Clement VII
(born May 26, 1478,
Florence
[Italy]?died September 25, 1534, Rome) was the
pope
from 1523 to 1534.
An
illegitimate
son of Giuliano de’ Medici (not to be confused with
Giuliano de’ Medici, duc de Nemours
, his cousin), he was reared by his uncle
Lorenzo the Magnificent
. He was made
archbishop
of Florence and
cardinal
in 1513 by his cousin Pope
Leo X
, whose political policies he influenced. As cardinal he commissioned
Raphael
to paint the huge altarpiece the
Transfiguration
for his cathedral at Narbonne, France. He planned an impressive group of monuments to members of his family for the New Sacristy (Sagrestia Nuova) in San Lorenzo, Florence, and in 1520
Michelangelo
began the designs, which were to rank among the finest of his sculptures. In 1523 he was elected to succeed
Adrian VI
. His reign was dominated by the spread of the
Protestant Reformation
, the conflict between France and the Empire, and the divorce of
Henry VIII
of England.
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A weak,
vacillating
figure in the political struggles between King
Francis I
of France and the
Holy Roman emperor
Charles V
for the domination of Europe, Clement shifted his support from one to the other while attempting to maintain control of
Italy
. He supported Charles in the fighting that ended in the
Battle of Pavia
(February 24, 1525), during which Francis was taken prisoner. The following year, however, he joined Francis in founding the
League of Cognac
, a treaty opposing Charles. Clement’s anti-imperial policy increased Charles’s difficulties in Germany, especially his battle against the growing
Reformation
. Clement’s alliance with France led to the emperor’s sack of
Rome
in May 1527. During the attack, Clement sought refuge in the
Castel Sant’Angelo
in Rome and then lived outside Rome for almost one year.
Clement’s incapacitation complicated the English king
Henry VIII’s
request for an
annulment
of his marriage to
Catherine of Aragon
. In 1528 France invaded Italy, and Clement delegated Cardinal
Lorenzo Campeggio
as co-legate with Cardinal Wolsey to try Henry’s case in England, but on May 31, 1529, Catherine denied their jurisdiction and appealed to Rome to sustain a validation of her marriage. A few weeks later, the French were defeated in Italy; Clement brought the revocation of Catherine’s cause to Rome (July 1529) and in March 1530 forbade Henry to remarry until the papal verdict was pronounced.
The Reformation in Germany worsened when Charles released Clement without attempting to secure a guarantee that
ecclesiastical
reform would commence or that a general council would be
convened
to solve the problem raised by the
Lutheran
movement. Francis opposed such a council, and Clement was continually prevented from action on the urgent need for reform. His indecisiveness allowed the Protestant revolt to grow, which was nurtured further by Henry’s eventual split from Rome.
Like the preceding popes
Alexander VI
,
Julius II
, and
Leo X
, Clement appeared to his contemporaries primarily as a Renaissance prince preoccupied with Italian politics, the patronage and enjoyment of Renaissance
culture
, and the advancement of his family, the
Medici
. As were the pontiffs mentioned, Clement was financially unsystematic and extravagant. He gravely underestimated the depth and the dangers of his unpopularity in Germany, and the Reformation found the
papacy
psychologically unprepared for a radical and permanent rejection of its authority. Thus, by 1530, when Charles, after Clement crowned him at
Bologna
(the last imperial coronation by a pope), again gave his attention to Germany, it was too late. After considerable procrastination, which brought about Wolsey’s fall and the
triumph
of the anti-ecclesiastical party in England, Clement accelerated the breaking of the English church from Rome by finally pronouncing Henry’s marriage to Catherine valid in 1533. The
Act of Supremacy
followed (November 1534), making the king of England head of the
English church
. Also in 1534, Clement commissioned one of Michelangelo’s greatest masterpieces,
The Last Judgment
, for the
altar
wall of the
Sistine Chapel
.
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