Continues
from the previous post –
Rome's
development and the 15th century Renaissance
Martin V takes three years on the journey south to Rome, moving cautiously between warring principalities and armies of condottieri. This is the Italy in which, unscrupulous men are beginning to establish courts of glittering brilliance. The pope newly crowned at Constance looked as a tentative figure among such dangers, but over the following decades, the papacy adjusts to the realities of Renaissance Italy. By the beginning of the next century, unscrupulous popes have made Rome the most brilliant court of all. The pope who begins the transformation of Rome, in the mid-15th century, has none of the offensive characteristics associated with the pontiffs of half a century later. He is Nicholas V, a scholarly man who founds the Vatican library, employing hundreds of scholars and copyists to provide the basis of a great collection of manuscripts.
The
familiar image of a Renaissance pope begins a little later, with the
election of Sixtus IV in 1471. His patronage of the arts is evident
in the Sistine chapel and the Sistine choir, both named after him.
Nevertheless, his lavish patronage goes hand in hand with a very
worldly conduct of the Vatican's affairs.
Sixtus,
a Franciscan friar from a poor family in the region of Genoa, brings
the papal practice of favoritism to new heights. While greatly
enriching his nephews (seven of whom he makes cardinals), he also
uses them as his agents in the power politics of rival Italian
states. Women were introduced to Cardinals and other officers of the
papal office for various types of favors. These Cardinals and Bishops
were more married than any ordinary person was. However, in temporal
terms they were supposed to be unmarried. Many abortions were made by
then medical men and in that, one of his nephews was involved
resulting in murder of one doctor of the Medici
in the cathedral at
Florence during High Mass. Many girls were killed when they
threatened to give in confession their relations with these
Cardinals. Their dead bodies and along with that many dead bodies of
aborted fetus were thrown in the dungeons under the Palace of
Vatican. Corrupt maids were bringing innocent small girls to the
Palace for the pleasure of these Cardinals; they would generally
never go back to their houses! They would probably end up in those
dungeons. Another nephew learns this trade so well with Sixtus that
he easily outdoes his uncle, both in politics and patronage, when he
is elected to the papacy as Julius
II. During this period
Papal order had reached the other end of immorality, all the same
these unscrupulous men continued to talk of Jesus and his
righteousness in the Church while giving their usual sermons on
Sundays.
Between
the pontificate of Sixtus IV and of Julius II comes the most
notorious of the Renaissance popes, Alexander VI. He manipulates
Italian politics not with the help of nephews but through his son,
Cesare Borgia.
Alexander's
successor Julius II is even more a man of his time. He is a Pope who
rides out in person to direct military campaigns, but he also
commissions work from Raphael
and
Michelangelo. The frescoes of the Vatican and the Sistine chapel
created among the abuses, which prompt the Reformation.
Erasmus
is
in Italy in 1506 when Julius II scores his first military success
with the capture of Bologna.
Erasmus is so shocked that he writes a play satirizing this militant
pope. Entitled "Julius Exclusus",
and
published anonymously, it depicts a furious Julius, after death,
arriving in armor at the gates of heaven and finding them locked
against him. The barbed
comments
of
St Peter as the gatekeeper of heaven, in conversation with the
excluded pope Julius II, reflects hostility to the Renaissance papacy
that would soon find violent expression in the Reformation.
Erasmus became known for those comments.
Continues
in the next post –
You may contact
me on my Email ID given below,
You are invited to
visit my other blogs
Ashok
Kothare, http://ashokkotharesblog.blogspot.com/
for
stories
I
reckon,
http://kotharesviews.blogspot.com/
for philosophy
You
may visit blog, Freedom of Expression,
Freedom
of Expression, http://kothare-thinks.blogspot.in/
Marathi
blog, http://kothare-marathi.blogspot.in/
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