of by
the Imperialist Cardinals and envoys in trying to bring about a speedy decision
favourable to the policy of Charles. At the second meeting of the deputation
the Cardinals who shirked reform again brought forward the dangers involved in
a Council; still, the majority were of opinion that the Emperor’s advice should
be followed, since still greater dangers were to be expected if the Council did
not take place; yet, if the presence of the Emperor were called for, that of
the other Christian princes ought also to be invited.
On
the 28th of November the Pope, who had still the gravest apprehensions, laid
the matter before a secret Consistory, in which Cardinals Farnese, Monte, and Canisio spoke so warmly in favour of a Council that all the
six-and-twenty Cardinals present gave their unanimous support.2 Nevertheless Loaysa, and with him Mai and Cueva, did not alter their
opinion that the Pope and Cardinals shrank from a Council and were working
against it. “If they now vote otherwise,” wrote Loaysa,
“it is because they see that, in your Majesty’s opinion, all is lost if the
Council is not held; they realize that the consequence of their’ rejection
would be to offend all Christian people and especially your Majesty. These
Cardinals in thus voting are acting like merchantmen, who fling their goods
into the sea in order to save their own lives. With the exception of five or
six, among whom is Monte in particular, I do not know one among them whose
heart is really in the matter. So true is this, that although the Pope has said
exactly what I have written, I am yet afraid that, under the condition of
inviting the other princes to the Council, opportunities will be sought and
made to hinder and destroy the objects which your Majesty, as the servant of God,
is aiming at. The Pope is so astute and crafty that we shall only find this out
when your Majesty comes yourself to recognize the impediment, and to say that
the Council is impossible ; then the blame will not fall on the guilty party,
but, with much greater probability, will be dealt out to the innocent.” On the
other hand, there were those who believed that Clement really wished for a
Council. One was the agent of the Duke of Mantua, to whom the Pope had spoken
approvingly of Mantua as the place of assembly.
On
the 30th of November the deputation of Cardinals was consulted on the form of
the briefs to be addressed to the princes. Already, on the following day, the
1st of December, the work of composing and despatching them began. On the 6th
of December the Pope sent a brief communication to the Emperor that he had
written to the princes, and had made up his mind to conform his opinion to that
of Charles. Even Loaysa’s unfavourable view of
Clement underwent a change.
For
the purpose of closer verbal communication, Clement sent Uberto da Gambara, Bishop of Tortona, to the Emperor, in
place of Nicolas von Schonberg, Archbishop of Capua, originally nominated for
the mission, but prevented by illness from making the journey. In his
instructions, drawn up by Cardinal Cajetan, the objections to the Council,
which the envoy was once more to lay before the Emperor in the name of the Pope
and the Cardinals, held a special place. They were six in number. If the
heretics were allowed to raise fresh disputations concerning their errors,
already condemned by several councils, a bad and dangerous precedent would be
established; but if they were forbidden discussion they would complain that
they had been condemned unheard, and, while repudiating the decrees of the
Council, would adhere more closely to their errors. If they refused to
acknowledge the authority of previous councils what ground was there for the
hope that they would submit to the forthcoming one? But, this being so, the
situation would be changed very much for the worse if conciliar decrees were to
be passed which could not be put into execution. The Protestants would stand by
the letter of the Bible, and, rejecting the authority of councils and fathers,
refuse to be convinced with the obstinacy habitual in heretics. The whole
conduct of the heretics at the Diet of Augsburg showed that in their demand for
a Council, they were only carrying out their intention of persisting in their
tenets up to the moment of its summons and decisions, in the hope that in this way
much time would be consumed and that eventually the Council might be dissolved
without coming to any general decision. If, as might easily happen, the old
controversy as to the supremacy of the Pope or Council were to be revived, a
schism might thus be brought about and great injury would be inflicted on the
authority of the Emperor as well as on that of the Pope. It was open to
question whether the other princes would attend a Council held under the
protection of the Imperial power, while, on the other hand, the Pope could only
preside if that protection were given. The dangers arising from the Turks, and
the objections put forward on this score, were also urged for further
consideration. Gambara, who had left Rome on the 30th
of December 1530, reached Aix on the 15th of January 1531, just as Charles V
was taking farewell of his brother Ferdinand, and preparing to begin his
journey into the Netherlands; on the 16th or 17th of January, in Liege, he had
the first opportunity of speaking to the Emperor; he handed him the Pope’s
letter and unfolded to him his objections in accordance with his instructions.
It
is impossible to say definitely whether, on the occasion of this interview, Gambara also laid before the Emperor the five conditions
attached by Clement to the convening of the Council, or whether this took place
at some other time. These five conditions were: (1) The Council was to be
summoned and held only for the discussion of the affairs of the Turkish war,
the reconciliation of the Lutherans, the extirpation of heresies, and the
adequate punishment of the contumacious. (2) The Emperor was to attend the
Council in person from its beginning to its end, and on his departure the
sessions were to terminate. (3) The Council was to be held in Italy and nowhere
else, the Pope nominating beforehand a city for its seat. (4) Those only to
have a decisive vote who were canonically qualified. (5) The Lutherans were to
sue formally before the Council and to send their plenipotentiaries with proper
mandates, a course which appeared to be of great use towards facilitating their
safe return.
The
effect of Clement’s present mood, who, during the
deliberations with the Cardinals in November 1530, was prepared to carry out
the Emperor’s wishes in reliance on the latter’s friendly dispositions, was to
throw the responsibility of a decision entirely on Charles. If he gave a
favourable reply and accepted the conditions, then without doubt the speedy
summons of the Council would have been decided on.
But
it was now the Emperor who, by his delay in sending the anxiously expected
answer to Rome, hindered the further progress of affairs. It was not until the
4th of April 1531 that Charles, who was then in Brussels, caused his reply to
be made known to the Legate, Cardinal Campeggio, and to the Bishops Gambara and Girolamo de Schio in
Ghent through Covos and Granvelle. He had, as he here
explains, first informed his brother Ferdinand of the hindrances and objections
to a Council as set forth by Gambara, and by
Ferdinand they were to be made known to the other Catholic princes of Germany.
The result of their consultation was that the princes declared themselves
“bound by their former determination, and that no other adequate method of
healing the existing disorders was to be found except in the Council; even if
the matters to which the Pope had called attention were of great importance and
significance, yet it appeared to them that neither the existing errors nor
those to be looked for in the future could be met by any other means; nor had
the evils in question reached such a pitch as to justify the abandonment of the
Council.” Charles showed less discernment in thinking that it was necessary to
sound Francis I beforehand on his opinion with regard to the Council.
Charles
V, as well as the Pope, had allowed himself to be deceived for a while as to
the real sentiments of his wily adversary by the letter written by Francis to Clement
VII on the 21st of November 1530, and communicated in December to the Emperor
at Mayence. The French King’s policy had been
directed unfalteringly to frustrating a Council which was to heal the disunion
in the German Empire. In his letter he seemed to proclaim his thorough
good-will towards such a project, but he expressed himself in such a way that,
in the event of the Council becoming a serious probability, many pretexts
should remain open to him whereby he might yet nullify the action of that
assembly. But when the letter was read in Consistory on the 5th of December
1530, such an impression was made that the Pope and Cardinals were filled with
joy and thanked God that the two greatest rulers were now of one mind on this
weighty topic. On the 13th of December, Clement wrote a letter of thanks to
Francis, full of lavish praise for having shown himself worthy of the title of
“most Christian King.” Trusting to the present sincerity of Francis, Charles
sent to him, on the 1st of February 1531, Louis de Praet to inquire of him how he stood with regard to the question of the Council.
Francis kept the Emperor waiting two months for an answer; when at last it was
received at Ghent, on the 28th of March, it was seen to contain the demand that
the agreement of all princes to the Council should first be invited, and that
for this object a convention should be held at Rome to which all Christian
kings and princes should send their representatives. “That,” wrote Loaysa to the Emperor, when the terms of this answer were
made known in Rome on the 14th of April, “makes the Council quite impossible
and shows a determination that it shall not take place.” The further
negotiations of Charles with the King had also no better success.
The
Emperor, in the answer already mentioned, which was at length given to the
Papal Ambassador on the 4th of April, accounted for the long delay, for which
he was not to be blamed, on the ground of his previous negotiations with
Francis I., and announced that he left it to the Pope to make a final decision,
with the petition that the latter would avoid the scandal which must be expected
if the Council were delayed; he gave his assurances that the Pope might count
upon him and his brother Ferdinand. At the same time, Covos and Granvelle gave the Emperor’s answer touching the five conditions under
which the Council was to be summoned. On the first point the Emperor remarked
that, in order to safeguard the procedure hitherto observed in the Holy
Councils and strictly regulated by law, as well as to obviate any opportunity
for depreciating or calumniating a Council held under such limitations, it
seemed to be more fitting that it should be summoned simply and without
restrictions. Having been summoned, the Pope could then decide what matters
were to be brought forward and dealt with. To the second condition the Emperor
assented, and, putting his own affairs in the background, promised to attend
the Council so long as this was deemed to be conducive to favourable results.
As to the seat of the Council, he expressed himself as personally satisfied
with all the cities proposed by the Pope, but the German princes and others of
that nation asked for Mantua or Milan. On the fourth point, the Emperor
observed that the laws and usages of the Holy Councils must be observed in
accordance with former precedents. The fifth condition had been already dropped
by the Bishop of Tortona himself. The Emperor added that there was, besides, no
object in disputing with the heretics in cases of recognized contumacy.
Gambara, on
the receipt of this answer, should, in accordance with the Emperor’s
intentions, have left immediately for Rome, but he wished to speak with the
latter once more on the affair of the Council. He went to him at Brussels,
Charles having deferred his journey from thence to Ghent, from which former
place, on the 19th of April, he was dismissed, after an interview, with a
letter for the Pope. At the same time, Gambara had
drawn up, while in Brussels, for the Imperial Council a counter document to the
Emperor’s reply on the five conditions; he explained, in particular, how much
better it would be to restrict the synod to a definite task than to assign to
it an entirely general purview.
When
the Emperor’s answer was at last received in Rome, it was understood that the
strange delay was not due to him, but that the obstacle standing in the way of the
Council was Francis I., and that all efforts were unavailing if it proved
impossible to bring that monarch to another mind. Clement VII therefore agreed
that the Emperor should continue his negotiations through Louis de Praet, and wrote himself to the Nuncio in France, Cesare Trivulzio, as to the methods for winning Francis. He also
conceded to the Kings of England and France, who were preparing to raise
difficulties about the seat of the Council, that to Milan and Mantua, already
proposed by the Emperor, the choice of Piacenza and Bologna should be added,
places to which no objection could be taken.
On
the 25th of April 1531, Clement VII wrote to the Emperor that if the consent of
the French King were procured, he would summon the Council at once; but if
Francis were unwilling or made difficulties it would be better to refrain,
since a Council held in the face of disagreement between two such sovereigns
would only embolden the Lutherans to be more obstinate. At the same, time the
Pope, through Salviati, informed the Legate Campeggio of the deliberations in
Consistory. The Cardinals were determined that the Council should not be
summoned for general purposes, but with the specific object of dealing with
matters of belief and the Turkish war. Moreover, the Cardinals, dissatisfied
with the general terms of Charles’s announcement, wished him to give a direct
promise that he would assist at the Council throughout its entire duration, and
they requested that the fifth point, too easily granted by Gambara,
that the Lutherans should be represented, should be again withdrawn. If the
Emperor made these concessions and the King of France agreed to its summons,
then the Council would take place. But if Francis (and Henry VIII) were not
willing, then it would be better that the Council should fall through and no
more time be wasted, and other steps taken to restore order in Germany, either
by the Emperor endeavouring to suppress Lutheranism by force, in which case the
Pope would assist him with all the means in his power, or by trying to bring
them back to obedience by means of Confessions of Faith stated in terms not
detrimental to Catholic belief. These letters were so long on the way that
Campeggio could not discuss them with the Emperor before the 5th of June, and then
without making any progress, for the latter was stubborn in his determination
regarding the summons of the Council and his own attendance at it. At the same
time, he was informed by Charles that an answer had come from the King of
France which was even more unfavourable than his previous communication on the
subject.
Gambara returned from his mission on the 13th of May, and gave a full report to the
Pope. Four days later Cardinal Gramont, whose coming
was eagerly desired, arrived; on his instructions the fate of the Council
depended. Unfortunately, they no longer left it doubtful that Francis was
determined to thwart the general assembly of the Church. He would never consent
in any way to the Council, unless it were held in Turin and he present in
person. If the Emperor also wished to attend, well and good, but in that case
each of them must be attended by an equal number of armed men. To the question
of Clement VII.: Why then did the king object to Piacenza or Bologna? Gramont answered, because His Majesty did not wish to
travel through the Duchy of Milan if it did not belong to him. To the Pope’s
further remark that it was not really necessary that Francis should be present
in person, and that he could send a representative in his name, Gramont rejoined that that was
impossible. The Emperor must not suppose that he can lay down laws for the
French. That Clement VII was not in any underhand way connected with this
French policy, as has often been asserted without proof, is shown also by Salviati’s letter of the 31st of July 1531 to Campeggio on
the subject of French practices.
On
the 23rd of June Charles V informed Campeggio that he intended to assemble a
new Diet before his return to Spain. He expressed, indeed, a doubt whether he
would be able in this way to produce any effect on the obstinate Lutherans; but
he wished to hold the Diet, for he had promised at Augsburg that the Council
should be held, and the latter was still a remote contingency. On the question
of the Council the Emperor held out the prospect of an answer at a later date;
this was presented to the Legate by Covos and
Granvelle on the 17th of July, and on the 27th it was forwarded to Rome with a
letter from the Emperor. Charles expressed his displeasure at the hindrances
always being raised against the Council; he did not fail to recognize their
importance, but begged that the Pope would persevere in his efforts to remove
them, since he knew of no other remedy than a Council. He would soon visit
Germany in person and exert himself to the same end. Other expressions of the
Emperor showed that at this time he very strongly suspected that the Pope was
in secret understanding with the French policy of obstruction. This suspicion
was nourished by the French proposal for a marriage between Catherine de’
Medici, Clement’s niece, and the second son of King
Francis, Henry, Duke of Orleans, by which alliance the French King thought to
draw the Pope over to his side. But on this occasion even Loaysa,
who in prior circumstances had spoken his mind so sharply, defended Clement’s sincerity against the suspicions of Charles V in
letters of the 9th of June and the 26th of July. Loaysa also informed the Emperor that the arrangement of this marriage, so far as it
depended on the Pope, was not by any means an accomplished fact.
The
responsibility for the failure of the Council under Clement VII. falls
undoubtedly in the first instance on Francis I. But it certainly was a great
mistake on the part of the Pope to have been drawn into negotiations with the
King of such a kind that he was bound to incur the suspicion of complicity with
Francis in this question. In any case the prospects grew worse and worse, so
that even Loaysa wrote to the Emperor, on the 12th of
September, that he could only entreat him a thousand times “to withdraw as soon
as possible from this dark undertaking, the Council; for on many grounds,” he
went on to say, “which are clear to me, I see no advantage in it for your
Majesty, and what has hitherto taken place has only brought you harm. Your
intentions could not be better; ... but since you perceive plainly that you are
here opposed by envy and pusillanimity, rest satisfied with having secured the
favour of God, and lead your affairs some other way by which you will quicker
attain your own advantage; the blame of having abandoned the good which you
might have done will fall on others to their condemnation, while your glory
will remain unimpaired.”
The
communication to Clement of the Emperor’s intention of holding a Diet at Spires
on his return to Germany was received by the former with joy, which found
expression in his letters to Charles on the 24th and 26th of July. In the
latter he even assented to certain concessions being made to the heretics in
Germany, if there were good hopes that by this means their obedience could be
secured, in order that undivided attention might be given to the Turkish
question. The Legate Campeggio held other views on the latter point. Having had
opportunities of studying events close at hand, he could not discard his opinion
that armed force, and armed force alone, was the only method to pursue with the
heretics.
The
Pope was inclined to give way on three particular points: communion under both
kinds; the marriage of the clergy as practised by the Greeks; and, further, that
in respect of the transgression of ecclesiastical ordinances, only that which
was forbidden de jure divino was to be looked
upon as mortal sin. Cajetan was especially in favour of an agreement based on
such far-reaching terms, while other Cardinals were opposed to it.
In
the Consistory of the nth of August 1531 it was determined that a special
Nuncio should be sent to the Diet. A resolution was passed that the Pope should
apply himself to the removal of the hindrances which stood in the way of the
meeting of the Council. At the end of August, Aleander, who had been nominated
Nuncio by the Pope, left Rome with Briefs for the Emperor, King Ferdinand, and
other temporal and spiritual princes of the Empire. In his Brief to the
Emperor, Clement VII spoke especially of his wish, on which point the Nuncio
also had received full instructions, to support Charles in his good intentions
concerning the Council. In another letter to the Emperor, which reached
Aleander when he was already on his way, Clement recommended special caution in
the contingency of any concessions being made; if the Emperor were convinced of
the necessity of such concessions, in order to avoid greater evils, he must
take care that they were not entered into recklessly, for otherwise scandal might
be given to the rest of Christendom. Charles must make such a settlement in
Germany as should render a return to the former disorders impossible. Moreover,
any concessions allowed to the Germans must be of such a character as not to
give an impetus to other nations to make similar demands for themselves.
As
the Diet appointed to be held at Spires was postponed and transferred to
Regensburg at a later date, Aleander at once betook himself to the Netherlands
to meet the Emperor, to whom he presented the Papal messages at Brussels on the
6th of November 1531. On the 14th Aleander had a long interview with the
Emperor, to whom he read the Brief. To the expressions of the Pope relating to
the Council, Charles observed that he “thanked God that his Holiness kept true
to his promise and gave the lie to those who asserted that he wished with heart
and soul to be rid of the Council.” Aleander replied that the Pope had no wish
to be rid of it, if only it could be held in a befitting manner; that is, if
Charles, before all things, were always present in person, as were the Emperors
of old at oecumenical councils; if, further, there were solid grounds for
hoping that the Lutherans would consent and return to the bosom of the Church,
that no other schism with Catholic nations arose, as would happen if France,
England, and Scotland did not join, and finally, that a good and holy
reformation of the whole Church of God in head and members would be taken in
hand. To this the Emperor replied that the Pope’s first hope was well grounded
; that, on the other hand, the fear of a schism had no foundation ; with the
desire for a reformation he was in entire agreement—the laity, indeed, stood in
need of one themselves.
On
the 18th of November 1531 the report reached Rome that the Elector of Saxony
had become reconciled and had ordered the restoration of Catholicism throughout
his territories. As this astonishing announcement came from the Imperial Court,
it obtained credence with Clement. But subsequently it proved just as fallacious
as the other numerous reports of Lutheran advances towards the Church, which
were occasioned not a little by the vacillating and often ambiguous attitude
of Melanchthon. Clement VII. in his hours of weakness gave only too ready an
ear to such fantastic rumours. In the beginning of May 1532 Clement VII again
wrote to the Emperor that the Council must in any case be held, and that he was
straining every nerve to ensure its assembling, only the consent of the French
King must be obtained, for without that it might lead to results contrary to
those hoped for.
In
the meantime the Protestants in Germany had created a strong political
organization. This was the League of Schmalkald,
formed in February 1531. Confident of their strength, they not only let the
term allowed for their submission (15th April 1531) by the decree of Augsburg
to pass by, but they also refused to give any help to the Emperor in his
struggle with the Turks, now a serious menace to Austria and Hungary. Thus, at
the opening of the Diet of Regensburg, on the 17th of April 1532, Charles found
himself compelled to enter on fresh negotiations. In these Campeggio, who had
come in the Emperor’s suite, took a part. The reports of the small attendance
of princes at Regensburg had from the first the most depressing effect on the
hopes aroused at Rome on this occasion.
In
his crying need for help against the Turks, Charles was prepared to make
extraordinary concessions to the Protestants. He was strengthened in this
resolve by his fear lest the latter should put their threats into execution and
turn their arms against the Catholics during an attack of the infidels. Even in
Rome this danger was fully understood. Consequently Clement VII, as Muscettola relates, urged the Emperor, in March, to
persevere in his negotiations with the Protestants: if he could not get all
that he wished, he might at least get what was then practicable, so that, if
the Turks should come, they would be met by a resistance not in any way
weakened by the dissensions of Germany; although their opponents were
Lutherans, they were yet, for all that, Christians. It is clear from a report
of Muscettola, of the 19th of April, that efforts
were being made at Rome at this time to find some via media whereby the German
troubles might be disposed of.
When
the Papal Nuncio became aware of the Emperor’s negotiations with the
Protestants for a temporary religious peace, he gave way to an outburst of
indignation. Campeggio, who, on other occasions, in opposition to Aleander,
had advocated a policy of procrastination, was now entirely at one with his
colleague. On the 1st of June he presented a memorial to the Emperor in which
he pronounced the concessions offered to the heretics, especially the
permission to adhere to the Augsburg Confession until the next Council should
meet, to be pernicious in the highest degree; he also objected that no express
statement about the Council had been made to the effect that it was to be held
in conformity with the ancient oecumenical councils, and that submission to its
decrees was to be promised. By the agreement as proposed, so Campeggio
declared, the return of the erring would be made more difficult and the path of
the Protestants’ advance more easy.
In
spite of this urgent warning, the Emperor, taking into consideration the
invasion of Hungary by the Turks, guaranteed his toleration to the members of
the Schmalkaldic League, as well as to Brandenburg-Culmbach, and the cities of Nuremberg and Hamburg, to the
greatest portion, that is to say, although not to all, of the Protestant
Estates, until the next general, free, Christian Council as decided on by the
Diet of Nuremberg.” He added that he would devote all his energy to having the
Council summoned within six months and held within a year from then; should
circumstances turn out to the contrary, a fresh Diet would be assembled to
deliberate. These ample concessions were not made, however, on the authority of
the Empire; the Emperor guaranteed them on his own personal responsibility. Of
this agreement he only laid before the Estates at Regensburg the stipulation
concerning the Council. This gave rise to heated debate; the Catholic Estates,
under the influence of the Bavarian Chancellor, Eck, an old enemy of the house
of Hapsburg, demanded a Council with unwonted vehemence, and cast upon the
Emperor the blame for its delay. They even went so far as to abandon the
Catholic standpoint altogether and to call upon the Emperor, if the Pope did
not soon summon the Council, to exercise his Imperial authority by convoking
one, or, at least, a council of the German nation.
Charles
informed the Estates that the delay in holding a Council was not to be
attributed to the Pope, but to the King of France, from whom, regardless of all
the letters and embassies sent to him, no agreement could be obtained either
regarding its character or the place where it should be held. He would do all
in his power to urge the Pope to send out his summons within six months and to
hold the Council within a year. Failing this, he would convene a fresh Diet,
lay before the Estates the causes of the delay, and take counsel with them as
to the best means of relieving the pressing needs of the whole German people,
whether by a Council or by other means, and in a decisive way. To the
suggestion that he should call a Council on his own responsibility, the Emperor
declined to listen, as it was not any affair of his.
In
Rome, as in Germany, opinion as to the policy to be pursued towards the
Protestants was much divided. It seems that Clement personally, confronted with
the appalling danger threatening Christendom from the Turks, was in agreement
with the Emperor’s policy of indulgence. Aleander therefore from the first had
pledged himself to the Pope to refrain from any approval of the religious
compromise and to recommend complete neutrality on this very delicate question.
Clement VII, on his part, abstained from any express approval of the
pacification of Nuremberg, which was followed by the participation of the
Protestants in the war of the Empire against the Turks.
CHAPTER
XII.
Clement
VII’s Efforts to protect Christendom from the Turks.
From
the beginning of his pontificate, Clement VII, like his predecessors, was
repeatedly occupied with the Eastern question.
Already,
in his first Consistory, on the 2nd of December 1523, the Pope dealt with the
dangerous position of Hungary, of which kingdom he had, when Cardinal, been the
Protector. A special Commission of Cardinals was appointed to deal with the
conduct of Turkish affairs and the restoration of peace. In view of the
prevailing financial distress, it was exceptionally difficult to raise the sums
necessary for the Turkish war. Clement VII, in extreme disquietude on account
of the powerful military preparations of the enemy, did what lay in his power.
When he learned that the garrison of Clissa in
Dalmatia was hard pressed, he sent thither considerable help, thus rendering
possible the relief of that important frontier stronghold. To the Hungarian
King Louis he gave the assurance that he would continue to do all that his
predecessors had done in the interests of his kingdom. The Cardinal-Legate for
Germany, Campeggio, also accredited to Hungary, was commissioned to urge upon
the Diet of Nuremberg the community of interests between these two countries
and to work for the sanction of a liberal grant towards the expenses of the
Turkish war. Clement also sent a special Nuncio to Hungary in the person of
Giovanni Antonio Puglioni, Baron of Burgio, in place of Cardinal Cajetan, recalled on the 28th
of January 1524. This accomplished diplomatist knew the country from former
residence there, and was accurately informed on the extremely difficult
circumstances of the situation.3 Clement, like previous Popes, also formed an alliance
with Achmed of Egypt, one of the intestine enemies of
the Turk.
Burgio was
instructed to convey to the King of Hungary the subsidy, collected with
difficulty by Clement, and the Papal permission to sell Church property in
order to maintain the war against the infidel. In the beginning of April 1524
he reached Ofen, and was at once successful in
dissuading the King from his scheme of making peace with the Turks. For his
remaining task, the organization of the defensive forces of the Hungarian
kingdom, circumstances could not possibly have been less favourable. The
country was torn by fierce party strife, and her ruler, youthful,
pleasure-seeking, and empty-headed, was the personality the least fitted to
counteract the elements of disruption working in the kingdom. The saying
applied by his contemporaries to the last of the Jagellons,
“Woe to the country whose sovereign is a child!” was about to receive a
frightful fulfilment. But among the magnates there was none who could have
superseded the King. Party spirit, want of patriotism, combined with widespread
corruption, held sway everywhere. On his arrival at Zengg,
where Burgio first set foot in Hungarian territory,
he found that of all the stores of grain sent by Adrian VI. for the
provisioning of the Croatian border castles, only the scantiest portion of each
had reached the place of its destination, for the Captain of Zengg and his officials had sold the greater part and spent
the proceeds on themselves. In Ofen the Papal
representative had no better experience; during his sojourn there of four
months, he had convinced himself that neither from the King nor from the
magnates at the head of the Government was the deliverance of the country to be
looked for. Therefore in the beginning of July he left for Cracow in order to
obtain help from Sigismund of Poland, the King’s uncle. This mission also was a
complete failure, for Poland was suffering from the same conditions of internal
dissolution and decay as Hungary.
In
August 1524 Burgio returned to Ofen.
There he found utter chaos; the nobility were in vehement opposition to the
King and his associates, and were busy with the scheme of invoking, on their
own authority, the intervention of a Diet. Meanwhile the danger in southern
Hungary grew apace: the Turks were already besieging the fortress of Severin,
the last bulwark of the kingdom on the lower Danube. Burgio did all he could to obtain relief for the besieged, but he appealed to deaf
ears. The King referred him to his council; the council sent him back to the
King; everywhere the most shortsighted selfishness
prevailed. Burgio, during the Diet held on the Rakosfeld at Ofen, with emotion
adjured the nobility to lay aside their old dissensions and come to the rescue
of the kingdom in the hour of trouble. On this occasion he promised, if the
Estates would do their duty, to place at once at the disposal of the kingdom
the Papal subsidies deposited in the banking house of the Fuggers at Ofen. His words died away in a storm of party
hatred, and thus Severin was lost, a calamity which only gave rise in Hungary
to an outburst of mutual recrimination.
On Burgio’s invitation the Cardinal-Legate, Campeggio,
left Vienna for Ofen in the beginning of December
1524. There he was received by King Louis with marks of friendship on the 18th
of the same month. Both the Papal representatives worked together to induce the
King and the magnates to take steps to equip the border fortresses and to raise
an army; but in Paul Tomori alone, the excellent
Archbishop of Kalocsa and commandant of the troops in
the southern division of the kingdom, did they find a faithful and
self-sacrificing ally. When the latter, in the beginning of January 1525, came
in despair to Ofen, bent on his resignation, they
prevented him from taking this step, and also insisted on his receiving support
in money from the Government. Campeggio, at his own cost, raised three hundred
foot-soldiers for the defence of Peterwardein. These
Papal troops were the only force which Tomori was
able to take back with him from Ofen in the beginning
of February 1525 to the hard-pressed fortress. As they marched out, the
populace gathered on the banks of the Danube raised their voices in praise of
the Pope who had not forsaken their country in its extremity.
In
the Diet also, held in May 1525, it was recognized that Clement VII and his
Ambassadors were doing all they could to help the kingdom. Stephen Verboczy, the head of the national party among the nobles,
praised in enthusiastic terms the services rendered to Hungary by the Holy See.
But Burgio’s summons to war against the Turks, in
obedience to the mandate of Clement VII., was uttered in vain. The Diet could
attend to nothing but the complaints against the Palatine Stephan Bathory, the
Primate Ladislaus Szalkay,
the Treasurer Emmerich Szerencses, and the hated
German courtiers. The removal of the latter was angrily demanded by the
followers of Johann Zapolya, the richest and most powerful of all the magnates.
As the King’s answer to this request was to some extent evasive, the resolution
was passed that the combined nobility should meet in arms on the 24th of June
at Hatvan, to the north-east of Ofen,
to take counsel for the interests of the kingdom. On the 2nd of July King Louis
appeared in person at this gathering; he was accompanied by Burgio,
now, on the recall of Campeggio, the sole representative of the Pope. The
assembly, in which Zapolya’s adherents had a
majority, overthrew the whole existing government; the disloyal councillors
were deposed, and Verboczy acclaimed as Palatine.[148]
With regard to the most pressing need of all, the defence of the kingdom
against the Turks, nothing was done then or even subsequently—only the Pope
sent sums of money for the pay of the troops upon the frontier. In Hungary
itself the bitterness of party strife continued.
While
this political chaos, productive of the gravest crisis in the State, prevailed,
the Sultan Suleiman continued his offensive preparations on the most
comprehensive scale. Burgio sent reports on these to
Rome, on the 18th of January 1526, while at the same time deploring the
deficiencies in the Hungarian defences. Not even the garrisons of the border
strongholds could be paid; the King was so poor that he even often suffered
from want of food; the great as well as the lesser nobility were split into
factions. Moreover, there was little prospect of assistance from the powers
abroad, or of a federation of the Christian princes. “Thus,” said Burgio in conclusion, “your Holiness alone can give help;
yet I know full well the hardships of the Church and that there is but little
in her power to do, deserted as she is by all. My intelligence cannot fail to
depress your Holiness; but it is my duty to write truthfully; willingly would I
forward to you more favourable reports.”
In
Rome, throughout the whole year (1525), the anxiety caused by the Sultan’s
preparations was intensified by the danger to which the Italian coasts had for
some time been exposed from the attacks of Turkish pirates. In November it was
determined to send to Hungary fresh support in the form of liberal supplies of
money, provisions, and ammunition. On receiving Burgio’s alarming reports, Clement called together the Sacred College in the beginning
of February, 1526, and received on this occasion the representatives of the
Christian princes. He communicated to them the reports that had reached him,
and called upon them to urge their rulers to come to the aid of Hungary; as the
time of year no longer permitted the despatch of troops, they might forward
supplies of money for recruiting. The Pope set in this respect a good example;
he addressed invitations to the Emperor, to the King of France, and to many
other Christian princes to come to the assistance of Hungary. Clement VII informed
King Louis of these steps taken on his behalf and exhorted him to perseverance
and a vigorous resistance. When Burgio, on the 4th of
March 1526, informed the Council of State, assembled round the King, of the
Pope’s proceedings, many of his hearers were moved to tears; they vied with
each other in expressions of gratitude and passed excellent resolutions to
defend their country. But this conversion to patriotism soon proved to be only
a short-lived flare of excitement; the resolutions were never more than a dead
letter. Even when there was no longer any possible doubt of the imminent
approach of the Turks, no decisive measures of resistance were taken. In the
Council of State, which met in the afternoon, when the King had thrown off his
slumbers, nothing was done save to indulge in mutual accusations. Burgio, who reports this, adds: “Here there is neither
preparation for defence nor obedience; the magnates are afraid of each other,
and all are against the King; some even are unwilling to take precautions
against the Turk.” No wonder that the Nuncio repeatedly begged to be recalled.
Of what use was he to a country that was rushing headlong to its ruin? “The
spirit of faction grows more bitter every day,” reported Burgio;
“the King, in spite of my remonstrances, has gone hunting as if we were living
in the midst of profound peace.
On
the day after the King’s departure, on the 13th of April, Tomori arrived with the alarming news that the Sultan had left Constantinople with the
intention of making himself master of the capital of Hungary. The Nuncio
thereupon betook himself at once to the King, and, representing to him the
greatness of the danger, induced him to return to his capital. There a Council
of State was at once held and Tomori, who had to
defend Peterwardein, was promised ample help. The Nuncio
supplied him with fifteen hundred infantry, two hundred hussars, and thirty
small pieces of artillery : but his example produced little effect; the Council
relapsed into their previous indolence. “If the Sultan really comes,” wrote Burgio on the 25th of April 1526, ‘'then I repeat what I
have so often said before: your Holiness may look on this country as lost. Here
the confusion is without bounds; every requisite for the conduct of a war is
wanting; the Estates are given over to hatred and envy; and if the Sultan were
to emancipate the subject classes, they would rise against the nobles in a
bloodier insurrection than that of the Crusade (the Hungarian peasants’ war of
1514): but if their emancipation were to come from the King, he would then
alienate from himself the nobility.”
Some
still hoped that a remedy would be found in the Diet then about to assemble.
Here the victory of the court party was complete; Verboczy was deposed and fined; Bathory was restored to the office of Palatine; the
resolutions of Hatvan were annulled and a sort of
dictatorship conferred on the King. But Louis had no means of enforcing
obedience, for the authority of the Crown had fallen into desuetude, and the
finances of the country were as bankrupt as its defences. How could absolute
power be wielded by a king whom nobody obeyed, whose credit was gone, and who,
in the presence of overwhelming danger, slept undisturbed until midday?
Neither
the Diet nor the King brought deliverance. The foreign powers also, to whom the
country had turned, did nothing; the Pope alone made the affairs of Hungary his
own. He turned anew to the princes of Europe, gave his consent to a Crusade
indulgence, sent 50,000 ducats, and permitted the taxation of ecclesiastical
benefices and the sale of a large amount of Church property. Had the King and
the Estates of Hungary shown the same ready self-sacrifice and energetic
action, the catastrophe then threatening might perhaps have been yet averted.
Unfortunately, this was not the case; thus the doom drew nearer every day, and
on the 28th of July 1526 Peterwardein fell. The
garrison, half of whom were Papal troops, died like heroes. The Pope’s
representative continued up to the last to do all that was possible, and raised
4000 soldiers. The forces of the King, with the reinforcements brought in at
the last hour, amounted to 28,000 men. With them he moved southwards to the
plain of Mohacs. Here a battle was fought on the 29th of August which decided
in an hour and a half the fate of the Hungarian kingdom. Many magnates, five
bishops, and the Archbishops of Gran and Kalocsa,
were left lying on the field of battle. Two thousand heads were ranged as
trophies of victory before the tent of the Sultan; on the following day fifteen
hundred prisoners were slaughtered. King Louis was one of the few who succeeded
in saving their lives by flight; but in crossing a small
brook swollen by heavy rains his horse stumbled from exhaustion and buried
the King in the watery morass.
On
the 10th of September 1526 the Sultan made his entry into
the Hungarian capital; far and wide, as far as Raab and Gran, his hordes swarmed over the unhappy kingdom, and there was already a
fear lest they should attack Vienna also. But the approach of the colder season
and the tidings of revolts in Asia Minor caused Suleiman to retire at the end
of September, without leaving a garrison behind him in a single place.
The
forward advance of the Turks and the catastrophe of Mohacs caused the greatest
alarm in Rome, as in the rest of Christendom. Clement VII gave expression to
his grief in a Consistory held on the 19th of September, when he called on all
Christian princes to recover their unity and give their aid, and declared
himself ready to go to Barcelona to negotiate in person for peace. On the following
day the Pope saw himself plundered in his own capital by the troops of the
Emperor!
If
the dissensions between the two heads of Christendom had hitherto reacted most
injuriously on the project of a Crusade against the Turks, so now the danger
from the latter was almost entirely forgotten amid the raging flames of the
present conflict between Pope and Emperor. But in Hungary civil war was raging.
The brother-in-law of Louis, Ferdinand I, and the Voivode Zapolya were rival
competitors for the crown; the Sultan soon found himself the recipient of
solicitations from both parties. All the enemies of the Hapsburgs, especially
France and Bavaria, favoured Zapolya, who also lost no time in making strenuous
efforts to gain the Pope. Clement cannot be absolved from the reproach of
having been drawn for a time into transactions of doubtful import with this
man; but the statement of one of his bitterest enemies, that he had given
pecuniary support to the Voivode, is without confirmation; on the contrary,
there exists a Papal letter, of the 30th of August 1528, in which Clement
refuses a request of this kind.
The
warlike condition of Italy and the contest for the throne in Hungary, whereby
the spread of Protestantism in that country was promoted, encouraged the Sultan
to mature his plan of striking a blow at the heart of Christian Europe. In the
beginning of May 1529 “the ruler of all rulers,” as Suleiman styled himself,
left Constantinople at the head of a mighty host, bent on the capture of Vienna
and the subjugation of Germany. Fortunately his advance was so slow, owing to
heavy rainfalls and the consequent inundations, that he did not reach Belgrade
until the 17th of July.
Ferdinand
I, whose forces were quite inadequate to cope with those of the Turks, looked
round on every side for help. His Ambassador in Rome and that of the Emperor
made the most urgent representations on the pressing danger. Clement VII
therefore determined to send Vincenzo Pimpinella, Archbishop of Rossano, as permanent Legate to the court of Ferdinand. The
subsidies in money, subsequently approved by the Pope and Cardinals, were
perforce slender owing to the limited means at their disposal. On the other
hand, it was of importance that in the Treaty of Barcelona (29th June 1529) the
Pope agreed to give the Emperor, for the expenses of the Turkish war, a fourth
of the incomes of the ecclesiastical benefices to the extent already conceded
to him by Adrian VI. A Bull of the 27th of August 1529 gave full authority to
Pimpinella to dispose, in upper Germany, of the treasures, and, in case of
necessity, even of the landed property of churches and convents, in order to
levy an army to meet the Turks, who, welcomed by Zapolya, had captured Ofen on the 8th of September, and before the end of the
month had invested Vienna. But all their attempts to take possession of this
bulwark of Christendom were frustrated by the heroic spirit of the defenders.
After a final ineffectual assault on the 14th of October, the Sultan withdrew,
warned by the approach of adverse seasons and the news that relief was close at
hand. For the first time he saw an enterprise, on which all his resources had
been brought to bear, broken by an enemy whom he had likened to “the dust.”
Hungary, certainly, was still in his power, and to the Venetians, who had done
him service continually as spies, Suleiman wrote on the 10th of November : “I
have overcome this kingdom and bestowed its crown upon Zapolya.”
After
the disasters of the year 1529, a cessation of the Turkish lust of conquest was
not to be thought of; the capture of Vienna was only postponed. In the West
there were no illusions on this score. During the conferences between the Pope
and Emperor at Bologna, the Turkish question played an important part. Clement
VII. promised, on this occasion, to pay a subsidy of 40,000 ducats, a sum which
certainly could not be raised without great difficulty. Another and not less
important result of the Imperial policy was the sentence of excommunication
passed on Zapolya on the 21st of December 1529.
As
the consultations at Bologna on the comprehensive measures of defence to be
taken against the Turks had led to no final result, it was determined to pursue
the matter further at Rome. This was all the more necessary as in the spring of
1530 news had arrived of increased military preparations on the part of the
Turks. A congregation of six Cardinals was entrusted, in the beginning of June,
with the consideration of the whole matter. On the 24th of that month the Pope
assembled these six Cardinals and the Ambassadors, all of whom, including even
the Venetian envoy, were present. Clement VII made an opening speech, in which
he insisted upon the necessity for taking steps to meet the attack which the
Sultan was making vast preparations to deliver in the coming year. To the
question of the Pope, whether the Ambassadors were furnished with the requisite
mandates, only the representatives of Charles V and Ferdinand I replied in the
affirmative. Cardinal Gramont and the English envoys
announced that they had none; the Portuguese Ambassador made excuses for his
sovereign, who was actively engaged in Africa; the Milanese envoy assured
Clement that it would be impossible for his master to raise any extra taxes
this year. When the envoy of Ferdinand, Andrea da Burgo, observed that three
things were necessary: money, money, and always money, Cardinals Farnese and
del Monte agreed, with the remark that unity among the Christian powers was
equally essential. It was resolved that the Pope should address himself to all
the Christian princes and call upon them to support the holy war with all their
might and supply their envoys with the fullest powers. Briefs to this effect
were drawn up on the 27th of June. Since the answers of the princes were long
in coming, Andrea da Burgo asked the Pope to make up his mind at once as to the
sums to be guaranteed to Ferdinand I.
