Rome Falls: Imperial Sack Ends Papal Security

Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, was killed by an arquebus shot while scaling the walls of Rome at dawn on May 6, 1527. His death should have ended the assault. Instead, his leaderless army of 20,000 Imperial troops, many of them unpaid German Landsknechts and Spanish veterans, stormed the city with a ferocity that stunned even sixteenth-century Europe. The Sack of Rome lasted over a week and became one of the defining atrocities of the Renaissance. The attack grew from the tangled politics of the Italian Wars, in which Pope Clement VII had shifted his allegiance from Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to the League of Cognac, an alliance with France, Venice, and Milan. Charles V, furious at the pope's betrayal, sent an army south through Italy but failed to pay it. The troops, starving and mutinous, were promised the wealth of Rome as compensation. The city's defenses were feeble. Rome's garrison consisted of roughly 5,000 militia and 189 Swiss Guards. The Swiss fought a rearguard action on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica, losing 147 men while allowing Pope Clement VII and a handful of attendants to escape through the Passetto di Borgo, a fortified corridor connecting the Vatican to Castel Sant'Angelo. What followed was systematic plunder. Imperial soldiers looted churches, palaces, and private homes. They ransomed cardinals and nobles, tortured citizens to reveal hidden valuables, and destroyed priceless manuscripts and artworks. Nuns were assaulted. Tombs were broken open for jewelry. Lutheran Landsknechts, harboring Reformation hatred for the papacy, staged mock papal elections and paraded through the streets in stolen vestments. The pope remained besieged in Castel Sant'Angelo for seven months before surrendering and paying a massive ransom. The sack killed an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 Romans and drove the city's population from 55,000 to under 10,000. The event shattered the papacy's political authority in Italy and is widely regarded by historians as marking the end of the Italian High Renaissance.