The War Against the Colonna

Abstract

The pope’s position after the Colonna raid was very difficult. If law and order were to be upheld in the Church State, he could not afford to ignore so overt an affront to papal authority as he had just experienced. Yet the Venetians were opposed to any punitive expedition against the offenders, and Clement also knew that while the Colonna remained in alliance with the emperor any attack would worsen papal relations with the imperialists in Naples and that the threat from that direction might be intensified at any moment by the long-awaited arrival of the viceroy and the Spanish fleet.¹ The pope, nevertheless, acted with uncharacteristic vigour; a permanent committee of five cardinals for war and another of five for the public treasury were named. By 12 October 1526 the pope had a total force of some 7–8000 troops in Rome, and, as far as the populace of Rome was concerned, Clement’s intentions against the Colonna became an open secret on 28 October when seven pieces of artillery were seen being dragged towards Porta San Giovanni. These, the Romans learned, were to be used against the castles of Pompeio Colonna. On 7 November Clement made his first public statement, declaring his intention of punishing the Colonna both temporally and spiritually, and it was clear that the matter of most immediate importance to the pope was that Pompeio Colonna should be deprived of the cardinal dignities he had betrayed.²

The state of the Colonna was dismembered in such a way that, if it had not been remade through our misery in the sack of Rome, the Holy See would … have completely subjected them.

Marcello Alberini, in D. Orano, Sacco di Roma, p. 227