Clement
VII was obliged to insist that his resources had been so drained by the war
with Florence that he had no means left at his disposal. He made sanguine
representations to the Ambassador as to the time when Florentine affairs would
be settled; once the city had fallen, the Turkish Crusade would be taken up
again with energy. By the 9th of August fresh Briefs had been despatched to the
princes of Christendom; it was proposed that a monthly levy of 80.000 ducats
should be paid towards the war; of this the Pope and Cardinals were to raise
10,000, the Emperor and Francis I 20,000 each, Henry VIII 10,000, the Kings of
Portugal, Scotland, and Poland jointly 15,000, the Italian States 5000. All
these efforts were unavailing; on the 23rd of August not one of the
Ambassadors, except those of Charles and Ferdinand, had received full powers
from their sovereigns. Neither the Italian powers, England or France were
willing to support the Crusade; the Pope alone gave Ferdinand assistance. At a
later date the Turkish war and the proceedings against the Lutherans were
combined—but still no results were obtained. The Pope, da Burgo reported from
Rome on the nth of December 1530, wished to raise funds for the Turkish war,
but he had no means of so doing. His relations with Ferdinand I remained
friendly, and it was of great value to the latter that Clement VII promoted in
every way the Hapsburg candidature for the kingship of the Romans and gave his
recognition ungrudgingly. In he sent the King a consecrated sword and hat1 by
the hands of Albertus Pighius.
Of
late the Pope had been repeatedly occupied with the affairs of the Knights of
St. John. Clement VII gave them hearty support in their efforts to reinstate
themselves in the possession of Rhodes; on their failure to do so he asked the
Emperor to bestow Malta on the Knights as a residence. It was an excellent
suggestion, for the central situation of the island made it a place of high
strategical importance. Charles V was favourable to the Pope’s request; on his
return journey from Bologna, on the 23rd of March 1530, at Castelfranco, he
issued the document by which he bestowed on the Knights of St. John, Malta and
its adjacent islands as a Sicilian fief. The Order, now known as that of the
Knights of Malta or the Maltese Order, fortified the new bulwark of Christendom
in accordance with all the rules of military science as then known, and
defended it with the utmost valour. Through the Knights the Pope was kept
closely informed of the intentions of the Turks.
In
1530 Clement VII found the Turkish difficulty even more engrossing than in the
previous year. For a time this filled the foreground of affairs so completely
that all other considerations, even the threatening aspects of the Lutheran
movement, seemed to become of minor importance. “This is the only topic of
conversation here,” wrote an envoy on the 20th of February 1531. In March all
preachers within the Papal States were directed to explain to the people the
dangers to which they were exposed from the Turks. The perils of the Mahommedan
attack on Christendom were felt all the more keenly in middle and lower Italy,
for the navigation of the Mediterranean was so insecure owing to the corsairs
of Barbary that in many places, even in Rome, the difficulty of importing
provisions was beginning to cause distress. As a measure of relief the Pope was
planning the despatch of a fleet under the command of Andrea Doria.
Clement
was assiduous in taking counsel with the Ambassadors and Cardinals on the
subject of the Crusade. The question was especially considered whether the war
should be carried out on defensive or offensive lines. Francis I let it be
understood that he would take part only in operations of the former class;
thereupon the Genoese and others withdrew from their previous agreements
concerning the support to be given to the Emperor’s forces. “The Pope alone,”
wrote Andrea da Burgo, “adheres to his promise to pay 12,000 ducats per month;
in this case,” he added, “I certainly cannot see how, wanting money as he does,
he can give any help to your Majesty.”
In
spite of the pretensions of Francis I, Clement was never weary of making plans
to utilize the power of France on behalf of the common undertaking, as well as
to raise the necessary sums for the protection of the Italian seaboard and the
support of Charles and Ferdinand. He met with not a little opposition on the
part of some of the Cardinals. When the Pope urged the necessity of raising
funds in presence of the common danger, it was put forward in reply that the
princes had very often expended such levies for totally different purposes, and
that, on that account, no one in Italy was willing to contribute. Clement VII
proposed that the sums intended for the protection of the coasts of Italy
against the attacks of Mohammedan pirates should be collected and then
forwarded to the spot where the most immediate succour was required. All the
Cardinals were unanimous that the funds for the Crusade should not be raised by
the creation of new Cardinals or the sale of Church property. It was at last
agreed that there should be a tax on grain.
The
enemies of the Hapsburgs pointed to the general policy of Charles V and the
increase of his brother’s power by the acquisition of the Hungarian and
Bohemian crowns, as standing in the way of the aggrandizement of Italy and of
the Pope in particular. It was said plainly that the empire and monarchy of the
Hapsburgs threatened to establish a world-power even more dangerous than that
of Turkey: their agents in Italy were, it was alleged, on the one hand, always
asking the Pope for money and, on the other, by their incessant demands for a
Council, frustrated the very means by which money could be raised, and sowed
the seeds of endless difficulties for the Holy See in Italy. In addition, there
was also the Emperor’s decision in the dispute with Ferrara, which must have
offended the Pope in the highest degree. Since Charles V, in spite of the
counter-representations of Ferdinand I, clung obstinately to this
determination, the negotiations over the subsidy against the Turks came to a
standstill.
Andrea
da Burgo, Ferdinand’s Ambassador, was in a difficult position. Repeatedly in
the course of these negotiations he had been made to understand by the Pope
that no serious arrangement could be come to in this matter unless the Emperor
consented to some relaxation of the too rigid conditions of the treaties of
Madrid and Cambrai. In spite, however, of the imprudence of the Imperialists
and the constant intrigues of the French, this indefatigable diplomatist
achieved a great success in the autumn of 1531. In a Brief of the 16th of
September of that year, Clement VII promised Ferdinand, in view of the menacing
reports of Turkish preparations, the payment of 100,000 ducats in six months in
the case of invasion, unless Italy itself were visited by a like calamity.
Contradictory
as the reports often were concerning the Turkish plans, yet in the second half
of December they all agreed in announcing for the coming spring a fresh attack
from the Sultan, for which he was making preparations in force. On the first
receipt of this information Clement showed great zeal. On the 16th of December
he informed a full Consistory of Cardinals that, according to most trustworthy
intelligence, a Turkish fleet of three hundred ships, with forty thousand men
on board, would in the early spring set sail for Italy, while at the same time
the Sultan, at the head of a hundred and fifty thousand, would advance on
Hungary. On the 26th of December the Cardinals again met to deliberate on the
Turkish question.
Two
days later the Pope assembled the Cardinals and Ambassadors; of the latter none
were absent except the Venetian envoy, whose Government was determined not to
break the peace with Turkey, and the envoy of Ferrara. The Pope made a long
speech, showing that a combined attack by sea and land was in preparation by
the Turks for the coming spring, and urging the necessity of speedy assistance.
The representatives of the Emperor and King Ferdinand gave the strongest
assurances; those of Henry VIII and Francis I only proffered fair speeches,
although the Pope had been urgent and even threatening in his appeal. In his
closing words Clement again warned his hearers that not a moment should be
lost, and declared himself ready to do his utmost.
In
the beginning of January 1532 the Pope’s calls for help addressed in the
preceding August to the Christian princes were emphatically renewed. At the
same time it was resolved to fortify the Papal sea-ports, especially Ancona,
the most exposed to danger, and to support with ample supplies of money the two
Hapsburg brothers, whose extremity was the greatest. A commission of twelve
Cardinals was appointed with full powers to deal with the whole Turkish
question. The coming invasion of the Turks seemed all the more perilous as
there were three opposing parties at strife in Hungary; Ferdinand and his
adherents, Zapolya, and a party of independence led by Peter Perenyi. The
friends of Francis I in Rome, including many of the Cardinals, had been trying
for a long time to obtain from Clement the repeal of Zapolya’s excommunication. In spite of all the pressure brought to bear on him by the
French party, Clement refused to give way, but, on the other hand, he told
several Cardinals that Ferdinand, who was not in a position to subjugate
Hungary, might hand over that kingdom to the Voivode, as the latter, once in
tranquil possession of the country, would willingly break with the Turk and
ally himself with the Christians. But the Pope took no decided step in favour
of Zapolya. His intervention in the troubles of Hungary was confined to the
despatch of a letter on the 17th of February 1532 exhorting all the inhabitants
of the country to unite in their own defence against the infidels; their danger
had reached the present pitch, he said expressly, owing to some among
themselves having courted the favour of the Turks ; but they must not allow
themselves to be deceived, only dishonourable subjection awaited them if they
did not at once put aside their delusions.
It
would have been of exceptional importance if Venice had taken a part in the
Turkish war. In January 1532 Clement had already instructed Giberti to make
representations in this sense to the Signoria. The answer given to the Papal
agent cut off all hope; Venice had no intention of interrupting the peace with
the Turks. The tension between Venice and Rome on the question of the
bishoprics was thus strained much further, and the Signoria went the length of
imposing war taxes on the clergy without asking for the approval of the Pope.
Clement felt himself deeply aggrieved by such conduct; he issued a Brief
threatening excommunication to all rulers who demanded taxes of the clergy on
their own sole authority. Attempts were made in vain on the part of the
Republic to move Clement; he often said that the Republic had never shown
respect to the Apostolic See. Once before, on an earlier occasion, he had
remarked that the God of Venice was their own aggrandizement, they always tried
to fish in troubled waters. How steady he was in his enmity to the overweening
policy of Venice is shown by the fantastic schemes propounded by him in May
1532 to Andrea da Burgo, concerning the reconstruction of political conditions
in Hungary and Italy.
The
intentions of the infidels continued to be the subject of the most varying
reports in Rome during the spring of 1532. The Imperialists declared that all
the rumours of Turkish invasion were inventions of the Venetians and French in
their own interests. They gave this as their opinion until a letter arrived
from the Emperor which left no further doubt as to the gravity of the
situation.[203] A Turkish fleet of two hundred vessels was bound for Sicily and
Apulia and a large army was to attack Hungary. The result of this news was a
regular panic in Rome. The Pope declared on the 13th of March that he intended
to levy taxes at the rate of 80,000 ducats a month for three months; it was
matter of daily consultation how this sum was to be raised. Although at the
Pope’s command processions passed through the streets offering up prayers of
intercession, the fickle-minded Romans very soon recovered their tranquillity.
In
the beginning of April Clement received letters from Constantinople dated the
18th of February; according to these an attack on Hungary was certainly
impending; from the fleet, further reports declared, there was nothing to fear,
as the ships would only make a demonstration. In May these reports were
confirmed; nevertheless, Clement declared that all the measures of defence must
be taken; he wished nothing to be omitted. He was active in three directions.
In the first place, he pushed on the equipment of a fleet at Genoa under the
command of Doria to ensure the safety of the Mediterranean. At the same time he
was anxious for the protection of the coasts of Italy; Ancona in particular was
to be strongly fortified. Lastly, the Emperor and his brother were to receive
40,000 ducats monthly as a subsidy. All this demanded an immense outlay of
money, and innumerable difficulties arose in obtaining it.
The
situation was still further complicated by the bad behaviour of King Francis,
whose intentions with regard to Italy scarcely admitted of doubt. He had
demanded from the Pope, under a threat of apostasy, the grant of a double tithe
on the Church revenues in consideration of the danger from the Turks. Clement
gave his consent, but added the condition that ten French galleys should join
the Imperial fleet under the command of Doria. The French King replied that
this would be inconsistent with his honour. He had likewise, on first hearing
of the Pope’s naval undertaking, launched out against Clement in very violent
terms, in the presence of the Nuncio; he, the Pope, allowed himself to be
plundered by the Emperor, who, under the cloak of the Turkish war, concealed
designs against France; when the proper time came he, Francis, would come down
on Italy with such a power that he would be able to drive thence Pope and
Emperor. Let Clement look to it lest his protection
of Genoa did not one day cost him the loss of Florence. All the Pope’s attempts
to make Francis give way were unavailing. Urged and harassed by the
Imperialists, distrusting the French, Clement at last had no other course open
to him than to withdraw his consent, already given, to the appropriation by
France of the ecclesiastical tithes.
The
Pope addressed himself with all his energy to the fortification of Ancona,
Ascoli, and Fano. Antonio da Sangallo was appointed master of the works; his
plans for the fortification of Ancona are still to be seen in the Uffizi; a
huge citadel arose manned in September by Papal troops. To the extreme
dissatisfaction of Venice, the independence of Ancona was thus brought to an
end, and the direct Papal authority established. This proceeding was
uncommonly characteristic of the Pope; not less so was the sale of the legatine
government of the marches of Ancona to Cardinal Benedetto Accolti for the sum of 19,000 ducats.
All
manner of proposals were made to raise money for the Turkish war, but no one
showed any readiness to make sacrifices for the cause, and the Cardinals
refused to hear of a reduction of their incomes. But Clement on this point
stood firm, and in a Consistory held on the 21st of June 1532, carried a
resolution that the Cardinals should be included in the Bull imposing on the
whole body of the Italian clergy the payment of half their yearly incomes.
Later on a hearth-tax of one ducat was levied throughout the Papal States.
In
the same Consistory of the 21st of June the despatch of Cardinal Ippolito de’
Medici to the Emperor and Ferdinand I was agreed to; the latter received 50,000
ducats for the pay of troops. The preparations for his journey were hurried on
as quickly as possible. The Cardinal, who had always lived in the most secular
manner, now assumed the Hungarian dress ; he has thus been painted in a
masterpiece of Titian’s, now one of the ornaments of the Pitti Gallery. A robust figure clad in a reddish-brown garment with gold buttons; on
the head a red biretta with peacocks’ feathers; the left hand grasps a
scimitar, with the right he rests a Hungarian mace upon his knee. Ippolito de’
Medici, whose mission gave rise to various conjectures, left Rome on the 8th of
July, and travelled by rapid stages to Regensburg, which he reached on the 12th
of August.
A
few days before, the Sultan with the bulk of his army had arrived before Guns,
a few miles distant from the Austrian frontier. He at once opened the siege,
but met with a very stout resistance. Nicholas Jurischitsch defended the small town with heroic determination and held out against the
enemy until the 30th of August. The Sultan, who had set forth in true oriental
pomp, reckoned on an easy victory on account of the divisions in Germany. On
closer consideration he did not deem it advisable to risk a decisive battle at
so advanced a season of the year and at such a distance from home; the accounts
he had received of the strength of the Imperial army did not justify him in
expecting a swift and certain triumph. Therefore the Turkish forces, after
having made a rush forward as far as Oedenburg, fell
back through Styria on Slavonia and Belgrade, suffering terrible losses on
their way. In the Wienerwalde the army corps
commanded by Kasimbeg was almost annihilated.
Misfortune
also overtook the Turks by sea; for Andrea Doria was successful in sweeping the
Ottoman fleet from the Ionian waters as well as in capturing Koron and Patras. To both these successes the Pope had
materially contributed by his aid. Unfortunately, the hopes thus raised came to
nothing; Doria did not think his forces sufficient for further enterprises, and
returned to Genoa after plundering the territory of Corinth. Charles V also,
notwithstanding the exhortations of Clement and Loaysa to follow up the advantages of the fortunate opening of the campaign, remained
inactive. The accounts that reached him of the unruly and undisciplined spirit
of his army, composed as it was of the most incongruous elements, made it
appear to him inadvisable to persevere in the war except under the most urgent
necessity. Not merely the Italian soldiers but many troops of the Empire
refused to go into Hungary; the Protestants took up the cry that the aid supplied
by the Empire was intended exclusively for the defence of Germany; they
objected to strengthen the Catholic Ferdinand. Above all there was the danger
threatening the Emperor from France and England, as well as the unfavourable
condition of Italian affairs. The latter as well as the question of the Council
seemed to call imperatively for a personal discussion with the Pope. Therefore
Charles made up his mind that on his journey to Spain he would take Italy on
his way.
CHAPTER XIII
Clement
the Seventh’s Second Meeting with the Emperor at Bologna.—The Conciliar
Question in the Years 1532-1533.—The Pope and Francis I at Marseilles.— The
Marriage of Catherine de’ Medici.
Although
Pope and Emperor were drawn into a position of close interdependence on account
of the dangers threatening them from the Turkish and Protestant side alike,
there were yet, at the same time, many questions open between them which,
unfortunately, gave rise to disagreement and friction. Arbitrary enactments concerning
Neapolitan benefices, excesses and hostile behaviour of the Imperialist troops
in Italy, drew forth many complaints from Clement, and in addition to these
grievances he and Charles were at variance on the question of the Council.
The
political predominance of the Emperor in Italy and the dependence of the Papacy
on Spain, as the great worldpower, were felt all the
more bitterly by the Pope as Charles had, without any disguise, favoured the
Duke Alfonso of Ferrara in every way, and confirmed to him in April 1531 the
entire possession of his states as well as of Modena and Reggio, to which the
Pope had a counter-claim. This decision, which was contrary to the Emperor’s
previous engagements, was disapproved of even by Ferdinand’s representative in
Rome.
This
was a blow that Clement could never get over; his relations with Charles were
henceforward destroyed. In order to reconcile the Pope, to promote the cause of
the Council in accordance with the promises of Regensburg, and to restore some
order in the unsettled condition of Italy, Charles was anxious to meet Clement
personally; therefore, in October 1532, he came into Italy from Friuli. His
anxiety to soothe the Pope would have been still greater if he had known how
badly his affairs had been represented in Rome.
The
number of Cardinals in the Curia on whom the Emperor could count was not great;
most of the Italians adhered to France. The principal cause of this was the
fear, only too well grounded, of the supremacy of Charles, which was a pressing
burden on Italy and the Holy See. The Italian national feeling grew restive
under the Spanish supremacy, represented by men who did nothing to wipe out the
remembrance of the sufferings endured by the Romans during the sack of their
city. Many of the Roman prelates were under obligations to Francis I on account
of pensions and preferments. Further causes of unpopularity were the insistence
of the Hapsburgers on the dreaded Council, and
injudicious demands on the part of Charles and Ferdinand which would have had the
effect of diminishing the Cardinals’ incomes. As Cardinal Quinones had almost
altogether withdrawn from affairs, and Charles’s close adherent Cardinal
Lorenzo Pucci was dead (September 1531), the conduct of the Imperial interests
was in the hands of Cardinal Garcia de Loaysa. He was
without doubt a remarkable man, of high moral character and a great
ecclesiastic, full of energy and ability, and thoroughly loyal to the Emperor,
but wanting in the qualities of statesmanship; he showed a lack of consideration
and a rigid hardness, not uncommon in Spaniards, which gave general offence. Loaysa was entirely wanting in the one great essential of a
diplomatist—tact; he was at the mercy of his impetuous temperament. He soon
found himself in difficulties with everyone, even with the Emperor’s Ambassador
Mai, calling him in his despatches a blockhead in plain words, and demanded of
the Emperor his recall. The indignation of Mai, who was acquainted with all
this, can be imagined. Andrea da Burgo, Ferdinand’s clever representative, and
much esteemed by Clement VII., had great difficulty in preventing an open
breach between Mai and Loaysa; all the deeper on this
account was the secret grudge between them.
It
cannot be matter of surprise that Loaysa should have
also given free vent to his vehement nature, even towards the Pope, to whom he
repeatedly gave open offence.5This was especially the case in the transactions
over the appointment of fresh Cardinals, when the Imperialist and French
parties measured their strength. Clement VII was averse to new creations
chiefly because, if he made concessions to the Emperor’s wishes, England and
France would at once put forward claims of their own. In March 1531, after the
creation of two Spaniards, Alfonso Manrico and Juan
Tavera, the Pope was exposed to the gravest reproaches; the English Ambassador
told him outspokenly that he had become the Emperor’s slave. In May 1531 the
Consistory again became the scene of agitating negotiations; Francis I demanded
the nomination of a Cardinal, whereupon the Imperialists put forward claims for
two. As no agreement could be come to, the matter was left in suspense. In
order to pacify Francis I to some extent, Clement VII determined, in June 1531,
in spite of Loaysa’s opposition, to concede to the
French monarch the right of nomination for life to those abbacies which in
virtue of their privileges had hitherto enjoyed powers of free election. Soon
afterwards Clement proposed to recall Giberti to his service. The Imperialists
viewed the plan with anything but satisfaction, and the Pope’s intentions were
frustrated by the refusal of Giberti, who met this pressing invitation with the
plea that his presence was necessary in Verona.
As
Clement in the following year showed himself ready to make special efforts to
support the Emperor and his brother in their urgent need of aid against the
Turks, the French were again in the highest degree dissatisfied with him. He
fared in the same way in the negotiations relating to the divorce of Henry
VIII. Whatever Clement might do, one of the rival parties was sure to complain
of his conduct.
In
May 1532 Clement was willing to bestow the purple on G. A. Muscettola,
the Imperial agent. Although the Sacred College objected to this, as generally
to every other creation, Clement held to his resolve, for Muscettola stood high in his favour. But France now demanded the elevation of Giberti at
the same time. Clement was quite willing, but found a strong opponent in Loaysa; Giberti, the latter protested, was a bastard, and
on that account could not become a Cardinal; that this was a grave affront to
the Pope did not trouble him a whit. Clement VII complained of Loaysa’s conduct to the Emperor’s representative; he would
rather live in a desert than endure such behaviour. Loaysa was so little conscious of his stupidity that he stubbornly declared that he
had only done his duty, and would not depart from it; if the Pope showed his
displeasure, he would then take up his residence in Naples until the Emperor
came! The costs of this wanton outburst fell upon his friend Muscettola, who had already given orders for his Cardinal’s
insignia; for the Pope now gave up all idea of a creation.
The
breach between Loaysa and Mai also showed itself in
their opinion of the Pope, concerning whom their views were in direct
contradiction. While the former accounted and made excuses for Clement’s constant vacillation by his character and the
circumstances in which he was placed, Mai saw in all the Pope’s dealings only
duplicity and dangerous craft. His hatred of Clement was also extended to Muscettola, who was regarded favourably by the Pope. The
relations between the two assumed in time the character of an actual feud.
Things had gone so far in the autumn of 1530 that Muscettola applied for his recall; but he nevertheless remained two years longer in Rome.
Obviously a dissension of this kind between the representatives of the Emperor
must often have given a very unwished-for turn to his affairs in the Roman
Curia.
The
French envoys worked with much greater tact, and they had also this advantage
over the Imperialists, that, being supplied with plenty of money, they were
able to keep up a great establishment and make handsome presents. Their leader,
Gabriel de Gramont, Bishop of Tarbes, a Cardinal
since the 8th of June 15 30, understood admirably how to play constantly on the
Pope’s distrust of the Emperor, and even to intimidate him in case of necessity
by open threats. Gramont at the same time was trying
to bring about a family alliance between the houses of Valois and Medici which
should bind Clement inseparably to France. The second son of Francis I, Henry,
Duke of Orleans, was to marry Catherine de’ Medici, born in 1519, daughter of
Lorenzo of Urbino. When Gramont brought the matter
forward in the autumn of 1530, he also hinted that Parma and Piacenza might go
with the bride as her dowry. Clement VII refused to agree to such an alienation
of Church property, and indeed acted as if the whole scheme were not seriously
meant; evidently he did not wish then to go further into the affair out of
regard for Charles V, who, on his side, looked with favour on a marriage
between Catherine and the Duke of Milan. Clement for a long time acted in the
matter with his habitual indecision. That finally he decided in favour of
France cannot cause surprise. What comparison was there between the Dukedom of
Milan, with its precarious tenure, and the brilliant alliance with the royal
house of France, which at the same time guaranteed a hope of firm support
against the Spanish supremacy in Italy! The Venetian Ambassador Soriano was
also of opinion that another inducement to incline the Pope in favour of this
marriage was the hope of gaining thereby the French partisans in Florence. In
addition, the project of marriage was espoused by the French themselves with
the greatest eagerness. In the beginning of November 1530 John Stuart, Duke of
Albany, arrived in Rome on a mission from Francis to push forward the
arrangements initiated by Gramont. Catherine had left
Florence in October, where she had lived with her aunt, Lucrezia Salviati. The
Milanese envoy who saw her in the streets of Rome thought her tall and
comparatively good-looking, but still of such a tender age that he was of
opinion her marriage could not be thought of for another year and a half.
Nevertheless, the affair was negotiated more ardently than ever. Clement’s indecision was increased by his fear of Charles’
and Albany’s great demands. As Gramont in the
meantime was once more in Rome, the Pope gave his consent in secret to the
marriage and to the conditions which Francis attached to his “gift of the
Danai.” In a treaty of the 9th of June 1531 Clement VII. declared himself ready
to give Catherine, after her marriage with the Duke of Orleans, Pisa, Leghorn,
Modena, Reggio, and Rubbiera, and also to hand over
Parma and Piacenza in return for a compensation to be agreed upon. He even was
willing to assist in the reconquest of Urbino; only as regards Milan and Genoa,
which Francis had also demanded for the young bridal couple, he gave no
conclusive answer. A few days later Cardinal Gramont returned to France: the Pope gave orders that he should be received in Florence
with all honour.
The
members of the French court were under a great delusion if they believed that
the old influence over Clement VII had been regained and that he was once more
securely in their hands. When the Pope weighed more closely the conditions of
the agreement of June, he was alarmed at having committed himself in advance to
such an extent; he now tried, under different pretexts, to have the marriage
postponed. So little was the “astute, circumspect, and timid” Medici thinking
of a breach with the Emperor, that, on the contrary, he determined to work with
all his power for the reconciliation of Charles and Francis. On this he brought
to bear all his penetration and all his diplomatic ability. Thus was conceived
the visionary plan of bringing the two rivals together at the expense of
Venice; a project, however, which nowhere met with a favourable reception. As
the Ottoman invasion later on drew attention in another direction altogether,
the Pope bethought him of a fresh scheme applicable to the wholly altered state
of affairs. Charles V and Francis I were to be reconciled and unite all their
military forces in one comprehensive onslaught on the Turks, after whose
destruction Ferdinand I should receive Hungary and the adjoining territories,
Venice the possessions taken from her in the Levant, and, finally, France
should receive Milan, which until then should be retained by the Emperor and
the Pope, as the friends of both parties!
But
the situation had once again entirely changed; on the withdrawal of the Sultan
the Emperor had abandoned the Turkish war and undertaken his journey to Italy
to meet the Pope. For the place of conference Bologna, Parma, Piacenza, then
also Genoa and Pisa, had been proposed: particulars were to be settled by Pedro della Cueva at Rome. While the negotiations were in
progress an accident threatened to interfere finally with the proposed meeting.
On the 25th of October 1532 the Pope received a report of which he complained,
with tears in his eyes, to Mai and Burgo: the Emperor had placed Cardinal
Medici under arrest for a day; for the latter, displeased with the suspension
of the Turkish war, had foolishly tried to play the part of commander-in-chief.
The incident led to no further results, owing to the apologies of the
Imperialists, who wished to ward off a misunderstanding, and the hopes of
Clement that the meeting would be efficacious in bringing about a peace with
France.
Cueva
reached Rome at the end of October and announced that the Emperor wished the
conference to be held at Piacenza. The matter was discussed in Consistory; most
of the Cardinals, Farnese at their head, declared it fitting that Charles V.
should come to Rome. This was hotly opposed by the Imperialist group and was
also contrary to Clement’s own wishes. Since in the
meantime Medici made it known that Charles agreed to Bologna, as proposed by
the Pope, the departure of the latter thither was fixed for the 12th of
November in a Consistory held on the 4th. Owing to the necessary preparations
the departure was put off until the 18th, and before this a Bull was issued
making regulations in the event of a Papal election; Cardinal Salviati acted as
Legate in Rome.
The
late season of the year, unfavourable weather, and the bad condition of the
roads made the journey a very arduous one for the Pope, who was hardly
recovered from the gout. Six Cardinals travelled through Tuscany, and six
others went with the Pope. Their way was by Castelnuovo, Civita Castellana, Narni, Terni, Trevi, Perugia, Citta di Castello, S. Sepolcro,
S. Agata, Cesena, Forli, and Castel S. Pietro. On Sunday the 8th of December he
entered Bologna on horseback, where he was received with the customary
solemnities. On the following day a Consistory was held in which it was
resolved to send Cardinals Grimani and Cesarini to
meet the Emperor.
Charles,
on the 13th of December 1532, made his entry into Bologna with military pomp
and was received with great ceremony by the Papal court and the most prominent
citizens. Over five thousand men-at-arms escorted him; he rode between
Cardinals Farnese and Spinola; in his suite were
noticed the Dukes of Milan, Mantua, and Florence. The Pope awaited him in San Petronio on his throne, in full pontificals and wearing a costly tiara. Charles made the customary triple obeisance on
bended knee and kissed the Pope’s foot. The latter, waiving the kissing of his
hand, rose and embraced the Emperor. After the Emperor’s suite had paid their
reverence to his Holiness, Clement led the Emperor to the state apartments
prepared for them in the Palazzo Publico. On the
following days also there was no lack of demonstrative friendliness between Pope
and Emperor, the latter receiving on Christmas Eve as a gift of honour a sword
and hat. Great as were the confidence and friendship displayed in public
between the two potentates, in the long conferences, held almost always in
private, it was only too evident that there was a lack of unanimity. In Bologna
the influx of strangers had given rise to a high cost of living, and the
Emperor, on this account, would have been glad to quit the city soon, but the
negotiations shaped themselves with such difficulty that his departure was
deferred from week to week.
Clement
VII was eager to make a reconciliation between Francis I. and Charles V. The
Emperor considered this quite hopeless, and thought only of securing Milan and
Genoa against any French attacks; with this object he proposed the formation of
an Italian defensive league. On his instructions Granvelle, Covos,
and Praet conducted the matter with Cardinal Ippolito
de’ Medici, Francesco Guicciardini, and Jacopo Salviati. It was soon evident
that such a confederacy was little in keeping with the policy of a Pope who was
considered neutral; his representatives asserted that Venice would absolutely
oppose such a league; they also made it clear that Clement still clung to the
restoration of Modena and Reggio, and would not suspend his claims on this
score during the existence of the League. But the influence which bore with
most force on Clement VII. was the threatening attitude of Francis I, the ally
of Henry VIII, when the representatives of the former, Cardinals Gramont and Tournon, appeared in
Bologna in the beginning of January 1533.
To
make sure of Milan the Emperor wished Clement to give his niece Catherine de’
Medici in marriage to Francesco Sforza. The Pope’s objection to this was that
the contract with Francis had priority, and the King would feel it to be an
extreme affront if the intended wife of one of his sons were to wed his
declared enemy. Unfortunately, the Emperor was under the impression that
Francis I. had not been in earnest over the marriage contract; he therefore
asked the Pope to urge upon Francis that the marriage should speedily take
place. He assumed in this that Francis would refuse, and then the Pope would
convince himself that he had been the dupe of vain words. In this case the
friendship of Clement for Francis would certainly have been turned into bitter
enmity. But the contrary came to pass; Francis, perceiving the impending
danger, sent at once to the Cardinals above-named full powers to ratify the
marriage contract of his son with Catherine de’ Medici; at the same time he
sent an invitation to the Pope to meet him in Nice. Clement VII now declared
that such a wish was all the more to be complied with as he had already on two
occasions undertaken a journey in order to meet the Emperor. Thus the latter
saw the connection between the Pope and France only further strengthened. He
suspected that Clement would combine with Francis in order to conquer Milan for
the Duke of Orleans, but the Pope did all he could to convince him that such a
suspicion was groundless. Thus a secret treaty between Pope and Emperor was
signed on the 24th of February, a day of momentous significance to Charles, for
it was the date of his birth, of his victory at Pavia, and of his coronation.
Clement VII and Charles gave mutual pledges not to form alliances with other
princes; they exchanged promises as to the holding of the Council, help against
the Turks, the maintenance of the existing state of things in Italy, and the
hearing of the English divorce case in Rome.
The
negotiations with the Italian envoys, already begun in January, were brought a
few days later to a conclusion. On the 27th of February Clement VII, Charles V,
Ferdinand I, the Dukes of Milan, Mantua, and Ferrara, with Siena, Lucca, and
Genoa, united themselves on acceptance of certain contributions of troops and
money to defend Italy against any attack. The difficulty with Ferrara was
removed in this way, that Clement VII undertook, only for eighteen months, to
leave the Duke in peace. Florence and Savoy, and above all Venice, were not
named in the bond. If this was annoying to the Emperor, much more so was the
failure of his then renewed attempts to draw Clement out of the French marriage
agreement. The Pope stood firm; in this he could take no backward step.
The
negotiations concerning the nominations of Cardinals demanded by the Emperor
went also contrary to his wishes. He had proposed Schonberg, Muscettola, and Stefano Gabriele Merino, Archbishop of
Bari, The Pope’s nominees were Giberti, Simonetta, Auditor of the Rota, and the
Bishop of Faenza, Rodolfo Pio. But at the same time Francis I and Henry VIII
demanded the purple for three of their dependents. The general feeling of the
Sacred College was against new creations; an effort was therefore made to defer
the question until the Pope had returned to Rome, and Clement, who inclined to
this view, handed over the matter to Cardinals Farnese, Campeggio, and Cesi to report upon. On the 19th of February the Consistory
debated the subject far into the night without coming to a decision. Loaysa took up the cause of Muscettola with all his energy but met with the most decided opposition. On the 21st of
February the Cardinals voted for the elevation of Merino in order to defeat the
creation of Muscettola and Schonberg. Also, as a
satisfaction to France, the nomination of Jean d’Orleans to the Sacred College was soon afterwards made public. The Imperialists were
little pleased with this result.
Not
less stirring were the negotiations at Bologna on the question of the Council.
On the 15th of December 1532 Charles had already discussed the question with
Clement in an interview lasting two hours. On the following day the Consistory
was consulted; only a few Cardinals were in favour of an immediate summons; the
majority were of the opinion that peace must first be restored to Christendom
and the agreement of all the princes be secured; a decision was postponed until
the next sitting. In this, held on the 20th of December, the whole matter was
once more thoroughly considered. The use of the temporal sword against
Protestants was also made subject of remark. Only a few, however, voted for
such measures ; the majority of the Cardinals were for a Council; they
certainly objected to it being held in Germany, and
still more to a national council of that nation, as the latter would only give
occasion to the Kings of France and England to bring about a schism. The final
resolution was that the Council should be held in a suitable place, and after
the consent of all Christian princes had been invited. For the execution of
this decision a congregation was formed in which the Pope was represented by
Farnese, Campeggio, Cesi, and Aleander, and the
Emperor by Merino, Covos, Granvelle, and Mai.
After
the Emperor had agreed to the Council meeting in Italy, it was possible, as
early as the 2nd of January 1533, to prepare the Briefs to the Kings of France
and England, and to other Christian princes inviting their consent to and
presence at the Council. More protracted negotiations were occasioned by the
question whether the princes and States of the German Empire should also be
written to at the same time. This was agreed to, for Aleander was strongly in
favour of such a step. Accordingly, about the 10th of January, letters of the
Emperor were addressed to all the States, as well as from the Pope to King
Ferdinand I, the six Electors, and the six Circles of the Empire. In these
letters the Pope praised the Emperor’s zeal on behalf of the Council, whereby
he had been led to consent to its summons, although for other reasons he was
not yet quite prepared for it. But as it was necessary that all members and
nations of Christendom should participate, he would not neglect to procure the
consent of other princes than those of Germany by means of letters and Nuncios.
While the answers, that of France in particular, were awaited, the Emperor did
not desist in the course of negotiations in demanding through his deputies that
the Council should be summoned at once, for he had given his promise on this
point to the German princes, and in no other way could the desire for a
national German council be successfully opposed. On the other hand, the Papal
deputies insisted that Clement was ready to proclaim the Council in accordance
with the usage hitherto observed by the Church, and on condition that the
dogmatic decrees of earlier synods were acknowledged by all, and that all
promised their willingness to submit to the decrees of the forthcoming assembly
; but in any case the answers of the princes must still be waited for.
As
the Emperor was always insistent and the time of his return was drawing near,
while no answers had as yet been received, the Papal deputies proposed that
under these circumstances Nuncios should be sent to Germany, France, and
England, an arrangement with which Charles expressed his agreement. The Nuncio
appointed for Germany was Ugo Rangoni, Bishop of
Reggio; for France and England the Papal chamberlain and protonotary, Ubaldino de Ubaldinis. On the
20th of February the two Nuncios were presented with the Briefs of which they
were to be the bearers.
In
the meantime Cardinals Tournon and Gramont had presented the long-expected answer of Francis
I. It was short, cold in tone, and insisted on the necessity of the questions
of religion being dealt with in a becoming manner, in accordance with the
wishes of those taking part in the Council assembled in a place agreeable to
them, and of the decrees being of such a kind that no one afterwards would
refuse his consent to them. This reply was all the more unsatisfactory as
Francis, besides these general observations, said nothing about his wishes
regarding the representation at the Council.
The
Instruction drafted by Aleander for the Nuncio Rangoni on the 27th of February 1533 contained the conciliar conditions under eight
articles:—(1) The Council is to be free, and to be held according to the
customs obtaining in the Church since the first General Councils. (2) The
members of the Council are to promise obedience to its decisions and their
unbroken observance. (3) Members unable to be present for legitimate reasons
are to send deputies with full legal powers and satisfactory mandates. (4) In
the meantime, no fresh matter of controversy is to be introduced into the
religious questions in debate in Germany until the Council shall have given its
decisions. (5) A choice, on which all should agree, must be made of some
suitable place; the Pope proposes Mantua, Bologna, or Piacenza. (6) Should any
princes, without just cause, reject the summons and meeting of the Council, the
Pope is nevertheless to proceed with the same. (7) Against those princes who
wish to put obstacles in the way of the Council, the remainder are to support
the Pope in its favour. (8) On receipt of the consenting replies the Pope shall
convene the Council within six months and take steps for opening it within a
year. To Lambert von Briaerde, who accompanied Rangoni as Imperial orator, Charles communicated special
instructions agreeing with the Pope’s intentions. The Emperor left Bologna on
the 28th of February and the Pope on the 10th of March.
Rangoni and Briaerde first visited the court of Ferdinand I at Vienna
and stayed there from the 1st of April to the 13th of May. Ferdinand expressed
his full agreement with the meeting of the Council and the articles. Duke
George of Saxony did likewise, whom they visited at Dresden on the 25th of May.
Thence they made their way to Weimar, where on the 3rd of June they were
courteously received by the Elector John Frederick and listened to by him; in his
answer to the Nuncio, communicated on the following day, he expressed his joy
at the prospect of a Council but explained that, greatly as he wished
personally to give a definite answer at once, he could only do so in company
with his allies, who in the approaching assembly of Protestant princes at Schmalkald would take counsel on the matter. With this
message Rangoni and Briaerde left Weimar on the 5th of June and proceeded to Mayence to Cardinal Albert, who expressed personally his full agreement and his
adhesion to everything that the Pope and Emperor might further determine, even
with regard to the meeting-place of the Council, but for a definite answer he
referred them to the Congress of the Catholic Electors about to be held at Mayence. The same answer was given by his brother, the
Elector Joachim of Brandenburg, with whom the envoys discussed the question at
Berlin on the 17th of June. Through Brunswick, where they missed Duke Henry,
they came to Cologne on the 5th of July, and on the 9th at Bonn had an
interview with the Elector Hermann of Wied; on the
13th they were similarly occupied at Coblentz with Johann von Metzenhausen, the Elector of Treves, and on the 20th at
Heidelberg with the Elector Palatine Louis.
After
all the Electors had thus been visited, the Imperial envoy Briaerde,
having accomplished his mission, returned to the Netherlands, while the Nuncio Rangoni went yet further to Munich in order to treat also
with the Dukes William and Louis of Bavaria. To the meeting of a General
Council all the princes interrogated had, on the whole, given their ready
consent; in respect of the articles enumerated above, only the two Bavarian
Dukes were unwilling to give a final reply on their own responsibility. The
Nuncio and Briaerde were not without grounds for
indulging in hopes on the close of their round of inquiries. In the course of
the foregoing deliberations the principal question under discussion had been
the meeting-place of the Council. On this as on the other points, by the
exercise of a little good-will on all sides, there ought not to have been
difficulty in coming to an agreement. This was especially the case as the
Elector of Saxony himself had shown apparently the best intentions, and in all
probability at the last would have given his final decision in a favourable
sense. But his theologians and the other princes of Protestant Germany were of
a different way of thinking. John Frederick, in the first place, asked the
theologians of Wittenberg to give their opinion and furnish him with reports.
Melanchthon, indeed, declared that on account of the other nations the Council
could not well be refused, nor had he any objections to Protestants appearing
there under a safe-conduct, but he repudiated in the most express terms the
article on the duty of submission to the conciliar decrees. Luther spoke in the
same sense, only in a much more offensive manner, for he called the Pope a
“liar” and a “cursed bloodhound and murderer.” This position of the theologians
corresponded therefore with the answer, dated the 30th of June 1533, of the
Protestant princes and Estates3 assembled at Schmalkald.
They demanded a “free council” to be held in Germany, with the Bible as the
only standard; the Pope’s articles were rejected in coarse and offensive terms.
By this declaration all previous exertions on behalf of a Council were brought
to nothing.
No
better success attended the mission of the Nuncio Ubaldino to Francis I of France and Henry VIII of England. Both monarchs avoided any
definite declaration.
On
leaving Bologna Clement VII had gone first to Fano in order to compose the
disorders which had broken out in that place; he then paid visits to Ancona and
the sanctuary of Loreto; on the 3rd of April 1533 he was once more in Rome.
Here awaited him a mass of business which had accumulated in his absence. There
was, moreover, anxiety on account of Koron, hard
pressed by the Turks, and still greater anxieties arising from the divorce suit
of Henry VIII. The Pope’s nephew Bernardo Salviati was sent to the relief of Koron with twelve galleys. Francis I, meanwhile, was
pressing for the conference agreed to by the Pope, and the conclusion of the
family alliance; his representatives, the Cardinals Gramont and Tournon, encountered, however, unsuspected
difficulties. These were in part the outcome of the intrigues of the
Imperialists, who were naturally doing all they could to frustrate the
dangerous interview and still more dangerous marriage.
