Cola Di Rienzo Summary

ROME AND THE PAPAL STATES Cola di Reinzo read many ancient Latin books and became very knowledgeable and wanted roman freedom and led a conspiracy to take over the city for the people
The popes of the Renaissance had a dual position. On the one hand, they were, as rulers of the church, entrusted with the spiritual welfare of Christendom; on the other, they were the heads of an Italian city-state. Their failure to reconcile these two positions or rather, their devotion to the second at the expense of the first secularized the papacy and brought the loss of much of its moral and spiritual authority.
With the awakening of the spirit of civic independence in medieval Italy, the people of Rome became subject to periodic fits of restlessness under papal rule. From time to time movements occurred in the city that repudiated the pope's authority and occasionally drove him out of the city. With the papacy at Avignon in the fourteenth century, the way was prepared for the career of Cola di Rienzo. During this period Rome was in decay and torn by rival factions. Cities in the Papal States were becoming independent, and the foreigners sent from France to rule in the pope's name were bitterly disliked.
Cola di Rienzo was a young Roman of humble origins who read the ancient Roman
classics and, because of his reading, had become intoxicated with ideals of Roman freedom. He became the head of a conspiracy to take over the city for the "people" and dispossess the great noble families that had been in control. He even secured papal approval, and in 1347 his plot succeeded. He became head of the city government, assuming the title of "tribune." Petrarch for a while regarded him with hope, for Petrarch too dreamed of restoring the greatness of Rome. Cola began to plan for some sort of Italian federation with Rome as the recognized head; he even seems to have entertained some idea of having Rome recognized as head of the entire world. Unfortunately, power went to his head, and his arrogance, together with the latent hostility of those whom he had deprived of power, brought his overthrow and expulsion from the city in 1348. He then wandered about for a while, eventually presenting himself at the court of Emperor Charles IV at Prague, possibly to urge the emperor to assert his rights in Italy. Charles imprisoned him for a time, and then sent him to the pope at Avignon. One of the popes tried to make use of him by sending him back to Rome in 1354 as his own representative. Again the position of authority was too much for Rienzo to handle, and this time the uprising against him resulted in his murder. The episode of his career, brief as it was, illustrates the power of the classics to affect even political life and the restlessness of the Romans under papal rule or misrule.
Despite efforts by the popes to restore their authority in Rome, this goal eluded them even after the end of the Great Schism in 1417 with the election of Martin V at the Council of Constance. Because of the involvement of the popes in Italian political struggles, enemies of the papacy managed to keep Martin from entering Rome until 1420. Because of the ruined condition of Rome and its scanty resources, Martin was compelled to devote himself to rebuilding the city, restoring order, and developing the temporal power of the papacy. Thus it was that the popes of the period embarked on their policy of looking first of all after the interests of their state in Italy rather than of the church as a whole.
Martin's successor, Eugenius IV, was driven from Rome in 1434 by a republican revolt, spent many years in exile, and had to reconquer the city by force. From this time on for almost a century, the popes tended to be secular, but secular in different ways. Nicholas V (1447 55) was the first humanist pope and the real founder of the Vatican Library. He brought distinguished scholars and artists to Rome, which he wanted to make into the cultural center of the day. He also had great plans for rebuilding the city architecturally, and began the process which resulted, among other things, in the new St. Peter's and the new Vatican. After the three-year pontificate of Calixtus III, another scholar ascended the papal throne, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who became Pius II (1458-64).
Aeneas Sylvius is one of the more fascinating characters of the Renaissance. As a young man, he had made his way by means of a wide knowledge of the classics, a graceful Latin style, personal charm, and an eye for the main chance. At the Council of Basel he had written in favor of the council instead of the pope, but when he saw the tide turning against the conciliar movement he deftly changed sides. As pope he issued a bull condemning conciliarism in the strongest terms. He had served at the court of the Holy Roman Empire, helping to spread humanism to Germany. He wrote an extensive history of his times. As a young man he was gay and fun-loving. But when he was elected to the papacy, he repudiated his former concerns, disappointed the scholars who had expected patronage from him, and threw himself into a single-hearted attempt to induce the Christian rulers of Europe to mount a new crusade against the infidel who had recovered the Holy Places. The time had passed for such expeditions, and Pius wore himself out in the futile attempt to revive something that was so definitely of the past.
Sixtus IV (1471 84), a member of the family of Della Rovere, illustrates some of the most prominent characteristics of the Renaissance papacy.
He practiced nepotism on a scale heretofore unknown among popes, and worked to make the Papal States a strong temporal power. He, therefore, became involved in the diplomatic intrigues and conflicts among the Italian cities. His part in the Pazzi conspiracy has already been shown. In 1481 he took part in the war over Ferrara, which Venice was trying to annex. Peace was made without the pope's participation in 1484, and Sixtus died shortly after. A Latin couplet said that this terrible man, whom no force could subdue, died on merely hearing the name of
peace.
Sixtus did perform great services for art. The Sistine Chapel was built for him and named after him, and to decorate it he brought to Rome the greatest painters in Italy.
In 1492 the Spanish cardinal Rodrigo Borgia became pope by means of a simoniac election: That is, he managed to purchase the votes of a sufficient number of cardinals. He took the name of Alexander VI. He had many children, to whom he was deeply devoted. Two of them are of historical importance, a daughter, Lucrezia, and a son, Caesar or Cesare. Lucrezia was a woman without strong character who was used as a tool by her father and brother in the pursuit of their political plans; they even had one of her husbands murdered when he became an obstacle to their purposes. She finished her life as duchess of Ferrara, acquiring a reputation for piety and good works.
