commonwealth, where their privileges would have been merged in the mass of the Grand Council.  Thus the sympathies of the plebeians and the selfishness of the rich patricians prevented the republic from asserting itself.  On this meagre basis of personal cupidity the Medici sustained themselves.  What made the situation still more delicate, and at the same time protracted the feeble rule of Clement, was that neither the Florentines nor the Medici had any army.  Face to face with a potentate so considerable as the Pope, a free State could not be established without military force.  On the other hand, the Medici, supported by a mere handful of mercenaries, had no power to resist a popular rising if any external event should inspire the middle classes with a hope of liberty.

XXV

Clement assumed the tiara at a moment of great difficulty.  Leo had ruined the finance of Rome.  France and Spain were still contending for the possession of Italy.  While acting as Vice-Chancellor, Giulio de’ Medici had seemed to hold the reins with a firm grasp, and men expected that he would prove a powerful Pope; but in those days he had Leo to help him; and Leo, though indolent, was an abler man than his cousin.  He planned, and Giulio executed.  Obliged to act now for himself, Clement revealed the weakness of his nature.  That weakness was irresolution, craft without wisdom, diplomacy without knowledge of men.  He raised the storm, and showed himself incapable of guiding it.  This is not the place to tell by what a series of crooked schemes and cross purposes he brought upon himself the ruin of the Church and Rome, to relate his disagreement with the Emperor, or to describe again the sack of the Eternal City by the rabble of the Constable de Bourbon’s army.  That wreck of Rome in 1527 was the closing scene of the Italian Renaissance—­the last of the Apocalyptic tragedies foretold by Savonarola—­the death of the old age.

When the Florentines knew what was happening in Rome, they rose and forced the Cardinal Passerini to depart with the Medicean bastards from the city.  The youth demanded arms for the defence of the town, and they received them.  The whole male population was enrolled in a militia.  The Grand Council was reformed, and the republic was restored upon the basis of 1495.  Niccolo Capponi was elected Gonfalonier.  The name of Christ was again registered as chief of the commonwealth—­to such an extent did the memory of Savonarola still sway the popular imagination.  The new State hastened to form an alliance with France, and Malatesta Baglioni was chosen as military Commander-in-Chief.  Meanwhile the city armed itself for siege—­Michel Angelo Buonarroti and Francesco da San Gallo undertaking the construction of new forts and ramparts.  These measures were adopted with sudden decision, because it was soon known that Clement had made peace with the Emperor, and that the army which had sacked Rome was going to be marched on Florence.