Pope Clement VII

In 1510, while the Medici were living near Rome, a black servant in their household — identified in documents as Simonetta da Collevecchio — became pregnant, ultimately giving birth to a son, Alessandro de' Medici.[25][26] Nicknamed “il Moro” (“the Moor”) due to his dark complexion, Alessandro was officially recognized as the illegitimate son of Lorenzo II de Medici; however, at the time and to this day, various scholars contend that Alessandro was, in truth, the illegitimate son of Giulio de' Medici.[27][28] The truth of his lineage remains unknown and debated.[29]

Regardless of his paternity, throughout Alessandro's brief life, Giulio — as Pope Clement VII — showed him great favoritism, elevating Alessandro over Ippolito de Medici to become Florence's first hereditary monarch, despite the latter's comparable qualifications.[30] Thus Alessandro de' Medici became the first black head of state in the modern Western World.[30]

Giulio de' Medici appeared on the world stage in March 1513, at the age of 35,[2] when his cousin Giovanni de' Medici was elected Pope, taking the name Leo X. Pope Leo X reigned until his death on 1 December 1521.

Giulio Cardinal de' Medici, left; with his cousin Pope Leo X, center; and Luigi Cardinal de' Rossi, right; by Raphael, 1519.

“Learned, clever, respectable, and industrious,” Giulio de’ Medici’s reputation and responsibilities grew at a rapid pace, unusual even for the Renaissance.[9] Within three months of Leo X’s election, he was named Archbishop of Florence.[31] Later that autumn, all barriers to his attaining the Church’s highest offices were removed by a papal dispensation declaring his birth legitimate. It stated that his parents had been betrothed per sponsalia de presenti, (i.e. "wed according to the word of those present.”)[9] Whether or not this was true, it allowed Leo X to create him cardinal during the first papal consistory on 23 September 1513.[9] On 29 September, he was appointed Cardinal Deacon of Santa Maria in Dominica — a position that had been vacated by the Pope.[2]

The cardinal's reputation during the reign of Leo X is recorded by contemporary Marco Minio, the Venetian ambassador to the Papal Court, who wrote in a letter to the Venetian Senate in 1519: "Cardinal de' Medici, the Pope’s cardinal nephew, who is not legitimate, has great power with the Pope; he is a man of great competence and great authority; he resides with the Pope, and does nothing of importance without first consulting him. But he is returning to Florence to govern the city.”[32]

While Cardinal de' Medici wasn’t officially appointed Vice-Chancellor of the Church (second-in-command) until 9 March 1517, in practice Leo X governed in partnership with his cousin from the beginning.[9] Initially, the cardinal's duties centered primarily on administering Church affairs in Florence and conducting international relations. His diplomatic role began in January 1514, when King Henry VIII of England appointed him Cardinal protector of England.[33] The following year, King Francis I of France nominated him to become Archbishop of Narbonne, and in 1516 named him cardinal protector of France.[33] In a scenario typical of the cardinal's independent-minded statesmanship — the respective kings of England and France, recognizing a conflict of interest in Medici protecting both countries simultaneously, brought pressure to bear on him to resign his other protectorship; however, to their dismay, he refused.

That Medici’s loyalties didn’t lie with foreign alliances became apparent in 1521, when a personal rivalry between King Francis I and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V boiled over into war in northern Italy.[34] Francis I expected Medici, his cardinal protector, to support France; however, Medici perceived the French King as threatening the Church’s independence – particularly the latter's control of Lombardy, and his use of the Concordat of Bologna to control the Church in France. Thus in 1521 Medici negotiated an alliance against France with Emperor Charles V — thereby gaining an ally to combat Lutheranism, then growing in the Emperor's German territories.[35] That autumn, he helped lead a victorious Imperial-Papal army over the French in Milan and Lombardy.[35] While Medici’s strategy of shifting alliances to liberate the Church (and later Italy) from foreign domination proved disastrous during his reign as Pope Clement VII, during the reign of Leo X it skillfully maintained a balance of power among the competing international factions seeking to influence the Church.[36]

Cardinal de' Medici’s other endeavors on behalf of Pope Leo X were similarly successful, such that “he had the credit of being the prime mover of papal policy throughout the whole of Leo’s pontificate.”[37] Interested in Church reform, Medici organized and presided over the Florentine Synod of 1517, where he became the first member of the Church to implement the reforms recommended by the Fifth Lateran Council.[37] These included prohibiting priests from carrying arms, frequenting taverns, and dancing provocatively — while urging them to attend weekly confession.[8] Similarly, Medici’s artistic patronage was admired, (e.g. his commissioning Raphael’s Transfiguration and Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel, among other works discussed elsewhere,) particularly for what goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini later described as “excellent taste.”[38]

