Popes, Cardinals and War ‘Cursed Be He That Keepeth Back His Sword from Blood.’ Jeremiah, XLVIII, 10
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Popes, Cardinals and War ‘Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.’ Jeremiah, XLVIII, 10 ‘Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear.’ John, XVIII, 10 ‘“Oho!” said Stalin [to Pierre Laval in Moscow, May 1935]. “The Pope? How many divisions has he got?”’ Joseph Stalin, 1935, quoted by Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 1: The Gathering Storm (London, 1949), p.121 Popes, Cardinals and War THE MILITARY CHURCH IN RENAISSANCE AND EARLY MODERN EUROPE D.S. Chambers Published in 2006 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com In the United States and Canada distributed by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © D.S. Chambers, 2006 The right of D.S. to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN 10: 1 84511 178 8 ISBN 13: 978 1 84511 178 6 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress catalog card: available Typeset in Stone Serif by Dexter Haven Associates Ltd, London Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall Contents List of illustrations vii List of abbreviations ix Acknowledgements x Preface: Italy and history xiii Prologue 1 1 ‘Dux et Pontifex’: the medieval centuries 4 2 Relapse and Renaissance, 1305–1458 24 Babylonian captivity 24 Divided command 32 Renaissance: the early phase, 1420–58 38 3 Pius II (1458–64): warmaker and historian of war 53 Pius and the idea of war 54 Pius and his cardinals at war in Italy 59 Anticlimax: Pius’s crusade 69 Sequel: Paul II and war, 1464–71 72 4 God’s work or the Devil’s? Papal wars, 1471–1503 75 Introduction: the middle age of the 75 Renaissance papacy Sixtus IV’s Italian wars 79 Innocent VIII (1484–92): the Neapolitan Barons’ 89 War and Osimo Alexander VI (1492–1503): French invasion and 93 Cesare Borgia’s campaigns Conclusion 101 5 The Julian trumpet, 1503–13 110 Alarms and excursions, 1503–9 110 ‘Out with the barbarians!’ (1): failure against 118 Ferrara, 1510–11 ‘Out with the barbarians!’ (2): the road to 125 victory, 1511–13 6 Post-Julius: the late Renaissance papacy and war, 134 1513–65 Leo X: more war, 1513–21 134 The interlude of Adrian VI, 1521–23 143 Clement VII: years of danger, 1523–34 144 Paul III: war, peace, reconstruction, 1534–49 152 The last phase of the Renaissance papacy, 162 1549–65 7A farewell to arms? 167 The reformed papacy and war 167 Towards modern times: the armed challenges 178 of Napoleon and the Risorgimento Epilogue 189 Notes 191 Bibliography 217 Index 225 List of illustrations Map of the Lands of the Church. xi 1. ‘Julius Exclusus’ (anon. German woodcut, ca.1522–23). 2 2. Artist’s conception of the proposed equestrian 43 statue of Cardinal Giovanni Vitelleschi. Detail of fresco (anon., seventeenth century) (Tarquinia, Palazzo Comunale). 3. ‘Portrait’ of Cardinal Giovanni Vitelleschi, with helmet 44 and baton (anon., seventeenth century) (Tarquinia, Palazzo Comunale). 4. Cristoforo di Geremia, medal of Cardinal Ludovico 46 Trevisan, commemorating the Battle of Anghiari, 1440, obv. and rev. (British Museum, Department of Coins and Medals). 5. Marcantonio Raimondi, engraved profile of Pope 54 Pius II (based on medal by Andrea Giacolati) (Warburg Institute). 6. Mino da Fiesole, detail of tomb of Cardinal 64 Niccolò Forteguerri (Santa Cecilia, Rome). 7. Medal of Sixtus IV commemorating the recapture 78 of Otranto, 1481, obv. and rev. (Warburg Institute). 8. Tomb sculpture (anon.), Roberto Malatesta, papal 84 commander (d.1482) (Musée du Louvre). 9. Titian, Pope Alexander VI presenting papal banner and 101 Jacopo Pesaro to St Peter (Koninklijk Museum voor Schöne Kunsten, Antwerp). 10. Fortress of Ostia, built for Cardinal Giuliano 103 della Rovere. 11. Armour supposedly made for Cardinal Ascanio 107 Sforza (Armeria Reale, Turin). 12. Raphael (attrib.), Julius II (Devonshire 112 Collection, Chatsworth). vii 13. Medal of Cardinal Francesco Alidosi, probably 114 commemorating Romagna campaign, 1509, obv. and rev. (Warburg Institute). 14. Pope Julius II in armour exhorting Emperor 115 Maximilian, King Louis XII of France and King Ferdinand of Aragon to war on Venice (anon. print in Ulrich von Hutten, Ad Divum Maximilianum bello in Venetos euntem Exhortatio, 1517) (British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings). 15. Print showing a pope with cardinals, cannon and 160 armed men confronting the Emperor (Cranach, Passio Christi et Anti-Christi, 1521) (Warburg Institute). 16. Pope Julius III as a demonic warrior (anon. print 164 from a contemporary broadsheet, Staatsbibliothek, Handschriftenabteilung, Berlin). 