Sack of Rome, 1527

[GHansen]

Then began the famous “Sack of Rome.” The papacy had for centuries put Christendom in the press. Prebends, annates, jubilees, pilgrimages, ecclesiastical graces, — she had made money of them all. These greedy troops, that for months had lived in wretchedness, determined to make her disgorge. No one was spared, the imperial not more than the ultramontane party, the Ghibellines not more than the Guelfs. Churches, palaces, convents, private houses, basilics, banks, tombs — every thing was pillaged, even to the golden ring that the corpse of Julius II still wore on its finger. The Spaniards displayed the greatest skill, scenting out and discovering treasures in the most mysterious hiding places; but the Neapolitans were the most outrageous.  “On every side were heard,” says Guicciardini, “the piteous shrieks of the Roman women and of the nuns whom the soldiers dragged away by companies to satiate their lust. 

At first the Germans found a certain pleasure in making the papists feel the weight of their swords. But erelong, happy at procuring victuals and drink, they were more pacific than their allies. It was upon those things which the Romans called “holy” that the anger of the Lutherans was especially discharged. They took away the chalices, the pyxes, the silver remontrances, and clothed their servants and camp-boys with the sacerdotal garments.  The Campofiore was changed into an immense gambling-house. The soldiers brought thither golden vessels and bags full of crowns, staked them upon one throw of the dice, and after losing them, went in search of others. 

Clement VII, besieged in the castle of St. Angelo, and fearful that the enemy would blow his asylum into the air with their mines, at last  capitulated. He renounced every alliance against Charles the Fifth, and bound himself to remain a prisoner until he had paid the army four hundred thousand ducats. The evangelical Christians gazed with astonishment on this judgment of the Lord. “Such,” said they, “is the empire of Jesus Christ, that the emperor, pursuing Luther on behalf of the pope, is constrained to ruin the pope instead of Luther. All things minister unto the Lord, and turn against his adversaries.” 

D'Aubigne, History of the Reformation  (vol. 4, book 13).