French King Charles VIII & Pope Alexander VI Find Way For French To Leave Rome: late January 1495

"On Sunday, January 18th, I was summoned to the pope's presence by his groom, and told by His Holiness that on the following day there was to be a public consistory to receive the King of France, and that he was going to carry out the reception himself. I replied that such an arrangement as ordered by His Holiness was unique and came outside the usual ceremonial order...". [p.110]

This is what Burchard is known for. Calling out the pope for stepping out of regular ceremonial proceedings is the reputation you should get for being the Master of Ceremonies. But over the next couple days Charles VIII, the King of France and Pope Alexander VI - the Spanish pope - sat down next to each other and worked out the details for the French passage through, and finally, out of Rome. But it was all quite out of the ordinary and a sui generis occurrence.

So many details were worked over and then were delightfully lain down by Johann Burchard, that these dozen pages give a wonderful window into their place and time. The pope and Burchard were walking and talking and the King arrived to 'review the articles earlier concluded'. There arose a dispute over how many French guards should go along 'as sureties' to either protect the Ottoman prince, or act as 'hostages for good behavior' as was commonly done in those days. After a long discussion they came to an agreement and then had the articles of agreement read out in french and in latin.

The following Monday, the scheduled public gathering of cardinals and officials was carried out. The King appeared and in this public occasion the King kissed the pope's feet and swore his allegiance to him. But first the King and his retinue had to be gathered and brought to the Vatican for the long sought ceremony. Burchard himself was sent with the Bishop of Concordia and a number of cardinals to escort the King from his 'apartments' at the Palazzo Venezia back to the church. But the King said he wanted to hear mass first in St Peter's Church and then to dine, and then to go see the pope. And he could not be dissuaded from that.

Burchard returned to still another consistory at the Vatican 'on urgent matters' without the King, and then returned to the King's Palazzo where he was still dining but who received them. After a half hour, the King began questioning Burchard on what the pope wanted he and his men to do. Then the king would retire to innner rooms and discuss them with his ministers and then return and ask more questions. After awhile Burchard was allowed into the inner rooms to be further queried and explain things again a second time. Only after all this did the procession to the Vatican begin.

Once there the King knelt in reverence three times before the pope and 'lastly, before the papal throne, he knelt and kissed the foot and hand of the pope who lifted him up for the kiss on the cheek'. [p.114] The King did as he was instructed but there followed a couple of his men who immediately rose and addressed the pope. Jean Ganay, President of the Paris Parlement, then rose and knelt and asked for three favors. Thet the King should receive every privilege with every specified grants in deeds that the pope could confirm, that he should also be invested with crown of Naples, and that article agreed to the previous day should be struck out. This agreement involved the 'safe return' of Prince Djem the Ottoman Sultan's brother who had been under the protection of the pope, and placed into the hands of the French.

Of these three requests, the pope's reply, as related by Burchard, seems both proprietarily responsible and also, plainly evasive. For the first request of 'privileges', pope Alexander VI agreed to 'immediately' confirm any any 'held valid'. Concerning the crown of Naples, he had said, this 'involved another person' and so needed more deliberation with the cardinals. As for the prince, this needed 'harmony between the King and the College of Cardinals'.

The King humbly stated he wanted to offer his homage to the pope as his predecessors had done. Then Ganay stood up and 'amplified' this by offering 'all that was his, that is, all that was the king's,' to the pope.  [p. 115] So many cardinals crowded around with so many of the 'french mob and its insolent behavior' surrounding them that the pope tried to lead the King away, and then, he even asked the King to accompany him further. But the king refused this and simply returned to his own apartments without any papal or any cardinal escort.

Next day, Tuesday 20 January, was the Feast of San Sebastian. The pope celebrated High Mass in the Basilica after waiting for the King and his retinue. That day they had already been there but had left to eat breakfast,

"... and for this, all the food, pots, flagons and other utensils had been carried through the church." p 116

The rest of the proceedings were carried out, with many details supplied by Burchard including minor deviating mistakes of the pope.

A week later, Prince Djem was, after all, escorted to the Palazzo Venezia and the King in residence there. On Wednesday, January 28, by Burchard's account, the King then came to the Vatican to give his farewells. They also waited for and then received Cardinal Cesare Borgia, acting as our editor tells us, as a kind of hostage to ensure the pope's good behavior. [p. 119]
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quotes and noted pagination from Johann Burchard: At The Court of the Borgia translated for english, with introduction, notes by Geoffrey Parker, The Folio Society, Ltd, 1963

Imperial Strength In Fifteenth Century Europe: Overview of HRE Frederich III

What was left of empire? The old idea was no longer applicable in the 15th century. The Holy Roman Empire was a monarchy, a sacred office and its servitors, charged with and responsible for defending the Church Universal. But actual power was quite limited. For one thing, the Emperor could call his princes but they need not respond affirmatively. Many stayed in active rebellion. Thomas A Brady tells the story of many turbulences between those princes, or the burghers and merchants, and the small handful of emperors in the years 1430-1520. Brady also writes much about the idea of reform for both the Empire and the Church, in these years, from a German perspective. But an overview here of a number of things Frederich tried and accomplished will give some idea of his influence, in the relations of his office and the lack of power he had, despite his vaunted reputation, in those days. But to get this sense of scale you have to go back to when there were two popes.

The Church Councils of Constance (1414-18) and then Basel (1431-49) resolved the schism of the previous century involving rival popes. The Counsel in Basel established that the council itself - literally a group of cardinals called consiliars - was able to overrule any figure standing or acting as pope. But to do this they needed external powers who would agree and legitimize this claim. This oversimplifies the knotty problems involved, but is only merely mentioned as backdrop here. The reason for including or seeking the opinion of an emperor is that this was just the sort of thing an emperor had the authority to do. He could also add leverage like any sovereign might attempt when the Church or its members could not decide.

This was the other shoe, as it were, announcing the arrival of Archduke Frederick of Styria as more than just another archduke and protector of a famous line and instead, gave him a grand entrance onto the European stage. Briefly, he and his advocate Ennea Silvio Picolomini (later pope Pius II) made requests in exchange for agreement with the Council's conclusions. They asked for, and in 1446, gained permission to nominate six bishoprics in Austria and in a number of other abbeys there.[p.92]

Six years earlier, in another dramatic story, Frederich had become protector of the heir to the Imperial throne after King Sigismund and his heir had died. [pp. 87-8] In six more years, 22March 1452, Frederich himself would become the last emperor to be crowned by a pope in Rome. [p.93] In this position, housed in Innsbruck, Frederich III would watch the changes in Europe of the fifteenth century for some forty years.