Before
the conference at Bologna was over, a fundamental change had taken place in the
diplomatic service of the Emperor at Rome. Charles V had at length come to see
that Loaysa with his immoderate temper, and Mai with
his brusque ways, were not the men to conduct his affairs aright. With Loaysa fell also Muscettola. In
their place Fernando da Silva, Count of Cifuentes, was appointed Ambassador,
and Rodrigo Davalos as agent; in the Sacred College the place of Loaysa was taken by the Cardinal of Jaen, Stefano Gabriele
Merino, as representative of the Imperial interests. Charles soon found out
that the change was in no way a fortunate one, for the evil of disunion had
been handed on and made itself felt with undiminished intensity, as the enmity
between Cifuentes and Merino was acute.
The
French party reaped the advantage of this feud. Cardinal Tournon played his part with great skill; he knew how to paint in the most glowing
colours the advantages of the French alliance to Clement, and even to encourage
in him the hope that this connection would be a means of bringing order into
the tangle of the English divorce. Personally the Pope was strongly inclined to
an alliance with France in order to secure a counterpoise to the Emperor’s
power in Italy.[257] But unexpected hindrances now arose on the side of the
Cardinals. Farnese and others adduced the most various objections; Cardinal Gramont declared haughtily : “The Pope has more need of my
king than my king of him.” Meanwhile a letter came from Charles to the effect:
“Since his Holiness persists in his interview with Francis, he (the Emperor) makes
no further difficulties but warns him to look to the preservation of peace in
Italy.” On the 25th of May 1533 Clement showed the letter to a full Consistory;
but although he used every argument to prove the necessity of the conference,
the majority of the Cardinals remained quite unconvinced. As the question was
one of such great importance, a decision upon it was deferred.
Notwithstanding
the almost general opposition of the Curia, Clement did not in the least
abandon the plan of the conference, but put it off until the month of
September. On the 28th of May he wrote in this sense to Francis I. At the same
time he sent to him the Bishop of Faenza to settle the details of the interview
which was to take place at Nice. A fresh postponement was subsequently caused
by the breach with England which took place in July, at the very moment when
the marriage treaty signed by the French King reached Rome. Francis I would now
have willingly put off the interview, but Clement refused to withdraw.
On
the 1st of August the Papal officials were formally notified that their
presence would be required at Nice on the 3rd of September. As no reply came
from France concerning the ship on which the Pope was to be conveyed to the
latter place, many looked upon the journey as doubtful, but the majority
believed that it certainly would take place. The Pope also expressed himself in
the same way. Then there was a rumour that Marseilles would be the place of
meeting, as the Duke of Savoy, in consideration of the Emperor, had made difficulties
about Nice. This was unacceptable to the Pope, for on French soil Francis could
bring to bear upon him a preponderant influence. Meanwhile the bride’s dowry
was settled; on this occasion Clement laid aside his usual parsimony; the
jewels alone were valued at more than 30,000 ducats. On the 1st of September
Catherine de’ Medici set forth on her journey, accompanied by Caterina Cibo, Duchess of Camerino, Maria
de’ Medici-Salviati, the widow of Giovanni “delle Bande Nere,” Filippo Strozzi, and the historian Guicciardini. At Portovenere the galleys of the Duke of Albany awaited her.
The
departure of the Pope, who at the end of August had heard with delight of the
relief of Koron, took place on the 9th of September.
Three days before, the death had taken place of the man who, among the Pope’s
relations, had been his peculiarly trusted adviser, Jacopo Salviati. Cardinal
del Monte remained behind in Rome as Legate, and Salviati’s place, whose death was generally lamented, was taken by Alessandro Farnese. The
Pope’s departure was a hard blow for the Romans; their city had now the
appearance of being deserted. Clement on this journey avoided his native city,
Florence, and passed slowly through Sienese territory to Pisa, which he reached
on the 24th of September, remaining there on account of bad weather until the
3rd of October. On the 22nd of September, at San Miniato al Tedesco in the valley of the lower Arno, he saw Michael Angelo for the last
time.
Not
until the 5th of October did Clement set sail from Leghorn. The Papal galley
was entirely covered with gold brocade; ten French vessels, and many others,
especially those of the Knights of St. John, accompanied the Pope, in whose
suite were nine Cardinals. A favourable wind carried the stately fleet—consisting
in all of sixty sail—to Villafranca on the 7th of October, where Catherine de’
Medici was taken on board. On the 11th the fleet entered the harbour of
Marseilles, in which city the Grand Master Anne de Montmorency had made
splendid preparations for the solemn entry of the Pope. This took place on the
12th of October. Fourteen Cardinals and nearly sixty prelates surrounded the
Pope, who was carried on the sedia gestatoria by nobles of the highest rank. On the
following day Francis I made his state entry, after having had already a secret
interview with Clement. Both were lodged so near to each other that visits
could be exchanged without remark.
Despite
the youth of Catherine de’ Medici, her marriage with Duke Henry of Orleans took
place on the 28th of October; the Pope himself performed the ceremony. In the
brilliant festivities of the wedding Cardinal Medici was conspicuous ; his
display of magnificence surpassed even that of the King himself. On the 7th of
November three French Cardinals were nominated in Consistory (Jean Leveneur de Tillier, Claude de Languy, and Odet de Coligny); a
fourth (Philippe de la Chambre) was publicly declared as such. Long and
animated transactions had preceded this act, for Clement himself seems to have
had objections to this large increase of the French element in the Sacred
College. The Imperial envoys objected that a creation should only take place in
Rome; the majority, however, led by Gaddi and Sanseverino, and under pressure
from Francis I, determined otherwise; Clement gave his consent reluctantly.
Pope
and King vied with each other at Marseilles in displays of friendship and
exchanged rich gifts. During the ecclesiastical ceremonies Francis made an
ostentatious show of his subjection to the Papal authority. Notwithstanding the
numerous festivities, Clement and Francis, during their meeting of more than
four weeks’ duration, completed numerous negotiations, the nature of which,
however, was kept a profound secret. All the accounts given by envoys and
chroniclers of these oral transactions, carried on without any intermediary,
are mere conjectures. The only written document of importance is the draft of a
secret treaty drawn up in Francis’ own hand; according to this not merely
Urbino, but Milan also, was to be taken possession of for the Duke of Orleans,
whereupon Clement would raise no difficulties even on account of Parma and
Piacenza.
How
far Clement agreed to demands of this kind is uncertain; in any case he cannot
here have gone beyond verbal assurances, since no written agreement was
completed; but even in conversation so experienced a politician would most
certainly have observed the utmost caution. The enemies of Clement VII, at a
later date, brought against him, among other accusations, the charge of having acquiesced
at Marseilles in the alliance between Francis I and the Turks and Protestants;
the onus of proof rests with them. Clement VII was so little in agreement with
the shameful project of giving support to the hereditary foe of Christendom,
spoken of by Francis at their conference, that he had information of the same
conveyed to the Emperor. As to the support given to Philip of Hesse in his
forcible restoration of the Protestant Duke Ulrich of Würtemberg, the
communications of Guillaume du Bellay appear to exonerate “Clement VII as having been deceived
by Francis.”
All
the Pope’s exhortations to a reconciliation with Charles fell on the French
King’s pugnacious temperament like seed on a barren soil. It is undoubted that
during the conference Clement exerted himself to bring about a peace between
the two; very well-informed envoys state this expressly.
Substantial
successes for Francis I were, besides the above-mentioned nomination of
Cardinals, the gift of the last tithe for the Crusade and the recall of the
Swiss Nuncio Filonardi. Clement excused himself to Ferdinand I for this act of
submissiveness by suggesting that he had found himself at Marseilles in the
French King’s power, and that the latter had threatened him with apostasy from
Rome.
Very
important transactions also took place on the subject of the Council. Francis
was inflexible in his opposition to one held in Italy; he also insisted that in
the actual condition of Christendom such an. assembly should be deferred until
more propitious and peaceable times. His arguments succeeded in inducing
Clement, with feeble pliability, to consent to a postponement. Even in the
divorce suit of Henry VIII he yielded to the request of Francis I, and on the
31st of October 1533 consented to a fresh respite of a month before giving
effect to the threatened excommunication.
Clement
VII left Marseilles on the 12th of November 1533, whereupon Francis started for
Avignon. The Pope’s voyage to Spezia was made under difficulties owing to heavy
storms; as far as Savona he made use of French vessels; from thence he was
conveyed to Civita Vecchia by Doria’s squadron, and three days later he
re-entered his capital, where he was joyfully received. Soon afterwards an
event occurred of vast consequence to the Church and the world. The complete
separation of England from the Holy See, long threatened, became an
accomplished fact.
CHAPTER XIV.
The
Divorce of Henry VIII and the English Schism.
The
separation of England from the Holy See was not like that of Germany, the
result of a combined movement of the common people and the learned classes; it
arose rather from the sensual passion and autocratic temper of the sovereign,
and consequently for a considerable length of time had a schismatical rather than an heretical character. The separation was favoured by the
ecclesiastical and political development of the nation, which since the
fourteenth century had begun to slacken its ties with Rome. The dependence of
the clergy on the throne had already become close under the first Tudor, Henry
VII, whose accession, in 1485, not only put an end to the “War of the Roses” of
the houses of York and Lancaster, but was the beginning, especially for
England, of a new epoch. Henry VII resembled in character Ferdinand the
Catholic. A man with strong gifts of government, imbued with a sense of the
prerogatives of the Crown, he let the weight of his authority fall heavily on
the nobility and the Church. When he died, on the 21st of April 1509, he had
laid deep the foundations of absolute monarchy in England; the Parliament had
learned docility, the nobles and churchmen submission. His successor, Henry
VIII, then in his eighteenth year, determined in these respects to walk firmly
in his father’s footsteps. The capricious and despotic side of his character
was at first kept in the background; all the more conspicuous was his love of
pleasure and enjoyment. Good-looking, expert in all chivalrous accomplishments,
the youthful King made a most favourable impression on the people by his
spendthrift liberality, his splendid appearance, and the endless succession of
festivities at his court. Nor was England long in playing a great and often
successful part in the politics of Europe. After the dissolution of Parliament
in 1515 the King and his Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, governed without it.
Wolsey’s
position, not only as a politician but as an ecclesiastic, was an exceptional
one. Since 1518 he had held the rank of Papal Legate; this office had been
conferred on him at first for one year, and the tenure of it was afterwards
prolonged to three. The extensive faculties thus acquired, and the
extraordinary plenary powers, as visitor of monasteries, wrung by him from Leo
X in August 1518, gave him an altogether abnormal influence over Church
affairs. He made use of it without scruple to gratify his love of power and
wealth. Still dissatisfied with what he had already attained, this ambitious
man demanded from Adrian VI that his legatine office should be extended to the
term of his natural life.
Luther’s
new doctrine had found adherents also in England. Wolsey was comparatively
lenient in his punishment of such; he indeed threatened them with the laws
against heresy, but was restrained from enforcing them by his temperament of
man of the world. The Cardinal endeavoured to maintain discipline and order
among the clergy. Worthy also of recognition are his benefactions to the
University of Oxford, where he raised a lasting memorial to his name in the
truly regal foundation of Christ Church. It was characteristic of him that he
obtained the necessary means by the dissolution of monasteries, under special
powers obtained after a struggle from Clement VII.
The
English King, in recompense for his book against Luther, had received from Leo
X the title of “Defensor Fidei,” from Clement VII the golden rose, and from
Luther, on the other hand, a “counter-reply of unspeakable coarseness and
obscenity.” Henry complained of Luther’s insults to the Elector of Saxony, and
employed Thomas More and John Fisher to compose fresh refutations of the
reformer. Nevertheless, Luther for some time afterwards indulged in the
flattering hope that he might make a convert of the King of England, to whom
with this object he addressed a very servile letter in September 1525 begging
for pardon. But Henry dismissed his approaches with contempt. Ten years later
the same King tried by flattery to obtain from the doctor of Wittenberg an
opinion favourable to his divorce. Only this one circumstance, only the desire
to discard his lawful wife in order to marry a wanton, was the cause that led
Henry to rend asunder the links that for nearly a thousand years had bound his
kingdom to the See of Peter.
Soon
after his accession, Henry VIII had married the widow of his brother Arthur,
Catherine of Aragon, who, as a daughter of King Ferdinand the Catholic, was the
aunt of Charles V. On the 26th of December 1503 Pope Julius II had issued a
Bull granting the necessary dispensation from the obstacle to a valid marriage
caused by the first degree of affinity. Catherine was five years older than
Henry, but from the first the marriage appeared to be a perfectly happy one.
Five children, three boys and two girls, were born, but the only one who lived
was Mary, born in 1516. The Queen, as pious and virtuous as she was
tender-hearted, bore these successive losses with Christian resignation. Like
others of her countrywomen she aged early; she also had frequent illnesses, and
the hope of a male heir vanished. Consequently the passionate King turned to
other women. As early as 1519 he had adulterous relations with Elizabeth Blount
and later with Mary Boleyn. Yet so little did the thought of a divorce occupy
his mind that in 1519 he commissioned the Florentine sculptor, Pietro Torregiano, who had also executed the monument of his
father, to prepare for him and his wife a common tomb.
That
Henry VIII had other mistresses besides the two already named is probable, but
not proven. According to his own testimony, conjugal relations between him and
the Queen had ceased since 1524. The King, moreover, asseverated that serious
scruples had arisen in his mind regarding the validity of his marriage; as the
Scripture forbade marriage with a brother’s wife, he feared that he might have
been living incestuously with Catherine. It became evident only too soon that
this scruple coincided with the passion, amounting almost to ail obsession,
which seized him in 1526. A lady of Catherine’s court, Anne Boleyn, had by her attractions
aroused the King’s sensual admiration. Her resistance to his unlawful
addresses, mingled as it was with coquetry, kindled her suitor’s ardour to the
highest pitch. Anne was sister of that Mary Boleyn who had previously been
Henry’s mistress. A marriage with her was confronted by exactly the same
obstacle, only in an intensified degree, as that which now so grievously
troubled the tender conscience of the King with regard to his union with
Catherine.
The
bold thought of ousting the legitimate Queen and supplanting her could hardly
have entered into the head of Anne Boleyn. Behind her stood two members of the
great English nobility: her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, and the Duke of
Suffolk. For long these two had looked with jealousy and hatred on the position
of Cardinal Wolsey in the councils of the King. From this quarter came the
notion of a divorce; the idea itself originated in a subtly contrived plan to
overthrow the all-powerful Chancellor. Should the divorce and the marriage with
Anne succeed, the downfall of the Cardinal would follow upon them; if they did
not succeed, then Wolsey would incur the King’s wrath on account of their
miscarriage, so that in either case the fall of the hated favourite seemed
certain. In entire contradiction to the facts is the theory, at one time often
upheld, that Wolsey, who was at first antagonistic, had, against his better
conscience, and to his own undoing, consented to become the King’s tool in
carrying out the business, and was the originator of the scheme of divorce.
It
is impossible to say precisely at what moment the thought of divorce in order
to remarry with Anne Boleyn took possession of Henry, at first as a secret
between him and his advisers of the Norfolk party, and without Wolsey’s
previous knowledge; the scheme can be traced back as far as the spring of 1527,
when Henry took the first steps towards its realization. With a cunning
dishonesty he managed at first to conceal the design lurking in his heart from
those who were not initiated, even from Wolsey. The strange circumstance that,
all at once, after eighteen years’ marriage with Catherine, conscientious
objections to the validity of that union should have arisen within him, he
explained by referring to expressions used by the French Bishop, Gramont of Tarbes, who, in March and April 1527, stayed in
England as head of an embassy to the English court, and then discussed a
proposal of marriage between Mary, Henry’s daughter, and Francis I or one of
his sons. The Bishop, so Henry asserted at a later date, had given utterance to
suspicions of the legitimacy of the Princess Mary, as the marriage of Henry and
Catherine had not been valid. There can be no doubt that the words attributed
to the Bishop of Tarbes were a pure invention and Henry’s pretended scruples
sheer hypocrisy.
On
the day after the departure of the French Ambassador (May 8th) Wolsey appears
to have been initiated, for the first time, into the secret of the divorce, but
not in any way into the ulterior object, the fresh marriage with Anne Boleyn.
If at first he made objections and pointed out difficulties, later events
showed that his opposition could not have lasted very long nor have been of
great importance; for on the 17th of May he was already holding, after previous
arrangement with Henry, as Apostolic Legate, with Archbishop Warham of Canterbury as assessor, a Court of Justice before
which the King was cited “to answer for eighteen years’ sinful cohabitation
with Catherine.” The whole business had been preconcerted; by means of this farce
a sentence of divorce in Henry’s favour was to be concocted, so that the King,
by contracting a fresh marriage, might establish as soon as possible an
accomplished fact. After two further sittings, on the 20th and 31st of May, it
became evident that this was not the way by which the desired end was to be
reached. It was now determined to try to obtain, as far as possible, episcopal
sanction for the divorce. Opinions were invited from bishops and canonists, but
not with the wished for result; the reply of Bishop Fisher in particular—and he
did not stand alone among the rulers of the Church—was unconditionally in
favour of the validity of the marriage. This probably caused Wolsey to reflect;
but the Cardinal had taken the first fatal step, and he could now withdraw only
with the greatest difficulty. As he allowed the whole month of June to go by
without carrying the matter any further, Henry showed him clear signs of his
dissatisfaction, so that he thought it well henceforward to beat down all
objections and pursue the business with the utmost energy.
The
Cardinal had now come to be pointed at generally as the originator of the whole
affair, and his enemies lost no time in spreading this report in all
directions. In reality Wolsey had entered only with great reluctance into a
matter which appeared to him almost hopeless. As he knew the King’s obstinate
will, he held that no other choice was possible for him than to maintain his
position. On former occasions he had always bowed before Henry’s expressed
wishes, and only ruled his master by convincing him that in a given case the
conduct of his servant was the means most suitable for attaining the royal end.
Confronted with the fierce passion of the King it now never entered his mind to
offer a direct opposition ; and to exhibit negligence seemed a course full of
danger.
On
the 22nd of June 1527, Henry, in a brutal manner, ordered Catherine to separate
from him; he told the unhappy woman in plain words that after questioning
various theologians and canonists he had become certain that during the whole
of their married life she had been living in mortal sin. Catherine refused with
determination to admit the charge, and in her rejoinder she brought into
prominence a point which hitherto had been overlooked. Even if it were granted
that serious objections might be raised against the Papal dispensation
permitting a marriage with the wife of a deceased brother, yet in her case they
could not apply, for, as her husband well knew, she had been Arthur’s wife only
in name, for their marriage had never been consummated.
For
this disclosure Wolsey and the other advisers of the King were not prepared.
They consulted as to what should now be done. On the 1st of July, just as the
Cardinal was on the point of starting for France, the King caused him to be
told that he was no longer deceived, that he, the Cardinal, seemed to be
calling in question the justice of the King’s “secret business.” Wolsey at once
replied with the assurance that this was not the case. Even on the assumption that
the marriage with Arthur had never been consummated, the fact still remained
that he and Catherine had been married “in facie ecclesiae”; this established
the impediment of open wedlock from which the Papal Bull gave no dispensation.
Therefore the invalidity of the King’s marriage could be asserted as much as
ever, for the dispensation had been insufficient.
After
Wolsey had thus completely identified himself with the King’s cause he started
on his journey to France on the 3rd of July, in order to meet Francis I. at
Amiens, and as representative of his master conclude the treaty with the French
King. On his way from Westminster to Dover he made an attempt to win over, or
rather to circumvent, Archbishop Warham and Bishop
Fisher. To the latter he alleged, with total want of truthfulness, that the
recent steps had been taken only in order to refute the objections to the
validity of the marriage. He had another object in view as well: to blacken
Catherine in the eyes of Fisher, who possessed the Queen’s confidence, by
suggesting that it was a totally unjust supposition on her part that Henry was
aiming at a divorce, and that by her violence and impatience she was thwarting
the good intentions of the King. Wolsey, in acting thus dishonestly, had not
the least suspicion that he himself throughout the whole affair was playing the
part of the duper duped; he was still in entire ignorance of Henry’s ulterior
aims and of the sordid character of the business of which he had made himself
an agent. He therefore believed that he would achieve a masterpiece of
political ability if, when in France, where his mission, besides its main and
avowed task, had also the secret object of cautiously initiating Francis into
the scheme of divorce, he were to pursue, on his own responsibility, the
project of preparing the way for a second marriage at some future time between
Henry and a French Princess, Renee, the daughter of Louis XII. As he remained
in France after the conclusion of the treaty with Francis (16th of August 1527)
up to the middle of September, it is presumable that during that month he set
his plan in motion. He believed that under the circumstances of the hour he
could carry the divorce through before the Pope became aware of it. His
ambitious scheme was nothing less than this: he wished during the continuance
of the imprisonment of Clement VII. to be appointed Papal Vicar-General, with
the fullest conceivable powers, and by means of this delegated authority to
settle the marriage question in Henry’s favour. To secure this appointment he
sent, on the 15th of September 1527, the Protonotary Uberto da Gambara to the Pope.
Meanwhile
Henry VIII himself was about to take steps totally destructive of the schemes
of the Cardinal, who hitherto was under the belief that he held in his hands
the conduct of the whole affair. In the beginning of September Wolsey was
informed that Henry was on the point of sending his secretary Knight to Rome.
Anticipating mischief, he wrote on the 5th of September to the King dissuading
him from this step; nevertheless Knight arrived at Compiegne on the 10th of
September. As Wolsey himself had despatched agents to Rome on the King’s
behalf, he hoped that Knight’s mission would be regarded as superfluous, and
that the next King’s messenger, Christopher Mores, would bring with him his
recall. In order to avoid suspicion, Knight consented to wait for Mores’
arrival; as the latter did not bring with him Knight’s recall, the Cardinal
had, on the 13th of September, to allow the latter to continue his journey to
Rome. To deceive Wolsey, Knight was enjoined to take instructions from him;
therefore the Cardinal gave the King’s secretary the draft of a Bull conferring
on him the appointment of Vicar-General of the Pope. But Wolsey was carefully
kept in ignorance of the real object of Knight's mission. Henry, in fact, had
given the latter a draft of a Bull by which the King should obtain a
dispensation to contract a fresh marriage, and that too either without a
dissolution of his marriage with Catherine—in other words, to commit bigamy—or
after a legal divorce.
Knight’s
mission must have convinced Wolsey that the intention now was to take the
management of the whole affair out of his hands. Now for the first time the
suspicion arose that Anne Boleyn was the person designed to supplant the Queen.
Accordingly he changed his plans and determined to return to England as quickly
as possible, in order to regain that place in the King’s confidence now
imperilled by the secret intrigues of his enemies. Before leaving Compiegne he
addressed, on the 16th of September, together with four other Cardinals, a
letter to the Pope praying him to delegate his authority during the period of
his captivity; then, on the following day, he began his journey to England. On
his first reception at court he at once perceived what a recognized position
Anne Boleyn now held with the King. The Cardinal’s eyes were at last opened to
the real state of things. Then it was that he remained upon his knees long
imploring Henry to depart from his resolution. Bitterly he repented the
willingness with which he had flung himself from the first, under mistaken
suppositions and unconditionally, into the scheme of divorce; but now it was
too late to draw back; he saw that his position and his life depended on this
issue.
The
only point on which Wolsey was able to move Henry was that the latter should at
least at first abstain from the scandalous demand for a dispensation involving
bigamy, to which the Pope, even if he were in the last extremity, could not be
expected to consent. Consequently the King agreed to send Knight a fresh draft
of a dispensation to take the place of that previously given him. But even now
the King was again deceiving Wolsey. While Henry and Wolsey between them drew
up a new draft of dispensation, destined for Knight, the King had already
secretly despatched another draft, of the contents of which Wolsey knew
nothing; moreover, Knight had received a strictly confidential intimation not
to make use of the draft concocted with Wolsey until the secret draft should
prove impracticable. The Bull of dispensation which Henry asked for in order to
contract marriage with Anne Boleyn after divorce from Catherine, was to contain
a clause dispensing from the impediment of affinity in the first degree caused
by his previous illicit and adulterous intercourse with Anne Boleyn’s sister.
Knight
reached Rome in November 1527, but owing to the Pope’s confinement in St.
Angelo he could not gain access to him. Through intermediaries, however, he
received Clement’s assurance that, if he would
withdraw from Rome and wait at Narni, he should
obtain all that he asked for. After the Pope’s liberation Knight went with him
to Orvieto, and here he actually obtained, after some hesitation, the Bull
desired by Henry. It certainly had been revised in form by the Pope and the
Grand Penitentiary Pucci, but in substance was in agreement with Henry’s draft.
The Bull was drawn up on the 17th of December 1527 and sent off on the 23rd. It
was only a conditional Bull dependent on the proof of the invalidity of the
marriage with Catherine. Before this proof was clearly established, the Bull
was absolutely valueless. Its contents were unimpeachable. The only evil
results that might follow from it were that it tended to harden the King’s
determination to procure a divorce, and gave him a hope that Clement would be
ready to give a prompt adhesion to his wishes. The King was all the more prone
to indulge in such expectations as the political situation was highly
favourable to him.
The
Pope, smarting from the deep injuries inflicted on him by the Emperor, was,
together with Francis I, still his ally. The material and moral support
guaranteed to him by France was subsequently of still greater importance. On
his journey home Knight met, near Bologna, an English courier carrying fresh
instructions for him, Gregorio Casale, and the
Protonotary Gambara. He was therefore obliged to
return to Orvieto.
The
instructions contained the above-mentioned draft of dispensation, as jointly
composed by the King and Wolsey, but also a document of much greater
importance, by which Wolsey, in accordance with an original plan of his own,
sought to intervene decisively in the whole train of circumstances. This was
the draft of a Decretal Bull to be signed by the Pope, transferring to Wolsey
the entire adjudication of the case. On the English side five points were
raised to invalidate the dispensation of Julius II of the 26th of December 1503
:—
1. The
Bull states falsely that Henry VIII wished for the marriage with Catherine,
whereas his father, Henry VII, without his son’s knowledge, had procured the
Bull.
2. The
reason adduced for the issue of the dispensation, the maintenance of peace
between England and Spain, was null or at least insufficient, as the two States
had not been previously at war.
3. Henry
VIII was at the time (1503) only just twelve years old, and therefore not yet
capable of a marriage dispensation.
4. The
dispensation had lapsed, for at the time of the consummation of the marriage
one of the persons, between whom peace was to be maintained by this alliance,
Isabella, Queen of Castille, was dead.
5. Henry
VIII had protested against the marriage with Catherine before its consummation,
and thereby had renounced the benefits of the dispensation.
In
the Decretal Bull which Wolsey asked Clement to publish, the Pope was to
declare that these five points, if capable of substantiation, were sufficient
to invalidate the dispensation of Julius II and therewith the marriage itself.
Nothing therefore now remained to be done but to test the soundness of these
five points, and if their validity were established in one single instance
only, then Wolsey, either alone or along with the Illyrian prelate Stafileo, was to have full powers given him to declare null
and void the dispensation of Julius II, and therewith the marriage of Henry and Catherine; for this decision, placed in Wolsey’s
hands, the Papal ratification was to be guaranteed unconditionally and
irrevocably. Never before had such a demand as this of Henry’s been submitted
to a Pope and his spiritual authority.
The
draft of this decretal commission was laid by Knight and Gregorio Casale before the Pope at Orvieto at the end of December.
They appealed to the King’s submissiveness towards the Church and urged that if
the doubt concerning the dispensation of Julius II were not laid to rest there
was the greatest danger in England of a contested succession. Greatly as
Clement appreciated the dangers that threatened England from the failure of a
male succession to the crown, yet it appeared to him impossible to accede to
the immoderate demands of the English envoys. He first of all referred them to
Cardinal Pucci, who was charged with the management of this affair. The envoys
had no greater success in this quarter; an attempt to bribe Pucci failed. The
latter moreover declared, after an examination of the draft, that the Bull as
it then stood could not be granted without bringing indelible disgrace on the
Pope as well as on Henry VIII and Wolsey. The envoys obtained instead a
commission for Wolsey and Stafileo, drawn up by
Pucci, from which the very point was omitted on which Wolsey set the greatest
value, namely, the declaration that the five points laid down, if
substantiated, would suffice to annul the marriage, so that he was also
deprived of the wished-for possibility of a final decision being given in
England. As a matter of fact the plenary powers conferred on Wolsey were thus
made worthless.
Two
fresh envoys were therefore sent to Orvieto, Dr. Stephen Gardiner, Wolsey’s chief secretary and one of the most gifted canonists
in England, and Dr. Edward Fox, with instructions to
obtain the decretal commission in its original form, only, this was no longer
to be drawn up for Wolsey alone or in conjunction with Stafileo,
but a Papal Legate, if possible Campeggio, was to be sent in order to decide
the case together with Wolsey. In the case of the decretal commission being
unobtainable, the envoys were instructed at least to secure a general commission
of the most comprehensive character possible for Wolsey and Campeggio, or even
for Wolsey alone, or for him and Archbishop Warham of
Canterbury. Gardiner and Fox left London on the nth of February 1528, and on
the 21st of March, at Orvieto, met the Pope, now stripped of every vestige of
temporal power. The negotiations began on the 23rd of March and lasted until
the 13th of April. During their progress the English envoys were unceasing in
their efforts to wring from Clement the plenary powers as specified in the
English drafts. Almost daily the Pope and Cardinals held discussions of from
three to four hours’ duration, and on one occasion a conference of five hours
lasted until one in the morning. According to his own reports, Gardiner, even
if he exaggerated a good deal in order to emphasize his own zeal, displayed
towards the Pope the most unblushing arrogance; but he did not succeed thus in
extorting a full consent to the English demands.
The
Pope and the Cardinals were on their guard, and met the importunity of the English
officials with great calmness and self-control. In spite of the insolence of
Gardiner’s demands, Clement never for a moment allowed himself to give way to a
hasty expression. He as well as the Cardinals were firm in their rejection of
terms which they could not and dared not concede.
The
Pope was not shaken even by the intervention of Francis I, who, in a special
letter, gave his advice on the affair of Henry VIII. There is no justification
for the charge then brought against Clement by the English party, and renewed
in our own days by recent historians, that throughout the whole matter he was
actuated entirely by political motives, that fear of the Emperor was the only
ground on which he resisted the claims of England. The fear of the Emperor was a
catchword constantly in men’s mouths, and it was often used by the Pope himself
as an excuse for his lack of acquiescence in the English demands. But in this
particular case this was not the ruling motive ; that was to be found in his
conscientious regard for the duty of the chief ruler of the Church. What
Gardiner had at last perforce to content himself with were the Bulls of
commission of the 13th of April and the 8th of June 1528 respectively, which,
in order to leave an opening for two possibilities, were drawn up in similar
terms for Wolsey and Warham as well as for Wolsey and
Campeggio. The first Bull was despatched at once on the 13th of April, the
second, also dated from Orvieto, the 13th of April, with the commission for the
two Cardinals, was not officially executed until the 8th of June, at Viterbo.
As the mission of Campeggio to England was a certainty, the second Bull only
was made use of. By this Bull the Cardinals received full powers thoroughly to
examine whatever could be brought forward for or against the marriage of Henry
and Catherine, and especially for or against the dispensation of Julius II.;
then, after hearing both sides, to take summary proceedings, to declare the
dispensation and the marriage severally, according to the just circumstances of
the case and their convictions, to be valid and legal, or invalid and null, if
judgment should be called for by one of the parties. In case of invalidity, in
the same summary proceedings, the decree of divorce was to be declared and
liberty be given to the King and Queen to contract a fresh marriage, but in
such wise that, if it seemed good to the Cardinals, the children of the first
marriage, as well as those of the second, should be declared legitimate, and
their legitimacy protected from all question under the usual punishments and
censures of the Church.
The
two Cardinals were jointly delegated for this examination and adjudication; the
English envoys, however, had carried the clause that either of the two would be
justified in carrying on the proceedings alone, if the other were either
unwilling or prevented by death or by some other just cause. Against the
procedure of the Cardinals no objection, no appeal would be admissible; on the
contrary, they were the representatives of the full and unlimited Papal
authority. But the Bull did not contain that which for Wolsey had become the
essential thing. There was no guarantee that the Pope would confirm the
decision of the Cardinals; there was no specification of the ground on which
the invalidity of the dispensation and of the marriage in the given instances
was to be pronounced.
When
Fox returned to England with these results he was received on the 3rd of May by
Henry and Anne Boleyn with great delight; it seems that both were of opinion
that the goal was now almost reached. Wolsey, on the contrary, who saw deeper,
knew that from the results brought back by Fox nothing was gained for the final
decision of the case in England; but on closer reflection he concealed his
dissatisfaction in order at least to gain time and postpone as far as possible
the downfall that he knew to be inevitable. He therefore immediately made a
last effort to obtain the Decretal Bull by means of Gardiner, who had remained
behind in Italy. In connection with this scheme Wolsey, on the 10th of May
1528, arranged a curious scene.
In
the presence of Henry VIII, Fox, and several of the King’s procurators, he gave
utterance to the solemn declaration : Although no other subject was so devoted
to his prince as he was to his King, and though, on that account, his
obedience, truth, and loyalty to Henry were so steadfast that he would
willingly sacrifice goods, blood, and life to satisfy his “just desires,” yet
he felt that his duty towards his God was greater, before whom he must once for
all give an account of his actions, and therefore in this matter he would
rather incur the King’s gravest displeasure, rather allow himself to be torn
limb from limb, than do any act of injustice, or that the King should demand of
him in this question anything that justice could not sanction. On the contrary,
if the Bull (of Julius II) should be pronounced sufficient, he would declare it
so to be. It was a pure piece of acting, got up simply in order that Fox, who
was taken in by it, and on the following day was to send Wolsey’s new
instructions to Gardiner, should send an account of it to the latter, who would
in turn relate the incident to the Pope. In this way Clement would be brought
round to such an assurance of Wolsey’s conscientiousness and love of justice
that he could have no further objections to granting him the Decretal Bull.
The
instructions sent by Fox to Gardiner on the nth of May were to the effect that
he must carry through in any possible way the secret execution of the Decretal
Bull. It must be represented to the Pope that Wolsey’s esteem and influence
with the King, and therewith the esteem attaching to
the Holy See itself, are greatly dependent on the granting of such a Bull. In
order to remove the Pope’s objections Gardiner and Casale were instructed solemnly to declare and swear in Wolsey’s name that the latter
would never on the ground of this Bull begin the process of divorce, nor show
the document to a single person or in any way make use of it so as to expose
the Holy See to the least prejudice or scandal. He would only show it to the
King, and then keep it in his own private custody simply as a pledge of the
Pope’s fatherly disposition towards Henry, as a token of personal confidence
in himself, as a means of maintaining and strengthening his position in the
King’s esteem with a view to the best interests of the Pope. There is no doubt
that these solemn promises were only attempts to deceive, and that they would
not have been kept if the Pope had committed the blunder of placing
unreservedly such a compromising document in the hands of so unscrupulous a
diplomatist as Wolsey; for, if the promised secrecy were observed, the Bull, on
the whole, would be useless.
After
repeated and lengthy negotiations and much pressure from the English envoys,
Gardiner was at last able, on the nth of June 1528, to report to Henry VIII
that Campeggio’s mission to England was settled and that the Pope had promised
to send the Decretal Bull by him. In granting the Bull, Clement had carried
consideration for Henry and Wolsey to its furthest limits, but he had taken the
precaution to do so under such conditions that in reality it could never be
anything more than what Wolsey, in asking for it, had pretended it to be. The
latter saw to his great disgust that he had, in the strictest sense of the
words, been taken in. The object, put forward by Wolsey as a pretext, that the
Decretal Bull was only a means of protecting his position as much as possible
and proving to the King that he had done all that lay in his power to carry out
his wishes, was attained when Campeggio showed the document and read it aloud
to the King and Chancellor. But the misuse of the Bull, in spite of all
Wolsey’s promises, could only be prevented by Campeggio keeping the document in
his own hands and destroying it at the right moment. The contents of this
document can only be conjectured, but it must have been of such a character as
to have made the divorce between Henry and Catherine possible and even an
accomplished fact, had not the Pope entirely withheld it from the free disposal
of Henry and Wolsey. Even if Clement, in granting this illusory document, which
confirmed the demands of Henry to their full extent, was guilty of incredible
weakness, yet he was acting under the belief that the grievous blunder thus
committed could be repaired by depriving the Bull of any possible practical
use, and that he could avoid all difficulties and misunderstandings, by
declaring firmly and clearly that he could never have allowed it to be put into
execution, since, as the guardian of faith and truth, he must have repudiated
its contents.
Campeggio,
who entered on his mission in July 1528, was instructed to prolong his journey
as much as possible, to defer crossing the channel as long as he could, and even
when in England to do his utmost to protract the process of the divorce, and if
possible to bring about a reconciliation between the King and Queen, but in no
case was he to pronounce a final verdict without fresh and express faculties
from the Pope; for it was hoped that in the meantime God’s saving grace would
perhaps incline the heart of the King to abstain from asking the Pope to grant
what could only be granted with injustice, danger, and scandal. Campeggio
reached London on the 7th of October, suffering severely from gout. Although
the court rejoiced, his reception by the people was cold and even unfriendly.
He appeared, among other aspects, to be the harbinger of a closer approximation
to France. Men said openly that he came to be the ruin of England and to
complete a deed of injustice. After several interviews with Wolsey he had his
first audience of Henry on the 22nd of October. On the very next day the King
in his impatience came to Campeggio, and in a long conversation announced his
inflexible resolve to separate from Catherine. He urged strongly that in order
to facilitate this step the Queen should spontaneously renounce her rights and
retire into a convent. Campeggio and Wolsey were on the following day to begin
to use all their arts of persuasion on the unfortunate woman. Before seeing her
they were both received by the King; in this audience, held on the 24th of
October, Campeggio read both the Bulls, of the 13th of April and the 8th of
June respectively, in which the examination of the case was entrusted to the
two Cardinals. Afterwards Henry expressed a wish to see the Decretal Bull;
Campeggio showed it to him and read it aloud, but did not let it leave his
hands, nor did anyone see it except the King and Wolsey. If no other order came
from the Pope the document, after it had achieved its object, was to disappear.
After this the Cardinals repaired to the Queen, who received them with deep
distrust; the proposal that she should betake herself to a cloister was refused
decisively on this as well as on a second occasion on the 27th of October.
Nothing would have been gained even if she had consented, for the question of
the validity of the marriage was still open. That Catherine should have clung
to her rights is quite intelligible. A Spaniard, a daughter of the Catholic
King, she certainly could not have admitted to all the world that she had been
anointed and crowned unlawfully, that for four-and-twenty years she had been
her husband’s concubine, while in her inmost heart she believed in the validity
of her marriage. She therefore was convinced that she durst not endanger, by an
act of surrender, the right of her only child to the succession to the throne.
Wolsey,
much dissatisfied with the course things had taken up to this time, made yet
another attempt to obtain the Pope’s permission that the Decretal Bull should
be shown also to the King’s advisers, for in the instructions to Gregorio Casale of the 1st of November 1528 he wrote down the
deliberate falsehood that it was the Pope’s intention that the Bull should be
used for the information of Cardinal Campeggio and the King’s councillors. The
Pope, who now clearly perceived how imminent the danger was that the English
double-dealing might lead to some misuse of the Bull, bitterly bewailed, when Casale presented to him Wolsey’s demands, his previous
complaisance, accused the English Cardinal of falsehood, and declared that if
it were possible he would willingly lose a finger of his hand to undo what he
had done. All Casale’s further representations were
useless, even his suggestion of the evil results which would follow on the
Pope’s refusal, the apostasy of the King and with him that of the country. But
Clement now stood firm and disclaimed the responsibility for the effects upon
England of Henry’s action; he had done all that he could do, reconcilable with
his conscience, to serve the King. According to a later report from Casale to Wolsey of the 17th of December 1528, he
repeatedly declared that he had drawn up the Decretal Bull in order that it
might be shown to the King and after that burned forthwith.
If
from the date of Campeggio’s arrival in October 1528 until far on in the
following year nothing essential was done, not even the Court of Justice itself
being constituted, this delay was certainly in correspondence with the Legate’s
intentions. It was, however, on the whole, occasioned by Wolsey’s persevering
efforts to guard the decision to be given in England from any uncertainty
regarding its legality and to be forearmed against any appeal, before the suit
began. In order to secure this he was bent either on obtaining the Papal
confirmation beforehand or on so tying the Pope’s hands that it would be
impossible for him to refuse his ratification.
An
incident highly unfavourable to Henry’s case and at the same time the cause of
further delays was the sudden appearance in England of a hitherto unknown Brief
of Dispensation of the 26th of December 1503, a copy of which Catherine had
procured from Spain from Charles . and produced, probably, in November 1528. By
this document Henry’s plea against the validity of the dispensation resting on
the phraseology of the Bull of Dispensation was shaken. This Brief, auxiliary
to the Bull of Dispensation, differed from the latter in certain particulars.
