Discourses of Vulnerability: Pietro Alcionio's Orations on the Sack of Rome*

Abstract

Early on the morning of 6 May 1527, under cover of dense fog, an Imperial army led by Charles of Bourbon began its attack upon the city of Rome. When the Vatican was besieged, Pope Clement VII and several retainers fled by the Alexandrine corridor to the papal fortress, the Castel Sant' Angelo. Bourbon would die in one of the first assaults; but by sunset the entire city, with the exception of a few palaces and the papal fortress, would be at the mercy of his troops, which would occupy Rome for much of the following year. Thus began the Sack of Rome, an event of obvious political significance for papal autonomy, but also one which many historians have identified as a turning point for Roman humanistic culture.