"The fundamental problem of Frederick's long life was not his rule over the Empire but his struggle to become master in his own Austrian house." [p. 90]

There were the Hussite wars in Bohemia in the 1430's, the Austrian civil wars in the 1440-50's, numerous cities revolted, egged on by local princes, burghers and others, especially in the 1470's. There were feuds over the partition of duchies and other inherited lands. German and Imperial forces could and did go and fight, often for the right price. The Wars of the Roses in England and the Burgundian wars under Charles could rage on, all with little personal involvement from Frederich.
They took their toll but his own son would go on to glorify himself in them.

Frederich and his son did leave Austria for Trier once, to meet Charles the Bold of Burgundy. They sought a greater peace with Burgundy in 1473. War subsequently broke out and in just a few years, Charles achieved peace in 1477. He was cut down in battle with a Swiss pike splitting his head. His daughter and sole heir, Mary of Burgundy was married to Maximilian in short order, thus uniting two powerful houses, if still somewhat separate by a great number of small principalities and duchies in between. She would live only five years more.

Later, after so many wars, with so much longstanding uncertainty, Frederich would call a Diet for Public Peace. But this had to be addressed some nine years later under Maximilian in 1495, two years after Frederich's death and with the French army in Italy. Later still, this problem wasn't solved a generation later, as Brady reminds us, as merchants and burghers would petition young Emperor Charles V when he visited in 1521 to quell the bandits and roving bands that were destroying trade on the empire's roads.

Even so, while Frederich III managed to accomplish only a few things in his long life and rule, these few all had a great impact. One was his sole heir, Maximilian who would succeed him as another Habsburg emperor, for twenty-six more years. Another was the familial Habsburg control over Tyrol, Outer, Inner and both Upper and Lower Austria.[p.91] This took, all told, nearly 65 years. Once secured, the Habsburg name would then be able to hold Austria as its power-base for the next 400 years. As Brady puts it,

"Frederich nevertheless achieved the crucial preconditions - unity and indivisibility - of Austria's passage from a gaggle of medieval patrimonial principalities into an early modern territorial state. Austria's importance to this story lies less in the priority or strength of its state formation than in the timing of it. It occurred at precisely the right moment to underpin the monarchy's role in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation." p. 106

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quotes and pagination from: Thomas A Brady Jr: German Histories in The Age of Reformations, 1400-1650;  University of California, Berkeley for the Cambridge Univeristy Press, 2009

Burchard Loses Horses As French Occupy Rome: January 6, 1495

As example of the kinds of personal injuries and inconveniences suffered during the French occupation of Rome, even by those of high position and the well connected, Johann Burchard Master of Ceremonies to pope Alexander VI, gave this quick anecdote. Dated from January 6:

"When I returned to my house after Mass, I found that the French had entered it, against my wish and yet with the knowledge and permission of Don Marco Tebaldi, our regionary captain. They had taken out seven of the eight horses, mules or asses which I had in my stable, and had quartered there instead seven of their own beasts which were busily eating up my hay. My room had been requisitioned for the Comte de Rouen, whilst that of my physician, Don Andrea Ondorp, a Doctor of Arts and Medicine, who had lived with me for many years, was taken for another nobleman who, a few days later, died of the plague in the house of Don Jacopo Galli. Another lower room in the house, where all my servants were quartered - since other poeple still occupied the rest of the apartments - was handed over to the households of these same Frenchmen. I was greatly upset by such an injury and accordingly approached the king himself to complain of what had happened. He sent me on to the Grand Marshal to whom I similarly protested, in company with Cardinals Savelli, Colonna and de la Grolaye, who had other complaints. I asked that the Frenchmen should be assigned other quarters in the house of Don Jacopo Galli, and this was done. Apart from the seven horses stabled at my house, nobody else made an appearance, and the horses themselves remained only until the following evening, when they were taken elsewhere." [pp 105-6]

Here we learn just a bit about some different parts of Burchard's household construction. A question of whether Burchard kept a multi-story in-town structure or something else, I'd like answered. Did his neighbors have horses too? Some probably did. He had a stable with horses and transport mules and probably kept on a first floor. Burchard also reveals he had a live-in Doctor of Medicine, someone he knew and lived with for many years. Was this also common in his neighborhood? But it seems Burchard didn't get the worst of it.

Over the next couple days, several houses of notable people were ransacked and pillaged by 'the French'. That of Paolo Branca whose sons were killed, or those unnamed others, 'including Jews who were murdered and homes ransacked'. The house of the mother of Cesare Borgia, Donna Vanozza Catanei was pillaged too. On the ninth of January Burchard says, a great number of thieves were hung, conspicuously, out in the open. From windows, on streetcorners. The pope had been moved to the Castel San Angelo, but there were disasters there, too.

On the twelfth of January, the French King was given a tour of the city by Cardinal de la Grolaye.

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quotes and pagination from Johann Burchard: At The Court of the Borgia translated for english, with introduction by Geoffrey Parker, The Folio Society, Ltd, 1963

Occupation of Rome Breeds Insecurity Despite Promises: Johann Burchard: up to January 6, 1495

As the French poured through the city of Rome after Christmas week, Johann Burchard found himself in the middle of the action. As the numbers of Frenchmen grew and more crimes were reported, Pope Alexander VI tried to accomodate, but found his attempts at conciliation thwarted, or even, outside of his sizable control. Whether in trying to mold the nature of negotiations swirling about the actual entrance of the French King into the city, or in receiving the many French guests to meet the pope, matters had grown increasingly chaotic.

Before Vespers and after, at the Sala del Papagallo in the Vatican and at the papal throne, Monday, January 5, 1495, many Frenchmen came and kissed the foot of the pope. They thronged says Burchard, 'in great numbers, excitedly and in great disorder, for an hour, at the throne.' Something similar happened again when the pope returned again to the Sala del Pappagallo.

Some eleven days before, on Christmas, and earlier in that day, this pope Alexander VI had formerly named the captain from Naples, Ferrante as the duke of Calabria. After a touching scene where the pope in his vestments received the kiss from the new duke 'in full body armor with both sword and dagger', the duke took his leave along with several cardinals, to return to the forces of Naples. They were unable to help the situation much.

But as the night of Christmas came upon them, ("On the preceding night" to the Feast of St Stephen, according to Burchard), some lay French envoys had arrived 'on the steps of the papal throne' along with a swelling number of attendants. Two envoys from Naples then withdrew and then returned upon specific directions from the pope, as delivered, by Burchard himself.