In the Bull the actual consummation of the marriage of Catherine with Arthur
was left open to doubt, by the addition of the word “perhaps,” while in the
Brief this word was absent, the consummation of the marriage thus being taken
for granted; again, in the Brief, after stating the grounds on which the
dispensation was given, the words were also added, “and on other definite
grounds.” Wolsey exerted himself to render the Brief innocuous in two ways. He
first tried to obtain possession of the original, the Queen herself being
treacherously induced, as though it were in her own interest, to obtain this
from the Emperor. As this attempt failed, an endeavour was then made to get the
Pope to declare that the Brief was a forgery; this was the main object of the
mission of Bryan and Vannes at the end of November 1528, who were followed by
Knight and Bennet on the same errand. The dangerous illness of Clement VII in
the beginning of 1529, when his death seemed not improbable, once more aroused
Wolsey’s longing for the tiara and in Henry the hope that all he wished for
might be obtained without trouble; but the progress of negotiations was thereby
suspended. On his recovery the Pope declared definitely that he could not
pronounce the Brief to be a forgery.
Even
Campeggio felt so certain of the reports from various quarters of the Pope’s
death that on the 4th of February 1529 he discontinued his despatch of reports
to Rome. He did not again resume them until the 18th when he
addressed a letter to the Secretary of State, Jacopo Salviati. This document,
written for the most part in cipher, is in many respects of great importance
and throws a very interesting light on the “whole tragic wretchedness of the
subject.” It relates how Wolsey with clasped hands adjured the Legate to co-operate
with him so that the Pope, at any price, might give a decision favourable to
the King, as in no other way could the impending calamities be kept back. “And
in fact,” Campeggio continues, “so far as I can see this passion of the King’s
is a most extraordinary thing. He sees nothing, he thinks of nothing but his
Anne; he cannot be without her for an hour, and it moves one to pity to see how
the King’s life, the stability and downfall of the whole country, hang upon
this one question.”
Wolsey
made through Gardiner one more attempt to obtain from the Pope an extension of
the legatine powers so as to include absolute power of decision; but Clement
now stood firm against any further concessions. In the meantime also Charles V.
had intervened at Rome on behalf of Catherine, with such success that already
in April the question had arisen of revoking the powers given to the Legates in
England, and transferring the whole case to Rome. In presence of this danger
Wolsey found it advisable to abstain from pushing any further his unattainable
demands, and to open the suit and bring it as quickly as possible to an end.
On
the 31st of May the court of the two Legates was constituted, and the King and
Queen were cited to appear on the 18th of June. Catherine appeared on the first
summons only in order to protest against the tribunal. At the next sitting, on
the 21st of June, at which the King and Queen were present, the latter repeated
her protest, threw herself at the King’s feet to entreat him once more to have
compassion, declared that she would lodge an appeal with the Pope, and
withdrew, never to appear again before the Legates’ court. She was consequently
declared to have acted in contumaciam,
and the case proceeded without her with great rapidity and on the pleading of
one side only. In a cipher despatch to Salviati, Campeggio complained : “In the
house of a foreigner one cannot do all one wishes; the case has no defence. A
king, especially in his own house, has no lack of procurators, attornies, witnesses, and even laity who are hankering
after his grace and favour. The Bishops of Rochester and St. Asaph have spoken
and written in support of the marriage, also some men of learning have done the
same, but in fear and on their own responsibility; no one comes forward any
longer in the Queen’s name.” The only person who championed the unhappy
princess with unfaltering courage was John Fisher, the saintly Bishop of
Rochester. The marriage of Henry and Catherine, so he declared in the fifth
sitting, on the 28th of June, was indissoluble, no power could break their
union; for this truth he was ready, like John the Baptist, to lay down his
life. Contrasted with the diplomacy and temporizing of almost all the rest,
this declaration roused twofold sympathy. But all Fisher’s determination was
powerless to effect anything. Notwithstanding Campeggio’s objections, the case
was hurried on with precipitate speed and the decision was already looked for
on the 23rd of July. This, however, Campeggio prevented, for in the sitting of
that date he adjourned the court during the Roman law vacations until the 1st
of October. The sittings were never resumed, and in this way Wolsey was
defeated.
It
was high time for the case to be transferred to Rome; there had been too much
delay. Not until Clement VII felt that he was strongly backed by his alliance
with Charles V did he urge him to take decided steps. A Consistory of the 16th
of July 1529 determined that on the ground of the Queen’s appeal the case
should be brought before the judicial court of the Rota at Rome. This did away
with the powers of the English Legates. On the 19th of September Campeggio had
his farewell audience of Henry and took leave of him on friendly terms. His
journey was delayed by an attack of gout; he had intended to leave Dover, where
he had been since the 8th of October, on the 26th of that month, but before he
could do so he had to submit to treatment of a most disrespectful kind; his
luggage was searched on the pretext that he might be taking to Rome treasure
and compromising letters from Wolsey; the real reason, at all events, was that
it was hoped in this way still to get possession of the Decretal Bull. As this,
however, had been long since destroyed, this inquisition was without result.
Before
Campeggio left, the news of Wolsey’s downfall had already reached him. The
latter was now paying for the miscarriage of the divorce suit; by the 9th of
October the proceedings against him had begun; on the 16th he was called on to
deliver up the Great Seal. Robbed of his property and forbidden the court,
again for a brief moment appearing to be restored to his sovereign’s favour, he
was finally charged with high treason. Arrested at Cawood on the 4th of
November 1530, he died on the 29th of that month at Leicester Abbey, a house of
Augustinian canons, on his way to London, where, it may well be, the supreme
penalty awaited him.
Together
with Henry VIII, whose adulterous passion would submit to no check, Wolsey, by
his base servility to the King, undoubtedly shares a great portion of the guilt
of the severance of England from the Church. He himself passed judgment on his
conduct in the words spoken shortly before his death: “If I had served God as
diligently as I have done my King, He would not have given me over in my grey
hairs. But this is the just reward I must receive, for in my diligent pains and
studies to serve the King, I looked not to my duty towards God, but only to the
gratification of the King’s wishes.”
In
the light of history Wolsey stands out as the powerful statesman to whom the
England of Henry VIII was indebted for her greatness and importance, but also
as the pliant and unconscientious prelate who, by his unworthy obsequiousness
in subserving the King’s shameful desires, became in a degree responsible for
the unhappy rupture in the Church which he wished to avoid. Too willing
courtiers and servile diplomatists, even when clothed in ecclesiastical garb,
have in all ages only been a cause of misfortune to the Church.
After
Wolsey’s fall, Anne Boleyn, as the French Ambassador clearly pointed out,
wielded through her uncle and father an influence in the Cabinet as unlimited
as that which she had hitherto for long held over her suitor, the King. There
now appeared gradually on the scene another counsellor not less ambitious and
not less unscrupulous than Wolsey, who was ready to shrink from nothing that
could serve the purposes of the lustful king. This was Thomas Cranmer, the
domestic chaplain of the Boleyns. He eagerly pursued
the scheme of procuring from the most famous universities of Europe opinions
favourable to the divorce. In England the same attempt was made by the issue
from the press of writings unfit for publication. In France and Italy recourse
was had to bribery.
At
the same time Henry made a fresh effort to win over to his side the Emperor as
well as the Pope. In the beginning of 1530 he sent Anne Boleyn’s father,
recently raised to the earldom of Wiltshire, to Bologna with the ostensible
mission of conferring with the Pope and Emperor on the general peace and
confederation against the Turks; in reality he was sent in the interests of the
divorce. He was to lay before the Emperor strong arguments against the validity
of Henry’s marriage with Catherine, but Charles made short work of his
representations. He was not more successful with the Pope, who eight days
before Wiltshire’s arrival had, by a Brief of the 7th of March 1530,
transferred the matter of the English marriage to Capisucchi,
Auditor of the Rota. A Brief of the 21st of March prohibited anything being
said or written against the validity of the marriage. The presence of the
English Ambassador was made use of to deliver to him the citation summoning
Henry to appear at Rome before the tribunal of the Rota. Yet the Pope consented
to a postponement of the case, if Henry would promise in the meantime not to
make any alteration in the state of things in England, and the King accepted
the offer upon this condition.
In
the meantime the opinions of the universities, extorted by force and cunning,
were coming in. Henry’s delight at the favourable replies, many of which he was
particularly successful in obtaining from French seats of learning, was
diminished by the fact that other universities declared that the dissolution of
his marriage with Catherine was only justifiable on the ground of the
consummation of her marriage with Arthur, which the Queen denied on oath and
the King was unable to prove. The hope also that the favourable opinions of the
universities would move the Pope to give way proved idle. It now occurred to
Henry VIII that a meeting of Parliament might bring pressure to bear on the
Holy See. On the 13th of July 1530 an address to the Pope, composed at Henry’s
instigation, was issued by the English prelates and nobles. In it, with a
reference to the opinions of the universities, the demand was put forward that
Clement without delay should pronounce the dissolution of the King’s marriage;
with this was coupled the threat that otherwise England would settle the
question unaided. The Pope’s answer, of the 27th of September, was a calm
refusal of this demand. His decision would be given with such speed as was
consonant with justice; neither the King nor his subjects could demand any
other treatment.
About
this time the English envoys seem again to have importuned the Pope with a
demand for his sanction of a double marriage. Gregorio Casale,
on the 18th of September 1530, sent a report on the matter giving the
impression that the proposal had come from the Pope, and that the latter was
inclined towards such a solution of the difficulty. Casale represents himself as having, “with an astonishing semblance of sanctimoniousness,” replied that he durst not write in such
terms to the King, as he feared that the Royal conscience, which it was the
main object in this whole affair to pacify, would not consent to such an issue.
How
unreliable this account was is shown by the despatch of William Bennet, in any
case a more trustworthy man, sent to Henry on the 27th of October 1530. Soon
after his arrival Clement had engaged him in conversation on the subject of a
dispensation to have two wives, but his remarks were so ambiguous that Bennet
suspected that the Pope either intended to draw from Henry a recognition of the
unlimited nature of the dispensing power—since a dispensation to contract a
bigamous marriage was at least no easier matter than the previous one for the
marriage with Catherine—or that he wished in this way to keep the King in check
in order to gain time. “I asked Clement VII,” Bennet continued, “if he were
certain that such a dispensation was admissible, and he answered that he was
not; but he added that a distinguished theologian had told him that in his
opinion the Pope might in this case dispense in order to avert a greater evil;
he intended, however, to go into the matter more fully with his council. And
indeed the Pope has just now informed me that his council (known as the
Consistory of Cardinals) had declared to him plainly that such a dispensation
was not possible.” If Clement had thus really hesitated for a time over the
possibility of a dispensation for a dual marriage, his uncertainty was soon
brought to an end by this categorical denial of its admissibility, and there
are not the remotest grounds for speaking of a parallel between Clement’s attitude and that of Luther towards double
wedlock.
On
the 6th of December 1530 Henry VIII wrote a letter to the Pope containing
violent complaints and taunting him with complete subserviency to the Emperor.
Cardinal Accolti was instructed to send a reply.
“As,” said Clement, “we stand between the Defender of the Faith on one hand and
the Advocate of the Church on the other, no suspicion of partiality ought to be
raised against us, since we are governed by the same sentiment of affection
towards the one as towards the other. Besides, we call on God as our witness
and give the surety of our pontifical word that the Emperor has never asked of
us anything except simple justice. For he said to us that if the Queen’s cause
was unjust it was not his intention to uphold it, rather must he in that case
cast the burden of the matter on those who were the means of bringing such a
marriage about. But if the Queen was in the right he would then be doing
shameful despite to his honour if he allowed her to be unlawfully oppressed.
Whether the English envoys have demanded justice from us in like way is a
matter of which the King cannot be ignorant.” The Pope protested that his
decision would be given only in accordance with justice.
A
Papal Brief of the 5th of January 1531 renewed the edict of the 7th of March
1530 containing the threat of ecclesiastical punishments and censures for Henry
VIII and any female who should contract marriage with him while the case was
under adjudication by the Rota. Henry, who had now no further hope of bending
Clement to his will, took, without further delay, the first step on the road
leading inevitably to the total separation of Englandfrom the Holy See. A general convocation of the English clergy, held in the middle
of January 1531, was called upon to acknowledge the King as supreme head of the
Church and clergy of England, to which declaration convocation, now forced to
abandon their previous opposition, added at least the clause “so far as the law
of Christ permits.”
The
inquiry set on foot in Rome made no advance of any importance in the year 153I.
Henry neither appeared in person on his citation nor did he send a
representative, but he protested through his Ambassador and Dr. Carne, who had been sent to Rome as “Excusator” for
his non-appearance and to demand that the case should again be remitted to
England. The proposal, by way of compromise, emanating from Rome that the case
should be transferred to some neutral locality, such as Cambrai, was rejected
both by the English King and by the Emperor as Catherine’s representative.
Henry then proceeded to discontinue the recognition of Catherine as Queen de
facto, for in August 1531 he banished her from court, while the apartments
formerly belonging to her were occupied by Anne Boleyn.
On
the 25th of January 1532, Clement, according to an agreement with the Emperor,
addressed a Brief to Henry containing earnest but temperate remonstrances
against his course of action and exhorting him to recognize Catherine as his
lawful wife and to dismiss Anne Boleyn until the decision in the case was
given. This Brief was delivered to the King on the 13th of May, but produced no
effect. On the contrary, in the spring of this year he took another and more
important step hostile to the Holy See, for he carried an Act of Parliament
abolishing annates, the execution of which was left to the King’s discretion.
At the end of October 1532 a meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I took
place at Boulogne. The former hoped at that time that Francis would succeed in
inducing the Pope to lay aside his opposition to the divorce. France in that
case might depend on the support of England in the event of a war with the
Emperor.
Francis
entered into this plan. He sent Cardinals Gramont and Tournon to Rome with instructions to threaten the
apostasy of the Kings of France and England if the Pope did not assist the one
in his schemes for the acquisition of the Duchy of Milan and the other in his
marriage with Anne Boleyn. In consequence, however, of Charles’s successful
campaign against the Turks, the terms of this message were considerably toned
down. Before leaving Bologna the Pope once more addressed an admonition to
Henry which was also couched throughout in gentle language. This was occasioned
by the elevation of Anne Boleyn on the 1st of September 1532 to the rank of
Marchioness of Pembroke, and her journey in company with Henry to Calais in
October, when she was presented to Francis I as the future Queen. The Pope
threatened the adulterous couple with excommunication if they did not separate
before the expiration of a month and Henry did not return to his legitimate
consort; at the same time he renewed all former enactments against attempts to
procure a divorce in England and the marriage with Anne Boleyn, and declared
afresh the nullity of all such proceedings. Henry retorted by the strict
prohibition “of the publication of anything whatever against the Royal
authority if coming from Rome, or any attempts to hinder the execution of those
Acts passed in the last Parliament for the removal of abuses abounding among
the clergy.”
On
the 25th of January 1533 Henry VIII was secretly married to Anne Boleyn, whose
pregnancy as affecting the future child’s right of succession made further
delay impossible, although of the final decision regarding the dissolution of
his marriage with Catherine not a syllable had hitherto been uttered. On the
12th of April (Easter) Anne Boleyn appeared publicly for the first time as his
consort.
In
the meantime the death of Archbishop Warham of
Canterbury, in August 1532, was of great advantage to Henry, for he was thus
enabled to appoint a successor to the see on whose entire subserviency he could
depend. His choice fell on Thomas Cranmer, who had become his secretary through
Anne Boleyn’s influence. He was “an obsequious servant and an intriguer,
fertile in ideas, whose services were also at the disposal of his master’s
wishes.” Although for long alienated at heart from the Church, this immoral
priest succeeded in deceiving the Pope as to his position, so that after
receiving the confirmation of his appointment on the 30th of March 1533, he was
able to be consecrated. In him Henry and Anne found a worthy instrument ready
to carry out all their wishes. Henry, in previous collusion with Cranmer, went
through the farce of a judgment on his marriage. Cranmer cited Henry and
Catherine before his court at Dunstable, where the proceedings began on the
10th of May. Catherine, however, only signed two protests, for she refused to
recognize Cranmer as judge, and took no further notice of his proceedings. On
the 23rd of May Cranmer pronounced the marriage of Henry with Catherine null
and void, and on the 28th he declared the marriage with Anne Boleyn valid.
Thereupon the latter was, on June the 1st, crowned with great pomp as Queen.
On
being informed of these proceedings, Clement VII hesitated in characteristic
fashion for some time, and then at last, on the nth of July 1533, he gave
sentence against Henry, pronounced the marriage with Anne Boleyn null and void,
and the offspring, if any, of the union illegitimate, and laid the King under
the greater excommunication. But even yet a time of grace was given him up to
the end of September. The excommunication was not to take full effect until he
showed his final disobedience in retaining Anne Boleyn and refusing to restore
Catherine to her rightful place as Queen and wife. Cardinal Tournon succeeded in obtaining from Clement a further respite of a month from the 26th
of September. The latter hoped, it would seem, that a reconciliation might be
brought about, although all hope of one had for long been abandoned, and
consented, on his meeting Francis I at Marseilles, to a yet further
postponement to the end of November at that King’s request and out of regard
for the new English envoys whose arrival was expected. The mission, headed by
Gardiner, treated Clement, to the great disgust of Francis, with extreme
insolence and demanded the withdrawal of the sentence against Henry. To the
Pope’s friendly proposal that the whole case should be reheard at Avignon by
special Legates, on condition that Henry recognized the Papal authority and
promised to accept the final decision, Gardiner replied that he had no powers.
On the 7th of November 1533 the English envoys presented to the Pope Henry’s
appeal to a council.
In
the session of Parliament opened on the 15th of January 1534 Henry passed a
series of resolutions of an anti-Papal tendency; the annates and other payments
to Rome were finally abolished; the power of jurisdiction hitherto exercised by
the Pope was transferred to the King; the bishoprics were to be filled by
capitular election, which, however, was to be determined in favour of the
person chosen by the King. A further Act contained a declaration against the
“usurped authority of the Bishop of Rome,” as the Pope henceforward was to be
designated. By the Act of Royal Succession the marriage with Catherine also was
declared null from the beginning and the Princess Mary illegitimate, while on the
other hand the children of Anne alone were in the rightful succession to the
throne. The sanguinary measures against the opponents of Henry’s policy began
with the trial of the “Maid of Kent”; the execution of this nun and her
fellow-sufferers opened up a period which lasted throughout the following
thirteen years of Henry’s reign and may well be described as a “reign of terror.”
Almost
simultaneously with Henry’s last step, so long dreaded by the Roman Curia,
towards severing the bonds which for a thousand years had linked England with
the Church and the Papal authority, came the final decision in the Rota on the
question of the divorce. If the Pope, hoping that the King’s passion would cool
down with time, had previously carried compliance to too great a length and
repeatedly arrested the course of true justice, while also exposing himself by
his imperturbable silence to the unjust reproaches of the English envoys, there
was one thing still remaining which he would not sacrifice at any cost, namely,
the sanctity of the marriage bond. Even at the risk of losing England to the
Church he withstood the tyrannical king on this point from the consciousness of
a higher duty. After long and thorough deliberation Clement, on the 24th of
March 1534, pronounced in secret Consistory the final sentence, in which the
marriage with Catherine was declared valid and lawful and the King bound in
duty again to receive and honour the unhappy woman as his wife. As a rejoinder
thereto Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell now proceeded to carry out without
scruple the recent Parliamentary enactments. Those who, like Sir Thomas More
and Bishop Fisher of Rochester, refused the new oath of the Royal succession,
containing by tacit implication a recognition of the King’s supremacy over the
Church, fell victims to the tyrant’s wrath. The severity of Henry’s action
surprised his people, who had not anticipated so extreme a crisis, and in a
credulous optimism had hoped that the storm would soon pass over. In addition
there was the unfortunate circumstance that the exceptional position long held
by Wolsey as Chancellor and Legate had habituated men’s minds to the
combination in one person of the highest temporal and spiritual power.
The
boundless pusillanimity of the majority of the clergy was fatal. The full
significance was now made clear of the principle of the supreme authority of
the English Crown in matters spiritual which was involved in the so-called
statute of Praemunire passed as long ago as 1365. If so learned a man as Thomas
More held erroneous and perverted views on the Primacy until closer study
brought him to the light, we can measure the extent to which such views were
current among the majority of Englishmen. The oppressive measures of Henry,
unflinchingly carried out, did the rest. When, in the summer of 1534, the oath
was tendered to the whole of the secular and regular clergy, abjuring the Papal
and acknowledging the Royal supremacy over the Church, almost all submitted.
The Observants of the Franciscan Order were conspicuous in their resistance,
but among the secular clergy the threat of the confiscation of their benefices
had for the most part the desired effect.
When
Clement VII died on the 25th of September 1534, the English schism had become
an accomplished fact. The Parliament and most of the clergy were in complete
subjection to the King, who now held the temporal and spiritual authority
combined, and had raised his mistress to the throne. If Henry, in dragging down
the English Church to a state of schism in an outburst of despotic caprice and
adulterous passion, had not at first thought of more inward revolutions in
faith and worship, yet assuredly it was only a matter of time that by the
further exercise of the arbitrary power of the sovereign, that Church should be
transformed into a community based on principles of Protestantism.
CHAPTER XV.
The
Protestant Revolt in Scandinavia and Switzerland. —Heretical Movements among
the Latin Races.
The
separation of the Scandinavian kingdoms from the centre of Christian unity had
a close affinity with the same movement in England. In the former case as in
the latter the momentous change originated with and was accomplished by the
despotic authority of the Crown. One feature, however, differentiated the two;
while Henry VIII was an opponent of the teaching of Luther, the latter was
encouraged by all the means in their power by Frederick I of Denmark and
Gustavus Wasa of Sweden.
That
the overthrow of the ancient Church among the vigorous peoples of the
Scandinavian kingdoms was carried out in a comparatively short space of time is
more easily understood if we reflect that Christianity was of late growth in
those regions and that, lying at the furthermost bounds of the sphere of Papal
authority, they felt but feebly the influence of the Holy See. Other
circumstances leading up to an apostasy and making it easier were the secular
lives of so many of the clergy, the great riches of the Church exciting the covetousness
of needy kings, and last, but not least, the deep implication of the episcopate
in political affairs.
In
order to ward off the dangers threatening the Catholic religion, the bishops of
Denmark had inserted in the capitulation on the election of the new King,
formerly Duke Frederick of Holstein, not merely a promise to protect “Holy
Church and her servants,” but also the express stipulation never to permit a
“heretic, whether a follower of Luther or others, to spread his teaching
privately or publicly” in his kingdom. The capitulation of the 3rd of August
1523 established further that only Danish nobles were to be appointed to
bishoprics, only Danish subjects to benefices, and that no foreigner—thus not
even the Pope—should dare take proceedings against Danish prelates, or
pronounce any decision in Rome in connection with the Danish episcopate on any
ecclesiastical matter. These decrees can only be partially explained and
excused on the ground of the abuses in the Roman Curia, but they shot far beyond
the mark; indeed, they opened the road to a Danish National Church on the lines
of the Gallican, and that at a moment when it was of vital importance that the
ties of Church unity should not be relaxed From this time onwards the
spirituality were compelled, in their opposition to the Protestant teaching
already permeating Denmark, to seek their only support in the nobles and the
Crown. That no reliance could be placed on either was, only too quickly, to be
shown.
As
soon as King Frederick I felt himself secure on his throne, he began with great
caution and shrewd calculation to take steps prejudicial to the Church. He
broke his oath and gave assistance to the Protestant movement; on the 23rd of
October 1526 he appointed as his chaplain Hans Tausen,
a Knight Hospitaller who had broken his vows. At the Diet at Odense in November
of the same year he demanded that the fees on presentation to livings paid to
the Papal treasury, as well as the annates, should in future be spent on the
defences of the kingdom. The Royal Council agreed, and, as it seems, the
Bishops also, who hoped to save the main position by making concessions. Their
endeavours to win over the nobility through a “questionable servility” to take
part against Luther’s “unchristian teaching” also came to nothing, and all
further compliance proved useless. The King extended his protection to the
Protestants in an increasing degree, tolerated their violence towards
Catholics, and filled vacant sees with creatures of his own, who were neither
consecrated, nor acknowledged by the Pope. At the Diet at Copenhagen in 1530
upwards of one-and-twenty Lutheran preachers appeared and presented as their
Confession of Faith forty-three articles containing passionate and injurious
attacks on Catholics. The Catholic prelates, who were accompanied by their
ablest theologians, in particular by the Carmelite Paulus Helia,
a noted disputant, raised bitter complaints of their unjust treatment. They
appealed to the election capitulation, and demanded the suppression of the Protestant
movement. It was all in vain. Frederick I. came forward openly on the side of
the Lutheran preachers and declared that throughout the kingdom “he who had
grace” should have permission to teach.
Under
cover of the King’s favours the Protestants in Copenhagen and other places took
possession by force of churches and convents. A further impetus was given to
the Lutheran cause by the unsuccessful attempt of Christian II, who had
ostensibly become reconciled to the Church, to recover his kingdom. After the
death of Frederick I (10th of April 1533) an interregnum ensued in the hands of
the nobles and bishops, who deferred the election of a new king. While this
lasted the majority in the Royal Council who were still Catholic tried to
restore the Church to her ancient rights, but the attempt was a complete
failure from the beginning, for the higher clergy thought more of power and
property than of the old faith. Although the recess of the Diet in June 1533
afforded legitimate opportunity for strenuous action against the preachers, the
bishops showed no energy. Therefore the Lutheran agitation, even if not quite
openly, was able to pursue its course.
Almost
at the same time as Denmark, Sweden was torn from the Catholic Church. Here
also the decisive steps were taken by the Crown; Gustavus Wasa knew that the introduction of Lutheran teaching was the surest method of
breaking down the power of the bishops and improving his scanty revenues from
Church property. Although Clement VII. showed a very conciliatory spirit, and
at the end of 1525 confirmed Johann Magni in the
administration of the Archbishopric of Upsala until the affair of Trolle should be settled, the King gave powerful support to
everyone who showed hostility to Catholicism; members of religious orders
especially who were disloyal to their vows could be sure of his protection. At
the same time, on the plea of the “revolutionary axiom that necessity knows no
law, human or divine,” he set to work, by a system of open spoliation, to
destroy the material foundations of the ancient Church.
It
was a circumstance of great advantage to the King that five sees (Upsala, Strengnas, Vesteras, Skara, and
Abo) were uncanonically occupied and that Bishop Ingemar of Vexjö was aged and compliant, so that the noted
Bishop Johann Brask of Linkoping, “the cleverest and
most learned Swede of his day and the truest friend of his country,” stood
alone. Yet the majority of the nation, especially the country folk, held fast
to their old faith. The brave and stubborn inhabitants of the province of Dalekarlien, with whose help Gustavus Wasa had once gained his victory over the Danes, were, in particular, roused to
serious revolt Their uprising was fanned by former favourites of Gustavus who
had quarrelled with him: the deposed Bishop Peter Sunnanvader of Vesteras and his capitular provost Knut. The
poverty and suffering among the people was a punishment, they declared, for the
conduct of the King, who although, on his election, he had sworn to defend the
Church, was now despoiling churches and convents, priests and monks, and
carrying off monstrances and chalices and shrines of
saints.
Gustavus Wasa, however, knew well how to get the upper hand of
the movement in Dalekarlien; judicious leniency and
promises of money quelled the rebellion; Sunnanvader and Knut fled to Norway. Yet the King only displayed greater ruthlessness
towards the property of the Church, and the truly catholic Johann Magni he got rid of by sending him on an embassy to Poland
and Russia.
On
the 19th of September 1526 Clement VII addressed the Bishops of Linkoping and Vesteras. He complained that the Swedish clergy took wives,
changed the ritual of the Mass, gave Communion in both kinds, and neglected
Extreme Unction; he ordered the bishops to invoke the aid of the secular arm,
and adjured his beloved son Gustavus and the nobles of Sweden to take up the
cause of the endangered faith. That the Pope even now continued to hope in Wasa shows strikingly how insufficiently they were informed
at Rome as to the true state of things in the north. By the next year all
illusions on the subject of the Swedish King’s position were at an end. The
conflict between the Pope and Emperor had entered on its most acute phase when
Gustavus broke away. On this occasion as on others he had grasped, with the
intuition of genius, the appropriate moment to choose. With no less skill he
knew how to turn opinion against Clement VII.
At
this time the Swedish Catholics were completely cowed. Under letters of
safe-conduct Gustavus had enticed into Sweden the two leaders of the Dalekarlian rising: first Knut and afterwards Sunnanvader as well. As soon as they were there he gave
them over to the harshest insults and later ordered their execution. While the
impression made by these vindictively penal measures against two great
ecclesiastics was still fresh, the separation of Sweden from Rome ensued by
means of the coup d’état of the Diet of Vesteras in June 1527. Before the assembly had yet opened the bishops drew up a protest
against the threatened persecution of the Church ; but none had the courage to
present it! In the Diet itself, the Bishop of Linkoping, Johann Brask, alone at first had the spirit to speak out against
the proposals of the King ; without the Pope’s assent he could not agree to
alterations in doctrine and the existing condition of the Church. After the
leader of the nobles had spoken in the same sense, the King announced with
tears that he must abdicate the crown and leave the country he had freed from
Danish servitude to its fate. This “brilliant piece of acting” did not fail of
its effect. As the Bishop-elect of Strengnas, Magnus
Sommar, weakly counselled compliance, and the nobles saw a vision opening
before them of a share in the plunder of the Church, the acceptance of the
King’s demands was not withheld. Accordingly the Crown took free possession of
the appointment to bishoprics, chapters, and convents, with the disposition of
their revenues. “The pure word and Gospel of God” was also to be preached
within the realm ; the nobility were empowered to demand back gifts made by
their predecessors since 1454, and the bishops declared in a special decree
that “they rejoiced to leave their riches or their poverty to the King’s will.”
By a special enactment the Church in Sweden was thus at once made dependent in
every respect on the will of the sovereign. The first step that followed was a
great spoliation of churches and convents in which the victims were specially
enjoined to submit to secularization “without making much fuss.” Bishop Brask went into exile, and on the 7th of November 1527
Gustavus instructed the Bishop-elect of Strengnas that, as the common people would not be contented with unconsecrated bishops, he might take steps for his early consecration, although the rite in
itself was not necessary.[334] Thereupon the above-named, together with two
others, had himself consecrated by Bishop Magni of Vesteras on the 5th of January 1528. Magni had given his consent to this schismatical act on
receiving a written promise from the consecrandi that they would afterwards seek confirmation from Rome. Naturally the matter
was never heard of again. In February 1529 a “National Council” held at Orebro
agreed to the retention of many Catholic externals in order to deceive the
people, the majority of whom were averse to a change of faith. Nevertheless,
the people on the whole refused to be deceived. In many provinces, especially
in Smaland, East and West Gothland,
and also in Dalekarlien, risings occurred; but the
King, by judicious kindness in some cases, by merciless severity in others, was
able to overcome such troubles.
In
1531 Gustavus ordered the election to the Archbishopric of Upsala of
Laurentius, younger brother of Olaus Petri. The
Bishops of Vesteras and Strengnas,
who at heart were still Catholics, drew up a protest against it. Indeed, even
the Bishops of Skara and Vexjö declared that they
only consented because otherwise they had nothing to expect but imprisonment
and the ruin of their churches—a clear evidence that Lutheranism had not sunk
deep into the Swedish clergy. Still, the opposition of the Catholic-minded
clergy could only be expressed in private. For their overthrow the Swedish
clergy were not free from responsibility. Weak-spirited servility and
worldliness of life made it easy for a monarch gifted intellectually and
possessed of all the resources of an effective monarchy, to destroy the ancient
Church and from its wealth bestow on the Crown a solid basis of material power.
In Sweden as in Denmark the monarchy had of course to surrender to the nobility
a share of the plunder of the inheritance of the Church; for the great bulk of
the people the social and political consequences of the change of religion were
highly unfavourable.
The
Swiss were more fortunate than the Swedes in their opposition to the
introduction of the new teaching. The man who headed the Protestant movement in
Switzerland, Ulrich Zwingli, had certainly come under Luther’s influence, but
in many respects was entirely independent of him. There were points of essential
difference in their doctrines. This man, who at the same time was flinging
himself into schemes of vast scope and of grave danger to the existence of the
Confederation, went far further than Luther, and in his antagonism to the
Catholics was more uncompromising. The movement for the overthrow of the
Catholic Church let loose in Zurich by Zwingli had spread itself very soon over
a considerable portion of German Switzerland, yet Lucerne, Zug, and the three
forest cantons Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden, the original nucleus of the
Confederation, remained true to the Catholic faith. Clement VII. had already
turned his attention to Swiss affairs in a Consistory held on the 14th of
December 1523. The Swiss Nuncio Ennio Filonardi was recalled to Rome to make a
report and receive fresh instructions. At the end of February 1524 Filonardi
returned to his post, but he was obliged at first to remain at Constance, for
the French envoys were working against him in the Catholic cantons; but in
Zurich, now given over to the new teaching, the very mention of a Papal
representative was scouted. Clement, on his part, made the payment of the
outstanding arrears of pay to Zurich dependent on the fidelity of the canton to
the Catholic religion.
The
Catholic cantons, in view of the wide dissemination of the new doctrine, wished
a learned theologian to be sent them who should make head against Zwingli and
at the same time have full powers to provide for the reforms to be taken in
hand for the remedy of ecclesiastical evils. To the latter request Clement gave
an evasive answer, and in February 1525 once more delegated Filonardi, a man
who. had proved himself a clever diplomatist in secular affairs but who,
notwithstanding all his knowledge of the situation in Switzerland was wanting in
the deeper understanding of the ecclesiastical question. No wonder that his
mission was a failure. How little the real state of things was understood in
Rome is shown by Clement’s action in sending in 1526
a summons to the Government of Zurich to send deputies to Rome to discuss the
settlement of questions in dispute. The Curia was at that time so engrossed in
high policy of state that it was impossible to bestow the necessary attention
on the Church affairs of Switzerland. For this reason the success obtained by
the Catholics in May 1526 at the Disputation of Baden was never adequately
followed up; support from Rome was lacking; communication with the Holy See
grew less and less, while the ecclesiastical revolution sped upon its way.
Even
after the settlement of Italian affairs the Pope, irresolute and parsimonious,
did not give sufficient support to the champions of the Catholic cause in
Switzerland. Even when Zurich laid an embargo on the transport of provisions to
the Catholic cantons, thus conjuring up the outbreak of the civil war, Clement
confined his assistance to the despatch of briefs and recommendations. Things
reached a climax when at last he forbade the transport of grain and salt, and
tried to rouse the Catholic princes, especially the Emperor, to intervene with
military force. Charles V, summing up the situation coolly, refused to be drawn
in. Although the Catholic cantons were thus thrown on their own resources, the
wager of battle was in their favour. On the nth of October 1531 the men of Zurich
were defeated at Kappel, and Zwingli, who had taken part in the fight in full
armour, was among the slain. The illusions already cherished by Clement VII
regarding the Zurichers now acquired fresh strength; he hoped that the success
just gained would bring to an end the Swiss revolt from Rome. “Now,” after the
Catholic victory, wrote Loaysa from Rome on the 24th
of October 1531, “Clement will persevere in trying to persuade them to return
and retrace their steps”; only if the other cantons are determined on revenge,
should help, in the Pope’s opinion, be given to the Catholic cantons.
When
this proved to be the case, Clement at last, on the 29th of October 1531, sent
3000 ducats to the gallant defenders of the Catholic cause. In November, after
long consultation, he gave orders for the enlistment of four thousand men, and
appointed Filonardi Legate to the Swiss and Commissary-General of the Catholic
forces. Further generous help would be raised by a tax on the Italian clergy in
general; this plan, however, was frustrated by the opposition of Venice, and
the Papal relief came too late, for by the 20th of November 1531 the five
cantons had made peace with Zurich on very moderate conditions—so moderate that
Luther deeply deplored that “they had left any room in their treaty for the
continuance of Zwinglism, and had not even condemned
that error, but allowed it to exist alongside of what they call their ancient,
unquestioned faith.” Clement also regretted that the Catholics had not followed
up their victory more completely, and expressed the hope that the unity of
Switzerland might be restored by the return of the separated members to the
Church. What took place in the latter respect was greatly exaggerated by
Filonardi. His despatched to Rome show how his judgment on affairs was
influenced by his optimism.
The
Swiss Catholics also overestimated the success at first secured in a series of
places by the restoration of Catholic order. Only gradually did the Nuncio, who
had hoped to recall the rebellious to their obedience by means of friends and
money, begin to realize the deeper significance of the movement of revolt. Once
more despatched to Switzerland in July 1532, Filonardi’s reports dwelt no longer on the reconquest of the lapsed cantons by the Church;
on the other hand, his presence in the country proved to be of even greater
utility for the religious strengthening of those portions which remained true
to the faith. Since he was the rallying-point for the true elements of the
Catholic system, his recall, ordered from Marseilles on the 17th of October
1533, out of consideration for Francis I, was a measure bound to do harm to
the interests of that system in Switzerland.
If
the Swiss Catholics did not make as good a use of their victory as they might
have done, this was due, in great part, to the envoys of Francis I, who, in
pursuit of their master’s policy of conquest, encouraged the religious
dissensions of Switzerland as well as those of Germany. In his own country, in
which Luther’s followers had already begun to be active, although at first only
within a narrow circle, the King’s attitude from the beginning had been an
undecided one. As a man “in whom an insatiable love of pleasure was joined with
a thoroughly Gallic frivolity,” Francis was entirely wanting in that genuine
catholicity of feeling which animated his rival Charles V. The King’s sister,
Marguerite of Angouleme, was in open sympathy with the reformers. The French
Catholics had strong support in the Parliament and the Sorbonne; the latter had
immediately declared against Luther, and, notwithstanding an attitude by no
means friendly to the Papacy, was stoutly opposed to the Protestant doctrine.
Also the Chancellor Du Prat, since 1525 Archbishop of Sens, and the Grand
Master of France, Anne de Montmorency, stood firm for Catholic interests. The
captivity of Francis I. appeared to earnest Catholics to be a punishment for
his previous negligence regarding the heretics. The Queen Regent now associated
herself with the Pope in taking penal measures, and the Parliament took several
steps against the reformers, two of whom were executed. In December 1527 the
clergy demanded, in return for their financial support of the King, among other
things, the “destruction of the Lutheran sect,” to which Francis had to agree.
In several provincial synods, to the satisfaction of Clement VII, measures were
taken for the reform of ecclesiastical evils and the punishment of the new
teachers. The latter injured their cause seriously by seizing, on a night in
May 1528, in Paris, a picture of Our Lady and the Infant Christ, and throwing
it in the mud. The Catholic feeling of the populace was aroused by this impiety
to such a degree that even Francis I found it advisable to take part in the
procession of reparation which followed. As the total defeat of the French army
in Naples in August 1528 forced the King to seek the friendship of the Pope,
the Government completely threw over the Protestant party. The Lutheran, Louis
de Becquin, who had on two occasions been protected
by Francis (1523 and 1526), was now condemned and executed (April 1529).
That
Francis I, in questions of religion, was governed by motives of political
expediency only, is proved by his alliance in 1531 with the German Protestants,
whose support seemed to him valuable since they were a source of weakness in
the Emperor’s dominions. It is worth noting in this connection that immediately
after his meeting with the Head of the Church at Marseilles, Francis engaged in
a conference with the most enterprising of all the leaders of Protestantism in
Germany, Philip of Hesse.
On
his way back from Marseilles, where Clement VII. had issued a Bull against the
French Lutherans, he sent written instructions to the Archbishop of Paris to
take proceedings against heresy in the capital. But six months later the King’s
Councillor, Guillaume du Bellay, was opening up negotiations with Melanchthon
to bring about an agreement on the religious question. Du Bellay gave the
German Protestants to understand that Francis was inclined to approve of the
Lutheran doctrine and prepared to enter into an alliance for the protection of
that sect from the attacks of the Emperor.
Such
was the position of things in the spring of 1534, when Clement VII, who with an
eye to the spread of heresy in France had sharply prohibited preaching without
episcopal permission, died. The attitude of the French King was more than
doubtful, while the Sorbonne continued as before to maintain a strongly
Catholic position. At this juncture two circumstances combined to the advantage
of the Catholic cause; the Church, bound up with the greatest traditions of the
French nation, was dear to the bulk of the population; an opposition between
the people and the clergy, such as was to be found in many places in Germany,
did not exist. Another factor of not less importance was the absence, owing to
the Concordat, of any temptation for the Crown to lay hands on Church property
; on the contrary, it was to the advantage of the monarchy that the status quo
should be maintained in France.
Like
France, Italy did not escape the impact of the new teaching; but in the latter
country there were almost insuperable impediments to a widespread diffusion of
the Protestant doctrine. In the first place, throughout the length and breadth
of the Italian people there existed, in spite of all ecclesiastical abuses, a
great body of traditional religious feeling of a genuine Catholic character.
This raised a barrier against any defection on a large scale from the Church of
the past ages. In no other country in Europe, with the exception of Spain, had
the Catholic faith struck deeper roots and knit itself more completely into the
fibres of national life. The manifold development of Christian beneficence and,
not less, the magnificent creations of art, bore witness to the living energy
of this Catholic force. The genuine Catholic instinct, resident in all classes
of the Italian people, taught them to distinguish, with precision, between
persons and things. Therefore the dangerous feeling of hostility to the secularized
Papacy was kept within strict limits and in all matters of importance was
limited to the middle and higher ranks of society. Yet the latter were
influenced by material and national points of view which made any idea of a
breach with the Holy See abortive. The Italian saw with pride that Italy
comprised the central point of Christendom together with the highest
civilization in art and learning, and thus acquired the sure position of leader
among all the countries of the West. Again, there were the countless but very
tangible advantages, especially to the middle and higher classes, accruing from
the fact that the “magisterium” of the Church was wielded on Italian soil.
