Pope Clement VII
Pope Clement VII reigned from 1523 to 1534 and made a series of decisions that cost Rome its independence and England its allegiance. Born Giulio de' Medici in Florence in 1478, he was the posthumous illegitimate son of Giuliano de' Medici, murdered in the Pazzi conspiracy a month before his birth, and was raised by his uncle Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was legitimised, made Archbishop of Florence and a cardinal by his cousin Leo X, and was widely regarded as the ablest administrator in the curia — hard-working, austere and cautious, and a considerable patron who employed Raphael, Michelangelo and Cellini. As pope he faced the rivalry of Charles V and Francis I and could not decide between them. He joined the League of Cognac against the emperor in 1526 after having previously come to terms with him. The consequence arrived in May 1527, when an unpaid imperial army, largely German Landsknechte and many of them Lutheran, mutinied and sacked Rome. The city was pillaged for months, thousands were killed, churches and libraries were destroyed, and Clement was besieged in the Castel Sant'Angelo for seven months before escaping disguised as a pedlar. The event is conventionally treated as the end of the High Renaissance in Rome. Charles V now controlled him, and Charles was the nephew of Catherine of Aragon. Clement therefore could not annul Henry VIII's marriage; he delayed for six years, and in 1533 Henry broke with Rome. He crowned Charles at Bologna in 1530 — the last imperial coronation by a pope — and commissioned Michelangelo's Last Judgment. He died in 1534.
- Lived: 1478 CE – 1534 CE
- Nationality: Italian
- Roles: pope, head_of_state