"A great many other Frenchmen also entered with these envoys, many of them sitting down quite indiscriminately next to the ecclesiastics on their benches. I moved them away and assigned them more suitable seats, but the pope disliked this and summoned me angrily to say that it would destroy all his work, and that I was to allow the French to stand where they wanted to quite freely. I answered His Holiness soothingly, saying that before God he was not to upset himself over the matter since I knew what his wishes were and would not say another word to the Frenchmen, whatever places they occupied in the chapel." [p 102]

On Wednesday, 31 December, the date of arrival for the king, Burchard himself rode out, he says, to give the king instructions on how to make his royal entrance into the city. These were instructions detailed by the pope, and based on the pope's wishes, of course. Despite these entreaties, they were ignored as the massed hordes of soldiers and attendants arrived. The king himself continued to say he wanted to enter Rome without any pomp.

Yet, Burchard says, he rode on horseback for four miles discussing these matters alongside the French king himself. In that day's rain and mud, along the way he was peppered with questions from the young foreign monarch. What ceremonies did the pope want, Burchard has the King ask, how was this pope's health and what of the power and rank of young Cardinal Cesare Borgia of Valencia (Borgia's son)? Burchard said he was "... scarcely able to give appropriate answers."  [p, 103]

Beginning on new year's day and for the days following says Burchard, 'all the cardinals in Rome paid visits in turn, to the French King'. The French continued to arrive en masse in all parts of the city.

"On Friday, January 2nd, the Colonna seized two horses outside Cardinal Sanseverino's house, two more belonging to Geremia Contugi above the Ponte Sant' Angelo, and yet another horse that was the property of Cardinal Riario; their riders were roughly thrown down on the public paths. Other horses were seized ... where many Frenchmen had their quarters." [p. 104]

By the next day the French and the Colonna had moved on from horses to houses. They were capturing and sacking the houses of still more notables, and even that of the pope's chamberlain, Don Bartolomeo de Luna. Succeeding days saw even more personally awkward inconvenience and affrontery as well as destruction of property. On January 6, Burchard lost 'seven out of eight of the horses & mules at his own house' and found Frenchmen staying there instead. All manner of rumor and hearsay ran wild all over the city. It was too late to secure valuables and many notable people had already fled.

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quotes and pagination from Johann Burchard: At The Court of the Borgia translated for english, with introduction by Geoffrey Parker, The Folio Society, Ltd, 1963

late December 2014 news brief, updated

People are slowly turning their shoulders into the New Year of 2015. A few things stay the same.

UPDATE: After months of bombing Gaza and a turbulent end of 2014, in the new year, Israel wants to hold onto tax revenue gathered  for the Palestinian Authority. In a rare disagreement, the US officially rebukes them.

The US sides with the Palestiniains, criticizing Israel's withholding of PA tax revenue. http://t.co/ypsHYbmOb3 pic.twitter.com/kSBRd8ySzQ
— AJE News (@AJENews) January 6, 2015

Who knew this happened?

A nuclear plant leaked oil into Lake Michigan for two months straight http://t.co/4Pb5unGLCL pic.twitter.com/NJvomCCOMZ via @thinkprogress
— Shawna (@S_WhiteBear) January 6, 2015

First on the Republican led agenda of the incoming 114th US Congress, is a vote on the KXL pipeline.

DOW Drops 300 Points As Oil Falls Below $50 Barrel http://t.co/WHLpfZLwMI WTF? Republican Solution: PUSH KXL. pic.twitter.com/IEI4Gsk4Of
— Captain Clarion (@citizensrock) January 5, 2015

 Today's Pope Francis spent part of the Christmas week blasting Vatican bureaucracy. Listing fifteen such problems with the Curia were the members being boastful, carrying out a "terrorism of gossip" and maintaining a kind of 'spiritual Alzheimer's". On new year's eve, he called for global action on climate change.

#PopeFrancis Calls for Action on Climate Change, Environmental Damage Caused by Capitalism http://t.co/stu0yRPmoX pic.twitter.com/Rbr8TDoGbV
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) January 5, 2015

This is still happening:

The shining city on a hill. pic.twitter.com/pq7yRP7F1n
— Captain Clarion (@citizensrock) January 5, 2015

In the US, in a seasonal dump of information, the GOP admit it's House investigations found that problems with the IRS don't in fact extend to the White House. It took many years and several more months to find that out and now, as Darrell Issa loses his Ethics Commission Chairmanship, what was a great political plum for the right, is lost as well.

In an odd twist, Turkey's President has a new 110- room 'White Palace'.

An interview on CBC with Nick Broomfield talking about his documentry on the slayings of maybe as many as 100 women in Los Angeles over a 25 year period. "Tales of the Grim Sleeper" will debut as a feature film on HBO in early 2015 and a trailer is here.

Christmas Week: Rome Under Siege: later December 1494

As the state of siege continued in Rome, Johann Burchard, the pope's Master of Ceremonies tells us,

"... from December 19th onward, the French troops were breaking into the city suburbs by Monte Mario and penetrating as far as the Church of San Lazarro and the fields close to the Castel Sant'Angelo. In these positions they remained throughout a whole night so that, with treacherous help they could attack the city from that side." [p.98]

Defenses in the city were increased, including the destruction of buildings and the digging of a ditch around the Castel Sant'Angelo. Fear inside the city grew to such an extent that prominent houses from December 22, Burchard says, the house of Don Jacopo Magnolino a goldsmith was destroyed, as well as others. [p. 98]

Supposed plans of evil designs of the invaders were discussed including the French entering through the Porta San Paolo to begin burning and pillaging. But many of these fears simply didn't materialize.

Burchard gives a letter he says 'written in the following vein' by Cardinal Raymond Peraudi from Formello, on December 23rd, beseeching Germans in Rome to open their gates to the French. Claiming that 'not a hen or an egg would be taken' by French forces moving through the city, and that the pope himself had promised secure passage for them, Peraudi had with these lies, Burchard affirms, 'induced the people to admit Charles VIII'. [p. 99] Interestingly, Burchard has Peraudi's letter sound much like a sermon from Savonarola in places. That God was 'deeply offended by our sins and wickednesses, and unless placated by the prayers of devout persons, neither this union' between the pope and the French king, nor any 'consequent peace between princes could be achieved.' [pp.99-100]

Christmas Eve was a Wednesday that year as well and the pope heard Vespers sung that evening in the Sistine Chapel.
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Johann Burchard: At The Court of the Borgia translated for english, with introduction by Geoffrey Parker, The Folio Society, Ltd, 1963

Johann Burchard, Diary Digest In Rome, early-mid December 1494

Drawn mostly from the records of Master of Ceremonies to Pope Alexander VI, Johann Burchard, these notes were set down and abbrevaited to show the rapid development of things in Rome as the forces of France were moving to engulf the city.

