CLEMENTE VII, POPE. — Giulio de' Medici was born in Florence on 26 May 1478, a month after the Pazzi conspiracy, in which his father Giuliano had been a victim; Giuliano had had Giulio by a woman named Fioretta, who later, during the pontificate of Leo X, claimed to have been his secret wife. His uncle, Lorenzo the Magnificent, had the boy educated alongside his own sons; Giulio was particularly close to Giovanni, who later became a cardinal, and followed him into exile from Florence (1494). He returned after the restoration of the Medici (1512), but apart from the priory of Capua in the Order of the Knights of St John, he held no significant office. From Giovanni, who had become Pope Leo X, he received the archbishopric of Florence (9 May 1513), followed by the cardinalate (23 September 1513), the office of vice-chancellor (9 March 1517), and a large number of bishoprics and benefices in Italy and abroad, including for long periods the archbishoprics of Narbonne (1513–1523) and Eger (1520–23). He was thus able to amass great wealth, though he was so parsimonious as to verge on avarice.
His religious activity in these years was not insignificant: as archbishop of Florence, he convened a synod (1517–18) to implement the decrees of the Fifth Lateran Council; he was the driving force behind the Roman trial of Luther, which ended with the bull *Exsurge*, though neither he nor the Pope seemed fully to grasp the gravity of the threat to the Catholic faith. Also notable was his charitable work, including the founding (1519) in Rome of the Compagnia della Carità to aid the poor, visit prisoners, and bury the dead.
Even then, as a man of good culture and refined taste, he appeared as a friend and patron of learning and art. His secretary was Aleandro, and among his closest friends was Bembo; he obtained modestly paid posts for Machiavelli; he commissioned Raphael’s *Transfiguration* and the design for the “Vigna di monte Mario,” later known as the Villa Madama; he commissioned Sebastiano del Piombo’s *Resurrection of Lazarus*; and he played an active role in the negotiations between Leo X and Michelangelo concerning the façade and new sacristy of San Lorenzo.
Yet his political activity was even more pronounced, beginning in his cardinalate. He was highly influential with Leo X from early in the Pope’s reign, serving as legate of Bologna, the Romagna, and with the papal army against the French (1514–15), though he already showed signs of indecision. His standing with Leo grew so much that he became the Pope’s most trusted counsellor, adept at either supporting or steering his master’s shifting and duplicitous policies. He played no small part in staging the cardinals’ conspiracy against Leo X and in facilitating the great creation of cardinals on 1 July 1517, which was chiefly driven by financial and political motives.
Upon the death of Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, the Pope appointed him *legatus ad temporalia* (2 May 1519) for all Tuscany and entrusted him with the government of Florence, in which he displayed considerable administrative skill.
He played a leading role in securing the alliance between Leo X and Charles V and served as legate with the Spanish-papal army in Lombardy (30 September 1521).
In the conclave following Leo X’s death, he led the imperial faction: unable to secure the tiara for himself or place one of his own creatures on the throne, he proposed—perhaps as a tactical move—the name of Adrian of Utrecht. Under the new Pope Adrian VI, whose policies were so different from the worldly and Medici-style papacy, Giulio at first seemed to lose all influence and withdrew to Florence. Once he exposed, through his efforts, the intrigues of Cardinal Soderini in favour of France, he was recalled to Rome, regained immense power in the Curia, and helped secure the defensive alliance between the Pope and the Emperor against France, in which he himself participated on behalf of the Florentines.
After Adrian VI’s death, Giulio actively promoted his own election; though he had the support of the imperials, he won over his opponents through clever promises and, after fifty days of conclave, was elected pope by unanimous vote (19 November 1523), taking the name Clement VII. His election—praised for his dignified bearing, honest conduct, sobriety, tireless industry, and wide experience in ecclesiastical and political affairs—was greeted with joy.
Yet the times were exceedingly difficult. The bitter struggle between Charles V and Francis I had Italy as its main prize. Clement, with an Italian’s love for his homeland, saw how exposed it was to losing the last remnants of its freedom, and he felt that defending Italy from complete subjugation to a foreign power was also a defence of the papacy’s independence. Yet he struggled to distinguish where his duty as pope ended and his role as prince began. He could
He remained closely tied to Charles V without risking subjugation of the papacy to him through the Papal States and Florence; he could not openly oppose him without exposing himself to a ruinously costly and bloody war of uncertain outcome, nor could he remain neutral without risking abandonment by both contenders and bearing the brunt of their discord. On the other hand, the revolt against the Church was gaining ground in Germany and threatened to spill beyond its borders: to halt it, there were only two options, either to proceed resolutely with a reform of the Church or to resort to force. But a reform of the Church seemed difficult amid such clamor of arms and risked opening the way to limitations on papal authority and encroachments by princes, especially the emperor; recourse to force was impossible without relying on him and thereby increasing his already excessive authority. While the Pope strove to free himself, the Church, and Italy from the pressure of Charles V and leaned on France—interested in keeping Germany divided—he indirectly became an ally of that evolution which he was meant and wished to combat in the spiritual realm. From the East loomed the threat of the Ottomans; yet it was not to be hoped that the attempt, already vain under Pius II, to rally Christendom in a supreme effort of defense would now succeed; and aid to those most exposed to the threat was aid to the Habsburgs, who were already hard-pressed.
