Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 6 and 7 (of 7): The Catholic ReactionSymonds, John Addington
History
Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 6 and 7 (of 7): The Catholic Reaction
Symonds, John Addington
Catholic Church -- Italy -- History; Renaissance -- Italy
That policy ceased to be efficient when
Francis I. signed the Treaty of Cambray; the Church, too, had gradually
assumed such a position that armed interference in the affairs of
secular sovereigns was suicidal. This became so manifest that Paul's
futile attack on Philip in 1556 may be reckoned the last war raised by a
Pope. From it we date the commencement of a new system of Papal
co-operation with Catholic powers.
[Footnote 23: During the brief and unimportant sessions at Bologna,
Jesuit influences began to make themselves decidedly felt in the
Council, where Lainez and Salmeron attended as Theologians of the Papal
See. Up to this time the Dominicans had shaped decrees. Dogmatic
orthodoxy was secured by their means. Now the Jesuits were to fight and
win the battle of Papal Supremacy.]
[Footnote 24: Sarpi, quoted in his Life by Fra Fulgenzio, p. 83, says
Paul called his Grisons mercenaries 'Angels sent from Heaven.']
The Duke of Alva put the forces at his disposal in the Two Sicilies into
motion, and advanced to meet the Duke of Guise. But while the campaign
dragged on, Philip won the decisive battle of S. Quentin. The Guise
hurried back to France, and Alva marched unresisted upon Rome. There was
no reason why the Eternal City should not have been subjected to another
siege and sack. The will was certainly not wanting in Alva to humiliate
the Pope, who never spoke of Spaniards but as renegade Jews, Marrani,
heretics, and personifications of pride. Philip, however, wrote
reminding his general that the date of his birth (1527) was that of
Rome's calamity, and vowing that he would not signalize the first year
of his reign by inflicting fresh miseries upon the capital of
Christendom. Alva was ordered to make peace on terms both honorable and
advantageous to his Holiness; since the King of Spain preferred to lose
the rights of his own crown rather than to impair those of the Holy See
in the least particular. Consequently, when Alva entered Rome in
peaceful pomp, he did homage for his master to the Pope, who was
generously willing to absolve him for his past offences. Paul IV.
publicly exulted in the abasement of his conquerors, declaring that it
would teach kings in future the obedience they owed to the Chief of the
Church. But Alva did not conceal his discontent. It would have been
better, he said, to have sent the Pope to sue for peace and pardon at
Brussels, than to allow him to obtain the one and grant the other on
these terms.
Paul's ambition to expel the Spaniards from Italy exposed him to the
worst abuses of that Papal nepotism which he had denounced in others. He
judged it necessary to surround himself with trusty and powerful agents
of his own kindred.[25]
[Footnote 25: New men--and Popes were always _novi homines_--are
compelled to take this course, and suffer when they take it. We might
compare their difficulties with those which hampered Napoleon when he
aspired to the Imperial tyranny over French conquests in Europe.]
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