Tuesday, December 2: Cardinal Ascanio w/ 20 'ecclesiastics and a great number of companions' return to Rome. [p.93]
Tuesday, December 9: Cardinal Ascanio, Cardinal Sanseverino, Cardinal de Lunate, the Bishop of Cesena, Prospero Colonna and Jerome d'Estouteville were all brought to the Vatican Palace and placed under arrest. Jerome d'Estouteville  'was the son of Cardinal d'Estouteville' a strong French partisan before his death in 1483. Jerome was an ambasssador for Napolitan, French and Sforza interets and was 'in Rome at the close of 1494 in such service.' [pp. 93-4]
In the footnote here [p. 93], our editor explains that Alexander 'must have thought, in some panic, to secure his own position, and also to put pressure on Charles VIII.'
But then he 'must have sensed the futility of such actions and began releasing them in time' or simply, released them as he saw the opportunity for their individual uses.

Wednesday, December 10: Bishop of Cesena and Cardinal de Lunate was released (the latter sent to Ostia for negotiations there), but Cardinal Ascanio and Sanseverino were taken to rooms above the papal apartments and imprisoned there. Also Don Ferrantino of Aragon (or Federigo or Ferdinando depending on the source) commanding the forces of Naples (and soon to be dubbed the Duke of Calabria and son of King Alfonso of Naples) returned to Rome and after he 'dined in Cardinal Orsini's garden' rode off to visit the pope at the Vatican.
Also in Rome, after a consistory of several days, discussing all these matters the Pope finally told the ambassadors that he would not feed or allow the French armies passage through papal lands.

Friday, December 12: The forces of Don Ferrantino sacked and pillaged the residence in Rome of French Cardinal Raymond Peraudi who had left November 15th. And did it with papal sanction. [p.94] The editor in a footnote tells us this 'seems the pope took advantage of popular opinion to order this' in response to rumors of Peraudi's treachery with the French.

Christopher Hibbert in his book The Borgias [p 63],  tells us that it was around this time that a French commander near Viterbo, Italy had captured a number of travelling ladies. Two of these turned out to be Giulia Farnese and Adriana da Mila, the pope's mistress and cousin who led the household of his children. The French commander Yves d'Alegre reported this to his king who supposedly said he was 'not at war with women'. The commander went ahead and demanded 3000 ducats for their ransom.
When this was arranged and the women returned safely to Rome under an escort of 400 soldiers), Ludovico Sforza was incensed saying they could have been used 'as a fine whip against this pope since he could not live without them'.

Tuesday, December 16: He asked them to communicate with Germans in the city, as he said he was with the Spanish and even the French in the city, to arm & ready their number to defend themselves against any possible attacks from the French armies.
Wednesday, December 17: Burchard explains that he personally did so, meeting with 'two landlords and six shoemakers at our inn Ospedale dell' Anima'. This place was just off the Piazzo Navona where the della Rovere family and young Felice had recently just left. But they could not agree, already being responsible to 'regional captains' and that 'they could not be released from these duties' in order to carry out such things. Burchard sent word back to the pope their responses. [p.95]

Meanwhile, a message from Florence had arrived [pp. 95-98]. It came from Cardinal Peraudi saying that Don Giorgio Bucciardo had been captured. He was the pope's courier and envoy to Sultan Bajazet of the Turks in Constantinople. This capture, by Giovanni della Rovere the brother of the famous Cardinal della Rovere, had the effect of dumping the correspondences between the pope and the Turkish Sultan into the hands of Cardinal della Rovere and the French partisans previously just in Florence.
An example of this correspondence, dated as coming from Constantinople, three months earlier, says our editor, was retained by Burchard in his manuscript. Afraid of the dangers that his younger brother Djem might pose if released (by the pope or the French, if they captured him), the Sultan in this letter 'judged that Djem should die instead, and his body be sent back to any of our servants on our shores' for 300,000 ducats. This and the kindly words that the Sultan had for the pope was just the sort of evidence that the papal reform-minded Cardinal and French ally Giuliano della Rovere might use against the Borja pope Alexander VI. A remarkable document in any event, at this juncture, it could easily be used in deeply damaging the current pope and his reputation.

Thursday, December 18: Moving day for the pope and those cardinals closest to him. The pope had finally decided to make a stand at the most defensible place in the city: Castel San Angelo. 'All the pope's possessions, his bed, daily table, vestments, the money chests from the sacristy, palace weapons, stores of food and all the papal belongings' were sent 'by road' from teh Vatican to the Castel San Angelo in Rome. There was an underground passage.

Friday, December 19: Cardinal Sanseverino was released with instructions to go and negotiate with the French King.Prospero Colonna having changed sides, was also released and sent to restore the papal fortress at Ostia from the French. [p.98]
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Johann Burchard: At The Court of the Borgia translated for english, with introduction by Geoffrey Parker, The Folio Society, Ltd, 1963

Pope Alexander VI Sends Rudolf of Anhalt to Petition Emperor Maximilian I: November 24, 1494

It was a week or ten days after the French King Charles VIII entered Florence that he departed with his train south for Rome. With Piero de Medici appealing to far off Venice for aid, friar Savonarola was elevated to a central deciding position in the center of Florence. This major turn in that city would have far reaching effects that would extend beyond the city, across the region for decades.

The forces of Ferdinand coming from Naples were wheeling around Italy but plainly failing in most places that they turned up. The various papal lands, numerous castles and other holdings found themselves as well, in many cases, increasingly closer to capitulation to the French. Pope Alexander VI remained in Rome but found himself in increasingly desperate straits. As Piero de Medici had gone to Venice to seek help and advice, the pope decided to ask for help from the Emperor in the German lands.

News arrived in Rome from Florence of the changes in the north, and that the French were again on the move. Johann Burchard, the pope's Master of Ceremonies gives us these details of the scene.

"When he learnt what had been happening, the pope, on Monday, November 24th, summoned to his presence His Magnificence Don Rudolf, the Prince of Anhalt, Count of Ascona and Lord of Berberg, to whom (through me as interpreter) he complained about the insolence shown to the Holy Roman Church by the King of France. His Holiness protested that the king was seeking not only to create a kingdom for himself from the cities and lands of Italy that rightfully belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, but also to usurp the title and authority of that Empire. This the pope would never submit to, even if a naked sword were held to his throat, and he therefore asked that His Highness Maximilian, the King of the Romans, as the only Advocate of the Holy Roman Church, should be informed of these things, and should be exhorted most earnestly to succour the Holy Roman Church, the Holy Roman Empire, and the whole of Italy with the aid essential for their honour and good. This commission the Prince of Anhalt humbly undertook to carry out." [p. 93]

Rudolf of Anhalt was a most distinguished noble in German lands, and a co-Prince with his brothers of the state of Anhalt, north of Liepzig, east of Berlin. Acting as Imperial ambassador to the pope, he had served both Maximilian and his predecessor Frederick III. But petitions for any ambassador of this magnitude - from pope to emperor - had their own complex set of histories. The Guelph or Ghibelline conflicts between those cities and powers - the supporting of either papal or imperial factions, respectively, and there were several, but mostly in Italy, but also elsewhere - had faded in large part. But these histories were part of the never ending conversation, about power and control and who could use it. These set of controversies often had been at the center of conflicts up and down the peninsula for centuries. But under direction and strict oath to the pope, Prince Don Rudolf, in his role as dutiful servant and sacred knight for his Emperor went speeding north, with his entourage and protection and servants, to find him.