To these difficulties, which could scarcely be overcome by a man of quite different mettle, were added the Pope’s impressionable and vacillating nature, prone to illusory hopes and depressing fears, slow to decide, quick to abandon what he had willed for new ideas. Added to this was his inability to forget the purely political interests of the temporal state or of his own house, nor to subordinate them to broader and more worthy papal concerns. Thus the times in which C. reigned and his own qualities combined to make his pontificate one of the most unhappy.
At first, C. sought to remain neutral between the two great rivals in the hope of restoring peace and promoting concerted action against the Lutherans and the Turks. After Francis I entered Milan, he hoped to obtain advantages for the Church and the Medici from the apparent victor and allied himself with him and the Venetians (Dec. 1524–Jan. 1525).
He was “left for dead” after the defeat of the King of France at Pavia; frightened by Charles V’s triumph, the advances of the Lutherans, and the Turkish advance, he allied with the imperialists but did not obtain from Charles V what he had hoped. Disillusionment, fear of Charles’s omnipotence, and the advice of his datary, Giberti, led him to take part—indeed, largely to promote—that attempt to revive Italian resistance against the “barbarians,” which first took shape in the ill-fated conspiracy of Morone and then in the League of Cognac, the second Holy League (22 May 1526). Yet the discord and sluggishness of the allies, the French and Venetians, the violence of the Colonna faction, which reached the point of sacking the Vatican and St. Peter’s (20 Sept. 1526), and the people’s discontent over the burdens the Pope, lacking funds, was forced to impose for the war, compelled C. to negotiate an armistice with the imperialists just as the Spanish and Italian troops of the Duke of Bourbon and the Landsknechts of Frundsberg were advancing. Yet he could not prevent the frightful wave that struck Rome on 6 May 1527. Charles V was at least complicit; France remained inert; even the Pope’s own allies occupied towns in the Papal States; Florence, having overthrown Medici rule, restored the Republic. Taking refuge with difficulty in Castel Sant’Angelo, the Pope remained there “buried alive” for months while the soldiery sacked the city horribly, and his efforts to free it came to nothing. Finally, after concluding a burdensome agreement with the imperialists on 26 Nov. 1527, he fled first to Orvieto, then to Viterbo, amid straits and dangers, and did not return to Rome until 6 Oct. 1528.
Again he tried to remain neutral, insisting nonetheless that the occupied cities be restored and the Medici reinstated in Florence. In the end, as fortune decisively turned in Charles V’s favor, he concluded the Peace of Barcelona (29 June 1529), in which Charles, alarmed by the Turkish threat to Vienna, granted the papacy and his own family better terms than could have been hoped. This was followed by the Peace of Cambrai (5 Aug. 1529), in which Francis I abandoned the Pope and Italy to Charles V, and the negotiations at Bologna conducted in person by the Pope and the Emperor, as well as the league between them and most Italian states, including the Duchy of Milan, which C., with unusual tenacity, had managed to preserve for Francesco Sforza (23 Dec. 1529); on 24 Feb. 1530, Charles V was crowned emperor at Bologna. Meanwhile the imperial troops turned against Florence. The Pope still hoped perhaps for a peaceful submission of the city, but he wanted it at any cost for the Medici, if only to prevent it from falling into imperial hands. The Florentines did not yield (12 Aug. 1530) until after a desperate defense that cost C. enormous expense: the city returned to the Medici, and nominally Alessandro, reputedly—probably wrongly—the Pope’s natural son, became its lord in 1531, though the Pope remained its effective master.
Once his aim was achieved, C. again leaned toward France and concluded agreements for the marriage of Catherine, daughter of Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, to Henry, the second son of the king (1531). Then he returned to plans for peace, meeting the emperor a second time at Bologna, from which emerged a secret pact between the two and a second Italian league (Feb. 1532). But the following year he accepted the King of France’s invitation to a meeting at Marseille (Oct. 1533), where he blessed the marriage of Catherine to the future Henry II and entered into secret agreements with the king, without abandoning his conciliatory aims. And in his conduct, perpetually—though perhaps necessarily—vacillating, he persisted until his death.
Amid such tangled and painful circumstances, his work as temporal ruler could not be distinguished, though he did not lack good measures to improve Rome’s conditions and restore it after the wretched sack, and to fortify the cities of the Papal States, one of which, Ancona, was then subjected to direct papal rule (1532).