Granted that indignation at the secularization of the Papacy was sometimes acute,
a sober consideration of actual facts brought men back to the conviction that
the general interest lay not in the destruction but in the maintenance of the
Holy See. Again, the Pope and the deeply Catholic-minded Emperor possessed a
political power in Italy which made any support of Lutheranism by the minor
principalities of the peninsula a sheer impossibility. Lastly, it was a point
of vital importance that Clement VII was thoroughly informed on Italian affairs
and was therefore in a position to intervene in them with success.
The
first intrusion of Lutheran views began, naturally enough, in upper Italy,
where communication with Germany and Switzerland was always active. A constant
stream of travellers, drawn mainly from the mercantile and student classes,
passed to and fro and very early brought Lutheran
notions and Lutheran writings into these localities. As early as 1519 and up to
1520 Luther’s writings were sold not only in Venice but also in Pavia and even
in Bologna, and in the spring of 1520 a monk named Andrea da Ferrara, who
followed Luther’s doctrine, preached sermons in Venice; a similar preacher in
Milan was mentioned in despatches in the following year. Leo X, as well as the
Patriarch of Venice, was not slow in taking preventive measures corresponding
to the occasion. Nor was Clement VII deficient in vigilance; on the 24th of
January 1524 he urged on the Nuncios at Venice and Naples that the decrees of
the Lateran Council concerning preachers and printers should be observed. At
the same time the Pope took measures against those who were suspected of heresy
in Mirandola, Padua, and Naples.
Not
merely Luther’s views but the far more advanced tenets of Zwingli found early
acceptance in Italy. Letters of the Augustinian Egidio della Porta of Como prove that he and some of his associates were prepared in 1525 to
quit Italy and throw in their lot with Zwingli.5 In November 1526 Clement VII
instructed the Chapter of Sitten, and in January 1527
the Minorite, Tommaso Illyrico, to take proceedings
against the Lutherans in Savoy. A Papal Bull of July 1528 ordered the Bishop
and Inquisitor of Brescia to support the gratifying activity of the citizens of
that city against Lutheranism, and in particular to pronounce judgment on the
Carmelite Giambattista Pallavicini, who in the
preceding Lent had proclaimed Lutheran doctrines from the pulpit. In Bergamo
the excellent Bishop Pietro Lippomano had been busy
since 1527 in preventing the spread of Lutheran writings smuggled in from
Switzerland. On the 27th of August 1528 Clement addressed from Viterbo a
circular letter to the bishops of Italy exhorting them as good pastors of the
flock of Christ to suppress the heresy now beginning to penetrate the fold; the
penitent were to be treated graciously, but the obstinate punished severely
with the help of the secular power.
The
decree sent by Clement VII from Bologna on the 15th of January 1530 to the
General of the Dominicans, Paolo Butigella,
inquisitor in Modena and Ferrara, had also a general character. In it the Pope
dwelt on the spread of Lutheran error among clergy and laity in various parts
of Italy, so that some by speeches, some even by sermons in church, were trying
to turn away the faithful in Christ from their obedience to the Church. The
Arian heresy, at first merely a spark, had, because unsuppressed, become a
conflagration embracing the whole world; he wished therefore to take measures
in time. Butigella and all inquisitors of his order
were therefore exhorted to act vigorously against Luther’s adherents; at the
same time full powers were given for the reconciliation of the penitent as well
as spiritual graces for the associations founded by the inquisitors for the
prevention of erroneous teaching. Besides these general directions special
orders were also sent in individual instances, and these especially
concerned the Duchy of Savoy and the Venetian Republic.
The
propagation of Lutheran views in the Duchy of Savoy was another outcome of the
proximity of Switzerland. Clement VII called on the inquisitors, the bishops,
the Nuncio, and before all the Duke Charles III, to take measures. Charles
viewed the whole situation from a purely political point of view. The outbreak
of Protestant tendencies in Geneva was very advantageous to him, as he was now
able to invest his long-standing dispute with that city with a religious
character. His reports to Clement of the state of things in Geneva were so bad
that the Pope, in his increased anxiety, placed at his disposal a portion of
the Church revenues for the subjection of the city. Clement was not aware that
Charles had greatly exaggerated the danger to Catholicism in Geneva, nor had he
perceived that the Duke, working only in his own interest, was rendering a
sorry service to the Church by mixing up the political question of Genevan
independence with that of the religious innovations. The Pope only saw in the
Duchy of Savoy a strong bulwark against the intrusion of Protestantism into
Italy, and therefore issued exhortations in all directions to give support to
Charles III.
While
Clement VII was alarmed at the introduction of Protestant views into the west
of upper Italy, their influence had already become firmly established in the
east. Notwithstanding the repeated burning of heretical books and the sermons
of Dominican preachers, Luther’s followers had increased to such an extent that
at Easter 1528 he was able to give public expression to his delight. In March
1530 the Council of Ten expressly refused to take action, as the Republic of
Venice was a free state. The purveyors of Lutheran teaching were, in the main,
members of religious orders who had broken their vows. The activity of such
Protestant “brothers” was not confined to Venice; they were busy in many other
places as well. The attitude of the Venetian Government made the position of
the Nuncio and his sympathetic predecessor Gian Pietro Carafa by no means an
easy one. The latter, in October 1532, had sent the Pope a memorial which made
the dangers of the situation clear as day. Herein Carafa, in the plainest terms,
drew the Pope’s attention to the half-hearted fidelity of the Venetians to the
ancient faith shown in their neglect of fasts and the confessional, and in
their toleration of heretical teaching and heretical books. The leaders of the
movement were members of religious orders, many of whom had broken their vows
and were roaming about. Carafa named some of them, disciples of a deceased
Franciscan. He announced that the Franciscans Girolamo Galateo and Alessandro of Pieve di Sacco were in confinement,
while their associate and sympathizer Bartolomeo Fonzio had fled to Augsburg. The latter had powerful friends in the Curia who had
procured for him a Papal Brief; to this Carafa opposed earnest remonstrances.
“A heretic,” he said, “must be treated as such; the Pope lowers himself if he
writes to him and flatters him or even allows graces to be procured for him; it
is, indeed, possible that in this or that instance some good result may follow,
but as a rule the recipients of such favours are only made more obdurate and
gain fresh adherents.” He then urged the Pope to hold the reins more tightly on
his officials and to be less generous in the matter of apostolic Briefs. In the
cause of God’s honour and his own responsible office he must apply himself to
measures of opposition; in times of danger such as the present, it is
inadmissible to remain in the old grooves. Ori the outbreak of a war every day
some new preparations for defence are called for, so also in the spiritual
contest in which the Church is now engaged the Pope must be ever on the alert.
His Holiness should provide an able inquisitor, such as was Martino da Treviso,
and despatch a special Papal Legate to Venice. Since heresy, in most cases, is
the product of erroneous writings and preaching or of evil living, the attack
should be made in that direction. Owing to the apathy of the bishops and heads
of religious orders the Pope should insist strongly on the faculties for
preaching and hearing confessions being exclusively confined to priests of
blameless character. Moreover, it is absolutely necessary that an end should be
made to the monstrous prevalence of vagrant monks—“the apostates,” as Carafa
calls them. The Penitentiary should abstain henceforth from dispensing
permissions to leave the cloister; for these “apostates,” to the incalculable
scandal of religion, had unfortunately become masters within a wide circle of
the cure of souls and only too often were the servants of heresy and men of
evil life. The Pope therefore would do well to reserve to himself the
permission to leave the cloister, and only grant such permission in cases of
pressing necessity; but to the “ apostates ” no pastoral charge should be
given. Carafa, in addition, drew up a formal programme of reform of the secular
and regular clergy, of which further mention will be made later on.
As
a fountain-head of heresy Carafa noted the dissemination of heretical writings
which were sold in Venice without any attempt at concealment, were bought by
many persons, clerical and lay, by whom they were read, sometimes in contempt
of the ecclesiastical censures thereby incurred, and sometimes on appeal to the
possession of the necessary permission. Such licences must in future be granted
very rarely, while those already issued should be recalled.
Clement
VII was not the man to carry out such stringent precautions; in single
instances, e.g. with regard to the sale of heretical writings, he certainly
directed his Nuncio to take steps, and also renewed some earlier ordinances
against itinerant monks. But the comprehensive regulations for reform called
for by Carafa, especially in the case of the regular and secular clergy, came
to nothing. Since in this way the sources of heresy were not dammed up,
repressive measures, such as the appointment of the Augustinian Callisto da Piacenza as Inquisitor-General for the whole of
Italy, gave only a superficial help. Although Carafa in his struggle with
heresy was warmly supported by Aleander, sent as Nuncio to Venice in March 1533, the situation
continued to be dangerous.
Aleander’s reports as Nuncio contain many complaints both of the corruption of the clergy
and of the growth of heresy, now making its way in Venice even among the lower
classes. Among the preachers of Lutheran opinions there was a carpenter who, on
being brought to trial at the instance of Aleander, defended himself by quoting
sentences from the Bible. In October 1533 Aleander set in motion a Papal
prohibition against the misuse of the Pauline epistles as commented upon from
the pulpit in Italian by some illiterate members of the mendicant Orders. The
ferment in the city was increased by the preaching of the Florentine, Fra
Zaccaria, who publicly depicted in glowing colours the corruption in the Curia,
and even spoke of the Pope in insulting terms. The Signoria, then on strained
relations with Clement VII, took no steps against the offender, and in the
matter of heresy Aleander repeatedly had to complain of their indifference. Not
until an improvement took place in the Pope’s relations with Venice, consequent
on the change in his political and ecclesiastical position, did an alteration
begin. The trial of the Lutheran carpenter, who had found many protectors, now
came to a close after having dragged on through a whole year, and ended in the
condemnation of the accused to perpetual imprisonment. The same punishment
befell Pietro Buonavita of Padua, who held Lutheran
views. While Aleander was occupied in contending with other promoters of
Lutheranism, among them being a French glovemaker, he received the news in June
1534 of the appearance of the new doctrines in Istria. In Venice itself the
announcement of the success of the Protestants in Würtemberg reacted on the
Government and their zeal against the Protestants slackened
Outside
Venetian territory, in the closing days of Clement VII, only isolated followers
of the German teachers were to be found in Italy, although writings by Luther
and Melanchthon, in Italian translations, were scattered about among the
people, sometimes under false names.
CHAPTER XVI.
The
Close of the Pontificate of Clement VII.—His Position towards Literature and
Art.
When
in December 1533 Clement VII returned from Marseilles to Rome, a Milanese envoy
reported that the Holy Father was in such good health that he looked as if he
had only come back from an excursion to his villa on Monte Mario. No one
suspected, at that moment, that the life of this man of fifty-three was nearing
its end. Least of all did it occur to the French party that all the
far-reaching schemes interwoven with the marriage of Catherine de’ Medici were
destined to come to nothing. On the Imperialist side this alliance had been
looked upon with the greatest suspicion. Both before and during the conference
at Marseilles, Vergerio, the resident Nuncio at the court of Ferdinand I, “had
sent reports of his distrust”—a distrust which grew although Clement laboured
to counteract it. The Nuncio found his position one of increasing difficulty.
Little fitted for diplomacy, this representative of the Pope was surrounded by
the worst feelings of suspicion and by bitter animosity against Clement
himself.
Vergerio’s
communications on German affairs were a source of grave anxiety. In the very
first despatch sent to Rome after his arrival in Vienna he had to report the
advance of Lutheranism and the evil plight of the Catholic Church in Germany.
The anti-Papal feeling which had taken possession even of circles loyal to the
old faith was intensified by various ill-sounding rumours concerning the
Marseilles conference. “It is my belief,” he wrote on the 18th of November 1533
to the Papal private secretary, Carnesecchi, “that
here not only the Pope and Italians, but also the Catholic faith and Jesus
Christ, have many enemies; but in Rome they have no real notion how corrupt the
minds of almost all men here have become.” From Prague, whither he had followed the court, he sent on the 28th of
December to Rome a despatch of a very agitating character. “Listen,” he
appealed to Carnesecchi, “to the state of the Church
of Christ in this country. In the whole kingdom of Bohemia at this time only
six priests have been ordained, and these are quite poor men to whom, on
account of their necessity, I gave gratuitously the dispensations enabling them
to receive their orders from any bishop. The Bishop of Passau told me that in
his entire diocese within four years only five priests have been ordained. The
Bishop of Laibach said that out of his diocese in
eight years only seventeen had become priests. The reports of benefices
standing empty on account of this lack of clergy are quite incredible. But this
is not the case merely in schismatical Bohemia, but
in the whole of Austria and the whole of Germany.”
With
his reports on the existing decline of the Catholic faith in Germany, Vergerio combined
urgent representations that efforts should be made in Rome to supply so many
endangered souls with the needed succour; he recommended especially the support
of the literary champions who, like Eck in Bavaria, Cochlaus in Saxony, Nausea on the Rhine, and Faber in the Austrian patrimonial states,
were courageously defending the Catholic faith. The behaviour of Clement in
this particular matter is only too significant of his ecclesiastical policy.
Already in 1530 Campeggio, and in 1532 Aleander, had called attention to the
necessity of giving substantial help to . these writers who were, for the most
part, men of very slender means. Cardinal Cles had
discussed the matter personally with the Pope at Bologna and received the best
assurances; nevertheless, by the spring of 1533 practically nothing had been
done. Cles therefore made serious representations to
Vergerio, and the Nuncio himself left nothing undone to advance the matter at
Rome. He was even ready, he said, to spend 200 ducats from his own pocket on
these learned men, if he could entertain the hope of being repaid. The attitude
of the Curia also was a strange one. There was certainly no attempt to deny the
necessity of supporting the Catholic men of learning, but a warning was given
not to exceed the strictest economy in so doing, since the finances were in a
very distressed condition; Ferdinand I, it was suggested, could do something
much more easily. It is stranger still that even when the opportunity arose of
contributing to the support of these scholars it was not made use of. In
conformity with an evil custom of long-standing, rich livings continued to be
given to men who had no need of them. Thus in October 1533 a man who had
already an income of 4000 ducats received 1000 ducats more in rents by the
transference of some German benefices. Vergerio protested against this with
justice; such a proceeding would give occasion of fresh complaint to numerous
enemies of the Church, and drive the few deserving Catholic scholars to despair
in their continual supplications for benefices. Nevertheless, the Curia
withheld any adequate support. In the following spring Vergerio could still
report that the poor Catholic scholars were being starved to death; still,
something might be done for them in Rome, for in Germany there were no
benefices to dispose of; the few that were vacant he had bestowed upon them,
but on account of certain reservations they were of no use. It was therefore
urgently requisite that the Pope should supply them with support in hard cash;
no guarantee for such was given. Further, the Nuncio himself was so badly paid
that he was not in a position to give pledges to any great extent.
All
this proves how lacking in earnestness Clement VII was as regards duties of an
essentially ecclesiastical kind, and at the same time it shows how greatly he
underestimated the danger with which the Papacy was threatened from the side of
Germany. In this he was encouraged by the crafty King of France, who succeeded
in producing the impression in Rome that the leaders of the Lutheran cause were
dependent on France, and that French mediation would easily bring about an
agreement with them.
How
little Clement appreciated the full significance of the politico-religious
tendencies in Germany and how blindly in this respect he trusted in Francis I,
is shown by his behaviour in a matter of great moment to the existence of the
Church in southern Germany. In the spring of 1534 the Landgrave of Hesse, who
received French support, began war for the restoration of the Protestant Duke
Ulrich of Würtemberg to his duchy. Francis I managed to conceal so cleverly
from the Pope that the successful issue of this conflict would be the surrender
of Würtemberg to Protestantism that Clement looked upon the Landgrave’s whole
enterprise as merely a counter-stroke to the private interests of the
Hapsburgs, involving no danger to the Church. The Ambassadors of Ferdinand I
sought in vain to turn him from this erroneous view, and in vain appealed to
him for help. Clement assured them of his sympathy, but excused himself on the
score of his exhausted treasury. The war, the Pope considered, misled by French
misrepresentations, was a personal contest in which he could not interfere
unless the Landgrave did something against the Catholics; also, without the
consent of the Sacred College, no such support as he was called upon to give
would be possible. But among the Cardinals Francis had secured a certain
majority by means of liberal pensions, thus preventing any help being given to
Ferdinand.
Accordingly,
in a Brief of the 16th of June 1534, any support of Ferdinand was flatly
refused. This inexcusable conduct called forth not merely at the courts of
Charles and his brother, but also among the most loyal adherents of Rome in
Germany, strong expressions of disapproval. Finally came Clement’s behaviour in the question of the Council. In accordance with the engagements
made at Marseilles the Pope had already, in March 1534, officially declared his
determination to defer, until a more propitious and peaceable season, the
Council announced in the previous year. In a letter from Duke George of Saxony
to Vergerio the clearest expression is given to the bitterness aroused in the
German Catholics at this fresh postponement by the Pope, under the influence of
fear and his French sympathies. In this document the most Catholic of all the
Catholic princes of Germany complains with vehemence that the Pope, in the
question of the Council, has allowed himself to be befooled by Francis, the inveterate enemy of Germany. If the Roman Church, he exclaims
in his indignation, were to lose 10,000 ducats of her revenues,
excommunications would be hurled and swords drawn and all Christendom called
upon for aid; but if a hundred thousand souls, through the fraud of the devil,
are brought to ruin, the Chief Shepherd listens to the counsels of him who is
continually bent on injuring and enslaving Christendom. Utterances such as
these, the violence of which could hardly be surpassed, were dictated by a
genuine anxiety for fatherland and religion.
Under
these circumstances it must be considered fortunate for the Church that the
Pope’s days were numbered.
In
June 1534 Clement VII was taken ill; this was attributed to the agitation
caused by the senseless conduct of his nephew Ippolito de’ Medici. After a
short improvement his condition changed for the worse, and gave rise to great
anxiety. The doctors were uncertain as to the nature of the malady ; some
thought that the Pope had been poisoned on his journey from Marseilles, and
accusations were not wanting in which the Florentines on one hand and the
French on the other were charged with the crime. In reality his complaint was
probably a gastric one, perhaps of a malignant character. As the doctors were
unable to agree, Clement lost confidence in them; his condition meanwhile
underwent extraordinary changes. At the beginning of July he seemed to have
recovered, but then followed a relapse of such a dangerous kind that he was
reported to be dead, but this rumour, in consequence of which all Rome had
taken to arms, was premature ; the strong constitution of the Pope was once
more victorious, and by the beginning of August he showed a marked improvement.
On the 30th of July he had made his will, by which Florence was left to Alessandro
and all his remaining possessions to Cardinal Ippolito.
Rome
was not then in a healthy condition, and many deaths occurred in the ranks of
the Sacred College. On the 19th of July 1534 Enkevoirt died; on the 4th of
August he was followed by Cardinal della Valle. The
renowned Cajetan was also stricken with grievous illness, and died in the night
of the 9th or early on the 10th of August. It was the wish of this high-minded
and learned Cardinal to be buried in the simplest manner.
The
Pope, meanwhile, continued to improve, although he was still very weak. On the
18th of August, while the Romans were filled with alarm at the news of the sack
of Fondi by the pirates employed by Chaireddin Barbarossa, the city was moved to its depths by
the announcement that the Pope was lying between life and death owing to a
renewed attack of fever and sickness. On the following day Clement’s condition seemed so dangerous that on the evening of the 24th of August he
received Extreme Unction. The day after that death seemed certain; fever was
exhausting his strength, and as he lay writhing in cramp he rejected all
nourishment. But again, in the beginning of September, there was another sudden
change for the better. Notwithstanding their patient’s great exhaustion, the
doctors believed that he would make another rally. The vital crisis lasted
until the 8th of September; after that his condition daily became more hopeful.
Giberti visited the sick man, whose delight at seeing his old and trusted
friend was intense. “The improvement continues,” reported Ferdinand’s
Ambassador on the 21st of September: “The Pope talks with those about him and
laughs over the manoeuvres and ambition of the Cardinals. He still has a
certain amount of fever; the court oscillates between hope and fear; but the
former predominates so greatly that all conclave intrigues have ceased.” But on this very 21st of September there came
a permanent change for the worse. The fever increased in intensity and day by
day his strength ebbed away. On the 25th of September, three hours after
midday, Clement VII was released from his sufferings after hovering for a month
between life and death.
Many
troubles had combined against him during his last days. While corsairs were
plundering his coasts and filling Rome with terror, his own position between
Francis I and Charles V was one of acute anxiety. Then a dangerous quarrel
threatened to break out in his own family; Cardinal Ippolito, whose dissolute
life had already caused him many hours of care, wished to renounce the purple
in order to expel Alessandro de’ Medici from Florence. In order that this
“foolish devil”, as Clement once called his nephew, might be otherwise employed
he bestowed upon him, on the 5th of September 1534, the Legation of the
Marches, which Accolti was obliged to vacate. In the
delirium of fever Clement was still occupied with the prospects of his nephews,
and one of the last briefs of the dying Pope, addressed on the 23rd of
September to the Emperor, contained, besides the entreaty that he should care
for the interests of Italy and the Church, a warm recommendation of Ippolito
and Alessandro. The trusted Carnesecchi was to be the
bearer of the letter.
The
mortal remains of Clement VII were at first laid in St. Peter’s and afterwards
transferred to S. Maria sopra Minerva. There on the right side of the choir,
opposite the tomb of Leo X, Baccio Bandinelli, from plans drawn up by Sangallo, erected a
monument to Clement VII in the form of an antique triumphal arch in white
marble that might be mistaken for the monument of his cousin. In the central
niche is a seated statue of Clement, sculptured by Nanni di Baccio Bigio, surmounted
by a relief representing the coronation of Charles V. In the niches on either
side are statues of St. Jerome and St. John the Baptist; the reliefs above show
the former saint in the desert, and the Baptist in the act of preaching There
is hardly another spot in Rome conducive to more serious reflection than these
tombs of the two Popes of the house of Medici. Differing widely in character
and fortunes they were both, in their pontificates, of momentous import to the
Church.
Clement
has been called the most unlucky of all the Popes. This verdict is justified
not merely as regards his reign but as regards his memory. It was astonishing
how quickly he was forgotten in Rome. The Romans remembered only the
misfortunes of his reign, his financial disasters, and his heavy taxation; they
no longer recalled the judicious regulations of the deceased Pope for the
commissariat of the city.
Clement
VII has had no biographer, and almost all the historians of his time, with
Guicciardini and Giovio at their head,
pass severe judgments upon him. Even those who recognize his praiseworthy
qualities, his piety, purity of life, and indefatigable love of work, blame “
the coldness of his heart, his indecision, his weakness coupled with duplicity,
his pettiness of spirit.” To judge with fairness it ought to be borne in mind
that Clement in many instances had to expiate the sins of his predecessors,
that only too often he was the victim of circumstances for the existence of
which he was not responsible. Terrible was the retribution brought on him for
the introduction of the Spaniards into Naples by Alexander VI. Vettori has already pointed out that “Clement VII was not
cruel, nor proud, nor a simonist, nor avaricious, nor dissolute, but temperate,
simple, pious, zealous in the fulfilment of his religious duties—nevertheless,
upon him and Rome came dire calamity, and others who were full of vices lived
and died happily as far as this world goes.”
Even
granting that this eulogy is just, yet the second Medici Pope cannot escape the
reproach that during his eleven years’ pontificate he never showed himself
competent to deal with the difficulties of the situation. Incapable of large
calculations, he allowed himself to be led by petty considerations when great
interests were at stake. Timid in the extreme, he only arrived at a decision
slowly and then was easily induced to alter it, for he was only too prone to substitute
for every good plan some other that he considered better. With him “the fresh
hues of determination were sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.” He was
entirely wanting in masterly initiative and courageous decision. What the reign
of so irresolute a personality must inevitably produce has been hit off to
perfection by Berni in an epigram of excessive
bitterness:
Un papato composto di rispetti
Di considerazioni e di discordi,
Di piu, di poi,
di ma, di si di forsi
Di pur, di assai parole senza effetti.
The
most regrettable feature of Clement’s pontificate was
his absorption in politics and family interests, whereby he was blinded to the
specially spiritual tasks of the Papacy, the most essential thing of all.
Consequently he must undoubtedly bear a share of the blame for the loss of
great portions of Germany to the Church. Clement was not sufficiently informed
on German affairs, and therefore did not realize the momentum with which events
were developing. If Germany was the central point of the interest of Adrian VI,
the very reverse was the case with Clement VII. At first greatly disturbed by
Luther’s success, he was too much a Medici to allow anxiety for Germany to take
precedence of political and Italian preoccupations. By making himself the
centre of resistance to Charles V he allowed the politico-ecclesiastical
upheaval in the German Empire to have full scope. Later on he swung between two
extremes, between plans of forcible suppression of the reformers and plans of
mutual agreement. A temporizer by nature, he was incapable of a strong, clearly
defined course of action, all the more so as the King of France cleverly kept
him deceived as to the dangers in Germany.
His
conduct in English affairs is also open to objection. The charge that the Pope,
by his precipitate sentence of excommunication on Henry VIII, made himself
responsible for the separation of England from the Holy See is certainly
without justification. On the other hand, it does not admit of doubt that he
was wanting in the necessary resolution to intervene firmly and, before it was
too late, place an imperative alternative before Henry VIII. As the King had
come forward decidedly against Luther his threats of apostasy had not been
taken seriously at Rome where, hoping against hope, it was thought that time
would cool the adulterous passion which had reached a pitch almost of frenzy.
The Pope therefore adopted a dilatory policy, did not speak out at once and
unmistakably, made unintelligible concessions, and even consented to the elevation
to the episcopate of opponents of the Holy See. While the Curia still clung to
the empty expectation that sooner or later some settlement must be reached,
Henry was paving the way towards separation. However much Clement’s weakness may admit of explanation from the point of view of human nature, it
was inconsistent with the ideal of the high office with which he was invested, and
did injury to the interests of the Church.
Clement
had no greater success in his European policy than he had in Church affairs.
Employing with restless activity all the arts of a diplomatist of the
Renaissance and conducting all his undertakings with cleverness and acumen, he
yet achieved nothing. His constantly shifting policy, the outcome of
over-subtlety and a lack of courage and stability, could produce only small
results. In all great questions his policy completely broke down, and involved
him in incessant discomfiture. Clement VII dug the grave of Italian freedom,
while the great political authority of the Papacy moved steadily to its
downfall. Nothing but misfortune attended Clement’s purely political machinations, so much so that one might be tempted to see
therein a sign that Providence was bent on once more leading back the Papacy to
its special vocation. This much was evident when Clement passed away; all his
political schemes had come to nothing; the road along which he had travelled
was henceforth closed. A radical change was necessary if the Church was not to
lose still more than she had already lost within the last few years.
The
ill-fortune which set its stamp on the pontificate of Clement VII also threw
its shadow over his relations to literature, science, and art.
True
to the traditions of his family, the Pope, during his Cardinalate, had already
gathered round him a throng of poets and men of letters. To this day the
Vatican Library preserves an imposing series of works dedicated to him at this
period
It
is easy to imagine the delight with which, on the death of the unsympathetic
Adrian VI, the election of such a man as Giulio de’ Medici was hailed in
literary circles. Amid eulogies of the house of Medici, always the patron of
the learned, the return of the golden age was proclaimed in prose and verse,
and many voices began to celebrate the events of the new reign.
Clement
VII had every wish to continue the traditions of Leo X. In spite of the
misfortunes of the time he did more in this respect than is commonly supposed.
Among his secretaries names of note appear early: Angelo Colocci, Blosio Palladio, Evangelista Tarasconio,
Giovanni Battista Sanga, Sadoleto. The latter,
however, returned in April 1527 to his diocese of Carpentras. Pietro Bembo also
had friendly relations with Clement VII through letters and dedications, and
saw the Pope during the Jubilee year of 1525, and afterwards at the first
meeting of the latter with Charles V at Bologna. On this occasion Romolo Amaseo delivered before
the Emperor and Pope his oration on the Latin language which excited an
admiration that is hardly intelligible at the present day.
The
attention bestowed by Clement VII on the Vatican Library is shown remarkably in
this; that, following in the steps of Leo X he took measures, notwithstanding
the necessitous times, to increase the printed and manuscript treasures of this
collection Thus, in the year 1526, Johann Heitmers,
who had already been entrusted with a literary mission in 1517, was again sent
to the North to make fresh discoveries. He was assisted by the Dominican
Wilhelm Carnifex, whose activity Clement sought to encourage in every way. The
Pope on this occasion was not merely recalling the exertions of Leo X; he bore
expressly in mind those of Cosimo, Giuliano, and Lorenzo de’ Medici in finding
out new Greek, Latin, and Hebrew manuscripts. If the Pope hoped by these searches
after manuscript treasures to confer an advantage also on religion in the hour
of danger, this may be explained by the fact that a clue was supposed to have
been found to the existence of a valuable manuscript of St. Paul’s Epistles.
From the Gonzaga, Clement borrowed a manuscript of Eustathius to which Lascaris had called his attention. The Pope, who was also interested
in the reform of the calendar, is entitled to special honour for the attitude
he assumed towards the new system of Nicolas Copernicus; in 1533 he ordered the
learned Johann Albert Widmanstadt to explain it in
the gardens of the Vatican.
Clement
VII also had friendly relations with Erasmus, who tactfully greeted the Pope on
his accession by presenting him with a copy of his paraphrase of the Acts of
the Apostles; he also wrote a very respectful letter in which he apologized for
the imprudent tone of his earlier writings by saying that at that time he could
not have anticipated the outbreak of the religious divisions. Clement VII
thanked him in a very kind letter on the 3rd of April 1524, accompanied by a
present of 200 gold gulden; he exhorted Erasmus to place his talents at the
service of the Church, and assured him that his enemies would be ordered to
hold their peace. On this friendly footing they continued to stand, all the
more so when Erasmus, in the autumn of 1524, attacked the heart of the Lutheran
doctrine in its denial of the freedom of the will. Clement so highly
appreciated the outspoken opposition of Erasmus to Luther that in 1527 he
imposed silence on the Spanish opponents of the former, and kept silence
himself regarding Erasmus’ own attempts to bring about a reconciliation, which
were in part not easy to understand, and the objections to which had been
brought before the Pope’s notice. If Clement had hitherto always kept himself
aloof from the learned controversies between the friends and foes of Erasmus,
he now thought it a counsel of expediency that such a man should be spared as
much as possible and that he should express himself satisfied with his
assurances of loyalty.
Among
the poets to whom Clement VII extended his favour, Sannazaro and Vida hold the first place. The former dedicated to the Pope, in the autumn
of 1526, his celebrated poem on the Nativity of Christ, to the appearance of
which Leo X had looked forward so eagerly. Seripando had the honour of presenting the work to the Pope, who, in a Brief composed by Sadoleto, thanked the poet, for whom he foretold an
immortality of renown. The Pope’s invitation to come to Rome was declined by Sannazaro on account of the period of calamity which had
begun to break over the Eternal City. He remained in Naples, where he found his
resting-place in the church of his own foundation, S. Maria del Porto on the Mergellina. His monument, the work of Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli, does not discredit the pupil of Michael Angelo.
The tomb is flanked by marble statues of Apollo and Minerva; inscriptions added
by a later hand have transformed these
figures into a David and a Judith. Strange as is the admission into a Christian
church of these two pagan deities, they are yet strikingly appropriate in the
case of a poet like Sannazaro, who in his works
indulged to excess in illustrations drawn from heathen mythology.
Vida,
still at work on his Christiade, begun under Leo X,
was made Bishop of Alba by Clement VII. However fitting this post may have been
for the poet, the bishopric of Nocera de’ Pagani was certainly not the place
for Paolo Giovio the historian, appointed in 1528. Giovio badly requited the
favour shown to him by Clement.
Early
in 1524 Francesco Guicciardini was made President of the Romagna, where a very
bad state of things prevailed; he succeeded, although his task was often made
difficult from Rome, in restoring order. The part taken by him in the campaigns
subsequent to the League of Cognac has been already narrated. After a short
interval of rest he re-entered the Papal service in 1530 and gave valuable
assistance towards the restoration of the Medicean rule in Florence. From June 1531 Guicciardini was Vice-Legate of Bologna, and
not merely here but in other directions also, especially against Ferrara, he
rendered most important services to the policy of the house of Medici.
Machiavelli
visited Clement VII in 1525 in order to present him with the five books of his
Florentine history. His reception was gracious, and a gift of 100 ducats was
accorded him. He made use of this occasion to recommend to the Pope his old
plan of a national militia. Clement for a moment seemed disposed to enter into
the scheme, but he very soon drew back from the dangerous undertaking.
In
spite of their dissolute lives Agnolo Firenzuola and Francesco Berni received tokens of favour from the Pope. From 1524 Berni was secretary to the Datary Giberti, who with extraordinary patience and
certainly with too great indulgence put up for a considerable time with the
eccentric behaviour of the highly talented poet: but at last he had to be
dismissed. At a later date Berni attached himself to
the court of Ippolito de’ Medici, of all the Cardinals the most devoted to
pomp, enjoyment, and secularly.
Berni’s irreconcilable enemy appears in the person of Pietro Aretino, the master of the
art of scandalous pasquinade, of which he considered
himself to have the monopoly. The friction between the two dated from the very
beginning of Clement’s reign, into whose favour
Aretino had already insinuated himself. Berni liked
Giberti as much as Aretino detested him. Although Giberti’s opponents, Girolamo da Schio and Schonberg, took sides
with Aretino, whose pen inspired fear, the latter got the worst of it and had
to fly from Rome at the end of July 1524; but he was back again in November,
now singing the praises of Clement and receiving rewards for so doing. On a
night in July in the following year Aretino was implicated in a stabbing affair
and was wounded in several places. As his assailant was in Giberti’s service and went unpunished, Aretino attacked the Datary in the bitterest terms
and finally went on to revile the Pope also. The scandal was so great that he
left Rome and joined Giovanni “delle Bande Nere.” After the death of
the latter he lived at the court of the Marquis of Mantua, from whence he
launched forth such biting invectives against the Pope and the Roman court that Clement’s confessor complained to the Mantuan
envoy.6 Meanwhile Aretino had found a safe refuge in Venice. Here he displayed
a most remunerative industry, for, by sending his poisoned shafts in every
direction, he extorted huge sums of money from those highly placed in the world
and the Church. The sack of Rome gave Aretino an opportunity for composing a
touching elegy and a pasquinade of savage ferocity.
The latter was of such a tenor that Clement flung it to the ground exclaiming,
with tears: “Is it to be borne that a Pope should be spoken of in such cruel
terms!”. This time Clement’s displeasure lasted
longer. Aretino’s attempts, through influential persons, to obtain pardon were
unavailing. It was only when no less a personage than the Doge Gritti himself applied to the Pope that he succeeded, in
September 1530, in obtaining an official reconciliation. But the banishment
from Rome continued in force, and so for a long time to come did the feelings
of rancour and hatred in the mind of Aretino.
The
great throng of literati of all sorts, poets and men of learning, who since the
days of his Cardinalate had been associated with Clement, would form a
catalogue too long to enumerate. The following only may be mentioned: Zaccaria Ferreri, Bernardo Accolti, Giangiorgio Trissino, Giovanni Rucellai, Fra Sabba da
Castiglione, Pietro Alcionio, Giglio Gregorio Giraldi, Andrea Fulvio, Maria
Fabio Calvo, Pierio Valeriano,
Johann Eck, Santes Pagnino,
Cardinal Cajetan, Cristoforo Marcello, Antonio Pigafetta,
Achille Bocchi, Stefano Joanninense,
Giovanni Gennesio Sepulveda Albert Pighius, Giano Lascaris, and many
others.
The
sack of Rome brought ruinous loss to all men of letters living there, while
many perished. The humanist Pierio Valeriano described the fate of individuals in his
well-known treatise “On the Misfortunes of the Learned.” The Roman University
was completely ruined. Clement VII had shown the greatest interest in its
erection, and gave orders that the buildings should be restored. He failed,
indeed, in securing the services of Erasmus, but was successful in his
invitations to many other scholars. The Papal archives and the Vatican Library
also suffered badly in the year of misfortune 1527, but Clement VII made
vigorous efforts to make good the losses.
The
consequences of the sack were perhaps more disastrous for art than for
literature. Not merely had the whole brilliant group of painters, sculptors,
and goldsmiths been scattered in all directions, and many of their works
destroyed, but the exhaustion of the finances was injurious, for it made all
work impossible for a great length of time, and then, when the worst
difficulties had been overcome, no one was able to come forward as a general
patron of the arts. In this respect, too, Clement VII differed from his cousin Leo X. The heedless prodigality of
the latter was as foreign to Clement as his rich versatility of culture; dry,
earnest, sparing of his purse, he was not the man to act the Maecenas for whom
the world of art had been hoping; they were soon to undergo a great
disappointment.
On
the announcement of the election of Clement VII most of the artists who had
been driven from Rome by the death of Leo X and the pontificate of Adrian VI at
once returned. Their recollections of the reign of the first Medici filled them
all with the most pleasing hopes for the future. To have survived the day of
the “barbarian” Pope and of the plague filled the joyous band with fresh
spirit. “Friends sought each other out again,” says Benvenuto Cellini, “and
embraced and greeted with cheering words those whom they once more met alive.
Painters, sculptors, and goldsmiths, the best in Rome, drew closer together in
a society founded by the jovial Michael Agnolo of
Siena, and held joyous festas in which Giulio Romano and Penni also took part.”
What Cellini tells us of these festas makes it clearly evident that the austere
Adrian VI would have nothing to do with such folk. Clement VII himself was soon
obliged to take steps against Marcantonio Raimondi for having made copperplates
of some obscene drawings of Giulio Romano; had the latter not already made his
way to Mantua, the anger of the Pope would have fallen upon him heavily.
In
spite of the financial difficulties which Clement VII had to contend with from
the first, in spite of the political embarrassments and the unprecedented blows
of fate which were so soon to overwhelm him, he had set on foot many works of
importance, while in another direction his pontificate saw the development in
Rome of artistic activity on no small scale. The most remarkable work of
painting belonging to this reign was undoubtedly the decoration of the great
hall leading to the Stanze, then called the Papal
Hall, and later the Hall of Constantine; for the victorious entry of
Christianity into universal history under that Emperor is there depicted.
The
programme of this monumental work was, as regards essentials, settled under Leo
X. But as yet nothing had been executed, except the general division of
subjects and the figures of Virtue and Justice which Raphael’s pupils, Giulio
Romano and Penni, had painted in oil on the wall; besides this the background
of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge had been begun. This, however, was taken
down when Clement gave orders for the resumption of the work interrupted by his
cousin’s death. The new method of painting chosen out of consideration for the
co-operation of Sebastiano del Piombo was now given
up and the customary use of fresco retained. In this great undertaking Giulio
Romano executed the “Apparition of the Cross” and the battle-piece, while the
“Baptism” and “Donation” of Constantine fell to Penni.
These
great frescoes are painted apparently in the style of vast tapestries stretched
along the walls, an evidence how fashionable this kind of decoration had become
since the production of Raphael’s famous hangings. Only the incomparable
“Battle of Constantine” was sketched by the great master himself, and it was
his thought that placed in the centre of this colossal picture, at the head of
the band of horsemen pressing forward in the irresistible onset of victory, the
youthful Emperor mounted on a noble white charger, with lance in poise, while
the angels hovering over him point to his opponent Maxentius, who falls
headlong into the rushing Tiber. The turning-point in this world-famed battle
is thus most happily indicated. All around rages the turmoil of battle with its
thrilling episodes represented with vivid fidelity to truth.
The
results of the victory, the “Baptism” and “Donation ” of Constantine, were
painted by Penni; in both frescoes St. Sylvester is represented with the
features of Clement VII. The former event takes place in the baptistery of the
Lateran; the “Donation,” which by a stroke of genius is symbolized by the
presentation of a golden figure of Rome, gives an admirable sketch of the
interior of the old church of St. Peter.
Between
these two powerful frescoes are throned in painted niches under baldachini the figures, larger than life size, of famous
Popes of the early Church, among whom Clement I and Leo I bear the traits of
the two Medici Popes. Around these likenesses of the predecessors of Clement
VII are grouped angels and allegorical figures, whose crudely realistic forms
as well as the almost nude mythological figures on the pilasters are characteristic
of the age. Giulio’s pupils, Giovanni da Lione and Raffaello del Colle of Borgo San Sepolcro,
executed the ornaments and arabesques which border the frescoes as well as the
caryatides with the badges of the Medici on the brackets.
According
to the account books the above-named painters were engaged for the greater part
of the year 1524 in the Hall of Constantine, which might perhaps be better
named after St. Sylvester. The last instalment of the stipulated 1000 ducats
was paid on the 3rd of July 1525, but the work, in all essentials, was finished
as far back as September 1524. Giulio Romano thereupon left Rome in October
1524, for no more work of importance was to be expected there. Clement VII was
not merely struggling with his money difficulties, but politics were making
increasing claims on his attention; thus it was that Penni and Giovanni da
Udine also came to be engaged on tasks of only a trivial character, the
painting of banners in particular.
The
catastrophe which befell the artistic world in the sack of Rome was so terrible
that it must once more be considered. The few, such as Benvenuto Cellini and
the sculptors Lorenzo Lotto and Rafifaello da Montelupo, who were able to find occupation as gunners on
St. Angelo, were to be counted lucky. The remainder underwent the hardest
experiences. The painter Maturino died of the plague;
Perino del Vaga, Marcantonio Raimondi, Giulio Clovio, and many others were tortured and robbed of all
they had. Those who could took refuge in flight, and the school of Raphael was
completely broken up. Although Clement VII, after 1530, made strenuous efforts
to restore the patronage of art, the life-blood of art itself had been drained.