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Johann Burchard: At The Court of the Borgia translated for english, with introduction by Geoffrey Parker, The Folio Society, Ltd, 1963

"Peace and the Restoration of Liberty": French King Charles VIII Enters Florence: November 17, 1494

News of the revolt in Florence arrived in Rome by November 9, 1494, acccording to Johann Burchard, Master of Ceremonies for then Pope Alexander VI.  This servant of the pope thought this situation in Florence was severe enough to give a few details mixed with a pointed comment about 'those associated with' the outgoing Medici clan.

"... Sunday... news came ... of a rising of the people... against Pietro de' Medici and his troops. Their houses had been sacked and, it was said, everyone had been exiled. Don Pietro's brother, Cardinal de'Medici, escaped from the city, though not without considerable danger to his life, whilst all those in Florence associated with the Medici only avoided almost certain death by flight." [p. 91]

Partisans against the Medici family had seized control. The phrase  'everyone had been exiled', meant those family members and partisans selected for capture and exile. Many of these had bounties or rewards offered and proclaimed officially by those newly placed to make such proclamations. The Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola had been elevated to prior of San Marco in Florence and personally had welcomed the king of French into the city as a 'Minister of God and Justice.'

Burchard, at his state of remove in Rome may have heard that Cardinal de'Medici had himself passed on to Bologna, and thus his story, and his inclusion here by name. But this also gives a window into Burchard's view of things. The news that Piero had gone on to Venice to ask for help would also necessarily arrive but Burchard doesn't mention that or the elevation of Savonarola. It was Cardinal de'Medici, as a cardinal, that the Church would be most immediately concerned about, as a servant and messenger of the Church, per se.

Those 'associated with' are mentioned by Burchard, as well, but are given such distinction by showing how distant they are. Their very fate comes into question with the uncertain phrase, 'almost certain death', which is not at all a sporting reference, and it seems, purposely horrific. He goes on.

"On Saturday, November 15th, Cardinal Peraudi obtained permission from His Holiness to go to the French king. [Having appealed]... day and night... to make the path to Rome smooth for his king, he therefore schemed for the pope to send him... on the pretext that he wanted to appease him and persuade him not to come to the city. Permission was duly granted and, on that same morning, he went out of his way to assure us, with lying and deceitful words, that his sole aim was to strengthen the power of the church and the peace and well being of the people. Then he left Rome to join the french king in Florence." [pp 91-2]

This was French Augustinian Cardinal Raymond Peraudi who went on to make a great trade in selling pamphlets for the reform of the church. The book linked by Andrew Pettegree which mentions Peraudi is new (2014) from Yale University Press, and looks interesting. Burchard clearly didn't like him.

The following Monday, November 17 was the day that Burchard said French King Charles VIII first entered Florence.

"... in great honour and triumph, accompanied by a large body of cavalry and heavily armed infantry... there he settled various matters with the Florentines. On the church doors and in other public places was written up in golden letters the slogan, "Peace and the Restoration of Liberty'; meetings and detailed discussions began...." [p. 92]

These discussions culminated in the cession of certain holdings - Pisa and the important harbor town, Leghorn - that would go to the French for the duration of the war. Still other previous holdings would go to allies of the French. Sarzana would go to Genoa, Pietrasanta would go to Lucca. In addition, Florence, according to Burchard, would give the king 130,000 ducats in the next year and 12,000 ducats each additional year for France, until the end of the war. These conditions were all read to the public after Mass was held, Thursday, November 20, in the great Duomo of Florence and the proper authorities then took the appropriate oaths.

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Johann Burchard: At The Court of the Borgia translated for english, with introduction by Geoffrey Parker, The Folio Society, Ltd, 1963

Pope Alexander VI Sends Cardinal Ascanio to Florence: November 3, 1494

Johann Burchard tells us pope Alexander VI held a consistory which all the cardinals except one attended. It lasted about two hours when it was decided Cardinal Ascanio Sforza should go to Florence and meet and settle things with the French King Charles who was soon to arrive there. Then the pope dined with this cardinal in the Vatican and afterward, Cardinal Giovanni Borgia saw him off as far as the Tiber by San Paolo in Rome. Cardinal Ascanio then boarded a ship that took him downstream to Ostia and then onwards to Florence.

This Cardinal Ascanio Sforza had been acting all summer as a diplomat between the French court and the papacy. As the son of Francesco he was brother to Ludovico, now the actual duke of Milan. Known to be acting reliably to work the advantage of his family and his brother, the pope still needed his counsel to get a sense of French intentions. There was still no word from Venice, from the Spanish king, or Emperor Maximillian. The French had landed at Ostia and taken control of it. Ascanio for his part had spent most of the year going to and fro discussing the various options with the central players. Undoubtedly after discussions with Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, Cardinal Ascanio had spread talk of establishing a General Council for reform of the Church and perhaps of ousting the Borgia pope.

When at last, in October, the French forces turned south in Tuscany and headed for Florence, Ascanio returned to Rome. Burchard's translator and annotator Geoffery Parker tells us that Ascanio in November, was able to offer ways for the pope to avoid the French coming to Rome. Then he returned to Florence with word from the pope. As papal master of ceremonies this is all Burchard tells us. Further events would manifest additional responses. [pp 90-1]

As the clouds seemed to gather all year in Rome, matters had grown dark for some time in Florence. The halcyonic glory days of Lorenzo Magnifico were over. In place of their devotions to him and his family, the passions of the people fell into factions and the minds of many were taking darker turns. Girolamo Savonarola, Dominican friar at San Marco, preaching the end of times, echoed the fears of too many that a terrible tyrant would be sent across the Alps to punish Florence. At times a foreign Cyrus, and at times the angel of reform, for years a great scourge, he proclaimed, was coming soon to lay low the once proud Florence. Now, the French were on the road and the only hope in stemming the prophesied destruction was in pleading for a greater reformation in the larger, thoroughly corrupted Church.

