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Pope Clement VII
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- For the antipope (1378–1394) see antipope Clement VII.
Pope Clement VII (May 26, 1478 – September 25, 1534), born Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, was a cardinal from 1513 to 1523 and was Pope from 1523 to 1534.
as born in Florence one month after his father, Giuliano de' Medici, was assassinated in the Pazzi Conspiracy. Although his parents had not had a formal marriage, a canon law loophole allowing for the parents to have been betrothed per sponsalia de presenti meant that Giulio was considered legitimate.
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- For the antipope (1378–1394) see antipope Clement VII.
Pope Clement VII (May 26, 1478 – September 25, 1534), born Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, was a cardinal from 1513 to 1523 and was Pope from 1523 to 1534.
Early life
He was born in Florence one month after his father, Giuliano de' Medici, was assassinated in the Pazzi Conspiracy. Although his parents had not had a formal marriage, a canon law loophole allowing for the parents to have been betrothed per sponsalia de presenti meant that Giulio was considered legitimate. He was thus the nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who educated him in his youth. Clement's mother also died leaving him an orphan.
Giulio was made a Knight of Rhodes and Grand Prior of Capua, and, upon the election of his cousin Giovanni de' Medici to the pontificate as Pope Leo X (1513–21), he soon became a powerful figure in Rome. Upon his cousin's accession to the papacy, Giulio became his principal minister and confidant, especially in the maintenance of the Medici interest at Florence as archbishop of that city. On September 23, 1513, he was made cardinal and he was consecrated on September 29. He had the credit of being the main director of papal policy during the whole of Leo X's pontificate.
Election
At Leo X's death in 1521, Cardinal Medici was considered especially papabile in the protracted conclave. Although unable to gain the Papacy for himself or his ally Alessandro Farnese (both preferred candidates of Emperor Charles V (1519–58)), he took a leading part in determining the unexpected election of the short-lived Pope Adrian VI (1522–23), with whom he also wielded formidable influence. Following Adrian VI's death on 14 September, 1523, Medici finally succeeded in being elected Pope Clement VII in the next conclave (November 19, 1523).
He brought to the Papal throne a high reputation for political ability, and possessed in fact all the accomplishments of a wily diplomat. However, he was considered worldly and indifferent to what went on around him, including the ongoing Protestant reformation.
Papacy
At his accession, Clement VII sent the Archbishop of Capua, Nikolaus Cardinal von Schönberg, to the Kings of France, Spain and England, in order to bring the war then raging in Europe to a peace. But his attempt failed.
Continental and Medici politics
Francis I of France's conquest of Milan in 1524 prompted the Pope to quit the Imperial-Spanish side and to ally himself with other Italian princes, including the Republic of Venice, and France in the January of 1525. This treaty granted the definitive acquisition of Parma and Piacenza for the Papal States, the rule of Medici over Florence and the free passage of the French troops to Naples. This policy in itself was sound and patriotic, but Clement VII's zeal soon cooled; by his want of foresight and unseasonable economy he laid himself open to an attack from the turbulent Roman barons, which obliged him to invoke the mediation of the Emperor. One month later, however, Francis I was crushed and imprisoned in the Battle of Pavia, and Clement VII veered back to his former engagements with Charles V, signing an alliance with the viceroy of Naples.
But he was to change sides again when Francis I was freed after the Peace of Madrid (January 1526): the Pope entered in the League of Cognac together with France, Venice and Francesco Sforza of Milan. Clement VII issued an invective against Charles V, who in reply defined him a "wolf" instead of a "shepherd", menacing the summoning of a council about the Lutheran question.
Sack of Rome
The Pope's wavering politics also caused the rise of the Imperial party inside the Curia: Pompeo Cardinal Colonna's soldiers pillaged the Vatican City and gained control of the whole of Rome in his name. The humiliated Pope promised therefore to bring the Papal States to the Imperial side again. But soon after, Colonna left the siege and went to Naples, not keeping his promises and dismissing the Cardinal from his charge. From this point on, Clement VII could do nothing but follow the fate of the French party to end.
Soon he found himself alone in Italy too, as the duke of Ferrara had sided with the Imperial army, permitting to the horde of Landsknechts led by Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, and Georg von Frundsberg, to reach Rome without harm.