The gifted Giovanni da Udine was now extensively employed. He restored, in 1531,
the mosaics in the apse of St. Peter’s, and painted, two years later, the
ceiling of the sacristy of S. Lorenzo in Florence ; the glass windows of the
Laurentian Library are, probably rightly, also attributed to him. The artistic
activity of Sebastiano del Piombo was affected by his
appointment in 1531, by Clement VII, to be a “Bullarum plumbator” or medallist of Papal Bulls, a
remunerative function. After that this distinguished painter confined himself
almost entirely to portraits.
Clement
VII. had always taken a special interest in the art of illumination. He ordered
several specimens to be executed for the choir books of the Sixtine Chapel. But in the account books, which, to be sure, are not in complete
preservation, the name of Giulio Clovio, the greatest
illuminator of the age, does not appear.
The
troubles of the time were the principal cause why Clement, in the domain of
architecture, had to restrict himself to what was absolutely necessary. The
reconstruction of St. Peter’s had a prior claim to anything else. One of the
Pope’s first acts of administration was the appointment of a commission of
sixty members for the special purpose of seeing that the money collected for
this purpose was not diverted to other objects. To raise the necessary sums, the
right application of which was a matter of such extreme importance with the
Pope, the same measures were used as under Leo X; but the same difficulties had
also to be met. As the clumsy machinery of the College of Sixty proved
unsuccessful, a special congregation of the “Fabbrica di S. Pietro” was afterwards appointed. The seal of the Fabbrica was the work of Benvenuto Cellini. The accounts from 1525 have been preserved,
and afford a good survey of the slow progress of the work, the completion of
which, as the Venetian Ambassador remarked in 1523, would hardly be seen by the
generation of their grandchildren. Giuliano Leno continued to be master of the
works under Clement VII. Before the sack Baldassare Peruzzi had been appointed
architect of St. Peter’s for life; during the catastrophe he saved his life
with difficulty, and on the 1st of July 1531 Clement VII renewed his former
appointment.
Although
the nomination in this instance also was for life, Peruzzi withdrew himself
from Rome for a long time, so that in April 1533 Clement VII had to summon him
back.
In
the palace of the Vatican Clement VII completed the court of St. Damasus. Here as well as in the castle of St. Angelo many
minor works and improvements were carried out. In the castle, the defences of which
were strengthened, two chambers are shown at the. present day, one of which
served as the Pope’s bedroom. The most recent restorations have also brought to
light the Pope’s bathroom; it contains mythological scenes from the life of
Venus very characteristic of the licence which marked the spirit of the age.
The decoration also of the Papal villa on the eastern slope of Monte Mario,
which was partly destroyed by fire
during the sack, was purely mythological in character.
In
Rome itself, besides the rebuilding of the Mint (now Banco di S. Spirito) restorations
were undertaken by Clement in the baptistery’ of the Lateran, in S. Agostino,
S. Maria sopra Minerva, S. Pietro in Montorio, S.
Pietro in Vincoli, S. Maria Maggiore, S. Matteo in Merulana, S. Gregorio de’ Muratori,
S. Maria in Domnica, and in the cloister of S. Maria
in Ara Coeli. On S. Giovanni de Fiorentini,
Jacopo Sansovino was employed. On the northern portion of the Campo Marzio Clement VII in 1525 finished Leo X’s construction of
the three streets leading to the Porta del Popolo.
The Pope also did a great deal for the improvement of traffic in Rome. The
sack, which had reduced the population from 55,000 to 32,000; the plague, and
the great inundation of the Tiber in 1530 had done heavy damage to the Papal
capital.
Notwithstanding
these calamities Rome had revived with comparative alacrity, and at the time of Clement’s death the condition of the city was fairly
satisfactory. For fortifications in Rome and elsewhere throughout the States of
the Church Clement VII availed himself of Antonio da Sangallo and Michele Sanmicheli. The former, at his orders, constructed at
Orvieto the great well (Pozzo di San Patrizio) which, after the cathedral, the
inhabitants look upon as the second wonder of their city. In Fano the
reconstruction of the harbour, and in Loreto the erection of the apostolic
palace were undertaken. In Florence in 1533 the erection of the citadel of S.
Giovanni Battista was set on foot.
Clement
VII was too true a Medici to neglect the adornment of the Vatican with noble
tapestries, costly faience, carved doors, and gold and silver vessels. Here
also the sack caused serious losses, but it was not long before the work of
restoration began. This was especially the case with regard to the goldsmiths’
art, which under Clement VII was in a most flourishing condition. As soon as to
any extent his finances permitted it, the Pope began to renew his personal
appointments. His principal commissions were for the golden roses, swords of
honour and other Papal gifts, and for articles of ecclesiastical use. Besides Caradosso, who died in 1527, his most famous workmen were
Benvenuto Cellini, Valerio Belli, and Giovanni Bernardi da Castel Bolognese. In the accounts many other names occur of more or less
note.
This
brilliant coterie of artists does not, perhaps, always appear in the most
favourable light; fierce, reckless characters predominate, and acts of violence
were frequent. The well-known autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini reveals with a
startling fidelity to nature the sharp contrasts between culture and savagery,
faith and superstition, the fantastic mixture of outward splendour and moral
laxity which gave the tone to these artistic circles. In June 1529 Clement
bestowed on this versatile genius the post of an engraver in the Roman Mint.
Vasari considers that no such beautiful coinage had ever been designed for the
Popes before; the pieces that have been preserved are certainly splendid works
of art. The bust of Clement reproduces with remarkable fidelity his cold though
handsome features; many of the designs drawn by Cellini for Papal coins are
uncommonly original. Thus on a gold doubloon the Pope and Emperor are
represented upholding the cross together; on the reverse side of a silver piece
a very effective composition shows the Saviour rescuing Peter from the waves,
with the inscription, “Wherefore hast thou doubted?” A medal with Moses
bringing water from the rock refers to the well made by Clement at Orvieto;
another medal of 1534 celebrates the then prevailing peace.
As
a medallist Giovanni Bernardi da Castel Bolognese
held an even more distinguished place than Cellini. In the art of “intaglio”
Valerio Belli of Vicenza surpassed all his contemporaries. Distinguished also
as a medallist, this artist executed for Clement VII the costly crystal
reliquary presented to the basilica of S. Lorenzo in Florence. But his most
famous work was the magnificent casket of which the principal adornment was
scenes from the life of our Lord cut in crystal; this, executed on the occasion
of the marriage of Catherine de’ Medici, is now an object of admiration in the
galleries of the Uffizi.
The
best-known work of sculpture in Rome, belonging to the reign of Clement VII, is Lorenzetto’s not very successful statue of St. Peter
placed, at the Pope’s command, in 1530, alongside of Paolo Romano’s statue of
St. Paul at the lower end of the bridge of St. Angelo. For the fortress, Raffaello da Montelupo executed a
new angel of colossal size to take the place of the bronze effigy which had
been melted down. At Monte Cassino the sepulchral monument of Pietro de’ Medici
was begun in 1531 and only completed in 1559. At Loreto, Sansovino made
progress with work on the Holy House remarkable for beauty and truly Christian
feeling; as early as 1523 he had finished the relief of the Annunciation, which
is conspicuous for its dramatic movement; the relief of the Adoration oi the
Shepherds with its noble group of angels, set up in 1528, is full of sincerity;
the Adoration of the Kings, the Birth and Espousals of Mary, already begun by
Sansovino, were finished by his pupils after his death in 1529; to his drawings
is also to be referred the panel of the Visitation. Of the statues placed in
the twenty niches, that of Jeremias belongs for the most part to Sansovino; all
the others came from his pupils. The latter also carried out the subordinate
decoration of the structure. Tribolo, Sangallo, and Montelupo have here left work which is very effective. The
lions’ heads, eagles and festoons of Mosca are
especially good, and the same can be said of the panels with pictorial
decorations introduced at the sides and at the foot of the doors. The former
contain the arms of the Medici, and the latter ornamental figures of angels
praying, tritons, sphinxes, birds, vases, and candelabra
The
Pope’s predilection for Baccio Bandinelli was unfortunate. The latter, ambitious and self-seeking, tried to enter into a
discreditable competition with Michael Angelo which was only productive of
unpleasing creations. Bandinelli’s best work was the
copy of the Laocoon executed for Leo X and placed, under Clement VII, in the
second court of the Palazzo Medici at Florence. It is now in the Uffizi. On the
right of the principal entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio stands Bandinelli’s marble group of “Hercules slaying Cacus,” as a pendant to Michael Angelo’s “David.” The
satirical wit of the Florentines soon made a butt of this pompous composition.
Another work entrusted to Bandinelli, the Archangel
Michael triumphing over the seven deadly sins, and intended to adorn the castle
of St. Angelo, was never executed.
Like Bandinelli, Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli had an apartment set apart for him in the Belvedere. Montorsoli was accounted a master in the art, then coming into repute, of restoring
antique statues by additions which were often the result of a correct
calculation. At Clement’s bidding he added the left
arm to the Belvedere Apollo and the right to the figure of Laocoon. The Pope,
who liked to visit the Belvedere in the morning when saying his office, took
great interest in the progress of this work.
Like
many other artists, even the greatest of all saw in the elevation of Clement to
the Papacy ground for far-reaching expectations. “You will have heard,” wrote
Michael Angelo on the 25th of November 1523 to a friend, “that Medici is chosen
Pope. This, it seems to me, has been a matter of general congratulation, and I
believe we shall see great things.” Clement VII had, in fact, throughout the
whole of his pontificate a strong appreciation of the worth and greatness of
this unique genius. The letters in particular of Sebastiano del Piombo and Giovan Francesco Fantucci bear eloquent testimony to this feeling. In the
letters of the latter we have often verbatim reports of the conversations he
had with Clement VII. Full of kind feeling, the Pope bore with truly
astonishing patience the rudeness and ill-temper of the irascible artist. On
one occasion he asked him to remember two things; first, that he is not able to
make everything himself; and secondly, that we have only a short time to live.
The thought that Popes do not for the most part have long reigns was recalled
by Clement on another occasion in a postscript written in his own hand, in
which he begged that he would make as much speed as possible in the execution
of some work on which he was-
Three
tasks of great magnitude were entrusted by Clement to Michael Angelo : the
construction of the Medici memorial chapel (Sagrestia Nuovo) of S. Lorenzo, the execution of the monuments to be placed therein, and
the erection of the Laurentian Library in Florence. At first Michael Angelo
devoted himself with all his energy to this new and fascinating work, but the
political events between 1527 and 1529 deprived him of all artistic capacity.
Inflamed with love of the freedom of his native city, he flung chisel and
hammer aside and undertook the indispensable service of providing defences for
Florence, especially for the protection of San Miniato.
When the Medici finally prevailed Michael Angelo was in very great danger; but
Clement not only shielded him from the injuries instigated by a pitiless party
hatred, but preserved unimpaired the old terms of intercourse. With what deep
sorrow and anger Michael Angelo once more grasped his chisel can be seen clearly
in the immortal verses laden with despondency which he composed for his statue
of Night. At the end of his reign Clement had in his mind yet another work to
be executed by Michael Angelo in Rome: the painting of the Last Judgment. It
was certainly his greatest service to art that he should have suggested this
magnificent subject for the display of the great painter’s Titanic power.
CHAPTER XVII
Clement
VII and the internal Affairs of the Church.— His Attitude towards the Questions
of the Council and Reform.
While
in Europe the ancient Church was suffering loss upon loss, many thousands were
coming within her obedience in the newly discovered countries beyond the
Atlantic. Exposed in her former domains to the bitterest reproaches and insults,
from the lips of the converts of the New World came blessings for their
deliverance from the darkness of heathendom, gratitude for protection from the
cruelty of their conquerors
To
the sons of St. Dominic and St. Francis this beneficent work was mainly due.
The two Orders vied with each other in sending out a continuous stream of
devoted missionaries to the continent of America, and in this work were
supported in many ways by Clement VII. How ample were the measures taken by the
Pope to forward the missionary work in Spanish America may be clearly seen from
a letter written on the 19th of October 1532 to Charles V, empowering him to
choose a hundred and twenty Franciscans, seventy Dominicans, and ten
Hieronymites for the East Indian colonies, and to send them there, in case of
necessity, even if contrary to the wishes of the rulers of the Orders.
Clement
VII gave strong support to the Christianizing of the newly discovered portions
of America by constituting a hierarchy for the purpose of providing regular
ecclesiastical guidance for those who had become converts. On the nth of May
1524 he created the new Patriarchate of the West Indies, entrusting this post
to Antonio Rojas, Bishop of Palencia. On the 28th of December 1528 the two
dioceses of Haiti were consolidated into the single bishopric of San Domingo.
The autumn of 1530 saw the creation of the see of Mexico and the appointment of
Gabriele Merino as Patriarch of the West Indies; in 1531 sees were erected in
Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Honduras, and in 1534 S. Marta and Panama in Colombia
were made bishoprics. Clement bestowed similar attention on the possessions of
Portugal. The bishopric of Funchal in Madeira, created by Leo X, was elevated
on the 31st of January 1533 into an archbishopric, with four suffragan
bishoprics attached to it. These were San Miguel in the Azores, the island of
Santiago in the Cape Verde group, St. Thomas in Ecuador, and Goa in the East
Indies. This formed certainly the largest Metropolitan see in the world.
In
harsh contrast to the happy results in the New World was the complete failure
of the attempts to reunite Russia and the Holy See. Clement had already
written on the 25th of May 1524 to the Grand Duke Vasili calling upon him to
recognize the Roman Primacy and appealing to the negotiations that had already
taken place under Alexander VI and Leo X. This recognition he made conditional
to his bestowing upon him the kingly title. Thereupon in the autumn of 1525
Demetrius Gerasimov appeared in Rome as Russian Ambassador and was treated with
the most marked attention. Gerasimov was admirably fitted to foster the Pope’s
optimism with regard to the views prevalent at the Russian court. At the end of
1525 he went back to Russia accompanied by the Minorite, Francesco da Potentia, Bishop of Skara, as Papal Legate.
The
latter certainly was successful in arranging an armistice between Poland and
Russia, but on the other hand he failed in the question of ecclesiastical
union. In 1527 another embassy visited the Pope from Russia, and a meeting took
place at Orvieto in January 1528. From the Briefs handed to them by Clement VII
on their return, it is clear that the Pope’s illusions concerning Russia were
as strong as ever. The true state of affairs remained hidden from the Roman
Curia ; this was not surprising on account of the great distance and the
difficulty of means of communication.
Clement
VII tried to confirm the Maronites and Armenians in their loyal adherence to
the Union of Florence, and with this object he wrote many Briefs and sent many
special messengers. During his second meeting with Charles V. at Bologna he
received an embassy from the King of ^Ethiopia bearing letters and gifts and
tendering solemn obedience.
In
the year 1525 the great Jubilee took place. Although the disturbed state of
ecclesiastical and political affairs made it seem to many injudicious to hold
this solemnity, Clement had already decided on the 18th of April 1524 that it
should take place. Nor did the outbreak of the plague in Rome move him from
this decision. He took account of the altered circumstances by a reform of the
Roman clergy and by setting aside the obligation of paying a sum of money to
obtain the Jubilee indulgence. Stringent regulations were enacted to ensure the
safety of pilgrims. Nevertheless, principally on account of the rupture of
peace and terrible confusion in Germany, the pilgrims came in smaller numbers
than at any previous Jubilee. Some alterations in the ceremonial were
introduced on this occasion; among others the Pope, on opening the Holy Door,
made use of a golden hammer. A noteworthy feature was the resumption of the
impressive Passion Play in the Colosseum during the year of Jubilee. To the
hindrances already mentioned were soon added the perils of a Turkish descent on
the coasts of Italy and a fresh outbreak of the plague in August 1525. Almost
up to the end of the Jubilee year the plague prevailed in Rome. Also during the
extension of the Jubilee into the following year the Pope insisted that the
money contributions of the faithful should be left to their free discretion.
Nevertheless, the Protestants continued to declare that the Jubilee was
instituted only to gain money, ridiculing it in coarse and odious satires.
The
Bull announcing the beatification of Archbishop Antonino of Florence, delayed
owing to the death of Adrian VI, was published by Clement VII. He canonized the
Venetian, Lorenzo Giustiniani and the Cardinals Aleman and Peter of Luxembourg. The
Pope also sanctioned the cultus of St. Hyacinth of Poland and the office composed
by Bernardino da Busti in honour of the Name of
Jesus. In many ways he encouraged devotion to Our Lady and the recitation of
the Rosary. Special Bulls dealt with the Rota, the Vice-Chancellorship, the
observance of the German Concordat, and the prohibition of duelling.
In
ecclesiastical policy Clement repeatedly found himself forced to make great
concessions to temporal princes who, like the sovereigns of Spain, France,
Poland, and Bavaria, did not yield to the inducement to apostatize. Owing to
his powerlessness when opposed to the Emperor, his representations of the
constantly recurring encroachments on the freedom of the Church in Spain, and
especially in Sicily, produced no effect. In this respect the Pope had many
causes of complaint against other princes, Francis I in particular. Even King
John III. of Portugal, otherwise so friendly to him, had to be strongly
admonished in the year 1524 for the arbitrary imprisonment of two bishops At
the end of his pontificate the question of the establishment of the Spanish
Inquisition in Portugal gave rise to serious differences. Clement only gave a
partial assent to the wishes of King John when, on the 17th of December 1531,
he appointed a Commissary Apostolic and Inquisitor for the whole of Portugal,
to institute, in conjunction with the bishops, an inquiry into the accused
Jewish Christians, with orders to punish the guilty. As the King, on the 14th
of June 1532, by a new law tried to subject the Jews and Jewish Christians to
his arbitrary authority, they appealed to the Pope, complaining of the violent
treatment and the unjust and harsh proceedings of the King and the
Inquisition.
Clement
would not associate himself with the King’s unjust treatment of his subjects.
He first suspended, on the 17th of October 1532, the Bull of December 1531. As
all his representations remained ineffectual, on the 7th of April 1533, to the
entire exclusion of the Portuguese Inquisition, he cited the guilty before his
own special court and gave the Nuncio full powers to effect the reconciliation
on the easiest terms possible. He thus declared expressly that the Jews who had
been treated so severely were not to be punished as heretics. John III raised
objections to these injunctions, and forbade their publication. The Pope therefore
instructed his Nuncio to defer the publication of the Bull for a while; in a
Brief he justified himself against the King’s complaints by explaining the
reasons for his clemency towards the Jewish Christians. Already nearing his
end, on the 26th of July 1534 he ordered the Nuncio to execute the orders of
April 1533, which were as just as they were merciful.
In
other instances as well the Pope showed such tenderness and large-hearted
good-will towards the Jews that a learned member of their nation of that day
did not refrain from calling him “ Clement, the gracious friend of Israel.” The
position of the Jews in Rome as well as in the Papal States was, in
consequence, a prosperous one.
The
absolutism of the Venetian Republic was a source of repeated and angry
conflict. Towards the jealous Signoria, Clement, in several questions of
ecclesiastical policy, showed great readiness to conciliate; nevertheless, the
Venetian Government renewed their claim, abandoned expressly in the treaty of
peace of 1510, to the right of appointing to bishoprics within their territory.
This treaty was infringed with the utmost disregard of obligations, and treated
as if it were non-existent. The disputes about the possession of bishoprics
began as early as 1524. Afterwards, particularly between 1530 and 1532, the
question played a prominent part and, in the latter year, became acute owing to
the Venetian Government taxing, on its own initiative, the clergy of the
Republic for the purposes of the Turkish war. In this question of nomination to
bishoprics Clement showed great steadfastness; the consequence was that the
Signoria finally yielded in June 1533 as far as five bishoprics were concerned,
but would make no concession concerning Treviso or Corfu, although Clement VII
in May had already threatened the heaviest ecclesiastical penalties. The Pope
made passionate complaints to the Venetian Ambassador; in Venice itself the
procurator Francesco Donato said that “Christ had deputed the pastoral office
to Peter; do not let us interfere in questions of Church benefices which belong
to the Pope.” Others pointed to the danger of Clement, in his approaching
conference with Francis I, making terms unfavourable to the Republic. The
majority therefore decided in favour of giving way as regarded Corfu; on the
other hand, the controversy over Treviso, which had been in suspense since
1527, remained unsettled. Up to the last the Venetian diplomatists hoped that
from political motives the Pope would in the end give way.
The
appointments to the Cardinalate made by Clement VII. are uncommonly
characteristic of his reign. The assertion, however, that, of all his
nominations, he did not make one as a free agent, is an exaggeration; but, in
justice, it must be admitted on the other hand that in the majority of cases
the ruling motive in his creations was political expediency or compulsion.
In
the first four years of his reign Clement VII was especially reluctant to
increase the number of the Sacred College. Although the Emperor had already, in
June 1525, asked for the appointment of two new Cardinals, and there was
repeatedly talk of approaching creations, the Pope always deferred as long as
possible the decisive step. His first creation was not made until the eve of
the sack of Rome. To the six Cardinals then appointed seven others were added1
on the 21st of November of the same year, with whom on the 7th of December
Quinones, and on the 20th of December 1527 Francesco Cornaro were associated.
In the beginning of 1529 Ippolito de’ Medici, who had only entered his
eighteenth year, and Girolamo Doria, were made Cardinals. The nomination of Mercurino di Gattinara took place on the 13th of August of
the same year.4 During the first conference at Bologna on the 9th of March
1530, Clement agreed to the elevation of four Imperialists (Cles, Loaysa, de Challant, and Stunica). To satisfy Francis I, Tournon was received into the Sacred College on the 19th of March and Gramont on the 8th of June.
On
the 24th of March 1530 Clement VII promised the Duke of Savoy that he would
make his son, then a child of three years, a Cardinal as soon as he had reached
the lawful age. This very strange engagement was never carried out, for the
person whom it concerned preferred later on to follow a secular career. The
influence of Charles V secured the nomination, on the 22nd of March 1531, of
the Spaniards Alfonso Manrico and Juan Tavera; on the
25th of September Antonio Pucci was made Cardinal. During the second conference
at Bologna the Emperor only carried one candidate, instead of three, in the
person of Gabriele Merino; soon afterwards the Frenchman, Jean d’Orléans, was appointed. Francis I was luckier than
Charles V, for at the conference of Marseilles in 1533 he secured the elevation
of four of his dependants.
The
total number of Cardinals made by Clement, in fourteen creations, amounted to
thirty-three, of whom nine were Spaniards, with an equal number of Frenchmen,
one a German, and all the rest Italians. The preponderating political character
of these appointments shows that spiritual fitness for the post was not made of
much account in the selection. Even if all were not personally so unworthy as
the youth Ippolito de’ Medici, yet the greater number consisted of worldly men
of conspicuous rank. Many of them were only ecclesiastics in garb, and were
occupied with any other interests than those of the Church. How accustomed men
had become to such incongruous conditions is shown by a very suggestive remark
in the report of 1531 of Antonio Soriano, the Venetian envoy: “I will not say that
the present Cardinals are saints; yet I cannot but speak of them with respect
as of men of lordly rank who live in a manner worthy of their noble station.”
But
how was this manner of life to be reconciled with the stringent decrees of the Lateran
Council ? This question is closely connected with the attitude assumed by the
Pope towards the very necessary removal of ecclesiastical abuses. From the very
first it was disastrous that under Clement VII. Church affairs did not, as in
the days of Adrian VI, rank before all others. Medici, to his own misfortune
and that of the Church, was eminently a political Pope; the necessity of a
reform could not have escaped the observation of so clear-sighted an
intelligence.
The
activity displayed by Clement as Cardinal and Archbishop of Florence in
carrying out the reformatory decisions of the Lateran Council led to the hope
that as Pope he would also prosecute his work in this sphere.
As
a matter of fact, in the first year of his pontificate he showed himself a
zealous reformer, acting evidently under the influence of the excellent
Giberti.
Already
on the 18th of January 1524 Clement had addressed a Consistory on the reform of
the Curia and invited the Cardinals to make proposals. Together with this went
a scheme for a general reform of the conditions of the Church ; for this
purpose prelates and bishops of Italy and other countries, such as Spain, were
summoned to Rome, and a special commission of Cardinals was formed to consider
the question of reform. On the 24th of February 1524 the Pope made more
detailed proposals to the Cardinals on a reform of the Curia and ordered the
decisions of the Lateran Council bearing on this point to be strictly enforced.
In the autumn of 1524 the conditions of reform were dealt with in a series of
consistories and drawn up with greater precision.
With
express reference to the coming Jubilee the Pope introduced, on the 9th of
September, three administrative proposals: first, a general visitation of the
churches of Rome; secondly, an examination of the Roman secular clergy; those
among them who were found to be unfitted for their functions should be
prohibited from saying Mass at least during the Jubilee year; thirdly,
precautions were to be taken to procure qualified confessors during this sacred
time. These proposals were carried, and were at once put into operation. A
strict supervision was also made of the observation of the rules appertaining
to the dress of the priesthood and the disuse of the beard. The measures taken
were so stringent that those ardent for reform began to indulge in the
brightest hopes. Many of the laxer prelates submitted only with great
reluctance to these ordinances, but they did submit. For the visitation a
special commission was appointed, which met every Sunday and at the same time
exhorted the Cardinals to support this salutary work, and to set good examples
to those under their authority. Strong measures were also taken against open
immorality. On the 7th of November 1524 Clement again called the attention of
the Consistory to the reform of the Curia. He insisted primarily on the
observance of the Lateran decrees of the 5th of May 1514 on reform being
pressed home, for they were weapons against a legion of abuses. He entrusted
Cardinal Pucci with the drawing up of a Bull on this subject4 which was agreed
to on the 21st of November and forthwith published.
In
the execution of these reforms Giberti and Sadoleto were Clement’s supporters. In the beginning of
December the Cardinals were exhorted to take care of their churches; soon after
three commissaries were appointed to visit all churches, convents, and
hospitals in Rome. Already on the 8th of September the Pope had issued an
emphatic decree to remove the scandal of the Minorites frequenting Rome without
wearing the habit of their Order. On the 30th of November he commanded the
Roman magistrates to throw such vagrants into prison.
A
wholesome measure for the improvement of the clergy was the issue of
instructions to Bishop Gian Pietro Carafa, then resident in Rome, concerning
the candidates for holy orders, by which every form of simony was repressed. In
certain cases also Clement showed himself averse to the accumulation of
benefices; while recognizing the gravity of this abuse, he was yet often compelled
to yield to the force of circumstances. A whole series of Papal enactments for
the year 1524 dealt with the reform of the secular and regular clergy of the
dioceses of Florence, Parma, Naples, Venice, Milan, Burgos, and Mayence. In the same year the Pope gave orders for a
general reform of the Carmelite Order, and in 1525 similar measures were taken
in regard to the Order of the Humiliati.
Unhappily
these hopeful beginnings had no corresponding results. Political distractions
soon absorbed more and more the attention of the Pope, and, in consequence, the
measures of reform slackened. On the 2nd of March 1526 Clement stated in
writing that he had certainly not abandoned his plans for a reformation of
morals but that, owing to the adverse conditions of the time, he was forced to
defer their execution. During the troubles that afterwards arose practical
measures of reform lay almost entirely dormant.
That
Clement VII had always realized the necessity of raising the standard of life
within the Church is evident from the earnest address made to the Cardinals at
Easter 1528, when he spoke of the sack of Rome as a judgment of God. But he
still held back from decisive and comprehensive action. Political and
ecclesiastical troubles of every kind beset him but, over and above, he was
preoccupied by the interests of the house, of Medici.
The
years 1529 and 1530 were marked, however, by a series of special enactments of
reform, but inadequate to existing circumstances. There was no vigorous attack
on abuses in the Curia, no thorough application of the measures already laid
down. In this respect Clement lies open to the grave reproach of having receded
from the path opened by Adrian VI; he allowed things to drift back into a
contrary course. Outside Rome itself the condition of things was no better. The
evils had passed beyond the reach of special regulations, and the cure lay beyond the scope of ordinary remedies. Far and
wide the demand for a Council was raised; but this was an heroic measure from
which Clement shrank with the utmost misgiving.
Clement
dared not openly refuse a Council; but with the innate diplomacy of an Italian
he tried by a policy of delay to weaken the necessity of convoking one; he was
afraid that more harm than good would result from such an assembly. He weighed
beforehand all the dangers that a Council undoubtedly might involve, and in his
treatment of the whole matter showed such timidity and indecision that, in the
end, he forfeited the belief of all men in his sincerity. The Pope’s objections
to the Council were, in the main, half religious and half political. Nor was he
unaffected by personal considerations; his illegitimate birth and certain
defects of character counted for something, but this could not, as Charles V
and his party believed, have formed the decisive motive for the Pope’s
behaviour; that was partly grounded on politics and partly on religion.
The
synods of Constance and Basle, with their aggressive attempts to weaken Papal
authority, were still fresh, with their ominous import, in the memory of the
Roman See. What security was there that the controversy over conciliar
authority might not revive again. Should this happen, developments beyond the
ken of man were to be feared. To the Pope, always a prey to anxiety, a not less
serious consideration was the reaction which a thoroughgoing system of reform
would effect in the conditions of life in Rome. If we grasp that the mere
rumour of the summons of a Council caused a sudden fall in the price of all
saleable offices, we can estimate the amount of pressure brought to bear on the
Pope in his financial necessity by the officials of the Curia. Further, there
was the serious apprehension that the all-powerful Emperor would exercise a
preponderant influence in the Council and practically annul the independence of
the Holy See.
Again,
how often during the previous century had the demand for a Council been basely
misused by the Pope’s enemies to subserve the worst purposes. Already in 1526
Charles V had not disdained, in his political contest with Clement, to employ
the Council as a weapon against him. How easily might such proceedings be
repeated! And a factor of great influence was the policy of the King of France,
who laboured assiduously to prevent a general assembly of the Church, and in pursuit
of this object did not seem to shrink even from schism. Finally, the conditions
tendered by the Protestants with regard to the participation in “a free
Christian Council” not merely of the temporal princes but even of heretical
preachers, were such that no Pope could entertain them. Thus there was urgent
need for the greatest caution. Nevertheless, the most painful feelings were
aroused by the Pope’s opposition to a general Council, and especially by his
unnatural subordination of the religious and ecclesiastical tasks of his office
to those which were political. This unfavourable impression was only partially
mitigated by the encouragement given by Clement, in a measure, to the efforts
at reform which took practical shape in the hands of men such as Gaetano di
Tiene, Giberti, Carafa, Miani, Zaccaria, and others.
CHAPTER XVIII
The
Beginnings of the Catholic Reformation.—The Oratory of the Divine Love.—Gaetano
di Tiene and Carafa.
Even
in times of deepest depression true reformers have arisen within the Church. In
spite of abuses and secularity in high places they have never sought occasion
to renounce their loyalty to the divinely appointed authority, but have striven
to bring about the necessary ameliorations in lawful ways and in closest adhesion
to Catholic dogma and the Holy See. Working in this direction, they have
rejected every change incompatible with the permanent and divine institutions
of the Church, and with her authority and doctrine.
During
the fifteenth century, in every country in Europe, men of high character were
pursuing reforms in this spirit on the firm foundations of the Catholic faith.
But nowhere were these efforts to secure a completely satisfactory renewal
crowned with success. In Spain itself, where Cardinal Ximenes, that powerful
and far-seeing Franciscan, was achieving, comparatively speaking, the most
remarkable results in Catholic reform, his work was lamentably injured in its
permanent effect by the absolutism of the Royal power.
In
Italy Egidio Canisio of Viterbo had laid down the
programme of the Catholic reformation at the opening of the Lateran Council in
words of weighty meaning: “Men must be transformed by religion, not religion by
men.” Even if the Council drew up its decrees of reform in agreement with this principle,
yet the most important thing of all was wanting: the practical execution of the
same. Even the outbreak of the religious severance did not draw Leo X into a
different course; consequently the state of the Church became so menacing that
many despaired of a remedy. When all seemed lost a change for the better was
coming to pass in perfect quietness, and this proceeded from the inner circles
of the Church. It was essentially a new expression of the indwelling element of
the divine life and an evident witness to the protection promised by Christ to
the Church for all time.
While
almost the whole official world of the Curia was given up to politics, and the
Italian clergy, conspicuous among whom were the Roman prelates, to corruption
and frivolity to an alarming degree, while Leo X himself, heedless of the
threatening signs of the times, was sunk in aesthetic enjoyment amid the whirl
of a gorgeous secular life, a certain number of men, clerics and laymen, noted
for virtue and knowledge, had united themselves, under the guidance of the
spirit of God, in a confraternity under the protection of St. Jerome bearing
the significant name of the Society or Oratory of the Divine Love. Deeply
penetrated by the extent of the corruption around them, they started as true
reformers with the view that they ought not to indulge in useless lamentations,
but begin the much-needed reformation of the whole body with a reform of
themselves and their immediate surroundings. From these small and unpretentious
beginnings they, in the fulness of their holy enthusiasm, laid the foundations
of a citadel for the observance of the means of grace, for the contest against
vice and abuses, and for the exercise of works of charity.
The
main principle of the members of the Oratory of the Divine Love, to begin with
the inward renewal of their own lives through religious exercises, common
prayer, and preaching, frequentation of the sacraments and works of neighbourly
love, and to point the right way to reform by means of example, was a
thoroughly Catholic one; for the Church, in accordance with the will of her
Founder, has always considered and set forth inward sanctification as the
essential thing. All the members of the Oratory were also united by a strong
Catholic feeling. Not one of these men thought even remotely of abandoning the
foundations of Church doctrine on account of defects in the clergy, high and
low, or of seeking reforms in unlawful ways. Their place of meeting was the little
church of SS. Silvestro and Dorothea, which, near to S. Maria in Trastevere, lay in a quarter of the city to which the then
existing tradition assigned the dwelling-place of St. Peter; on the adjoining
slope of the Janiculum the Prince of the Apostles had, as was then believed,
suffered martyrdom. Thus when the members of the confraternity betook
themselves to their meetings the loftiest associations of Christian Rome were
called up before their eyes.
As
the Oratory was founded in 1517 at the latest, it is probable that its
institution was an echo of the intensified religious feeling connected with the
Lateran Council closed on the 16th of March of that year. This religious
feeling had found incomparable expression in the visions of Christian art displayed
in the masterpieces of Raphael. What devotion radiates from the forms of the Sixtine Madonna and the Divine Child whom she shows to
mankind from her height of glory! It has been said with justice, that the great
lustrous eyes with which the infant Christ meets the gaze of the beholder might
well urge an unbeliever to confess the faith. The same deep life of faith and
grace is mirrored in the Transfiguration. The ancient Umbrian piety speaks here
in the more powerful accents of the art of a new age. There is certainly no
evidence that Raphael was a member of the Oratory of the Divine Love; but with
two of its most distinguished members, Sadoleto and
Giberti, he was on terms of friendship and spiritual sympathy. It may be said
at least that these, his greatest masterpieces, were executed in the spirit of
the Oratory.
The
greater elevation of religious feeling in those days found expression also in
the foundation of yet other confraternities which, together with the
encouragement of a Christian tone of life, especially devoted themselves to
works of practical charity. In the first rank mention must here be made of the
“Confraternita della Carita.” It had been founded in 1519 by no less a man than Cardinal Giulio de’
Medici, afterwards Clement VII, for the support of poor persons above the
mendicant class, for the visiting of prisoners, and the burial of the
destitute. As early as 1520 this association numbered more than eighty members,
including bishops, prelates, and officials of the Curia. Leo X, on the 28th of
January 1520, raised it to the status of an archconfraternity and bestowed upon
it indulgences and spiritual graces. In the first year of his pontificate
Clement provided for this, his own institution, by endowing it with the Church
of S. Girolamo, in the neighbourhood of the Farnese palace, and ever since
known as “della Carita,” together with the buildings
belonging to it The protectorate, which Clement as Pope had to resign, was held
by Cardinal Antonio Ciocchi del Monte; he was
followed by Enkevoirt (1529), Cupis (1533), Carafa
(1537), and Morone (1553). During Clement’s lifetime we find among the deputies of this confraternity, together with lesser
officials, the Pope’s Master of the Household, Girolamo da Schio,
and the Cardinals Enkevoirt, Quinones, and Ercole Gonzaga.
The
Confraternity of S. Girolamo della Carita was, by the
autumn of 1524, in such prosperity that Valerio Lugio saw therein the hand of God. “Twelve chaplains,” he reported to Venice, “attend
to divine worship in the church; the members are unwearied in visiting the
hospital, the poor, the wounded, the sick, the imprisoned; they bestow burial
on the dead and perform every imaginable work of charity.”
The
members also of the Oratory of Divine Love did not restrict themselves to purely
religious exercises. They were not less diligent in offices of neighbourly
charity, and there is an express tradition that in the days of Leo X they
devoted themselves to the maintenance of the ancient Hospital of S. Giacomo degli Incurabili. Here arose another
confraternity in which Leo X, all the Cardinals, and many prelates and
courtiers were enrolled. The convent for female penitents on the Corso owed its
origin to the Oratory of the Divine Love. Cardinal Medici obtained the sanction
of Leo X for this institution, and when Pope continued his support.
The
members of the Oratory of the Divine Love, whose numbers rose in course of time
to between fifty and sixty, were men differing from one another considerably in
culture and social position. Together with those whose interests lay
exclusively in ecclesiastical life, such as Giuliano Dati,
parish priest of SS. Silvestro and Dorotea, Gaetano
di Tiene, Gian Pietro Carafa, Luigi Lippomano, with
whom, later on, in the person of Giberti, a politician and diplomatist also
became associated, we find several humanists like Sadoleto,
Latino Giovenale Manetti,
and Tullio Crispoldi. The
influence of these latter explains to some extent the curious form of the
single contemporary memorial that brings back to day in Rome the memory of the
Oratory at S. Dorotea. This is a holy water vessel in
stone in the shape of an ancient heathen altar, bearing on the front side the
name, title, and arms of Giuliano Dati, who died
previous to 1524, The inscription on the right side shows that it was composed
by persons who delighted in expressing their thoughts in the language of
classical antiquity. Here, if anywhere, is evidence that the employment of
phraseology not only classical but even pagan in tone, does not warrant the
conclusion that this was the outcome of unchristian sentiment.
It
was of great importance that the quiet activity of the Oratory of the Divine
Love, the members of which, under Clement VII, also showed care for the poor
class of pilgrims to Rome, should have set an example to different cities of
Italy, Verona, Vicenza, Brescia, and Venice being among the earliest to imitate
the Roman model. These communities were connected with their brethren in Rome.
They held to the same genuine Catholic principle that the sanctification of the
individual must necessarily precede any attempt to bring a reforming influence
to bear on others. How important for the revival of the inner life of the
Church was the Oratorian practice of the frequent use of the sacraments of
penance and of the altar, long before the days of Jesuit activity had come, is
evident from the well-authenticated fact that, prior to this, the number of
those who approached the altar more than once a year, namely, at Easter, was
very small.
Important
and full of blessing as the work of the Oratory and its offshoots proved to be,
yet, from their very nature, associations of this kind were debarred from
exercising a wider and more penetrating influence. As confraternities they
lacked a strict organization. In addition to the constant fluctuation in the
number of members, there were the repeated claims, of duties and business of
other sorts calling them away from the good work for the sake of which they had
united together.
The
recognition of these drawbacks led to a plan for the formation of a special
order of regular clergy, the so-called Theatines. This Order, which was
essentially a product of the Oratory of the Divine Love, soon won a position of
exceptional importance in the progress of Catholic reform and restoration. We
can thus understand the enthusiastic praise lavished by the historian of the Theatines on the Oratory of the Divine Love as
the cradle of their society. If at first the Oratory was only a hopeful omen of
the quiet reaction towards reform working within the Church, its full
significance became known at last through the new and powerful organization
which owed to it its birth.
To
two men of very different character the foundation of the new Order was due ;
they were Gaetano di Tiene and Gian Pietro Carafa.
The
ancestors of Gaetano di Tiene were nobles of Vicenza who bore the title of
Count. Born about 1480, he studied jurisprudence at Padua and came to Rome in
1505, where he was appointed Protonotary-Apostolic by Julius II. Not until he
had reached his thirty-sixth year, in the autumn of 1516, did he receive minor
and sacred orders. It is evident from the letters of this devout priest to the
Augustinian nun Laura Mignani of Brescia that he had
hitherto held back from entering the service of the sanctuary from humility and
a holy fear of that high vocation. Gaetano, who devoted eight hours a day to
prayer, dwells in these letters in touching language on his unworthiness to
offer up the sacrifice of the Mass wherein he, “a poor worm of earth, mere dust
and ashes, passes, as it were, into heaven and the presence of the Blessed
Trinity, and dares to touch with his hands the Light of the sun and the Maker
of the universe.” Such a priest must have found in the Oratory of the Divine
Love the expression of his innermost soul. If Gaetano nevertheless left Rome as
early as 1518, it was in obedience to a call of filial duty bidding him return
to Vicenza, where his mother had just undergone a heavy loss in the death of a
second son. There he worked in the spirit of the Oratory in Rome and urged
worthy and repeated reception of the sacraments. In this direction Gaetano’s
efforts were specially effective, for he infused
fresh life into the Confraternity of S. Girolamo. It was he also who induced
this society to take over the administration of a decayed hospital for
incurables. On this work of compassion he spent large sums of money, and also
obtained for it from Leo X. all the privileges and indulgences belonging to the
great Hospital of S. Giacomo in Rome.