The theme of reforming the Church was a centuries old set of problems. The Council of Basel which ended in Lausanne in 1448 had succeeded in unifying the papacy but not reforming the Church. The notion of a Council reforming the papcy or the Church might itself be acceptable, but the direction that such reform might take was far from certain or agreed on. There were weighty issues of the relations between the orders, and issues involving jurisdiction for servants of the Church in the lands of the Holy Roman Emperor. There were many sovereignties demanding exceptions, and dispensations, as there were many who saw such activitities as scandalous. But reform was certainly not just a recent or merely local concern. It was far worse than that for Savonarola and his followers in wealthy Florence.

In Florence, there were the anti de Medici factions, those more favorable to them, and those still dedicated partisans.  But after the loss of Lorenzo it seemed the spirit of  the city had either left it, or was left shuttered behind closed doors for security. Christopher Hibbert quotes an unnnamed envoy from Mantua who described the people there as fasting three days a week, the women and girls all entered into convents, and only men, boys and old women seen on the streets [p. 152]. This was, in part, response to the preachings of Savonarola who equated the coming French armies with the approaching sword of God, descending to snatch the unwary.

When word had reached Florence of the 'settlement' that Piero d'Medici had come to with the French King, the streets filled up with protesters. Piero had expected upon returning to reassure the people, that he had saved the city from invasion. Armed with stones, embittered about the accumulation of wealth and power, they would hear none of it. Piero was able to sneak into the city, gather up his closest family members, and the next day, retire well away from the city of his birth, that his family had tried to benevolently lead. Other family members and partisans tried to remove as much of the de Medici treasure as possible, but in the mobs that engulfed the family palazzo, in the following days, much was lost. The Signoria elected to assign bounties for the capture of members of the de Medici clan. After a few more days, it was friar Savonarola who was selected to go and try to plead with the French King on behalf of the city.

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Johann Burchard: At The Court of the Borgia translated for english, with introduction by Geoffrey Parker, The Folio Society, Ltd, 1963

Hibbert, Christopher: Florence: The biography of a city; Penguin Books, London, renewed 2004

French Troops On Move In Italy: October 1494

After a long and tense summer in Italy, October was full of action and surprises. A number of troop movements in several directions set counter actions in motion. One after the other, as news of the attacks and movements circulated, the reports would have felt like another hammer blow, another door slamming.

The death of the legitimate duke of Milan, Gian Galeazzo, perhaps on Otober 21, 1494, was sudden, but unsurprising to those who knew or suspected Ludovico, the acting Duke of Milan. He had been planning and meeting with the King near Asti over the previous month. At some point he and his retinue returned to Milan. A number of squadrons of soldiers and artillery and lances were sent strategically both east and south.

The king of France, recovering from his ailment, had travelled to and agreed to meet with the young duke Gian Galeazzzo in Pavia. His wife, the daughter of the new king of Naples, Isabella of Aragon, though with a newborn baby and pregnant with another, threw herself before the young king Charles, pleading for him not to attack her family. The king excused himself and went ahead to Piacenza.

In Ostia, known as the port of Rome, troops sent ahead and perhaps even masquerading as Spanish affiliates, quickly took the place over by surprise. Pope Alexander VI, the 'Spanish' pope Borja immediately sent word for papal troops near Bologna to travel south to retake Rome's outlet to the sea. When this became known, it became clear that the pope was most concerned about his own holdings rather than any support for the king of Naples.

Advance troops, including Swiss lances and artillery, arrived in the neighborhood of Forli. The Napoleon troops under Ferdinando had been waiting most of the summer farther north toward Ferrara. But before the Swiss arrived they moved south again and entrenched themselves near Faenza.

Caterina Sforza, in nearby Forli, in her fortress Ravaldino, sent out toughened veterans to the strongholds at Imola, Bubano and Mordano. Through September she ordered the bakers of Forli to stay making bread for all the Napoleon troops nearby. It was true, she had received offers all summer, from her uncle in Milan, from the pope in Rome, and soldiers and envoys from Naples, all beseeching rights for passage, seeking reassurances of alliance. But it was the pope who offered her the papal stronghold of Mauro and 16,000 ducats. Caterina took this and promised to hold her own.

The French and Swiss advance troops, Guicciardini tells us, struck first at Bubano. There the moats were filled and many french died. So, according to Elizabeth Lev, on October 20, 1494, 2000 French and Milanese troops turned to the stronghold of Mordano and attacked. [p. 176] The troops there fought bravely all morning and afternoon but were overwhelmed by cannon and sheer numbers. Combatants were captured and killed. The rest of the town of Mordano was razed, except for the city hall. The women who all had hid in the church were captured and taken away by French soldiers. The Napoleon troops under Ferdinando had turned and retreated further east to Cesena. But the French advance paused, the armies gathered their dead and wounded, and took stock of the new situation.

Meanwhile the king had amassed a huge number of troops before Sarzanello, on the far side of Italy along the coastal road. This commanded the route south to Lepanto, Pisa and ultimately Florence. It was here, Guicciardini tells us, that the French king met with Piero de Medici, If the French were to proceed south and, for now, avoid the Napoleon troops on the far side of the mountains, they would have to pass through lands controlled by Florence. King Charles made a bunch of demands, threatening to sack all the towns thereabout, and Piero gave up what he felt he had to. He conceded to Charles Pisa, Lepanto, and the fortress of Sarzanello until that time that the French had taken control of Naples. There was little else by then that Piero felt he could do if he wanted to keep the French from taking Florence itself.  He had let himself be convinced by Ludovico that the French might be completely put off or paid off. By accepting these demands of the French king, Piero had given up the keys of control for the Florentine world, though Florence itself, he thought, might be spared.

As recently as July, the pope had agreed to a pact with Naples and Venice to support each other against all enemies. By this point in October, the army of Ferdinando was shut up near Ravenna, the papal forces were in Ostia fighting the French alone, and the Venetians were nowhere near any fighting. Charles, meanwhile had forces on both sides of the mountains, with the wide valley of Tuscany open to him. The news came that the young duke Gian Galeazzo whom he had just met had died of a stomach ailment. Now Ludovico il Moro was the undisputed ruler in Milan having completely cut off any irritating marriage alliance with Naples. Gian Galeazzo, now former duke of Milan, was also the younger brother of Caterina Sforza of Forli.

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Elizabeth Lev, The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's most courageous and notorious countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de'Medici : 2011, USA, Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt Publishing Company

French King Charles VIII Arrives in Asti, Italy: September 1494

It was during the month of September that the French King Charles VIII first arrived with his horde of troops in Italy in 1494. News of this awoke the many self-protective towns and cities up and down the peninsula. All year the messengers had been criss-crossing city gates and palace walls relaying the latest news. Tense months and hectic weeks spent in worrying 'would they or won't they', gave way to more present worries of how to respond. Who would the French come for first?

