CRISTO RAUL.ORG

READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

CHAPTER VII.

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.