Giulio de’ Medici governed Florence between 1519 and 1523, following the death of its civic ruler (and his uncle), Lorenzo II de Medici, in 1519. U.S. President John Adams later characterized Giulio's administration of Florence as "very successful and frugal."[6] Adams chronicles the cardinal as having "reduced the business of the magistrates, elections, customs of office, and the mode of expenditure of public money, in such a manner that it produced a great and universal joy among the citizens."[6][8]

On the death of Pope Leo X in 1521, Adams writes there was a “ready inclination in all of the principal citizens [of Florence], and a universal desire among the people, to maintain the state in the hands of the Cardinal de’ Medici; and all this felicity arose from his good government, which since the death of the Duke Lorenzo, had been universally agreeable.” [6] Medici’s rule of Florence lasted until 1523, when he was elected Pope Clement VII.

According to Adams, in 1522, rumors began to swirl that Cardinal de' Medici — lacking legitimate successors in Florence — planned to abdicate rule of the city and “leave the government freely in the people.” [6] When it became clear that these rumors were untrue, a faction of mostly elite Florentines hatched a plot to assassinate him, and then install their own government under Medici's "great adversary," Cardinal Francesco Soderini. [39] [6] Soderini encouraged the plot, exhorting both Pope Adrian VI and Francis I of France to strike against Medici and invade the latter's allies in Sicily; however, this did not happen. Instead of breaking with Medici, Pope Adrian VI had Cardinal Soderini imprisoned. [40] Afterwards, the principal conspirators were "declared rebels," and some were "apprehended and beheaded; by which means the Cardinal was again secured [as leader of Florence]." [6]

Francis I of France's conquest of Milan in 1524, during his Italian campaign of 1524–1525, 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 January 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, Charles V. One month later, Francis I was crushed and imprisoned in the Battle of Pavia, and Clement VII went deeper in his former engagements with Charles V, signing an alliance with the viceroy of Naples.

But deeply concerned about Imperial arrogance, he was to pick up with France again when Francis I was freed after the Treaty of Madrid (1526): the Pope entered into the League of Cognac together with France, Venice, and Francesco II 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.

Like his cousin Pope Leo X, Clement was considered too generous to his Medici relatives, draining the Vatican treasuries. This included the assignment of positions all the way up to Cardinal, lands, titles, and money. These actions prompted reform measures after Clement's death to help prevent such excessive nepotism.[46]

In his bull "Intra Arcana" Clement VII gave a grant of permissions and privileges to Charles V and the Spanish Empire, which included patronage power over their colonies in the Americas.[47][48]

The Pope's wavering politics also caused the rise of the Imperial party inside the Curia: Cardinal Pompeo Colonna's soldiers pillaged Vatican Hill 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 the end.

Soon he found himself alone in Italy too, as Alfonso d'Este, duke of Ferrara, had supplied artillery to the Imperial army, causing the League Army to keep a distance behind the horde of Landsknechts led by Charles III, Duke of Bourbon and Georg von Frundsberg, allowing them to reach Rome without harm.

Castel Sant'Angelo

Charles of Bourbon died while mounting a ladder during the short siege and his starving troops, unpaid and left without a guide, felt free to ravage Rome from 6 May 1527. The many incidents of murder, rape, and vandalism that followed ended the splendours of Renaissance Rome forever. Clement VII, who had displayed no more resolution in his military than in his political conduct, was shortly afterwards (6 June) obliged to surrender himself together with the Castel 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 off 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 1529 the warring parties 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 nephew 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 avoid his demands for a general council.

Clement VII, age 48
Portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo, 1526

During his half-year imprisonment in 1527, Clement VII grew a full beard as a sign of mourning for the sack of Rome. This was in contradiction to Catholic canon law,[49] which required priests to be clean-shaven; however, it had the precedent of the beard which Pope Julius II had worn for nine months in 1511–12 as a similar sign of mourning for the loss of the papal city of Bologna.

Unlike Julius II, however, Clement VII kept his beard until his death in 1534. His example in wearing a beard was followed by his successor, Paul III, and indeed by twenty-four popes who followed him, down to Innocent XII, who died in 1700. Clement VII was thus the unintentional originator of a fashion that lasted well over a century.