It was the town of Asti that the French first occupied in Italy. Between Turin and Genoa, the broad plain where Asti sits is ringed by moutains opening toward present Alessandria. This makes it a natural place for the French to stop, coming from the west. Asti is in the plain of the Tanaro River which also runs into the Po River nearby. This then wends it's way east along the breadth of north Italy, snaking it's way to its many outlets into the Adriatic.

To the north-east of Asti lay Milan, the home of the close French ally il Moro, Ludovico Sforza. All year and the year before he had been working his many messengers and doing his best to cajole all sides. The French to come, for Rome and for Florence not to worry, for Venice and Naples to make separate pacts with the French. The Duke himself went with his retinue and a great number of fashionable ladies, to Asti to welcome the King.

There had been troubles along the way for the French and their allies. It is reported that the trek over the Alps had been too difficult for many. There were deserters, illnesses, even lack of available provisions. At one point Cardinal della Rovere (later Pope Julius II) had to address them and renew their convictions. Guicciardini gives us a version of his speech that ran for several pages. Whether accurate in all particulars it's accepted as what the cardinal is likely to have said, as some general outline. This cardinal would remain a passionate French ally and spokesperson until his end.

There were also problems for Naples. Don Federigo, nephew to the new king of Naples who had long served as an ambassador in France, had begun the first attack on the French Riviera, near Rapalle, just a few miles west of Genoa. After some initial successes, a thousand Swiss lance-soldiers were sent from the Duke of Orleans. They arrived and supported by the Genoese locals, drove off the invasion force of fellow Italians from the mainland. Those who did not run off into the mountains returned to Lepanto. This was the news that greeted the French King when they arrived in Asti. Good news for him and il Moro.

Ercole d'Este the Duke of Ferrra also arrived to greet the King. A man of much intelligence he came in person to show his good wishes, certainly, but we can safely assume, to more certainly strike a deal of his own. Here in Asti, they had several feasts and meetings to determine what next to do. King Charles himself had contracted some disease. The english translator of Guicciardini here calls it small-pox. They would stay, Guiciardini says, in Asti for a month or more.

Today, Asti is a commune of some 75,000 people. Then, it regularly had at most only a few thousand souls. As many had feared, with the French arrival, all the troops and their allies including Cardinal della Rovere, and the other visiting nobles, their attendants and so many other hangers on, the entire valley must have been overwhelmed with over 20,000 new sudden inhabitants. The Inns and taverns would all be full, camps in the countryside round about must have become the norm. Campfires would dot the fields at night. Horses had to be tethered or sheltered and fed. There had to be clergy to attend to the men as well, to give sermons, and hand out communion. Thank goodness it was harvest time.

news bits early August 2014

Will there be a new Senator from Kentucky next year? Answering this was the point of the Fancy Farm get together held this weekend. Here is the video where both Alison Grimes and Mitch McConnell gave their prepared remarks at the Graves County, Kentucky Fancy Farm last Saturday. The occasion is the traditional start to the Kentucky political season and this year these two are running for McConnell's Senate seat. Ms Grimes really let incumbent McConnell have it and he, in response, seemed to be running against president Barack Obama. McConnell is the current Senate Minority leader, the head of the Republican party in the US Senate.

Yes, the military assault on Gaza by Israel has overcome the news. Over 1600  Palestinians have been killed in the last thirty days with around sixty Israeli's killed. The protests over the weekends continue. Digby gives a rundown of why the US responses have been all too typical and ineffective, and why many tune out the carnage and loss of life. It is horrible, unconsionable and yet, totally predictable. The Israeli's are defending themselves, the Palestinians are being slaughtered and try to defend themselves with ineffective forces. Many ask why the US seems so unable to influence their favorite ally in the region. They could get the Israeli's attention to threaten to cut off the flow of arms there, but that announcemnet is completely untenable to neocons here at home.

If anybody is curious how the one-percent live, Daniel Schulman, the author of the new book "Sons of Wichita", about the Koch family of Wichita, KS had a teaser up at Vanity Fair last May. In it the lesser known Frederick Koch gives a tour of his six-story Manhattan property that he has filled up like a museum. A longer discussion with the author about the book is at firedoglake.com.

These cocoa bean workers in the Ivory Coast, amazingly get their first taste of the product they harvest.

Moss has been here a long time and will probably stick around for a lot longer. Found the link in this article by Robert Krulwich at NPR.

Notes From:Burckhardt: Relative Lack of Class Consciousness Among Italians

Toward the middle of the compiled notes on this period, Burckhardt gives a quick sketch on what he thought separated Italian culture from the rest of Europe before 1500. It is because he says it so simply and directly that I include it here. Words italicized are as printed in 1958 edition used here.*

"Outside of Italy, the nobility and the middle class were separated socially and remained so for a long time. the two had different cultures, almost; and each class was incapable by itself of supplying the basis for a complete culture. Especially in Germany the nobility became brutalized and ran wild...". [p.91]

He says that where there was not a king, like Francis in France acting as a center for culture to flourish around, then there was little culture to speak of. In literature, art, architecture, and in education, the old traditional scholastic and Gothic forms, "...seem to us mannered and tedious... a wooden mockery, by turns more didactic and more cynical." Outside Italy, he stresses, there was more superstition, more astrology and alchemy, rather than science. There were more quality mystics, he admits, but less harmonious a culture, overall. One with "... great incomplete and latent forces." [pp. 92-3]

On the other hand, Burckhardt says, Italy had an inner harmony. Italy was a "country of a common culture", where, "... the form of intercourse was a higher sociability independent of class differences, and its content was intellect."

"Toward the end of the fifteenth century, that which to other Europeans was still a conjecture and fantasy was already knowledge and a free object of thought to the Italians. Imagination was beautifully channeled into poetry and art.

The scope of the intellect, still a very close and narrow sphere among the other Europeans, , is here enormously widened through an interest in an ideally conceived Greco-Roman antiquity, ... and in nature and human life;  indeed, nature is expanded through a universal urge for knowledge, appreciation, and discovery that is no longer inhibited by the old scholastic system which still blanketed the rest of Europe." [p. 93]

He says, Italy thought about the soul differently too: self-aware, self-revealing. Yet seems less concerned about the man-made ravages of 'despotism' and credits the popes and Ludovico il Moro as graet patrons of the arts. The simple notion that 'everything can be done here and one must possess the best', is the 'conviction' that made Florence stand out among the best.


