History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0437/04374.txt

Text File | 1992-10-12 | 11.3 KB | 203 lines

$Unique_ID{how04374}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Sack Of Rome By The Imperial Troops
By Benvenuto Cellini}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Cellini, Benvenuto}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{rome
castle
bourbon
cellini
clement
footnote
alessandro
army
captain
charles}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       Sack Of Rome By The Imperial Troops
Book:        By Benvenuto Cellini
Author:      Cellini, Benvenuto

By Benvenuto Cellini

1527

     Charles, Duc de Bourbon, known as the Constable de Bourbon, became famous
in the wars of the emperor Charles V with Francis I, King of France. The vast
estates of both branches of the Bourbon family were united in the possession
of the Constable, making him a person of importance independently of his
military career.  He was born in 1490, and was made Constable or France for
his services at the battle of Melegnano (1515), in which Francis gained a
brilliant victory over the Swiss.

     The attempt of powerful enemies to undermine Bourbon in the favor of the
King led to the threatened loss of the Constable's dignities and lands, and
provoked him to renounce the French service.  After making a secret treaty
with Charles V and with his ally, Henry VIII of England, Bourbon led a force
of German mercenaries into Lombardy, where in 1523 he joined Charles' Spanish
army, and next year aided in driving the French from Italy.  Invading France,
he marched under the Emperor's orders to Marseilles and laid siege to the
city, but failed to take it.

     Bourbon contributed materially to the Emperor's great victory at Pavia,
and was rewarded by being made Duke of Milan and commander in Northern Italy.
But although Charles thus honored Bourbon he did not trust him, and was not
really desirous of advancing a person of such great resource and consequence.
In the peace between Spain and France in 1526 Bourbon's great interests were
neglected.  Notwithstanding these things, when Charles V wished to punish Pope
Clement VII, who had joined a league against him, Bourbon, with George of
Frundsberg, led an army of Spanish and German mercenaries to Rome.

     The description of the sack which followed, written by Benvenuto Cellini,
the celebrated Italian artist, shows him as an effective participant in the
defence.  This account of a combatant is of course only fragmentary, and is
supplemented by Trollope's critical narrative.

Text

     The whole world was now in warfare.  Pope Clement had sent to get some
troops from Giovanni de' Medici, and when they came they made such
disturbances in Rome that it was ill living in open shops. ^1 On this account
I retired to a good snug house behind the Banchi, where I worked for all the
friends I had acquired.  Since I produced few things of much importance at
that period, I need not waste time in talking about them.  I took much
pleasure in music and amusements of the kind.

[Footnote 1: These troops entered Rome in October, 1526.  They were disbanded
in March, 1527.]

     On the death of Giovanni de' Medici in Lombardy, the Pope, at the advice
of Messer Jacopo Salviati, dismissed the five bands he had engaged; and when
the Constable of Bourbon knew there were no troops in Rome, he pushed his army
with the utmost energy up to the city.  The whole of Rome upon this flew to
arms.  I happened to be intimate with Alessandro, the son of Piero del Bene,
who, at the time when the Colonnesi entered Rome, had requested me to guard
his palace. ^1 On this more serious occasion, therefore, he prayed me to
enlist fifty comrades for the protection of the said house, appointing me
their captain, as I had been when the Colonnesi came.  So I selected fifty
young men of the highest courage, and we took up quarters in his palace, with
good pay and excellent appointments.

[Footnote 1: Cellini here refers to the attack made upon Rome by the great
Ghibelline house of Colonna, led by their chief captain, Pompeo, in September,
1526.  They took possession of the city and drove Clement into the castle of
St. Angelo, where they forced him to agree to terms favoring the Imperial
cause.  It was customary for Roman gentlemen to hire bravoes for the defence
of their palaces when any extraordinary disturbance was expected, as, for
example, upon the vacation of the papal chair.]

     Bourbon's army had now arrived before the walls of Rome, and Alessandro
begged me to go with him to reconnoitre.  So we went with one of the stoutest
fellows in our company; and on the way a youth called Cecchino della Casa
joined himself to us.  On reaching the walls by the Campo Santo, we could see
that famous army, which was making every effort to enter the town.  Upon the
ramparts where we took our station, several young men were lying, killed by
the besiegers; the battle raged there desperately, and there was the densest
fog imaginable.  I turned to Alessandro and said: "Let us go home as soon as
we can, for there is nothing to be done here; you see the enemies are
mounting, and our men are in flight." Alessandro, in a panic, cried, "Would
God that we had never come here!" and turned in maddest haste to fly.  I took
him up somewhat sharply with these words: "Since you have brought me here, I
must perform some action worthy of a man"; and, directing my arquebuse where I
saw the thickest and most serried troop of fighting men, I aimed exactly at
one whom I remarked to be higher than the rest: the fog prevented me from
being certain whether he was on horseback or on foot.  Then I turned to
Alessandro and Cecchino, and bade them discharge their arquebuses, showing
them how to avoid hit by the besiegers.  When we had fired two rounds apiece I
crept cautiously up to the wall, and, observing among the enemy a most
extraordinary confusion, I discovered afterward that one of our shots had
killed the Constable of Bourbon; and, from what I subsequently learned, he was
the man whom I had first noticed above the heads of the rest. ^1

[Footnote 1: All historians of the sack of Rome agree in saying that Bourbon
was shot dead while placing ladders against the outworks near the shop Cellini
mentions.  But the honor of firing the arquebuse which brought him down cannot
be assigned to anyone in particular.  Very different stories were current on
the subject.