Charles V, enthroned over his defeated enemies (from left): Suleiman the Magnificent, Pope Clement VII, Francis I of France, the Duke of Cleves, the Duke of Saxony, and the Landgrave of Hesse. Giulio Clovio, mid-16th century

By the late 1520s, King Henry VIII wanted to have his marriage to Charles's aunt Catherine of Aragon annulled. The couple's sons died in infancy, threatening the future of the House of Tudor, although Henry did have a daughter, Mary Tudor. Henry claimed that this lack of a male heir was because his marriage was "blighted in the eyes of God".[50] Catherine had been his brother's widow, but the marriage had been childless, thus the marriage was not against Old Testament law, which forbids only such unions if the brother had children.[51] Moreover, a special dispensation from Pope Julius II had been given to allow the wedding.[52] Henry now 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, possibly acting under pressure from Catherine's nephew, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, whose effective prisoner he was, refused. According to Catholic teaching, a validly contracted marriage is indivisible until death, and thus the pope cannot annul a marriage on the basis of an impediment previously dispensed.[53] Many people close to Henry 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 subsequently underwent a marriage ceremony with Anne Boleyn, in either late 1532 or early 1533.[54] The marriage was made easier by the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury William Warham, a stalwart friend of the Pope, after which Henry persuaded Clement to appoint Thomas Cranmer, a friend of the Boleyn family, as his successor. The Pope granted the papal bulls necessary for Cranmer’s promotion to Canterbury, and he also demanded that Cranmer take the customary oath of allegiance to the pope before his consecration. Laws made under Henry already declared that bishops would be consecrated even without papal approval. Cranmer was consecrated, while declaring beforehand that he did not agree with the oath he would take.[55] Cranmer was prepared to grant the annulment[56] of the marriage to Catherine as Henry required. The Pope responded to the marriage by excommunicating both Henry and Cranmer from the Catholic Church.

Consequently, in England, in the same year, the Act of Conditional Restraint of Annates transferred the taxes on ecclesiastical income from the Pope to the 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.[57] Ultimately, in 1534, Henry led the English Parliament to pass the Act of Supremacy that established the independent Church of England and breaking from the Catholic Church.

A discerning patron, Clement VII personally commissioned Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment for the Sistine Chapel, and Raphael’s masterpiece, The Transfiguration, as well as celebrated works by Benvenuto Cellini, Niccolo Machiavelli, and Parmigianino, among others.[58][59][60] Artistic trends of the era are sometimes called the “Clementine style,” and notable for their virtuosity.[61] Clement VII is also remembered for having been the patron of Benvenuto Cellini.

In 1533, Johann Widmanstetter (alternately called John Widmanstad), a secretary of Pope Clement VII, explained the Copernican system to the Pope and two cardinals. The Pope was so pleased that he gave Widmanstetter a valuable gift.[62]

He returned to Rome on 10 December 1533, complaining of stomach problems and showing a fever. This was not a new illness. The Pope had been so ill at the beginning of August that year that Cardinal Agostino Trivulzio wrote to King Francis that the Pope's doctors had begun to fear that the Pope was in danger of dying.[65] On 23 September 1533, Clement wrote a long letter of farewell to Charles V.[66] He also ordered, just a few days before his death, Michelangelo's painting of The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.[19] He died on 25 September 1534, having lived 56 years and four months, and having reigned for 10 years, 10 months, and 7 days.

It has been said that he died from eating poisonous mushrooms, but the symptoms and length of illness do not fit this hypothesis. Nor do they account for the effects on his illness of two sea voyages within two months. In the words of his biographer Emmanuel Rodocanachi, "In accordance with the custom of those times, people attributed his death to poison."[67] His body was interred in Saint Peter's Basilica, and later transferred to a permanent tomb in the Choir of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.

Historians usually tend to regard Pope Clement VII as incompetent and unsuccessful in his role - some say disastrous.[68] [69] While he was seen as adept and even statesman-like in protecting the interests of the Medici family, he was seen as indecisive, easily distracted and incapable of managing effectively the difficult political, religious and financial problems facing the papacy.[70] As a result, Clement is not so much remembered for anything he accomplished as these were easily overshadowed by the major historical events that occurred during his reign, not least the Sack of Rome and the unchecked momentum of the Reformation. The people of Rome at the time hated Pope Clement VII and rejoiced his death because they never forgave him for the destruction of 1527 during the sack of Rome [71].