🛡️The Italian Wars1527
The Sack of Rome
Charles V's army in Italy went unpaid and mutinied, and its commander — the Constable of Bourbon, a French traitor leading Germans and Spaniards — could not control it. They marched on Rome to pay themselves. Bourbon was shot dead scaling the wall, reportedly by Benvenuto Cellini, and the army, now leaderless, took the city and destroyed it over eight days. The Swiss Guard died almost to a man covering the Pope's escape; 147 of 189 were killed.
The end of the Renaissance in Rome, and the emperor's own army did it without his orders. Perhaps 12,000 died; the population fell from 55,000 to 10,000; churches were stripped, libraries burned, cardinals ransomed. Many of the Lutheran landsknechts believed they were punishing the Whore of Babylon. Clement VII, trapped in Castel Sant'Angelo, later refused Henry VIII's annulment while under Habsburg control — so the English Reformation is downstream of an unpaid army in Rome.
Full battle details →