17. The True Church under attack from battling 168 popes and cardinals (anon. print, late 1560s) (Warburg Institute). 18. Pope Paul V approving the plan for a fortress 173 at Ferrara (tomb of Pope Paul V, S.M. Maggiore, Rome) (Courtauld Institute of Art, Conway Library). 19. Cardinal Ruffo, protected by St Anthony, leading the 181 Sanfedisti, 1799 (popular print). 20. Pius IX reluctantly surrenders the material sword to 186 King Vittorio Emanuele II, but insists that he retains the keys (cartoon in Punch magazine, 1870). viii List of abbreviations AHP Archivium Historiae Pontificiae ASDM, AMV Archivio Diocesano, Mantua, Archivio Mensa Vescovile ASF MAP Archivio di Stato, Florence, Medici avanti Principato ASI Archivio storico italiano ASL Archivio storico lombardo ASMn, AG Archivio di Stato, Mantua, Archivio Gonzaga ASMil, Sforzesco, PE Archivio di Stato, Milan, Fondo Sforzesco, Potenze Estere ASMod, Estense Archivio di Stato, Modena, Archivio Estense ASRSP Archivio della società romana di storia patria ASV Archivio di Stato, Venice AV Archivio Veneto b. busta (box file) BAV Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana BL British Library BMV Biblioteca Marciana, Venice BUB Biblioteca Universitaria, Bologna c. carta (page) cart. cartella (box file) DBI Dizionario biografico degli italiani DHGE Dictionnaire d’Histoire et de Géographie Ecclésiastiques DMS Diarii di Marin Sanudo (ed. F. Stefani, R. Fulin et al., 58 vols, Venice, 1879–1902) EHR English Historical Review esp. especially GSLI Giornale storico della letteratura italiana n.s. new series obv. and rev. obverse and reverse Migne, Paris, 1844–64 ix POPES, CARDINALS AND WAR Pastor L. Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste (many volumes and editions); translations cited, either History of the Popes or Storia dei Papi, with editor’s or translator’s name and publication date. PL Patrologiae cursus completus. Series latina, ed. J.-P. QF Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken repr. reprint RIS Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ed. L. Muratori and revised by later editors transl. translation ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the first place I owe thanks to Lester Crook for suggesting that I turn into a book a lecture I gave at the Anglo-American Historians’ Conference in London in July 2000 (the conference’s theme that year was ‘War and Peace’), and for his thoughtful comments, as well as those of his editorial colleagues and of an anonymous outside reader. I am deeply grateful to friends at the Warburg Institute, particularly to Elizabeth McGrath and Magnus Ryan for reading the first version of the text and making many valuable suggestions and corrections, to Jill Kraye for bibliographical advice, to Ian Jones for his ready opinions and much help concerning photographs, and to Jenny Boyle for her endlessly patient support and cheerful reassurance over word- processing problems, real or feared. For points of information and friendly interest I should also like to thank Stefan Bauer, John Law, Letizia Panizza, Marco Pellegrini, Guido Rebecchini, Rodolfo Signorini and Marcello Simonetta. It is sad that there was no possibility of discussing the book with John Hale, to whose memory I dedicated the original lecture, nor with Nicolai Rubinstein, although he was asking about it not long before he died. Finally, it remains for me to thank my wife Tatyana, who pointed out many infelicities of syntax and punctuation; also Serunchik and Grunya – for their ‘endurance’. x Preface: Italy and history The theme of this book is emphatically not the history of Italy, but, since the papacy’s engagements in war – and popes’ and cardinals’ personal participation in it – were to a large extent happening there, some introductory guidelines over the many centuries to be covered, particularly over the central period of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, may be of help. Even so, readers may have to bear allusions in the text to unfamiliar and under-explained persons, places and events, and may still remain baffled by the complexities of Italian medieval and early modern history. Unfortunately, no attempt to present a history of Italy ever seems quite to succeed; those multi-volume series written by numerous different authors invariably frustrate the reader by the variety of approaches and too little precise detail.1 One starting point would be to present this theme of a belligerent papacy in its Italian background as a struggle for physical survival. The bishopric of Rome, with its primacy over the Church, or over the world as some proponents were to claim for it, and its sacred associations with St Peter and countless martyrs, had its base halfway down the Italian peninsula.