     Quitting our position on the ramparts, we crossed the Campo Santo, and
entered the city by St. Peter's; then, coming out exactly at the Church of
Santo Agnolo, we got with the greatest difficulty to the great gate of the
castle; for the generals, Renzo di Ceri and Orazio Baglioni, were wounding and
slaughtering everybody who abandoned the defence of the walls. ^1

[Footnote 1: Renzo di Ceri was a captain of adventurers, who had conquered
Urbino for the Pope in 1515, and afterward fought for the French in the
Italian wars.  Orazio Baglioni, of the semiprincely Perugian family, was a
distinguished condottiere.  He subsequently obtained the captaincy of the
Bande Nere, and died fighting near Naples in 1528.  Orazio murdered several of
his cousins in order to acquire the lordship of Perugia.  His brother
Malatesta undertook to defend Florence in the siege of 1530, and sold the city
by treason to Clement.]

     By the time we had reached the great gate, part of the foemen had already
entered Rome, and we had them in our rear.  The castellan had ordered the
portcullis to be lowered, in order to do which they cleared a little space,
and this enabled us four to get inside.  On the instant that I entered, the
captain Palone de' Medici claimed me as being of the papal household and
forced me to abandon Alessandro, which I had to do much against my will.  I
ascended to the keep, and at the same instant Pope Clement came in through the
corridors into the castle; he had refused to leave the palace of St. Peter
earlier, being unable to believe that his enemies would effect their entrance
into Rome. ^1

[Footnote 1: Giovio, in his Life of the Cardinal Prospero Colonna, relates how
he accompanied Clement in his flight from the Vatican to the castle. While
passing some open portions of the gallery, he threw his violet mantle and cap
of a monseigneur over the white stole of the Pontiff, for fear he might be
shot at by the soldiers in the streets below.]

     Having got into the castle in this way, I attached myself to certain
pieces of artillery, which were under the command of a bombardier called
Giuliano Fiorentino.  Leaning there against the battlements, the unhappy man
could see his poor house being sacked, and his wife and children outraged;
fearing to strike his own folk, he dared not discharge the cannon, and,
flinging the burning fuse upon the ground, he wept as though his heart would
break, and tore his cheeks with both his hands. ^1

[Footnote 1: The short autobiography of Raffaello da Montelupo, a man in many
respects resembling Cellini, confirms this part of our author's narrative. It
is one of the most interesting pieces of evidence regarding what went on
inside the castle during the sack of Rome.  Montelupo was also a gunner and
commanded two pieces.]

     Some of the other bombardiers were behaving in like manner; seeing which,
I took one of the matches, and got the assistance of a few men who were not
overcome by their emotions.  I aimed some swivels and falconets at points
where I saw it would be useful, and killed with them a good number of the
enemy.  Had it not been for this, the troops who poured into Rome that morning
and were marching straight upon the castle might possibly have entered it with
ease, because the artillery was doing them no damage.  I went on firing under
the eyes of several cardinals and lords, who kept blessing me and giving me
the heartiest encouragement.  In my enthusiasm I strove to achieve the
impossible; let it suffice that it was I who saved the castle that morning,
and brought the other bombardiers back to their duty. ^1 I worked hard the
whole of that day, and when the evening came - while the army was marching
into Rome through Trastevere - Pope Clement appointed a great Roman nobleman
named Antonio Santacroce to be a captain of all the gunners. The first thing
this man did was to come to me, and, having greeted me with the utmost
kindness, he stationed me with five fine pieces of artillery on the highest
point of the castle, to which the name of the "Angel" specially belongs.

[Footnote 1: This is an instance of Cellini's exaggeration.  He did more than
yeoman's service, no doubt, but we cannot believe that, without him, the
castle would have been taken.]

     This circular eminence goes round the castle and surveys both Prati and
the town of Rome.  The captain put under my orders enough men to help in
managing my guns, and, having seen me paid in advance, he gave me rations of
bread and a little wine, and begged me to go forward as I had begun.  I was
perhaps more inclined by nature to the profession of arms than to the one I
had adopted, and I took such pleasure in its duties that I discharged them
better than those of my own art.

     Night came, the enemy had entered Rome, and we who were in the castle -
especially myself, who have always taken pleasure in extraordinary sights -
stayed gazing on the indescribable scene of tumult and conflagration in the
streets below.  People who were anywhere else but where we were could not have
formed the least imagination of what it was.