The Sack of Rome

Here is E. R. Chamberlin's account of one of the great tragedies of history. It was a tragedy that nobody intended, but it cost the lives of thousands and brought a way of life to an end. The author traces the origins of the tragedy through the personalities of the people whose miscalculations brought it about: Charles, Duke of Bourbon, leader of the army, who was killed at the moment of assault, leaving it leaderless and doubly dangerous; François I, the brilliant, hedonistic King of France, who drove Bourbon to treason and so helped start the avalanche; Frundsburg, the giant German who brought his "landsknechts" across the Alps to march on Rome with the Frenchmen he despised; the Emperor Charles V, the deeply religious man who nevertheless unleashed his army to teach "that villain of a pope" a lesson; and the Pope himself – the scholarly, timorous Medici Pope, Clement VII, whose vacillations provided the final trigger for the catastrophe.