Charles of Bourbon died during the long siege, and his troops, unpaid and left without a guide, felt free to ravage Rome from May 6, 1527. The innumerable series of murders, rapes and vandalism that followed ended forever the splendours of the Renaissance Rome. Clement VII, who had displayed no more resolution in his military than in his political conduct, was shortly afterwards (June 6) obliged to surrender himself together with the castle of Sant'Angelo, where he had taken refuge. He agreed to pay a ransom of 400,000 ducati in exchange for his life; conditions included the cession of Parma, Piacenza, Civitavecchia and Modena to the Holy Roman Empire. (Only the last could be occupied in fact.) At the same time, Venice took advantage of his situation to capture Cervia and Ravenna while Sigismondo Malatesta returned in Rimini.
Clement was kept as a prisoner in Castel Sant'Angelo for six months. After having bought some Imperial officers, he escaped disguised as a peddler, and took shelter in Orvieto, and then in Viterbo. He came back to a depopulated and devastated Rome only in October 1528.
Meanwhile, in Florence, Republican enemies of the Medici took advantage of the chaos to again expel the Pope's family from the city.
In June of the following year the warring parts signed the Peace of Barcelona. The Papal States regained some cities and Charles V agreed to restore the Medici to power in Florence. In 1530, after an eleven-month siege, the Tuscan city capitulated, and Clement VII installed his illegitimate son Alessandro as Duke. Subsequently the Pope followed a policy of subservience to the Emperor, endeavouring on the one hand to induce him to act with severity against the Lutherans in Germany, and on the other to elude his demands for a general council.
English Reformation
One momentous consequence of this dependence on Charles V was the break between the Kingdom of England and the Roman Catholic Church. By the late 1520s, King Henry VIII wanted to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled. She had not produced a male heir who survived into adulthood and Henry wanted a son to secure the Tudor dynasty. Henry claimed that this lack of a male heir was because his marriage was "blighted in the eyes of God". Catherine had been his late brother's wife, and it was therefore against biblical teachings for Henry to have married her.. Indeed, a special dispensation from Pope Julius II had been needed to allow the wedding in the first place. Henry argued that this had been wrong and that his marriage had never been valid. In 1527 Henry asked Pope Clement to annul the marriage, but the Pope refused. According to Canon Law the Pope cannot annul a marriage on the basis of a canonical impediment previously dispensed. Clement also feared the wrath of Catherine's nephew, Charles V, whose own troops were responsible for the episode earlier that year that included the sack of Rome. In the matter of the annulment, no progress seemed possible: the Pope seemed more afraid of Emperor Charles V than of Henry. Many people close to Henry VIII wished simply to ignore the Pope; but in October 1530 a meeting of clergy and lawyers advised that the English Parliament could not empower the Archbishop of Canterbury to act against the Pope's prohibition. In Parliament, Bishop John Fisher was the Pope's champion.
Henry was married to Anne Boleyn in Westminster Abbey in January 1533. This was made easier by the death of Archbishop William Warham, a stalwart friend of the Pope, after which Henry appointed Thomas Cranmer as his successor as Archbishop of Canterbury. Clement granted the papal bulls necessary for Cranmer’s promotion to Canterbury as Henry had personally financed them. Cranmer was prepared to grant the annulment of the marriage to Catherine as Henry required. Anne gave birth to a daughter, Princess Elizabeth, three months after the marriage. The Pope responded to the marriage by excommunicating both Henry and Cranmer from the Roman Catholic Church.
Consequently in England, in the same year, the Act of First Fruits and Tenths transferred the taxes on ecclesiastical income from the Pope to the English Crown. The Peter's Pence Act outlawed the annual payment by landowners of one penny to the Pope. This act also reiterated that England had "no superior under God, but only your Grace" and that Henry's "imperial crown" had been diminished by "the unreasonable and uncharitable usurpations and exactions" of the Pope. Clement had been unable to handle the issue and ultimately his errors resulted in the English Parliament passing the Act of Supremacy (1534) that established the independent Church of England.
Death and character
Towards the end of his life Clement VII once more gave indications of a leaning towards a French alliance, which was prevented by his death in September 1534 in Rome after consuming the "Death Cap" mushroom. He was buried in Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
As for the arts, Pope Clement VII is remembered for having ordered, just a few days before his death, Michelangelo's painting of The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.
See also
External links
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