In
the summer of 1519 a brotherhood at Verona, the Secret Confraternity of the
Most Holy Body of Christ, which had also been one of Gaetano’s revivals, addressed
a petition to the confraternity at Vicenza to be admitted into fellowship with
them in spiritual possessions, prayers, and good works. In his great humility
Gaetano inverted the petition and requested admission to the brotherhood in
Verona, whither he went, accompanied by the leading members of the community of
Vicenza. When it came to the signing of the form of aggregation he made his
companions take precedence. His own subscription was as follows: “I, Gaetano di
Tiene, wholly unworthy to be a priest of God, have been received as the last
among the members of this holy community in July 1519.”
From
1521 to 1523 Gaetano, with the exception of a short visit to Brescia where he
saw Laura Mignani, devoted himself to works of
spiritual and temporal compassion in the city of Venice. There also he bestowed
much attention on the hospital for incurables, and in an astonishingly short
time brought it into a better condition. In spite of this success he was not
satisfied; the worldliness of life in the city of the lagoons grieved him
deeply. From thence on the 1st of January 1523 he wrote to his friend Paolo Giustiniani: “How pitiful is the state of this noble city!
One could weep over it. There is indeed not one who seeks Christ crucified.
Jesus waits and no one comes. That there are men of good will among this fine
people I do not deny. But they will not stand forth ‘for fear of the Jews.’
They are ashamed to be seen at confession or Holy Communion.”
These
discouraging conditions probably led to Gaetano’s return to Rome at the end of
1523. There, in the Oratory of the Divine Love, he found Bonifazio da Colle,
Paolo Consiglieri, and Gian Pietro Carafa all full of reverence for his own
ideals. His intercourse with Carafa especially was to be followed by most
important results.
Seldom
have two such different characters combined in the pursuit of the same aim as
these two men whose activity in the beginning of the great movement of the
Catholic reformation was fertile in influence. A waft of sacred poetry breathed
through the life of Gaetano, who, like the saint of his deep veneration,
Francis, glowed with a mystic love for the poor Child in the manger. Amid all
the fire of his religious emotion he was yet a personality of exceeding
gentleness and tenderness. Yielding, given to self-communing, silence, and
reserve, it was only with great reluctance that he took a public place. He thus
gave rise to the remark that he wished to reform the world, but without letting
the world know that he was in it. A beautiful saying, and the best description
of the peculiar character of a man who was filled with a boundless trust in the
providence of God. In long hours of meditation Gaetano prepared for the
sacrifice of the Mass. He was often seen to burst into tears at the moment of
consecration. Daily, in the sacrament of penance, he clad his soul in the
purest wedding garment, and was himself unwearied in the duties of the
confessional and in the visitation of the sick and poor.
Carafa
also was full of love towards God and his neighbour. His sense of religion was
not less deep than that of Gaetano; but in him, the typical southern Italian,
it found a very different expression. Brimming over with eloquence, impetuous,
glowing with a zeal not always tempered with wisdom, capable of inconsiderate
obstinacy and hardness, he flung his whole being into the work that seemed to
him to be necessary. The embodiment of strength of will, and driven by an
irresistible urgency to work and originate, he formed a striking supplement to
Gaetano, the tranquil servant of prayer and meditation.
Carafa’s career was also much more troubled and full of vicissitude than that of his
friend. Born on the vigil of the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul (June 28) 1476,
this scion of one of the oldest, noblest, and most influential families in the
kingdom of Naples wished, while yet in his twelfth year, to enter the Dominican
Order, but was prevented by his father, Gian Antonio, Baron of S. Angelo della Scala and, in right of his wife, Vittoria Camponesca, also Count of Montorio.
Gian Pietro’s sister Maria, eight years his senior, felt the same vocation for
the cloister. On Christmas night 1490 they both escaped from their parents’
house. The brother sought out the Dominicans, the sister the nuns of the same
Order. Once more the father snatched his son from the cloister; but, on the
other hand, he gave him permission to study theology for, as the nephew of an
Archbishop and Cardinal, brilliant advancement seemed certain. On completing
his studies in 1494 Gian Pietro received the tonsure, and in accordance with
his father’s wishes he went to Rome to his uncle, Cardinal Oliviero Carafa. The latter wished at once to procure a bishopric for the lad of
eighteen, who conscientiously refused to entertain the notion. Even later
(about 1500), when a Papal chamberlain, he only accepted benefices to which the
duty of residence was not attached. Entirely given up to study, prayer, and
works of charity, he passed through the corrupt court of Alexander VI pure and
unspotted. The keen insight of Julius II. soon recognized his worth; by 1503 he
had appointed him a Protonotary and in 1504 Bishop of Chieti in the Abruzzi.
Carafa accepted this honour unwillingly. From this and from the opposition of
the Spanish government to the appointment of an offshoot of a family always
inimical to their interests, we can explain why Carafa’s consecration did not take place until 1506. Immediately afterwards he was sent
by Julius II. as Nuncio to Naples to welcome Ferdinand the Catholic on his
arrival from Barcelona. On this occasion also Carafa had to experience the
hardness of the Spanish character. Ferdinand flatly refused to pay the annual
tribute on investiture with the kingdom demanded by the Nuncio in the Pope’s
name. He rejoiced when, in 1507, his mission came to an end, and at once
returned to Chieti to find his diocese in an evil plight.
Carafa
as a genuine reformer began to introduce an improvement by his own example and
the change of behaviour in his household, in accordance with the motto adopted
by him at this time: “For the time is, that judgment should begin at the house
of God.” In his new position Carafa had often to resist the encroachments of
the Spanish officials on his own jurisdiction. But no obstacle turned back this
man of iron purpose. In every way, especially by his visitations, he laboured
for five toilsome years to raise the standard of the diocese; so intent was he
on this work that he did not attend the first four sittings of the Lateran
Council. As soon as his diocese was to some extent set in order he went to Rome
in the beginning of 1513 where, as a member of the commission for the restoration
of peace and the removal of the schism, he soon attracted the attention of Leo
X, who in 1513 appointed him Legate to Henry VIII. During his stay in England
he came to know Erasmus, on whom he urged the duty of preparing an edition of
the works of St. Jerome. Erasmus praised Carafa in a letter, speaking with
admiration of his dignity, his eloquence, and his knowledge of Latin, Greek,
Hebrew, and theology. Leo X in 1515 sent him as Nuncio to Spain. On his journey
thither he formed a friendship in Flanders at the court of Margaret of Austria
with the Dominican, Juan Alvarez de Toledo, an earnest supporter of reform. At
first his reception at the court of Ferdinand the Catholic was of the best; the
King gave him a place on his Council and made him Vice Grand Chaplain. Carafa
tried to make his influence felt in Aragonese affairs, on behalf of the
independence of Naples. But all his attempts to move Ferdinand to a
renunciation of that kingdom were unsuccessful. He appealed in vain to the
conscience of the dying King, reminding him of his broken pledges to Frederick
of Naples and his sons. This attitude also reacted on his relations with the
new King, Charles. Although Carafa was on the King’s side during the revolt of
the Comuneros, he was viewed with dislike at court. He was suspected of
disclosing State secrets to the Pope, and one of his colleagues on the Council
even taunted him with the words: “If the Neapolitans had their deserts, they
would get dry bread and a stout stick”. When, on the appointment of a new Grand
Chaplain, Carafa was passed over, he requested leave to retire. Charles V tried
to reconcile him by appointing him Archbishop of Brindisi, but Carafa withdrew
from the court in bitter displeasure. Henceforth a deep-rooted distrust and
dislike of the Hapsburg King of Spain took possession of him.
But
in other respects his long residence in Spain had been of great importance to
Carafa. While it lasted he had formed friendly relations with the men who were
anxious to carry out a scheme of reform on sound Catholic principles and
without making a breach in the established order of things. He was in near
touch not merely with Cardinal Ximenes but with Adrian of Utrecht and the
Neapolitan, Tommaso Gazella di Gaeta. Powerful as the Spanish influences were in
this connection, yet they must not be overrated. Like Adrian, Carafa had been a
friend of reform long before he had come to know in Spain the fruits of the
activity of a Ximenes. In one important point his plan of reform differed from
the Spanish programme. He abominated any intrusion of the secular power into
the ecclesiastical sphere, and had, especially, a higher sense of his position
as a churchman than the Spanish prelates. What was the amazement of the latter
when Carafa once in the Chapel Royal replied to a court official who had asked
him to delay beginning Mass until the King arrived : “ Within these sacred
walls I represent the person of Christ, and therefore, vested with such an
office, would deem it an indignity to await the coming of an earthly king.”
Carafa
returned to Rome from Spain by Naples, where he restored the Confraternity of
the Bianchi, who ministered to persons lying under sentence of death. When in
1520 he reached Rome, the affair of Luther was being discussed. Leo X made use
of him during the deliberations; he also may have had a share in formulating
the Bull of Condemnation, otherwise his chief occupation in Rome was the
pursuit of works of charity; he was most constantly seen in a hospital for
incurables he had founded earlier with the help of Ettore Vernacci,
and in the Oratory of the Divine Love. Devoted as he was to the objects of this
association, agreeing as they did with the motto of his choice, yet he was soon
once more in his dioceses of Brindisi and Chieti, where a great field lay open
for his reforming energies. He did not return to Rome until an express summons
from Adrian VI. called him back in 1523. He gladly obeyed the request of the
Pope, who was determined to give practical shape to his idea of reform. Of the
impression made in Rome by Carafa we have some information from a letter of
Paolo Giustiniani in which he gives an account of
some of the devout men whose acquaintance he had made in the city. Carafa, he
says, was a man of learning and humility, and so holy in his manner of life
that no one in Rome could be compared with him. How much might have been hoped
if such a man had been permitted to co-operate for long with the lofty-minded
German Pope in his reforming efforts! But Providence had decreed otherwise. Carafa,
in July 1523, had just obtained for Paolo Giustiniani a confirmation and extension of plenary powers for the congregation of the
hermits of Camaldoli when Adrian died.
Carafa,
with the penetration which was peculiar to him in such matters, perceived that
Clement VII, notwithstanding his previous good intentions, could not be
expected to follow the course on which his predecessor had entered. For a
moment he dwelt on the thought of withdrawing himself into the solitude of the
hermits of Camaldoli: fortunately for the Church, the
bent of his character towards energetic work had the upper hand. Carafa was not
mistaken in supposing that political interests would more and more predominate
at the court of Clement VII.
In
closest intimacy with the members of the Oratory of the Divine Love, and
especially with Gaetano, he drew up new plans. With all their enthusiasm for
the Oratory, these two friends were well aware that a mere confraternity
offered no guarantee for a comprehensive and permanent renewal throughout the
Church. Besides, since all ordinances from higher authority and all Papal
decrees of reform were almost a dead letter, the idea was pressed home to them
that, by the force of example, the deeply needed improvement might be begun
first of all among the ranks of the secular clergy. Thus there ripened in the
conversations of Carafa and Gaetano, to which some other friends, such as
Bonifazio da Colle of Alessandria and the Roman Paolo Consiglieri had been
admitted, the plan of substituting for the Oratory a special foundation with
fixed rules and a life in community consisting of regular clerics in immediate
dependence on the Holy See. Instead of the old orders which, partly from
deterioration, partly from their organization, were no longer adapted to the needs
of the times, a new institution, instinct with life, was to arise, the members
of which, as simple priests of blameless life and faithfulness to their
vocation, were to shed a guiding light of example before the great mass of the
secular clergy, numbers of whom were sunk deep in the prevailing corruption.
The fundamental idea of the founders was to form a society of devoted priests
who should give themselves up entirely to the administration of the sacraments,
the work of preaching, and the conduct of ecclesiastical ceremonies so as to
set an example before the Church. Of friars there were plenty, and many were
disreputable men; the members of the new Order, therefore, were not to bear
names, many of which had fallen into wide discredit. At their head there was to
be neither prior nor guardian, but simply a superior. Attention was also paid
to the form and colour of their clothing; the customary black garment of the
ordinary priest seemed the only suitable one for a community with the primary
task before it of effecting by example and hard work a thorough reform in the
secular clergy, and a return to apostolic standards of life.
While
any imitation of the externals of the existing orders was thus avoided, Carafa
and his associates were all the more anxious to be true to the inner character
of lives devoted to a religious rule. They therefore demanded a secluded
community life and the observance of the three vows of chastity, obedience, and
poverty. On this last point they went much further than the followers of the
poor man of Assisi. The members of the new institution were to practise poverty
in its most rigorous form. They were to have no capital, no income; they might
not even once ask for alms. Depending calmly on the divine providence, they
were to wait for spontaneous gifts and in this way bring back clergy and people
to the enthusiasm of the first Christians. A fountain-head of evil in the
Church was the immoderate striving after possessions, whereby so many were
enticed without vocation into the sanctuary. This grievous abuse was to be torn
up by the roots by an association of priests subject to vows, and leading lives
of poverty in the fullest sense. This idea had taken possession of two men
sprung from families of noble descent, who thus sought to make expiation for
the scandals brought on the Church by others in their own station in their
pursuit of worldly possessions.
This
summons to absolute poverty aroused in the Curia of Clement VII, where most men
were absorbed in money and the acquisition of money, general observation and
great opposition. If amid the chilling of Christian love the mendicant Orders
were hardly able to exist, how could a new order maintain itself by repudiating
the appeal to the alms of the faithful? To such objections Gaetano replied in
the words of Christ: “Be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat; nor
for your body, what you shall put on.” So fervently did he dwell on God’s
providence in the presence of the Pope that the latter exclaimed: “I have not
found such faith in Israel.” But difficulties of a more serious kind were not
wanting. Gaetano had scruples in allowing Carafa to become a member, as he was
already a bishop. Clement VII. on his side saw with reluctance so capable a
man, to whom he had given an important function in respect of the reform of the
Roman clergy, removed from his service. The Pope also feared the difficulty of
finding a substitute for him in the dioceses of Chieti and Brindisi. But the
fervent Carafa, supported by his old friends Giberti, Sadoleto,
and Schonberg, gave Clement no rest until he yielded and consented to his
resignation of the two sees. The decisive Brief, drawn up by Sadoleto, was issued on the 24th of June 1524. It gave
permission to Carafa, Gaetano, and their associates, after solemnly taking the
three essential vows, to live in community as regular clergy while wearing the
garb of the ordinary ecclesiastic. They were to be in immediate subordination
to the Pope, to choose a superior holding office for a period not longer than three
years, while secular clergy and laymen were to be admitted to the vows after a
probation of one year; they, moreover, held all the privileges of the Canons of
the Lateran, together with permission to accept benefices with a cure of souls.
The special constitutions were not to be presented for acceptance until later,
when greater experience of their working had been acquired.
Gaetano
now resigned all his benefices and handed over his patrimony to his kinsfolk.
“I see Christ in poverty and I am rich,” he wrote on the 24th of August 1524;
“He is despised, and I am honoured. I wish to draw one step nearer to Him, and
therefore have resolved to renounce all yet remaining to me of this world’s
goods.”
Carafa
also distributed his property among needy relations and the poor; at the same
time he resigned both his sees. This instance of a self-sacrifice unprecedented
in that age created a great sensation; to many such a heroic step was simply
unintelligible; others indulged in depreciation or ridicule, but Gaetano and
Carafa went on their way unheeding. On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy
Cross (September 14), 1524, in company with Bonifazio da Colle and Paolo
Consiglieri, after receiving Holy Communion they presented, at the tomb of St.
Peter, to Bonziano, Bishop of Caserta, as Apostolic
Commissary, the Brief by which their institute was recognized as an Order, and
then proceeded to take the solemn vows. Carafa was immediately afterwards chosen
Superior, retaining, according to the desire of Clement VII, his title as
Bishop. The new foundation was in closest communication with the Holy See, and
its members, directly subject to the Pope, looked upon St. Peter as their
special patron.
The
new regulars, who were called Theatines or Chietines from Carafa’s first see, and sometimes Cajetans or Clerks Regular of the Divine Providence, were
clad entirely in black; they always wore the cassock, high collar, and white
stockings, and their head covering was the clerical biretta. Carafa strictly
required them to be clean shaven and wear a large-sized tonsure. They lived, as
much as possible, in seclusion; but when they appeared in public their
demeanour was full of dignity. They began with a small house in the Strada Leonina, leading to the Campo Marzio,
once the property of Bonifazio da Colle. On the 30th of April 1525 the first
novice was received; he was the learned priest Bernardino Scotti, afterwards a
Cardinal.
Before
the close of 1525 Giberti provided the Theatines with a new dwelling on the Pincian, then quite unbuilt upon, where the Villa Medici
now stands.[554] There they gave themselves up assiduously to prayer,
meditation, the study of Holy Scripture, and the care of souls. Especially were
they diligent in preaching, avoiding all profane alloy in their sermons and
fervently teaching devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the frequentation of the
sacraments. At the same time they aroused violent enmity and vulgar contempt;
Carafa in particular suffered in this respect, for he stood high in Clement’s favour and, being the Superior of the community,
was a representative personality. The worldly-minded ridiculed the new Order as
a collection of laughable eccentrics who were neither monks nor simple clergy,
but among the people respect for them increased on account of their mortified
lives and their exemplary devotion to the sick and the poor pilgrims during the
outbreak of the plague in the Jubilee year of 1525. A deep impression was made
by the sight of men of illustrious and noble lineage, to whom all the
enjoyments of life might have lain open, choosing of their own accord the
strictest poverty and, without fear of infection, visiting the poor and
plague-stricken in hospitals and private houses, to tend, cheer, and succour
them in the pains of death. It was then that a nun of Ravenna declared that God
was now sending His saving help to reform the Church and renew the lives of
men.
Whoever
led a more interior life, with greater piety and strictness than others, was
spoken of as a Theatine. Even among the Roman clergy the earnestness and
asceticism of the new Order, whose members, notwithstanding the almost
insupportable scarcity, never lacked the necessaries of life, began to produce
a wholesome effect. What a change was brought about in Rome by the quiet,
plodding labours of the first Theatines is seen from a letter written on the
5th of January 1527 by one of themselves to their friends of like mind in
Venice, who had charge of the Hospital for Incurables there. “Christ,” he says,
“is now more feared and honoured here than in days past. The proud humble
themselves, the good praise God, the wicked are without hope. Let us pray for
their conversion, pray for the fathers, and specially for Carafa! God is making
use of his own in the Church. Bethink you, the first prelates and lords in
Rome, who at first despised us in their pride, now come daily to us with such
submission, as if they were our servants, that I am quite ashamed. They show a
willing spirit of penitence, prayer, and pious works. They do all that the
fathers bid them. And yet more—daily the Holy Father asks for the prayers of us
poor wretches.” He then goes on to relate how the great Tommaso Campeggio came
one day to Carafa and asked him very humbly to bestow on him the episcopal
consecration, which he had hitherto deferred, as he desired henceforward to be
a true bishop of the see of Feltre. Although Campeggio was a man of learning,
Carafa examined him as if he had been a simple priest. He submitted with
touching humility, and might have received all the grades at once, and even
have asked for consecration at the hands of the Pope himself; but he preferred
to act in obedience to Carafa’s wishes. He fasted
with the Theatines, kept the canonical hours along with them, and at each
ordination communicated with such humility that all present were put to shame.
Giberti too, at that time next to the Pope the most influential man in Rome,
visited Carafa daily, and often shared with him his frugal meals. Just then
Clement VII showed his attachment to the Theatines by the bestowal of new
indulgences. The new community grew day by day in men’s regard, but their
labours in support of the hospitals and other benevolent institutions did not
diminish in zeal.
Carafa
and Gaetano looked to the future in hope and joy. Then came the catastrophe of
the sack of Rome; Carafa, Gaetano, and their twelve associates were brutally
treated by the soldiers and thrown into prison. They managed, as by a miracle,
to escape from the hands of their tormentors. The Venetian envoy, Venier, took compassion upon them in Ostia and was the
means of enabling them to make the journey to Venice, which they reached in
June. The Confraternity of the Hospital for Incurables, with whom they had
always had close ties, procured for them in their entire destitution a refuge
at S. Eufemia. Thence they migrated to S. Gregorio, and finally found a
suitable community house in the Oratory of S. Nicola da Tolentino.
The
Theatines, who had, on the 14th of September 1527, chosen Gaetano as Superior,
lived as retired a life in Venice as in Rome, so that they were spoken of as
the “hermits.” They continued to urge the frequent use of the sacraments; they
were also occupied with raising the observance of divine worship to a higher
level of solemnity and with the improvement of the Breviary by the excision of
unhistorical narratives. Their pastoral zeal, their heroism amid the famine and
plague of 1528, won them an increase of friends, and one of their greatest
benefactors was the Doge Andrea Gritti.
It
was of the greatest importance for the Theatines that in Venice they came into
closer relations with such eminent advocates of Catholic reform as Gasparo Contarini, Reginald Pole, and the regenerator of
the Benedictine Order, Gregorio Cortese. The garden of S. Georgio Maggiore, Cortese’s monastery, was the scene of many learned and pious
conversations, for which reason Bruccioli chose it as
the background for his “Dialogue on Moral Philosophy” Carafa drew up the
earliest rules for the Theatines, over whom he was again Superior from 1530 to
1533. The object of these statutes was the formation of a blameless type of
priestly character enjoying the utmost possible freedom for the exercise of the
different branches of the pastoral office. The several rules were not to bind
the members of the Order under sin.
Carafa
showed great prudence in his guidance of the Order. When Clement-VII, in
February 1533,2 enjoined the erection of an affiliated house in Naples, the
Superior raised difficulties, for he feared lest his slender forces should be
broken up. The Pope, in entire confidence, left the matter to Carafa’s sole decision. The latter did not make up his mind
until August, and then sent two of his best colleagues, Gaetano and Giovanni
Marino, to Naples, where the Theatines, supported by Gian Antonio Caracciolo, soon secured a firm footing. Gaetano, who was
the Superior in Naples, although in other respects a gentle character, was
inflexible in the observance of the strictest poverty, as he showed in his
resistance to the Count of Oppido, who wished to
press upon the Neapolitan house settled revenues. In order to escape from him
Gaetano moved into the Hospital for Incurables. Afterwards he obtained a new
house through the good offices of the devout Maria Laurenzia Longa, who was to become the foundress of the Capuchin nuns.
Gaetano
was also quite as strict as Carafa in the reception of new members. This and
the requirement of complete poverty accounts for their numbers not having
exceeded, after nine years, one-and-twenty persons. Consequently the burden of
work falling on the individual members became so heavy that Clement VII, in
1529, ordered other forms of prayer to be substituted for the daily office to
relieve those who were already overcharged with the duties of study, visiting
the sick, and the confessional.
The
system of scrupulous selection observed by the founders of the Order had
thoroughly justified itself. The great success of the Theatines undoubtedly is
to be attributed to no small extent to this characteristic, that here a small,
carefully chosen circle of men, deeply schooled in obedience to the Church,
formed, as it were, a corps d’élite with which
Carafa won his victories. Thus the Theatine Order was not so much a seminary
for priests, as at first might have been supposed, as a seminary for bishops
who rendered weighty service to the cause of Catholic reform. One of the chief
causes of the failure attending the efforts of Adrian VI. was the want of a
suitable organism to carry into effect the right measures; such an organism was
found in the new Order.
In
Rome Carafa had many opponents, especially among the worldly minded Cardinals.
It is to the credit of Clement VII that he almost always was on the side of
Carafa in his many encounters, and that he fostered the development of the
Order by means of extensive privileges. In the presence of the secularized
character of the episcopate, Carafa held it to be of the greatest importance that
his community should remain in direct dependence on the Holy See. He knew no
rest until this vital point was expressly settled by a Brief issued on the 7th
of March 1533 which also contained yet other graces and privileges.
Full
of rejoicing and encouragement at the Pope’s support the Theatines worked, as
Carafa expressed it in writing, day and night. Although often visited with
illness Carafa was indefatigable in hearing confessions and preaching; an
ardent lover of souls, he sought out the erring, thinking the conversion of
sinners the priest’s first task. It is astonishing how he also found time for
other occupations as well. From the time when Clement VII, in 1529, had
appointed him to bring order into the complicated situation of the Greeks in
Venice and to renew a better life in the eremitical settlements in Dalmatia,
his activity had gone on increasing; where the question of reform arose he was
at once active. He endeavoured to influence the Pope through Giberti, and made
representations to him with frankness and courage. In his correspondence he
addressed himself not merely to members of religious orders who had gone
astray, but to bishops who neglected their duties. “Why do you not preach?” he
wrote to one of them, “if you are not able to, you ought not to have taken the
bishopric.” In Verona, again at the Pope’s special request, he supported the
work of Giberti. In Naples in 1530 his advice was of powerful aid to his sister
in her reform of the Dominican convents. In the same year Clement entrusted him
with the process against the Lutheran Galateo and
with the much-needed reform of the Franciscans of the province of Venice. A
more suitable choice seemed impossible, for Carafa was on excellent terms with
the Venetian authorities and he praised the Republic as the seat of Italian
freedom and the bulwark against the barbarians. In course of time he acquired
in Venice a peculiar and important position. He intervened in the
politico-ecclesiastical disputes between the Republic and the Pope; in this as in
other instances it was to his advantage that the Signoria preferred the
services of a man uninfluenced by private interest, who was more than a prelate
merely in name and not absorbed in ecclesiastical affairs only, to those of the
Nuncio. Carafa’s reputation in the highest circles
stood so high that the ambitious Signoria, even in purely political affairs,
such as the boundary disputes with Ferdinand I, made use of his and asked him
to draw up for them a memorial on the reform of ecclesiastical conditions. Even
if his intention to punish heresy before all things met with no response, his
position in the Republic was none the less a most influential one.
Carafa
was not discouraged when his endeavours to meet heresy in Venice with severity
fell through. He now had recourse to Rome, for in October 1532, in an
exhaustive memorial to the Pope, he drew a deplorable picture of the religious
condition of Venice and with the greatest candour made far-reaching proposals
for the removal of abuses. Together with stringent measures against heretics
Carafa called most emphatically for a thorough reform of the degenerate
Venetian clergy; for he knew well that mere measures of repression would only
touch the symptoms of the disease without being able to cut at its root.
Carafa
laid down that the sources of heresy were threefold : bad preaching, bad
books, and bad ways of living. What he had already for three or four years been
calling the attention of his Holiness to, he once more exposed: a commission, consisting
of the Patriarch, the bishops, and some men of approved piety, should be
appointed to examine all clergy desirous of preaching and hearing confessions,
with regard to their probity and manner of life, their vocation, and the
Catholic faith. Those only who were found worthy should be allowed in future to
exercise pastoral functions. Henceforth no exceptions should be made to this
rule. Carafa, without hesitation, gives a warning against these examinations
being left in the hands of the generals of orders. He dismisses as absolutely
unworthy of notice the fear that monks suspended from the pulpit and the
confessional would become heretics, or that the number of qualified priests
would be a small one; better that they should be few but good. How much depends
on the preacher requires no illustration. Of still greater importance is the
function of the confessor; what Carafa here reports of the abuses that had
crept into this institution make his indignation intelligible. There were
convents of Conventuals in which friars, who were not even priests, installed
themselves in the confessionals in order to filch a couple of soldi. In
consequence of the horrible scandals caused by such proceedings, the majority
of the Venetian upper classes neglected their Easter confession. In this
connection Carafa went on to speak of the monstrous abuse of the vagabond
monks, against whom the strongest measures should be taken. The penitentiaries,
greedy of fees, must be restrained from the heedless issue of dispensations to
leave the cloister. A new Grand Penitentiary1 having just been appointed, now
was the exact moment to take steps, and monks who had become secularized should
be deprived of all pastoral charges.
Carafa
saw a further source of grave abuses in the decay of the episcopate. The great
majority of the bishops neglecting the duty of residence, the office of chief
shepherd had become an unreality. Ambition led the bishops from court to court,
while they relegated their diocesan duties to degenerate monks who called
themselves titular or suffragan bishops. These subordinates conferred orders in
many instances for money on unworthy and incompetent men, even on boys of
sixteen. Hence the contempt for the priesthood and the Holy Mass among the
people. In the presence of such scandals, what reply could be made to the
heretics who saw in them cause of exultation? So noisome is this state of
things, exclaims Carafa, that every place reeks with its foulness. If, in spite
of the excellent enactments of 1524, there are still to be found in Rome many
who will without conscience bestow holy orders, what measure can one take of
the state of things in Venice? All these unprincipled titular bishops should be
deprived of ordaining faculties, but those already ordained must be thoroughly
examined, and all who are unworthy be suspended.
Carafa
ends by speaking once more of the incredible corruption of the religious
orders, on whose condition the salvation or the ruin of mankind depends. That
Carafa does not exaggerate in his description of the disorders here prevailing
is proved by the contemporary reports of the Nunciatures. But deep as the
wounds of the Church at large were. Carafa still saw the means of healing if
only the Pope would make use of them. Two things, above all, were necessary: in
the orders in which abuses prevailed, further decay must be arrested; a free
hand must be given to the few good remaining by separating them from the bad.
Thus only can a real reform be opened up, as even Eugenius IV. had perceived in
his day, and as Spain and Portugal have attempted with good results in more
recent times. Although every Order has need of a regeneration, yet this is
especially the case with the Franciscans ; therefore with them a beginning
might be made, and that certainly at once in Venice.
Gian
Matteo Giberti.—The Somaschi and the Barnabites.
The
comprehensive reform of the secular and regular clergy as demanded by Carafa
for Venice in his memorial of 1532, had already been begun since 1528 in the
diocese of Verona by a member of the Oratory of the Divine Love. The man from
whom, in this case, came the impetus towards improvement was one of Carafa’s most sincere friends, and at the same time deep in
the confidence of Clement VII, Gian Matteo Giberti.
He
was born at Palermo in 1495, the illegitimate son of a Genoese admiral, and
while yet a youth of eighteen became a secretary to Cardinal Medici, greatly
against his wish, for, being of a pious disposition and fond of retirement, he
had longed to enter some religious order. He submitted, however, to his
father’s wishes. As secretary to the Cardinal, Giberti showed such devotion to
his work that he not only won the entire confidence of his master, but also the
special favour of Leo X. As time went on he was initiated into the most
important political and ecclesiastical business. In the completion of the
offensive alliance of the 8th of May 1521, between the Pope and the Emperor, he
took a part of no small importance. Notwithstanding his many political
preoccupations, Giberti found time as well for his spiritual and mental
development. He was in close relations with many of the humanists of Leonine
Rome, who were glad to find a rallying-point in his house; one of his
particular friends was Vida, who had also celebrated Giberti’s ordination to the priesthood in a beautiful ode.
After
Leo X’s death Giberti continued to be of the household of Cardinal Medici, who
sent him on a mission to Henry VIII and Charles V. On his return from Spain he
came with Adrian VI to Rome. Even then, although he looked young in years, he
seemed to have the wisdom and virtue of the aged; it therefore caused no
surprise when Clement appointed him his Datary and at once made use of him as
his first minister. Giberti would have preferred the quiet fulfilment of his
priestly duties to his novel position, which, although highly influential, was
also an agitating one. But he did not possess enough determination to say “No”
with firmness; his loyalty to his master turned the scale against himself. For the
same reason, from having been in the highest degree friendly to the Emperor, he
became one of the most ardent champions of the League of Cognac. In these years
of unresting political activity at Rome, as well as
on foreign embassies, he displayed astonishing capacity for work; but the
excessive strain sowed the seeds of great irritability. As Datary his conduct
was irreproachable; in other respects also he gave evidence of a sterling
character in close sympathy with the noblest personages of his time, among
others with Vittoria Colonna. The Pope was justified in placing full confidence
in him.
In
August 1524 Clement had already bestowed upon him, to his great reluctance, the
bishopric of Verona. He would now gladly have broken with Rome, and devoted,
himself to the administration of his neglected see; but the Pope held back his
trusted servant. Giberti from Rome did all he could to regenerate morally and
intellectually the regular and secular clergy of Verona, a work in which
Clement gave him ready support. He also took an active share in the efforts at
reform during the opening years of this pontificate, as well as being the
animating spirit of all that was good in Rome. With Carafa he was on terms of
closest intimacy, and rendered him most important services in connection with
the founding of the Theatine Order. His greatest delight was to pass his time
in their pious circle and that of the Oratory of the Divine Love, regretting
that there was so little of it to spare from the hard claims of his political engagements.
Notwithstanding
his increasing distaste for political life, Giberti persevered in his loyal
devotion to the Pope; with him he passed through the calamitous years 1526 and
1527 in Rome, and shared the captivity in St. Angelo. Thence he went as a
hostage to the Imperialist camp, where he was placed in chains and narrowly
escaped execution. During those terrible days the old unquenched longing for a
life of tranquil occupation in sacred things revived with increased energy. He
now reproached himself bitterly for not having listened earlier to the voice of
God calling him to carry out his duties as a bishop resident amid his people.
From his captivity, he begged Carafa, on the 15th of November 1527, to go to
Verona in his stead and reform that diocese; at the same time he expressed the
hope that his misfortunes might open a way for that which had so long been the
object of his desire—to withdraw from political life and give himself up
entirely to his ecclesiastical work. “Willingly will I carry these fetters,” he
added, “if they should become the occasion for freeing myself from other bonds
which I have found not less heavy to bear.”
Giberti
succeeded in escaping from his persecutors, and at Orvieto informed the Pope of
his resolve to withdraw to his diocese; Clement tried in vain to keep him at
his side. On the 7th of January 1528 he had already reached Venice. One of the
first whom he visited was Carafa, with whom he was in full agreement on the
points of Church reform, the better preparation and closer examination of the
clergy, and the radical restoration of discipline in the religious orders. If
Carafa had been formerly his counsellor in spiritual matters, so was he also
now when the arduous work was about to begin of transforming a diocese given over
to the secular spirit into an example of what a reformed bishopric should be.
What
he did in this respect is best understood from a description of the state of
things he had to encounter on entering his see. Many of the clergy were
non-resident, leaving the cure of souls to hirelings who, for the most part,
were persons of demoralized habits. The ignorance of many of them was so great
that Giberti had to order the rubrics of the Missal to be translated into
Italian for the sake of those who knew no Latin. Preaching in many places had
been given up altogether. The confessional was treated with laxity, and the
churches were so neglected that they looked like stables. There was a
corresponding disorder in the lives of the people, who had sunk into the worst
vices.
Giberti
entered on the difficult task of reform with great courage, but with even
greater wisdom and calmness. First and foremost he relied on the influence of
his personal example. In accordance with the bad custom of his times, even
Giberti had gone further than was right in the accumulation of benefices; now
he resigned all those to which a cure of souls was attached. The incomes of the
rest, which he conscientiously believed himself entitled to retain, he spent
only on worthy objects. But in other respects also he underwent a great change
of character. The geniality, which no burdens of statecraft could destroy,
disappeared, and he embraced the strict asceticism for which he became
famous.[His day was divided between prayer and work, and his table was one of
the most frugal. In the performance of his ecclesiastical functions he set the
best example. Unwearied in giving audience, he first gave access to the poor,
then to country-folk, and lastly to the citizens of Verona. Naturally prone to
impulsiveness, he listened with the utmost patience to everything brought
before him; in deed and word he was at every man’s disposal.
In
his diocese he at once started on trenchant reforms in which he displayed the
practical sense acquired during long years of experience of affairs. How much
depended on the presence of a resident bishop was now made apparent. Formerly
he had made attempts at reform through his representatives, but in an
inadequate way; now, under his own eye, a different state of things was set in
motion. In November 1528 it was already reported from Verona: “The priests in
this diocese are marked men; all are examined; the unworthy or unsuitable
suspended or removed from their offices; the gaols are full of concubinarii; sermons for the people are preached
incessantly; study is encouraged; the bishop, by his life, sets the best
example.”
In
January 1529 Giberti undertook the visitation of his diocese. He wished in this
way to carry into practical effect his numerous ordinances, and devoted the closest
attention to the visitation, which was partly conducted in person and partly by
delegates. With a small retinue he went from village to village undeterred by
any obstacle, so great was his holy zeal; on one occasion he was nearly drowned
in a flooded stream. When he reached a parish he chose in preference the worst
quarters for the night, and went into a minute examination of the conduct of
the clergy, the condition of the churches, and the lives of the common people.
In a volume specially set apart for this purpose he noted down the actual facts
of each case. That his information might not be one-sided, he also heard laymen
and gave them practical encouragement in their troubles. In order to bring
long-standing enmities to an end, this man of refined culture did not shrink
from seeking out the rudest peasants and exhorting them on his knees to be
reconciled to one another. He had a wonderful way of combining gentleness with
strength. In cases of gravity he was inexorable in using excommunication and public
penances. With his clergy he was urgent in insisting on .the exact observance
of the duty of residence and the maintenance of irreproachable conduct. Whoever
failed in these respects was dismissed without regard to the patron, even if he
were a bishop. At first Giberti refused to allow any female, not even a sister,
to be the inmate of a priest’s house; but at a later date somewhat relaxed on
this point, and permitted women of whose integrity he was personally convinced
to act as housekeepers. In order to put a stop to the tenure of a plurality of
benefices with cure of souls attached, he caused all dispensations, hitherto
given in such cases by Rome, to be revoked. The execution of the visitation
orders was to be carefully watched over by his vicarii foranei; in addition to which the parish priest
or preacher was to send him reports.
In
order to ensure a regular and continuous discharge of the cure of souls,
Giberti took particular pains to restore the former dignity of the office of
parish priest. He therefore forbade stringently any encroachment on their
rights by the religious orders, and insisted on parishioners attending on
Sundays and festivals the parish priest’s Mass, while the latter was not to be
celebrated in the other churches. The erection of new chapels and the saying of
Mass in private houses he tried to limit as much as possible.
The
worship of the parish church was to be conducted with the utmost possible
solemnity and dignity; therefore the closest observance of the ritual and due
reverence on the part of the celebrant were strictly enjoined. Giberti’s exactitude in these respects is shown by his
reprimanding such an apparently insignificant offence as a priest laying his
biretta on the altar. But of greater importance to him than any externals were
inward piety and purity of heart. He therefore enjoined on all priests weekly
confession. He sought to ensure a faultless administration of the sacraments by
numerous instructions, some of which went into minute details. The reservation
of the Holy Eucharist In a locked tabernacle on the high altar, and the ringing
of the bell at the elevation seem to have been introduced first by him. He also
sought to promote the adoration of the most Holy Sacrament by means of
confraternities. He subjected confessors to the strictest discipline, and by
the suspension of all who were unfit and by repeated examinations he cleansed
their ranks inexorably. Here also he was not indifferent to externals;
confessors were always to exercise their office wearing cotta and stole and
seated as judges, not standing, as often happened when the penitents were
persons of high station. It is not improbable that the confessionals of the
shape now generally in use originated with Giberti.
Parish
priests were also exhorted to administer conscientiously the revenues of their
churches, and to keep a watchful eye over the schools, hospitals, associations
and confraternities, the poor, the widows and orphans; but especially he bade
them lay to heart the need of a fruitful ministry of preaching. This was well
timed in view of the danger of Lutheran teaching being introduced, against
which Giberti had already issued a strong edict on the 10th of April 1530: In
every parish church throughout the year on Sundays and festivals the Gospel of
Christ was to be preached to the people in “love and simplicity of heart,
without superfluous quotations from poets or the discussion of theological
subtleties.” Without the permission of the bishop, preaching was not to be
allowed preachers from without were enjoined to consult the parish priest as to
the special requirements of the congregation. Giberti tried to secure the best
preachers in Italy for the cathedral and conventual churches of Verona. He
often despatched them into country places where the priests were frequently not
competent to preach; he also instituted instructions for children on Sunday
afternoons. Even the peasants gathered round the church doors before the
beginning of divine service were not forgotten by this zealous bishop; an acolyte
was to be sent out to them to read aloud from some sacred book.
Together
with the reform of the secular clergy went that of the Orders. There were
certainly still some monasteries of excellent character, but in many others
corruption had reached an unbearable pitch. Giberti entered on the campaign
with spirit.1 Clement VII. gave him special powers with regard to the exempt
convents of men. All preachers and confessors were put under the same strict
regulations as the secular clergy, and visited with the severest punishment in
cases of moral delinquency. With great vigour Giberti also set himself against
the abuses connected with the system of indulgences, which for the most part
was carried on by monks. Through his representations to the Holy See it was settled
that in future no questor was to collect alms in the diocese of Verona without Giberti’s permission, and all powers to the contrary, even
if they originated with the Pope himself, were to be declared null. In the
autumn of 1528 Giberti had already begun the visitation of the convents of
nuns. He often made his appearance at an entirely unexpected hour. He collected
detailed information on all points. Some convents he closed; others he improved
by the introduction of good elements; in all he took care, as a matter of the
first importance, to have good confessors. In some convents of women where the
corruption was deep-seated, and where rich and powerful relatives were mixed
together, Giberti met with incredible difficulties. He therefore in 1531 had his
regulations for the reform of nunneries confirmed by the Doge. In these
convents he even forbade the use of the organ and artistic choir singing. The
severest precautionary rules were drawn up for the observance of the enclosure
and the probation of novices. Here Giberti recurs to the principle of his old
friends Gaetano and Carafa: better to have few and good, than many and useless.