Alexander VI has become synonymous with the moral degradation of the Renaissance papacy, and with some justification. He made no attempt to conceal his flagrant sexual immorality; at the time he became pope, his mistress was a girl of eighteen. The Vatican was filled with gay parties in which the pope took a prominent part. It could be argued that the Renaissance popes constituted a graver danger to the church than would be posed by the Protestant reformers. The Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt expressed the opinion that the Reformation saved the papacy, presumably by awakening it to the need for reform before it was too late.
Alexander found the Papal States in great disorder; the conflicts of the noble factions, led by the families of Colonna and Orsini, had reduced Rome to anarchy under the previous pope, Innocent VIII. Alexander restored order, waging a regular war against the Orsini.
Throughout his pontificate, Alexander worked to help his son Cesare build up a state of his own in central Italy. To do this, the pope secured the help of the king of France and placed the resources of the papacy at Cesare's disposal. With a ruthlessness that has been made famous by Machiavelli in The Prince, Cesare set out to carve out a dominion for himself while his father was still on the papal throne. He conquered the Romagna, which had long been misruled by petty tyrants, and instituted a firm and effective administration. He proceeded to extend his power into Tuscany, and by 1501 was a threat to Florence. It was for this reason that Machiavelli was sent on missions to him in 1501 and 1502, and had opportunities to talk with him and to witness his methods of operation. Until the death of his father, Cesare was making progress toward the realization of his designs. The full extent of his ambitions is not known; possibly he wished to dominate all Italy. He had attempted to win over the cardinals, so that he could assure the election of a successor to his father who would be favorable to him. However, at the time of the pope's death in August 1503, Cesare himself was critically ill and for a while was not expected to survive. Thus he was in no position to influence the papal election.
Alexander's immediate successor, a nephew of Pius II who took the name of Pius III, was already ill and did not survive his election a month. The next pope, also elected in 1503, was the forceful Giuliano della Rovere, also a papal nephew Sixtus IV was his uncle and an enemy of the Borgias. Julius II, to use his papal name, was determined to break the power of Cesare Borgia and to incorporate Cesare's conquests in the Papal States. At this critical point in his career, Cesare failed to show his accustomed vigor and resolution. The pope stripped him of his possessions and imprisoned him. The rest of Cesare's life is an anticlimax; he died obscurely in 1507, fighting in Navarre. Julius was a great patron of the arts, employing both Michelangelo and Raphael and making Rome the cultural capital of Italy. In his political activities, he was particularly interested in strengthening the temporal power of the papacy. He restored the papal supremacy in the Romagna and became the center of Italian diplomacy, organizing the campaigns against Venice and France that will be discussed later. He is preeminently the "warrior" pope. He died in 1513. His successor, Leo X (1513 21) was Giovanni de' Medici, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, not yet thirty at the time of his elevation to the papal throne.
He was only a deacon and had to be ordained a priest before he could be consecrated. He was a patron of arts and letters, and such a lavish spender of the revenues of the church that at the time of his death the papacy was deeply in debt. Much of the expense went for luxury and entertainment; the pope set a splendid table, and with banquets, balls, carnivals, and theatrical entertainments made Rome a city of pleasure. His generous patronage kept Rome the artistic center of Italy. Distinguished scholars served as papal secretaries. Leo's chief aim was the aggrandizement of his family, the Medici. As head of the family, he was the real ruler of Florence. He made his cousin Giulio a cardinal and put him in charge of the Florentine government. He also had the grandiose scheme of becoming the arbiter of European politics, and engaged in continual intrigues, making alliances, betraying allies, and becoming distrusted by all. He did not concern himself with religious or spiritual matters, and was unable to understand the importance of the troubles that were reported to him from Germany because of an obscure German friar named Martin Luther.
When Leo died, still young, in 1521, the conclave was deadlocked for a long time. His successor, who was not chosen until the following year, was a Dutchman named Adrian of Utrecht, who was not even present. He owed his election to the fact that he was a compromise candidate and had the support of the emperor Charles V, of whom he was a counselor and former tutor. He took the name of Adrian VI, thus keeping his lay name, which was unusual. He was also unusual for that period by being devoted to religion and earnestly desiring reform. He did not patronize artists and scholars nor did he give elaborate entertainments. Naturally, this made him very unpopular in Rome and subjected him to a great deal of mockery. He failed to obtain the needed reforms, and his early death in 1523 was not lamented.
From 1523 to 1534, the pope was Giulio de' Medici, Clement VII, illegitimate son of Giuliano, the murdered brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent. It was during this time that the papacy, having involved itself deeply in the diplomacy of Europe at the expense of its spiritual functions, now reaped the whirlwind. In the struggle over Italy between France and Spain, the pope committed the tactical error of being on the side of France just as Charles V, emperor and king of Spain, was becoming master of Italy. The result was the Sack of Rome in 1527 by the unpaid and mutinous soldiers of Charles, which caused untold destruction and death, as well as the desecration of sacred places by the German Lutheran mercenaries in Charles's service. Many contemporaries were convinced that the sack, which had a profound psychological effect, was God's punishment visited on the popes for their wickedness. It was a significant step in the process by which Spanish domination was fastened on Italy, and it had at least one salutary effect: It convinced the pope of the bankruptcy of his diplomatic policy and, in time, turned the popes away from their excessive involvement in European diplomacy. Clement's successor, Paul III, although not a model of sanctity and guilty of nepotism, may be considered the first pope of a new era, that of the Counter Reformation. Thus our brief survey of the Renaissance papacy can conveniently conclude at this point.