Even less adequate to the needs of the times was his activity in the religious sphere. He was not truly forgetful of his duties as pontiff. In promoting the Jubilee of 1525, he exempted participants from the obligation of almsgiving; issued a bull against dueling (13 Feb. 1524); prescribed observance of the reforms decreed by the Lateran Council (21 Nov. 1524); forbade the natural children of ecclesiastics from succeeding to their parents’ benefices (30 May 1530). He consented, though with many reservations, to the establishment in Portugal of an Inquisition modeled on the Spanish and defended converted Jews against the king; he was also clement toward those not converted. He resisted as far as he could state encroachment in religious matters, though circumstances forced him to frequent, perilous concessions. He approved the foundation of the Theatines (24 June 1524) and, despite fierce opposition, placed them directly under the Holy See (7 March 1533). In their difficult beginnings he favored that fruitful branch of the Franciscan Order known as the Capuchins, granting them the new habit, beards, and life of poverty (13 July 1528), though he was not always firm and consistent in the face of opposition from the Conventuals. He also approved (18 Feb. 1533) the congregation of the Sons of St. Paul, later called the Barnabites. He encouraged missions in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies and established a hierarchy there.
Many plans and proposals were made for more vigorous reform, but C. neither dared nor was able to carry them out. The persistent abuses in the Curia and the creation of cardinals—made, as has been said, in most cases for political reasons or for money—steadily diminished the prestige of the papacy. In the face of the Ottoman threat, C. displayed notable zeal; he sought to secure energetic intervention by Christian powers to save Hungary after the Battle of Mohács (1526) and granted
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CLEMENT VII, POPE — Portrait of C. VII (after 1527), unfinished painting by Sebastiano del Piombo — Parma, Pinacoteca.
He granted crusades and indulgences for the defense of Vienna; he gave and, to a much greater extent, promised money. He obtained from Charles V that the Knights of Rhodes be granted Malta, a Christian stronghold in the Mediterranean (1520); he provided ships to Andrea Doria for his enterprises in the Ionian Sea. But the vast projects exceeded the Pope’s possibilities, lacking both forces and money, and remained subordinate to the unattainable agreement among Christian powers and to the shifting relations between the Pope and Charles and Ferdinand of Habsburg.
These relations also partly determined his conduct regarding the grave issues of Lutheran heresy and the convocation of a council. Yet it must be acknowledged that, though he often allowed himself to be guided by political motives and displayed his usual irresolution, he also showed notable prudence so as not to render the religious division irreparable as long as there remained, albeit illusory, some hope of avoiding II.
The dispatch of Cardinal Campeggio (8 January 1524) as legate to Germany seemed to herald the implementation of reforms of which the cardinal was a convinced supporter; after the deliberations of the Diet of Nuremberg (1524), while opposing the convocation of a national German council—threatening to the unity of the Church—the Pope appeared to adhere to Charles V’s plan for an ecumenical council and promised at least in part to accept the grievances of the German nation. But precisely when the Diet of Speyer (1526) showed tolerance toward innovators and left each state the dangerous faculty of determining its own religious stance, Clement was engaged in conflict with Charles V, so that the formation of Lutheran state churches in Germany proceeded undisturbed. When the innovators, dissatisfied even with the largely favorable decisions of the new Diet of Speyer (1529), formulated the famous Protest, Clement, at Bologna, promised the emperor the convocation of a council, even disposed to make very broad concessions to the Protestants in order to prevent the emperor from assuming the role of judge. Deceived, however, even by the apparent moderation of the Augsburg Confession, regarding the innovators’ real dispositions, he demanded that they accept the council and that the king of France accept it as well, since he could counterbalance imperial interference. The convocation of the council was announced as imminent in an encyclical of 10 December 1531, while Aleandro, the nuncio in Germany, was to attempt cautiously to reach an agreement with the Protestants. And even when, faced with the conclusion of the Schmalkaldic League and the growing Turkish threat, the emperor concluded with the Protestants the Religious Peace of Nuremberg (1532), tolerating the Augsburg Confession until the council’s convocation, Clement raised no objections, leaving the impression that he had approved the agreement. At the second convention in Bologna, he renewed his commitment to summon the council and indeed in January 1533 sent briefs to Christian princes to secure their adherence; but in vain did Ugo Rangoni, his nuncio in Germany, attempt to obtain the Protestants’ submission to the decisions of the future council. The king of France then made clear his opposition to the convocation, and Clement, who saw no useful result to be gained from it, was induced to postpone it (March 1534), arousing fierce and not entirely justified protests not only in the imperial court but also among the most ardent Catholics in Germany.