Still
greater difficulties than those caused by refractory nuns awaited Giberti in
his Cathedral Chapter. Here as elsewhere exemptions stood in the way of the
execution of his enactments. On this account Clement VII had already given him,
in 1525, full jurisdiction over all exempts. As the Canons proved stubborn, the
Pope on the 26th of March 1527 removed by express order the Cathedral Chapter
from the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Aquileia, and placed them directly
under that of the Holy See, naming Giberti, for life, Legatus natus, for the city and diocese of Verona. When
Giberti, on the ground of this appointment, installed a provost in 1529, the
Canons left the cathedral and held their choir services in S. Elena. Although
Rome pronounced in the Bishop’s favour, the Chapter kept up their resistance.
Not until January 1530 was Carafa, as mediator, able to bring about an agreement
to which Giberti, with great magnanimity, consented. Nevertheless, at a later
date there were fresh misunderstandings with the Chapter
On
other occasions also serious conflicts arose with the corrupt clergy as well as
with the citizens; Carafa, and on one occasion also Gaetano, had to intervene.
It went so far that Clement VII thought that Giberti ought to give up his
difficult post and return to Rome, but he had no intention of doing so. He
certainly obeyed the Pope’s summons to come to him in 1529 and 1532, but he
went back to his diocese as soon as it was possible. Even the Cardinalate, in
connection with which his name was so often mentioned, had no attraction for
him. Patiently and gently he worked at the reform of his clergy, always
receiving steady support from Clement.
Giberti
never allowed his devoted efforts to relieve the physical and moral
wretchedness of his people to relax. The social activity of the Bishop of
Verona was an almost unique phenomenon in that age. It formed a beautiful complement
to his activity as a Church reformer, although in that capacity he always kept
his eyes steadily fixed on the broad ranks of the people. With fatherly love he
provided for the accommodation of the sick, poor, and orphaned children, and
opened Sunday schools for the lower classes. He founded in Verona a refuge for
poor young women in way of temptation, and another for those who had fallen. A
sign of the practical sense which was uppermost in all he did was his endeavour
to find domestic service or husbands for those who, under such circumstances,
had come back to a better life. At the same time he made regulations to check
the prevalence of public immorality in the city.
Giberti
endeavoured to give an entirely new start to works of public benevolence by
reforming the confraternities intended to carry out such purposes, but most of
which had become disorganized. On the model of the Monte di Pieta at Verona he
caused similar institutions to be set up by the country priests in their
parishes. They were not to be used merely as pawnshops, but also as mutual
loan societies which should prevent the peasantry from having recourse to
Jewish usurers.
In
order to remedy the mendicancy which, in true Italian fashion, had become
intolerable in Verona, he founded the Society of Charity, composed of clerical
and lay members, and obtained for it from Clement VII all the graces conferred
on the “Societas Pauperum” in Rome. The new
association, which met every month, was a sort of Society of St. Vincent de
Paul for the material and moral elevation of the poor. The members supplied the
really deserving with money, provisions, and articles of clothing, procured
medical attendance for the sick, furnished dowries for poor girls, dissolved
concubinage, undertook legal proceedings for widows and orphans, and made peace
between obstinate enemies. Francesco Zini is right in
calling this “society of Christian love” the greatest and noblest of all Giberti’s works, surpassing all the rest together in the
way that charity surpasses all other virtues. This most benevolent institution,
which Giberti first of all raised with such care in Verona, was afterwards
spread by him throughout the country. In every parish seven men were chosen to
carry out, together with the priest, all works of Christian charity, and at the
same time to act as a sort of moral police. The object of such an association,
writes Francesco Zini, is “that no man should offend
God, no man suffer hunger, no man do injury to his neighbour, no man, above all
things, commit sin, no man be deprived of the necessities of life; finally,
that enmity and all hatred and anger should be taken away, so that we, as men
once did in the first and happiest days of the Church, should all live with one
heart and one soul in the fear and praise of God.”
Giberti,
in the midst of his strenuous exertions, found his one recreation in the
pursuit of knowledge and the society of learned men. Every leisure hour he
devoted to study, especially of the Holy Scriptures in the original text and
the commentaries of the Fathers; from the primitive sources he wished to become
familiar with the discipline of the ancient Church, the ever-present ideal of
his efforts at reform. To many of the humanists, scattered abroad by the
tempest of the sack of Rome, his see of Verona became an asylum of hospitality.
Under his patronage arose an association of men of learning and poets known as
the Accademia Gibertina. In the pleasant loggia of
the episcopal palace, looking down on the Adige, this company met together within
sight of one of the most beautiful of Italian landscapes. But even in this
atmosphere Giberti did not forget the question of ecclesiastical reform. He
tried to entice the poets from the profane to the religious muse, he urged the
philologists to translate and comment on works of religion, notably the Greek
Fathers. For this purpose he set up in his house a private printing press in
which Greek types were specially prepared. The humanist Tullio Crispolai, a member of the Oratory of the Divine
Love, prepared, at his instance, a small Catechism and a Manual for Preachers.
The
example thus set was not lost on other bishops. To confine oneself to the reign
of Clement and his personal encouragement, among the foremost may be named
Cardinal Bernhard Cles in Trent, Cardinal Cornaro in
Brescia, Pietro Lippomano in Bergamo, Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga in Mantua, Cardinal Ridolfi in Vicenza,
Aleander in Brindisi, Vincenzo Carafa in Naples, Vida in Alba, Federigo Fregoso in Salerno and Gubbio, Girolamo Arsagi in Nice, Sadoleto at Carpentras, Ludovico Canossa at Bayeux, who
were all followers of Giberti’s reforming zeal. Each
of these prelates had a high sense of his official responsibility; some of
their ordinances, for example the visitations conducted by Cardinal Gonzaga in
his diocese, point unmistakably to the influence of the Bishop of Verona.
That
this change in the character of the episcopate was due in great part to Carafa’s untiring energy is substantiated by not a few
witnesses, and his influence was often direct.
There
was, at the same time, a slow but gradual revival of synodal life in Italy.
Clement VII while yet a Cardinal had organized a Provincial Council at Florence
in accordance with the regulations of the Lateran Council. Cardinal Farnese,
supported by his excellent Vicar-General, Bartolommeo Guidiccioni,
after beginning in 1516 to lay the foundations of reform in his diocese of
Parma by visitations, held in the same city in November 1519 a diocesan synod. Rangoni, in 1522, did the same in Modena, and in the autumn
of 1534 Giberti was thus active in Verona. Synods held in Poland, Germany,
France, and England showed, under Clement VII, the same interest in Church
reform. Amid the general confusion signs of fresh life were stirring at points
of the Church’s life the most remote from one another. That this reaction
should have found its greatest impetus soonest and most decisively in Italy was
due largely to Giberti. His example was a stimulus raising a zealous emulation
in an increasing number of bishops; St. Charles Borromeo himself did not
disdain to follow in the steps of Giberti, and the voice of the latter has been
embodied in not a few of the decrees of the Council of Trent Verona, although a see of small extent, became a source of
superabundant blessing to the Church at large.
The
Catholic reformation set on foot by Giberti was eminently popular in character.
It was not devised in a scholar’s study, and thus did not primarily apply to
the learned but to the great bulk of the middle and lower classes. Among the
latter a point of contact was reached with an undercurrent of religion which,
even in the worst days of the Italian Renaissance, had always been a living
force.
The
distresses of the time—and this was a point of great importance for the
carrying through of Catholic reform—played their own part in giving a stronger
impetus to this movement. The horsemen of the Apocalypse, war, famine, and
death, depicted at the close of the fifteenth century by Dürer as portents of things coming on the earth, made the circuit of Italy with their
accompanying horrors. Like a hurricane let loose the furies of war harried the
land, devastating dwellings and fields and driving men before them. The garden
of Europe was changed at last into a field of slaughter covered with dead, and
soon to become a hotbed of pestilence. The frightful events they saw, the
sufferings they underwent, roused the population to a pitch of excitement which
was not diminished by the constant predictions of hermits and solitaries.
An
exceptionally deep impression was made by the crowning catastrophe of the sack
of Rome, by which the leading members of the Oratory of the Divine Love were
driven from the city to upper Italy, where a fresh sphere of fruitful activity
was opened to them. The moral effect of this disaster was greater even than the
material loss.
Throughout
all Italy, and in all other countries of Europe as well, the sound of
lamentation arose over the ruin of a city which, from century to century, had
exercised a matchless witchery over the minds of men. Unheard-of atrocity and
infamy, murder, violence, robbery, plunder, fire and sacrilege of the worst
kind had visited Rome the eternal, and turned the scene of a brilliant
civilization, the centre of the literary and artistic Renaissance, the seat of
the supreme government of the Church, into a waste place over which hovered the
breath of pestilence. As in the days of St. Jerome so now many a writer
bewailed in prose and verse the downfall of the lordly city. In a letter to Sadoleto, Erasmus expressed himself in the words: “It is
not the city, but the world that has gone to ruin.” Here spoke the humanist.
The sack marked, in fact, the end of the Renaissance, the end of the Rome of
Julius II and Leo X.
A
world had disappeared, a new one had to arise in its place. The connection
between the Papacy and the Renaissance on its pagan side was doomed to be
dissolved in time, and the catastrophe which brought their union to such a
pitiful end introduced the subsequent great sobering of human society and
prepared the way for the Catholic reformation. This terrible event became one
of the great landmarks not merely of literary and artistic but also of
religious history. Generally, among heretical Germans as well as orthodox
Spaniards and easy-living Italians, the horrors of the sack of Rome were looked
upon as a just judgment of God on the deep depravity of the chief city of
Christendom, a frightful retribution for the evil example given to the world by
many prelates and not a few Popes during the age of the Renaissance. In Italy
this was the view taken not merely by the educated, but by the masses of the
The
knowledge that God had punished with fire and sword the iniquity that cried to
heaven from the Eternal City brought many to examine their own hearts. Even so
ardent a disciple of the culture of the Renaissance as Pierio Valeriano had now to admit that they had had no firm
principles of life to offer, and that a revolution in morals had become a
necessity. In the school of suffering men were beginning to learn better and
purer things. As once amid the storms which accompanied the downfall of the
Roman Empire, so now many men of noble birth took refuge in solitude and
penance. All the better elements in the Church recognized the guilt in which
all more or less were implicated. This self-knowledge was bound by degrees to
bring on a reaction. No less a person than Sadoleto saw therefore, with prophetic vision, in the misery of the present the gleams
of a new dawn, the coming purification of the souls of men. “If,” he wrote to
the Pope, “the wrath and might of God have been satisfied by our calamities, if
this fearful punishment should open a way once more for a better morality and
better laws, then perhaps our misfortune has not been the greatest that could befall
us. What is God’s own, God can take care of; but we have before us a life of
renewal that no power of the sword can wrest from us;
only let us so direct our acts and thoughts as to seek the true glory of the
priesthood, and our own true greatness and strength in God.”
Clement
VII and many Cardinals and prelates with him had indeed, in their hour of
calamity, entered into their own hearts. But the former, a Medici to the core,
was brought back only too soon into the labyrinth of politics; many prelates
also led lives as before, but an entire restoration of the previous state of
things was impossible. With Clement’s successor came
the immediate perception of the task imposed on the Papacy for a century to
come by the apostasy of the North. The speech delivered by Bishop Stafileo on the reassembling of the Rota on the 15th of May
1528 is a remarkable proof of the serious change in many members of the Curia
as well. After a description of all that Rome had undergone through plunder,
pestilence, and famine, the Bishop put the question why the capital of the
world had been so sorely visited. He answered with a frank confession of sin
recalling that of Adrian VI: “Because all flesh has become corrupt, because we
are not citizens of the holy city of Rome, but of Babylon, the city of corruption.” Stafileo did not shrink from applying to Rome the
apocalyptic image of the woman of Babylon. From the terrible catastrophe
whereby the Lord had driven the buyers and sellers from His temple he drew for
himself and his colleagues the lesson that they should now amend themselves and
administer justice incorruptibly. “We have all sinned grievously,” he
exclaimed; “ let us reform, turn to the Lord, and He will have pity upon us.”
The
sack had, like a storm, cleared the air of Rome and left ineffaceable traces
behind. The city had suffered too much ever again to become the brilliant,
deeply corrupt Rome of Leo X. The indiscriminate enthusiasm for classical
antiquity, the life of splendour and festivity with its moral decay, which the
great masters of art with difficulty concealed, all the joyous spirit of the
Renaissance, had gone for ever. The feast of Pasquino,
once neglected but restored in 1525, became a failure; the frolics of the
Carnival fell flat. Instead of the half-pagan masquerades on feastdays religious processions were now seen in the
streets, and the voices of preachers of penance had more attraction for the
Romans than the compositions of poets and musicians.
The
destruction had, indeed, been so great, so much that was good had been swept
away with the bad, that Rome at first was but a barren field for such religious
efforts. The Oratory of the Divine Love, indeed, renewed its life, but Carafa’s attempt to bring about a fresh settlement of the
Theatines did not succeed.
The
horrors of war were not confined to the Papal States. Lombardy in particular
suffered hardly less, on the whole, than Rome; war, hunger, plague, and the
Spanish methods of extortion drove the inhabitants to despair. The most
productive portions of the country resembled a desert infested by prowling
wolves; by 1528 the famine was so great that the peasants looked on the flesh
of dogs, cats, and mice as dainties. These half-famished wretches fled to
Venice in such numbers that there also there was a heavy rise in prices. Among
those who were foremost in their heroic efforts of charity to aid the
prevailing misery, the Venetian noble Girolamo Miani was conspicuous.
Born
in 1481, Miani had devoted himself to military
service and had lived entirely for the world. In the war of the Republic with
Maximilian I he was taken prisoner, but had a wonderful deliverance and in
consequence became converted. By penitential exercises and works of charity he
sought to atone for his former life; his favourite prayer was, “Most sweet
Jesus, be not my judge but my redeemer.” In 1518 he entered the priesthood and
thenceforward lived only for good works, closely attached to Carafa and
directed by him. His labours in the famine and plague year of 1528 aroused the
admiration of all; he sold the whole of the furniture of his house to help the
needy; at night he buried the dead, their bodies, on account of the great
mortality, often being left lying on the streets. An attack of typhus,
contracted during his self-sacrificing work, raised him to still higher stages
of perfection. On his recovery he renounced, in February 1531, all his means of
living in order to devote himself as a mendicant to the service of the poor. He
was specially moved to compassion by the troops of orphan children wandering
about in utter destitution. He collected them in a house near San Rocco, where
they were simply provided for, received religious instruction, and were trained
in some handicraft, a point which he thought of great importance. In order that
the children might not in tender years become accustomed to ways of idleness
and beggary, he repeated to them constantly, “The man who will not work, shall
not eat.” The Venetian Government supported his philanthropic efforts, in which Miani was helped by a settler from Vicenza.
Orphanages
were also founded on the same footing by Miani in
Brescia and Bergamo; in the latter town he also instituted a house of refuge
for the fallen. He soon included in his programme instruction for the country
people, and gathered round him a number of excellent priests and also devout
laymen Thus a religious association was formed occupied in the first instance
with the management of the orphan asylums founded by Miani,
but with the special care besides of other victims of misfortune, the sick, the
poor, the ignorant. From their place of meeting, the lonely village of Somasca, near Bergamo, the members got their name of Somaschi.
Miani had
always followed Carafa as his spiritual guide; if the latter declined the
honour of being at the head of this new association of Clerks Regular, he was
yet their intellectual founder. So impartially did the founder of the Theatines
watch the growth of the community of Somasca that he
never attempted to win over Miani to his own
congregation. As soon as he recognized Miani’s special characteristics he handed over to him even the orphan schools hitherto
conducted by the Theatines in the Hospital for Incurables in Venice.
It
was also due to Carafa that Miani extended his work
into the Milanese territory. For the mitigation of bodily and spiritual
suffering hardly any field was more suitable at that time than that district,
ravaged as it had been by unspeakable inroads of war, hunger, and plague. In
Milan, as in Venice, many were converted by the troubles of the time. What had
seldom happened before, the sons of distinguished families now gave up riches
and honours in order to follow Christ as His poor. Preachers called on the
people to repent; among them one especially distinguished himself, the Spanish
Dominican, Tommaso Nieto. In the year 1529 he introduced a solemn procession
of the Blessed Sacrament, when the Host was carried in a sort of ark borne by
four priests.
More
hidden and more permanent work in Milan was carried out by Antonio Maria
Zaccaria, a nobleman of Cremona, whose character strongly resembled that of
Gaetano di Tiene. Zaccaria, who was born in 1502 and was at first a doctor,
turned in his twenty-sixth year to the study of theology, and after his
ordination as priest he displayed an eager pastoral activity in his native
city. At the end of 1530, at the wish of the pious Countess Lodovica Torelli of Guastalla, he went to
Milan. There, in the Confraternity of the Eternal Compassion, he made friends
with kindred souls in Bartolommeo Ferrari and Jacopo Antonio Morigia, who had already become famous for conspicuous
works of charity. These good men believed that the best way of checking the
misery and immorality caused by the war was to form a society of Clerks Regular
primarily devoted to the instruction of the young and the cure of souls. After
the adhesion of two other Milanese, Jacopo de’ Casei and Francesco Lecchi, Clement VII, in a Brief drawn
up at Bologna on the 18th of February 1533, gave permission to Bartolommeo
Ferrari and to Antonio Maria Zaccaria to live in community with three other
associates in accordance with special statutes, under a superior, but subject
to the jurisdiction of their Ordinary, to receive new members, and make their
vows before the Archbishop of Milan.2 The new community took possession in
autumn 1533 of a small house near S. Caterina, not far from the Porta Ticinese of Milan. This they soon enlarged with the
permission of the Duke of Milan.
The
constitutions, as drawn up by Zaccaria, who was chosen Superior, have many
points of resemblance with those of the Theatines. The manner of living of
these “sons of St. Paul,” as they called themselves in their deep veneration
for the Apostle of the Gentiles—a name long afterwards changed to that of
“Barnabites,” from the seat of the community in the ancient Milanese monastery
of St. Barnabas—closely resembled that led by the members of the foundation of
Gaetano and Carafa. In the foreground they placed a life of mortification, an
eager care for souls, and the visiting of the sick. The chronicler Burigozzo relates the astonishment caused by these priests,
who went about their duties in threadbare garments and round biretta, their
heads bent and, in spite of their youth, an air of earnestness about them all.
Zaccaria instructed his sons to influence especially priests and parents; only
in this way could the coming generation be improved. He therefore very soon
opened his house to priests desirous of making spiritual exercises and founded
a confraternity of married people. The Barnabites differed from the Theatines
in seeking publicity. They took pains to stir the feelings of the ruder sort of
people by open-air missions and public exercises of penance; they were to be
seen, crucifix in hand, preaching in the most crowded thoroughfares ; some
carried heavy crosses, others confessed their sins aloud. Complaints were made
that they were disturbers of the peace, but as Zaccaria in his full trust in
God had foretold, they came through this first persecution completely
justified. This community, though slow in growth, became a powerful instrument
of which St. Charles Borromeo made use in reforming his diocese.
Reform
of the Older Orders.—The Capuchins.
While
the new foundations of the Theatines, Somaschi, and
Barnabites were rising into existence, the older orders also were awakening to
the necessity of reform. In their case also the movement started from small and
obscure circles. In order to withdraw themselves from the spirit of the world,
which was now too generally prevalent, the better spirits in the older orders
sought out a life of solitude. Paolo Giustiniani of
the Camaldolese had already introduced in this way
improvements in the Order under Leo X, for he had erected at Pascelupo in the Apennines and Massaccio in the province of Ancona, hermitages of Camaldolese under very strict regulations. Each member lived by himself in a small separate
hut, and together with a strict observance of the vows, Giustiniani attached a high importance to complete seclusion. In one of his letters he
extols this manner of life, far apart from the movement of the world in a
sublime isolation, as the best way to attain the peace of the soul and
spiritual perfection. Like Adrian VI., Clement VII also gave encouragement to
this congregation of Camaldolese hermits. Giustiniani’s (d. 1528) second successor, the recluse Giustiniani of Bergamo, made Monte Corona at Umbertide in the upper valley of the Tiber the headquarters
of the foundation, which has given the whole congregation its name. The
industry of these hermits changed the inhospitable slopes of the mountain into
one of the most picturesque settlements of recluses in the world. Here also
Clement VII gave his support by graces and privileges, and confirmed the
statutes.
Among
the Augustinian hermits the learned General, Egidio Canisio,
also pursued under Leo X the reforming activities on which he had previously
entered, while the congregation of Benedictines of Monte Cassino settled at S.
Justina in Padua were led in the same direction by the classical scholar,
Gregorio Cortese.
Serious
efforts at reform had also already been made by the Franciscan Observants under
Leo X. Their excellent General, Francesco Lichetto,
in 1517 advised those of stricter aspirations to follow the Spanish example and
make use of the houses of so-called Recollects, that is, convents to which they
might voluntarily repair in order without disturbance there to carry out as
strictly as possible the rules of the Order, and to devote themselves
especially to penitential exercises and continual meditation. The oldest houses
of this kind, Fonte Colombo and Grecio, lay in the
valley of Rieti, hallowed by the sojourn of St. Francis himself. The inmates
were called Brothers of the Stricter Observance, and later, Riformati.
They found, however, more resistance than encouragement from the cismontane
commissary-general Ilarione Sacchetti,
who was a strong upholder of the unity of the Order. On the other hand, the
earnest Spanish reformer, Quiñones, chosen General in 1523, was a great friend
of the Brothers of the Stricter Observance, to whom he at once gave a strict
rule in Spain, and assigned five houses of Recollects. When Quiñones came to
Italy in 1525 he supported these special reforms, as well as all others in the
Order. Two high-minded fellow-countrymen, Martino di Guzman and Stefano Molina,
could congratulate themselves on his special favour. He appointed them to plant
the new institution of the Stricter Observance—afterwards known as that of the Riformati—in the Roman province. These Riformati led an exceptionally hard life. Only on two days of the week did they eat
cooked food; for the rest they were satisfied with bread, fruit, and
vegetables; their bed was either the bare ground or a board, and the day began
and ended with prolonged meditation; at night there was prayer in common. Had
Quiñones remained longer at the head of the Observants this institution would
certainly at that time have risen to great importance, for, especially in the
years of terror after the sack of Rome, the number of those Observants who were
working for the most exact possible compliance with the rule, increased
greatly. Unfortunately the new General, Paolo Pisotti,
was an opponent of this and every other tendency to strict observance.
At
this critical moment Clement VII., on the advice of Carafa, took up the cause
of the Riformati. In a Bull of the 14th of November
1532 he ordered the General and Provincials of the Observants to abstain from
molesting in any way the Riformati, but rather to
give them every assistance and to reserve for them an adequate number of
convents. The Riformati were now privileged to
receive novices, and to choose for themselves a Guardian in each province. But
their dress and hood were not to differ from those of other Observants, and
they were to be subject to visitation from the Provincial.
Although
the Pope thus showed his favour towards the new institution, it did not at first
make much way in Italy. All the more remarkable was another reform which grew
up among the Italian Franciscan Observants. This was begun by Matteo da Bascio (born about 1495, died 1552), a native of the
hill-country of Umbria. Nowhere else in Italy did the mystic and yet popular
spirit of St. Francis survive with such vitality as among the poor, contented,
believing, and brave-spirited populations dwelling in the remote valleys and
gorges of this picturesque district, which, in a wider sense, included also the
territory beyond the Apennines. Here, on a hill not far from Pennabilli, lay the market town of Bascio,
politically under the Dukes of Urbino and ecclesiastically within the
jurisdiction of the Bishop of Montefeltro.
The
earliest accounts of Matteo’s youth as well as of his later years already bear
a legendary character; it is no longer possible to examine their statements,
but the historical residuum may be given as follows:—At an early age, about his
seventeenth year, as alleged, Matteo entered the Order of Franciscan Observants
at Montefalcone in the March of Ancona. Here he was conspicuous for piety and
his strong grasp of his vocation. On his entry into the Order he brought with
him little education, nor did he afterwards make much progress beyond what was
necessary for the immediate tasks of his calling. Perhaps it was exactly on
this account that the homely sermons of the simple peasant’s son won the hearts
of the poor folk dwelling among the hills. Matteo became known to a wider
circle by the spirit of self-devotion displayed by him in 1523, when Camerino was visited by the plague. Voluntarily he left his
convent at Montefalcone and hastened to the above-named town, where he shrank
from no peril of death in order to succour the sick and dying. This
self-denying activity of Matteo drew at once the attention of the Duke of Camerino, Giovan Maria Varano, and his wife Caterina Cibo to the humble Franciscan.
Caterina Cibo belonged, like Vittoria Colonna, to that class
of women of the Italian Renaissance who combined wide cultivation with deep
piety and a great purity of life. She knew Latin and Greek, and also took
lessons in Hebrew in order to read the Old Testament in the original. As a
niece of Leo X and Clement VII she often visited Rome, where she came into
contact with the men of letters living there. She was interested in an
exceptional degree in religious matters, and especially in the reform of the
clergy in her husband’s duchy. Herself a rough and almost virile character, she
must have been attracted by Matteo’s strong qualities.
After
the plague had ceased at Camerino, Matteo returned to
his seclusion at Montefalcone; while there he often withdrew into the woodland
solitudes so beloved of St. Francis. The life of his brethren seemed to him to
correspond less and less to the original severity of the Order. He seemed to
hear the voice of the seraphic Patriarch calling to him in threatening tones,
“I wish my rule to be observed, to the letter, to the letter, to the letter.”
Deeper and deeper grew Matteo’s resolve to live entirely according to the holy
rule in the utmost possible solitude and in strictest poverty. While such
thoughts were working in his inmost soul he learned by accident from a pious
countryman that his dress was not in keeping with that of the founder of the
Order, who had worn a habit of the coarsest sort on which was sewn not a round
but a four-cornered pointed hood. After receiving this information Matteo did
not rest until he had procured for himself this new habit. All his fervour for
the strict observance of the rule was now concentrated on this one point;
wearing his new hood, he started without leave on the road to Rome in the
Jubilee year 1525. He had to endure much on this journey on account of his
unusual attire. Nevertheless, he reached Rome safely and made his way into the
presence of Clement himself. He made his petition that he might retain his new
habit, live as a solitary according to the rule of St. Francis, and preach the
Word of God. Clement VII—so it is related—gave his consent, but imposed the
condition that Matteo should annually declare his adhesion to the Observant
Order by presenting himself before the Provincial Chapter.
When
Matteo, in April 1525, obeyed this injunction, but could produce no written
authorization from the Pope for his new manner of life and garb, the Provincial
of the March of Ancona, Giovanni da Fano, who was as energetic as he was
learned, ordered the too simple-minded brother to be incarcerated as a runaway
and contumacious. Giovanni could appeal to the authority of John XXII, who had
already forbidden the introduction of a new hood, while Leo X and Clement VII
had forbidden any absence without leave from the society of the Order.
Matteo’s
misfortune did not long remain unknown ; even the Duchess Caterina Cibo became aware of it. Through her powerful intercession
Matteo was free again by July; he now betook himself to Camerino,
and had a great success as a preacher of penance, and was soon joined by other
Observants. Among the first were the two brothers Lodovico and Raffaello da Fossombrone, the
first a priest, the other a lay brother. Matteo had no thought of founding an
order; all he desired was to carry out to the very letter the rule of St.
Francis. In Lodovico he was joined by a kindred spirit, who by his energy and
boldness was well fitted to carry far what Matteo had set in motion.
At
first, indeed, the co-operation of the two brothers with Matteo led to a
serious crisis. The Superiors, bent on maintaining the unity of the Order, threatened
the former with excommunication for having left their convent without leave,
and even tried to get permission from Rome to arrest them. Lodovico da Fossombrone, convinced that his case was a thoroughly sound
one, himself made haste to Rome in the beginning of 1526 with letters of
recommendation from the Duchess of Camerino, and
there addressed himself to Carafa, “the friend of all reforms.” The latter, on
principle, was by no means favourably disposed to those religious who separated
themselves from their Order; but he very soon perceived that in this case the
cause of separation was not laxity but its opposite, and this, like all other
efforts at reform, also received his support. Through Carafa’s influence Lodovico soon attained his object. The Cardinal Grand Penitentiary,
Lorenzo Pucci, on the 18th of May 1526, gave vouchers to Lodovico and Raffaello da Fossombrone as well
as to Matteo da Bascio by which, in the case of their
Superiors refusing the permission asked for, they were empowered by Papal
authority to lead the life of anchorites under the rule of St. Francis outside
the houses of their Order in the new district, but certainly subject to the
supervision of Bishop Giangiacomo Bongiovanni of Camerino.
The
quiet hill town now became the centre of the new movement, which Giovanni da
Fano continued to look upon as an unlawful act of separation. Firmly convinced
that he was dealing here with a case of apostasy, he did all that lay in his
power to compass its suppression. He had no idea that the reform of the Order,
which even he was striving for, was to come from below, from very simple and
insignificant men. The position of the Franciscan hermits, as Matteo’s
associates at first were called, became so bad that for some time they had
thoughts of going out as missionaries to the infidels. In this time of
distress, the Bishop of Camerino, the likeminded Camaldolese, and especially the ducal family stood by the
persecuted community. But these simple men won the love of the people in the
terrible times of trouble which broke over Camerino after 1527. When all others fled before the plague they remained steadfast at
their posts. On the 10th of August 1527 the Duke himself fell a victim to the
disease.
In
consequence of the continued hostility of the Observants, Lodovico da Fossombrone put himself into communication with the
Provincial of the Conventuals in the Marches, who later took him and his
colleagues into his province, on condition that they reported themselves once a
year either to him or to the Chapter and submitted themselves to visitation.
Through the influence of the Duchess Caterina Cibo,
Lodovico obtained the Pope’s confirmation of this ordinance. This was contained
in a Papal brief addressed from Viterbo on the 3rd of July 1528, to Lodovico
and Raffaello da Fossombrone.
It conveyed the ecclesiastical confirmation of the branch of the Franciscans,
subsequently known, from their habit, as the Capuchins. This document
sanctioned the mendicant life in hermitages or other places according to the
rule of St. Francis; the beard was permitted to be worn as well as the new
habit with the four-cornered hood. Finally, new members were permitted to be
chosen from the ranks of the secular clergy and the laity. At the same time,
all the privileges of the Conventuals and of the Camaldolese hermits were extended to the new congregation.
The
Bishop of Camerino ordered this Brief to be solemnly
published, and then followed the foundation of the first settled establishment
outside the gates of the episcopal city. Within the territory of the latter a
second convent on Monte Melone very soon arose.
Though
the number of Franciscan hermits at that time was comparatively small, yet
their activity must be described as exceptional. Bernardino da Colpetrazzo, who had personally known the earliest fathers,
has left a sketch of their first entrance on their mission, which is striking
in its bare simplicity. Their garments were the roughest that could be
procured. They went barefoot always, even in winter, holding the crucifix in
their hands. Their nourishment consisted of water, bread, vegetables, and
fruit; flesh was eaten only very seldom; the fasts were kept rigorously—many
fasted almost continually. Their dwellings, built by preference in lonely
places, were as inconspicuous and poor as possible; they were composed only of
wood and loam. A board served for a bed; for those who were weaker there was a
mat; the doors of the cells were so low that they could not be entered without
stooping; the windows were very narrow and small, and unfurnished with glass.
This simplicity extended even to the churches. Everything, even outwardly, was
to preach the utmost poverty in an age in which not only the worldly, but also
many great ecclesiastics, and even members of the mendicant Orders themselves,
worshipped the lavish display of wealth.
The
inmates of these literally poverty-stricken convents had, in the first period
of their existence, two main objects in view, and, above all, to be preachers
of repentance to the common people. The plain speaking of these simple men,
which spared no man, had such power that the hardest hearts quailed and the
most stubborn sinners were converted. People often went five or six miles to
hear the Franciscan hermits. “They preached,” says Bernardino da Colpetrazzo, “the Holy Scriptures, especially the Holy
Gospel of Jesus Christ, exhorting their hearers to fulfil the commandments of
God.” The same chronicler mentions as strange novelties that they brought with
them a crucifix into the pulpit and urged a frequent reception of the Blessed
Sacrament.
The
behaviour of the poor hermits during the epidemic called forth even greater
admiration than their preaching. A rich field for heroic acts of genuine
Christian charity was opened up during the terrible days of the sack of Rome.
The plague was soon followed by scarcity of food and famine, which lasted,
according to Bernardino da Colpetrazzo, during 1528
and 1529. Like other contemporaries, this narrator saw in the sufferings by
which Italy was visited a punishment of the general wickedness. The streets and
roads were covered with dead, some cut off by the plague, some by famine, some
by the sword; wolves gnawed the corpses, for in the districts devastated by war
there were none left to dig graves. Bernardino da Colpetrazzo,
who at that time was also suffering from the plague, was unable in after years
to find words to describe the panic that prevailed. As watchers of the sick
could not be got in Camerino and its neighbourhood,
the Franciscan hermits voluntarily undertook their duties. They carried the
Viaticum to the dying and buried the dead; they took care of orphan children
and collected alms for the famishing survivors of the population. They refused
all offers of gifts to themselves; all was done for the love of God. With
heroic self-sacrifice the little band worked on until the plague died out at
the close of 1529; half of the population had fallen prey to its ravages.
This
example of Christian love, which, to the end of the century, clung to the
memory of the thankful people, combined with their inspired preaching, drew to
the Franciscan hermits after the extinction of the plague many new members. The
two first settlements were no longer sufficient, two more had to be built; one
at Alvacina in the district of Fabriano,
the other at Fossombrone in the Duchy of Urbino. For
these four places, all, with the exception of the last, in the diocese of Camerino, guardians were appointed in 1529 at the first
General Chapter held in a wretched hut at Alvacina.
At this meeting Matteo da Bascio, in spite of his
resistance, was chosen Vicar-General, and at the same time the constitution of
the new institute was sketched in outline. The main principle was the closest observance
of the rule of St. Francis, particularly in respect of the “virtue of holy
poverty.” Therefore, in collecting alms they were never to accept provisions
beyond a week’s supply at the utmost. Their cells were to be very narrow, more
like jails than dwellings. Their very churches were to reflect their poverty;
precious metals and stuffs were banished, and the psalmody was not to be sung.
Moreover, the most austere life was prescribed, nightly prayer, severe
discipline, the roughest and worst clothing; bare-headed and unshod, they were
never to journey except on foot. The duty of earnest preaching for those thus
gifted is still a noticeable feature of the rule. They are to avoid all flowers
of speech and all subtle speculations, to keep in view the practical needs of
their hearers, and to proclaim “purely and simply the Holy Gospel of our Lord.”
The
change in the direction of the new community was of great importance. Matteo,
who wished to give himself entirely to preaching, resigned his post in a very
short time, whereon, with the Pope’s consent, the energetic, selfconfident Lodovico da Fossombrone took his place. He entered into communication with a number of Calabrian
Observants who were at the same time seeking a stricter compliance with the
rule, and established a settlement in Rome. Here also it was Caterina Cibo who, through her brothers, opened a way for these
Observants, already known as Franciscan hermits. Her brothers were guardians of
the Hospital of S. Giacomo for incurables. The little church of S. Maria dei Miracoli, near the Piazza del Popolo and attached to the hospital, became the first
Capuchin settlement in Rome. They now took charge of the hospital, and the care
which they there bestowed on the sick drew to them the sympathy of the lower as
well as the higher classes in Rome.
The
rapid extension of the new community made a deep impression on the Observants,
and spurred them on to fresh action against the hermits. Many saw in the
behaviour of the members of the new body an excess of enthusiasm on the part of
some, on the part of others defiance and rebellion. The latter view found
favour with the masterful Giovanni da Fano, who was convinced that he was
carrying out a good work in opposing the upstarts. In other Observants the
leading motive was simply jealousy, and in Paolo Pisotti,
then their General, there was undoubtedly a repugnance to all reform.
To
all these antagonists Lodovico now gave good grounds for complaint, for in his
unreflecting zeal to obtain as many new members as possible for his community,
he drew into it not a few Observants. The reception of the latter was a
consequence of the Grand Penitentiary’s indult. The Observants, fearing a
gradual dismemberment of the whole Order, made such passionate representations
to the Pope of the injuriousness of the indult and of the misuse of it, that
Clement VII in May 1530 cancelled all his concessions to the new Franciscan
offshoot. But the Papal Brief of July 1528 was not expressly mentioned in this
enactment. Lodovico, in his opposition to the new measures, was able to take
his stand on the earlier document; besides, he and his patrons did all in their
power to show that the complaints raised were unfounded, and to nullify the
Pope’s severe regulations. At first they were unsuccessful, but at last they
succeeded in having the whole dispute referred by Clement VII to the Cardinals
Antonio del Monte and Andrea della Valle for fresh
examination; these gave as their decision, on the 14th of August 1532, that in
future the Franciscan hermits must not receive any more Observants, but that
the Observants must abstain from any molestation of those who had left them for
the Franciscan hermits, and of the hermits themselves.
This
decision, pronounced in the Pope’s name, was a striking success for the new
institution over the old. The Franciscan hermits now spread their settlements
not only through the Marches and in Calabria, but in other parts of Italy and
even in Sicily. A certain increase of difficulty as regards admission into
their ranks was nothing but beneficial, for there were some who presented
themselves from motives which were not without worldly alloy. All the storms
through which the new foundation had to pass served only to impart inward
strength. The defection of the Observants was mainly due to the aversion of the
General, Pisotti, to all plans of reform. When
Clement VII was in possession of the proofs of this man’s bad government, he
insisted on his resignation (December 1533). By neglect of the lax and
persecution of the strict, Pisotti had brought his
Order to the brink of ruin; no wonder that the better spirits passed over to
the Franciscan hermits. In 1534 they were joined by the most famous preachers
in Italy, Bernardino Ochino and Bernardino of Asti.
In the same year the man who had been their most violent opponent, Giovanni da
Fano, took the same step.
The
Observants were as much convinced as ever of the danger in which their Order
was placed; their complaints were so importunate that Clement thought that he
must once more give them a hearing. On the 9th of April 1534 a Brief was
addressed to Lodovico and to all his associates forbidding them henceforward,
without special Papal permission, to receive any Observants or take over any
convents belonging to them. This prohibition was also extended to those who had gone over to the
Conventuals or had left the Order entirely. To this document the first use of
the expression “Capuchin,” in the mention of Lodovico, can be traced.
The
opponents, emboldened by this success, now hoped to achieve the overthrow of
the whole hermit congregation. But Clement VII positively refused to repeal the
Bull of 1528, although he consented to the banishment of the Capuchins from
Rome. On the 25th of April 1534 appeared the edict enjoining their departure.
The fathers were just about to partake of their simple midday meal when the
order was brought to them; without a moment’s demur they obeyed the command of
the Head of the Church, and without touching their food they went forth. Thirty
in number, they walked, two and two, with the cross carried before them,
through the city to S. Lorenzo outside the walls, where they were kindly
received. While the majority stayed there temporarily, a few, among them
Giovanni da Fano, went into upper Italy, there to found new settlements. Thus
the misfortunes of the Capuchins turned eventually into a blessing.
The
banishment of the worthy friars from Rome caused a storm of indignation among
the people, who had come to value them as the succourers of the sick. As interpreter
of public opinion the hermit Brandano, so well known during the sack, appeared on the scene. “All the
wicked, all the sinful,” he exclaimed, “can come to Rome; the good and the
virtuous are driven out.” At the same time many of the Roman nobility came
forward on behalf of the exiles. It was precisely the utter poverty and entire
contempt of the world of the Capuchins that had made an ineffaceable impression
on the nobler characters. Among the Roman aristocracy, Vittoria Colonna
hastened from Marino, and she and Camillo Orsini made representations to
Clement as frank as they were touching. Caterina Cibo also made her way to Rome, but when she reached the city Clement VII had
already sanctioned the return of the Capuchins.
So
this storm also passed over happily. Others, heavier still, were to arise under Clement’s successor, but they too had their hour, and
the Capuchin Order grew up in the Church to be a great instrument of reform and
restoration in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Poor themselves, they
became the friends of the poorer classes, whose needs and sufferings they knew
as few others did, and to whom in the time of trouble they brought aid with
heart and hand.
The
pursuit of practical aims, before all others the care of souls, preaching, and
the tending of the sick to which the Capuchins, as well as the Theatines, Somaschi, and Barnabites, in accordance with the needs of
the age, had devoted themselves, was to reappear even more sharply accentuated
in another company of regular clergy which, in activity and diversity of aims,
in inward power and outward range of influence, was far to surpass the older
orders as well as their more recent successors.
The
days of Clement VII were drawing to a close when this new organization started
on its career. It was on the Feast of the Assumption, 1534, that Ignatius
Loyola, on the height of Montmartre, on the spot where the first Apostle of
Paris had met a martyr’s death, unfolded to a gathering of six trusted friends
his plan of enlisting a spiritual army “whose leader should be the Saviour
Himself, whose banner the Cross, whose watchword God’s honour, and whose meed of victory the salvation of men and the glory of the
Church.” Only one of these inspired men was a priest, Peter Faber, a Savoyard.
From his hands, on consecrated ground, the group of friends received Holy
Communion; into his hands, together with the vows of poverty and chastity, they
laid yet another—to go, at the close of their theological studies, to
Jerusalem, to engage in the conversion of the infidels, or, if this were not
possible, to place themselves at the disposal of the Pope for any apostolic
mission on which he might choose to send them.
Such
was the origin of the Society of Jesus, destined to attain to a world-wide
importance in the history of the Church as the most powerful bulwark of the
Papacy during the catastrophe of the sixteenth century.
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