Rome

Renaissance Rome had various identities related to Christianity, classical* culture, and Renaissance art. The city was considered the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, even though the papacy* was not based in Rome for most of the 1300s. Rome also became known as an important site of classical art and architecture. Humanists* and artists flocked to the city to study its ancient buildings and ruins. Over the course of the Renaissance, Rome gained a reputation as a center of artistic activity as popes and other patrons* commissioned works from leading painters, sculptors, and architects.

The City of Rome. In 1350 Rome was an agricultural town with a population of about 30,000 people. The withdrawal of the papacy to Avignon in southern France in 1309 had left the city without a ruling prince. However, by 1410 governmental institutions had emerged in Rome and were supported by the papacy. The chief officials were a senator, appointed by the pope, and three conservators, chosen by lots from the city's urban districts. The senator, a foreigner, headed Rome's highest court; the conservators oversaw the markets, guilds*, and city councils. The officials were housed in two palaces on the Capitoline Hill. The artist Michelangelo redesigned them to form a unified urban ensemble around a statue of the ancient Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.

During the 1500s, two city councils developed in Rome. The larger or public council was open to any Roman citizen (male) over 20 years old who was approved by five gentlemen from his district. This inclusive rule opened city offices and institutions to immigrants, who had acquired Roman citizenship and were not servants or artisans*. Rome welcomed and absorbed foreigners of all classes to a greater degree than most Renaissance cities.

The flow of migrants to the city helped swell Rome's population to 55,000 by 1520 and 100,000 by 1600. The population included a small community of Jews, perhaps 3,000 to 4,000 people. However, after 1555 Jews had to live in the ghetto, a gated enclosure that was locked at night. Men outnumbered women in the city's population, partly because Rome had large numbers of unmarried churchmen. Commerce and manufacturing played a much smaller role in the city's economy than agricultural produce and income from positions in the curia, the bureaucracy of the papacy.

Humanists and architects contributed to the knowledge of the ancient city beneath Renaissance Rome. The humanists revived interest in the city's antiquities*, unearthing ruins and hunting for ancient texts, objects, and statues. On the surface, the city's appearance was transformed by urban planning and buildings based on classical principles such as symmetry*, the use of classical columns, and straight streets. By 1585, however, the cityscape inspired by classical models began taking on a stronger Christian tone. Statues of saints and religious inscriptions appeared on ancient monuments, illustrating Christianity's victory over the pagan* beliefs of the classical world.

The Sack of Rome. In the 1520s Pope Clement VII joined with France and several Italian city-states in an alliance against Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor*. Charles sent an army against Rome. On May 6, 1527, the imperial troops laid siege to the city and conquered it the following day. The pope and about 1,000 others fled to a fortress within the city and watched as the soldiers looted the city and terrorized, raped, robbed, and murdered its citizens. The army did not leave the ruined city until February 1528.

Historians disagree about Charles's responsibility for the military attack on Rome, but it seems clear that the brutality and destruction that followed horrified him. Known as the Sack of Rome, the event shook European Catholics to the core. The city, once celebrated as the head or center of the world, had been shown to be vulnerable, and the papacy's attempts to remain politically independent and powerful had suffered a severe blow. Some Protestants saw the Sack of Rome as divine punishment of a corrupt church. But both Protestant and Catholic humanists grieved for the damage done to Rome's libraries and its reputation as a center of learning. Some humanists died in the sack; many writers and artists fled the city to escape it.

Rome regained political and economic strength under Pope Paul III, who reigned from 1534 to 1549. Once again the city became a magnet for artists and writers, but the sack had dimmed hopes for Rome's future. For many people, all that remained was a lingering nostalgia for the golden age of Renaissance culture that had ended in 1527.

(See alsoArt in Italy; Cities and Urban Life; Holy Roman Empire; Popes and Papacy. )

* classical

in the tradition of ancient Greece and Rome

* papacy

office and authority of the pope

* humanist

Renaissance expert in the humanities (the languages, literature, history, and speech and writing techniques of ancient Greece and Rome)

* patron

supporter or financial sponsor of an artist or writer

* guild

association of craft and trade owners and workers that set standards for and represented the interests of its members

* artisan

skilled worker or craftsperson

* antiquity

era of the ancient Mediterranean cultures of Greece and Rome, ending around a.d. 400

* symmetry

balance created by matching forms on opposite sides of a structure

* pagan

referring to ancient religions that worshiped many gods, or, more generally, to any non-Christian religion

* Holy Roman Emperor

ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, a political body in central Europe composed of several states that existed until 1806

see color plate 2, vol. 3