Faced with the apostasy from Catholicism of Albert of Brandenburg, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights (1525), and with the measures that led to the progressive detachment of Denmark and Sweden from Rome, Clement displayed his usual conciliatory tendency, deluding himself that the breach could be easily avoided or repaired. In Switzerland, he neither knew how to provide timely reforms nor to give effective support to Catholics, vainly hoping that the heretics would return to the unity of the faith.
When Henry VIII, king of England, in order to contract a new marriage with Anne Boleyn, raised scruples of conscience regarding the validity of Julius II’s dispensation for his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and simultaneously requested both the annulment of that marriage and a dispensation from affinity with Anne due to previous relations with her sister, Clement, then confined in Castel Sant’Angelo, refused to give an immediate and open refusal. At that terrible moment, the king was almost his sole remaining friend; moreover, there was too much to fear that this erstwhile Defender of the Faith might now turn to exploiting the anti-Catholic elements in England and drag that country, following the example of Germany and the northern lands, out of Roman obedience. Clement therefore sought to temporize, and from Orvieto (17 December 1527) granted a dispensation for the marriage to Anne Boleyn in the event that the marriage to Catherine were declared null. But he firmly refused to entrust the decision to Cardinal Wolsey, who favored the annulment; he delegated judgment on the matter to Campeggio and Wolsey himself, without, however, committing himself to confirming their sentence; and while, yielding to Wolsey’s entreaties, he issued a decretal that seemed to promise or perhaps promised the annulment, he made its use conditional upon it being shown only to the king to bolster the cardinal’s wavering position, without allowing it to serve as the basis for judgment or to justify further and definitive concessions. Certainly, his unusually resolute stance was not unrelated to the fear of gravely offending Charles V, who had made his aunt Catherine’s cause his own; yet it is also true that, even when at odds with Charles, he did not bring himself to sacrifice the sanctity of marriage, not even before the danger of schism and the advantage that a closer union with the king might bring to the interests—even religious ones—of the papacy.
Later, when through the Peace of Barcelona he was assured of Charles V’s support, Clement accepted Catherine’s appeal and took the case to the Roman Rota, where it would have concluded to her detriment in England (16 July 1529). He still wavered, allowed the process to drag on, but forbade the king from contracting a new marriage until the case was decided (1531 and 1532). Neither the opinions of French universities, cleverly solicited by Cranmer, nor the threat of interdicting “sermons” and imposing severe measures against those remaining faithful to Rome succeeded in moving him. The king secretly married Anne Boleyn (25 January 1533), had Cranmer, intruded as archbishop in the see of Canterbury, declare his marriage to Catherine invalid, and insisted that Anne be crowned.
The Pope declared Henry’s new marriage null and excommunicated him unless he should separate from Anne and take Catherine back (12 July 1533). To the English Parliament’s decrees severing the Church of England from Rome and subjecting it to the king (January 1534), he replied with a definitive sentence upholding the validity of the first marriage (24 March 1534). It may well be that Clement’s prudent delay gave Henry VIII grounds to hope for a decision favourable to his passion for Anne Boleyn and encouraged him to persist; yet one may well doubt whether a more resolute attitude on the Pope’s part could have prevented the crisis or would not rather have hastened it, and whether therefore Clement does not deserve credit for having done all that lay within his power to avert so grave a harm to the Church.
The temper of the times and the horrific sack that brought the splendid Renaissance Rome to an end prevented Clement from fulfilling the hopes that men of letters and artists had placed in a Medici pope. He nevertheless favoured men of letters such as Sadoleto, who served as his secretary in the early years, Sannazzaro, who dedicated the De partu Virginis to him, Giovio, Berni and many others, though not all of them, for that matter, were worthy of a pope’s favour. In the case of Guicciardini, to whom he gave the presidency of Romagna in 1524 and later other offices, it was rather the Medici-devoted statesman than the distinguished historian who received his favour; to Machiavelli, who had presented his Florentine Histories, he granted a modest subsidy; with Erasmus he maintained friendly relations.
In the field of art he had Raphael’s pupils decorate the Sala di Costantino, partly from the master’s designs; he continued the building of St Peter’s entrusted to Peruzzi; he completed the Cortile di S. Damaso and the three streets from Campo Marzio to Piazza del Popolo. In Rome he erected the Zecca, for which Cellini worked, while Giovanni Bernardi engraved his exquisite medals. At Orvieto he commissioned Antonio da Sangallo to build the Pozzo di S. Patrizio, and at Loreto he had Andrea Sansovino and other eminent sculptors continue the decoration of the Santa Casa. Above all, he deserves credit for commissioning Michelangelo with the New Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, with its famous monuments, the erection of the Laurentian Library and, in the last months of his pontificate, the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel.
Frequently ailing throughout his pontificate, he died after six months of illness “in a Christian and tranquil manner” on 25 September 1534 and was buried beneath a heavy monument by Baccio Bandinelli in the choir of S. Maria sopra Minerva. – See Pl. CXV.