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* Jacob Burckhardt: Judgments on History and Historians: translated by Harry Zohn, Beacon Press, Boston, 1958

news bits mid-late July 2014

There are a number of alternate news bits and a couple series that deserve special mention this season.

Of course there are the conspiracy theories surrounding the downing of the Malaysian plane #MH17 in Ukraine.

NPR tours a Shell oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Cemetary at Ostia, Italy found to be 2700 years old. From The Japan Times


A white flag appeared above the Brooklyn Bridge Tuesday. No one is sure what that was about but the NYPD showed up in force the next day for deterrence, saying they had a few leads.

Mysterious white flags appear atop Brooklyn Bridge - http://t.co/dM293urYG3 pic.twitter.com/eeJpn7fxW6
— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 22, 2014

The Tour de France. Here's a quick view of the Pyrenees Wednesday along the route of the Tour de France.

Wow, paysages extraordinaires dans les Pyrénées... / Incredible scenery into the Pyrenees... http://t.co/UmHg7s0zYn #TDF
— Le Tour de France (@letour) July 23, 2014

The view from Ca' Foscari on the Rialto in Venice, Italy.

Seminario internaz a Ca'Foscari sul finanziamento delle reti e energie rinnovabili:distratti dalla bellezza del luogo pic.twitter.com/4Tj7I3AVuV
— Franco Bassanini (@FrancoBassanini) May 9, 2014

The water was shut off in Detroit, Michigan for thousands of people. This article in the Atlantic explains the story. People marched and afterward, the city agreed to turn it on for some. These nurses helped make a difference July 18.

Nurses at Detroit rally calling to end the health emergency and turn on the water #DetroitWater #NN14 pic.twitter.com/MOc5KXptQX
— NationalNursesUnited (@NationalNurses) July 18, 2014

Visions of Mars July 2014.

I took a photo on Mars and emailed it to your planet, but NBD, you just keep watching cat videos. pic.twitter.com/YMcF3pQ5O7
— SarcasticRover (@SarcasticRover) July 6, 2014

Who's In Charge? German Social and Spiritual Norms in Late 1400's

A traditional way of looking at the late medieval Christian world is to point out the plentiful dualities found along every walk of life. God and Man, Man and Society, Man and Woman, come up in any day. Pairings such as Rural and Urban, Continuity and Reform, reflect the dynamism in populations and local concerns. The broad comparisons of Earth and Heaven, Sin and Salvation, and Secular and Spiritual matters and practices plunge us into the medieval world. The days would bring examples of Relic and Forgery, confronting the Past and Present. Thomas A Brady makes a case for a much broader view, in actuality (albeit more complex), pointing out the variety of multi-polar aspects and views, across German lands.

The old understanding of two swords, that is, both systems for justice, that of the temporal (or secular) and those spiritual realms that ruled the Christian world, was an idea repeated when the Church wanted to keep or extend its authority. Or when kings or princes or other powers wanted to exert their own. As can be expected, the history of this is long and the greater, more recent points of this longstanding argument - like the Council of Basel 1433-49 - which  Brady later discusses at length, highlight the forms this long-reaching, ongoing tug-of-war took on.

As example, Brady gives an exchange in 1480 between a local Margrave and the bishops of Würzburg and Bamberg. This Margrave (like Marquis) Albert Achilles, saw the call by the pope for a war against the Ottoman's as a rise in his taxes, since, he would have to send something to Rome as a good and faithful servant of the Church. Crucially he thought he should get some of that money from the bishops in charge within his Franconian domain.

"The prince-bishops of Bamberg and Würzburg objected that this would violate clerical immunity from temporal jurisdiction.... Lay rulers longed to liberate the lands and incomes from the Church's "dead hand."" [p. 59]

Brady concludes this was a sign of the times. The clerics wanted things to remain as they were, free from demands put on them by the local Margrave, even when these were for a policy they couldn't disagree with. But also, it made sense to Albert Achilles that these leaders should be able to contribute, especially since they were, in effect, the other sword.

Many an abbey or monastery, as well as lands held (even personally) by this bishop or that, essentially had their own contracts or agreements with certain parishes, the diocese or local nobility, as benefices etc. and that were fixed in the past, and whose current protectors wanted to continue to exclude or limit external control. Then there were those lords who wanted to consolidate their control over all the various parts of their promised dominion(s). Especially lands that the various churches let lay fallow and unproductive. These were just the sorts of 'points of neglect' that a forward thinking prince might want to take under his wing.

These kinds of conflicts happened, as the fifteenth century saw a broad swelling in the criticisms and castigation of many of the various clerical Orders, as well. The stories of corrupt parsons or friars, gluttonous Dominicans and hypocritical Benedictines filled more than just Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. But also, as Brady says, the religious community in German lands had been populated by old noble families, for generations, and which filled,

"... by the fifteenth century many such institutions, [these which] lay fast in the grip of the regional nobilities,[and] which defended their possession by requiring genealogical proofs for admission." [p. 57]

If the ranks of the clergy were full of nobles who jealously guarded the entrance to those institutions and could continue to control who would eventually make decisions, then there could be no redress. Except when that could be to the local prince, margrave or local lord. But, in this case, the local lord had turned it all around and Margrave Achilles made the bishops pay and was so incensed, he told them he would make them an example for all the other princes who would thereby learn how to deal with church officials. He was also, as Margrave, a servant to Emperor Frederich III, who conveniently then had his own pressing concerns elsewhere.

This all goes to show it wasn't just the relations between a bishop and the pope, that mattered, or the bishop and the local prince. Even when a prince and a bishop could agree, there were of course, the people to account for, as well as, who may be best able to pay.

The people had expectations for both secular and spiritual authorities. They expected the church and the bishop or their local Marian cult or pastor, to act as mediator between them and God, not between them and Rome. They expected the state, such as it might be to lead in efforts to protect them from other states. But more often, in German lands, the most direct power lay in local smaller institutions. Meanwhile the bishops and clerics were often absorbed in courting wealthy, worldly powers, and Rome, which in truth, gave poorer responses from the far-off, and relatively weak, though larger, institutions. This was nobody's fault. The institutions had all grown into these relations over long stretches of time. [p. 59] But this was the physical world. The masses of people were taught all year long to understand they were incomplete without the salvation promised to them from God. But the Roman sacraments, the eucharist and festivals had to be supplemented by the many local festivals, holidays, faces, relics and practices. All of which, grounded in the natural seasonal cycle, in time, still wanted something more. In a word, sublimation.

People wanted salvation, people wanted justice. Since on those occassions that church or bishop, prince or emperor could not bring it, for whatever reason, more and more sought ways to capture it themselves. This tension and a desire to find a way out of it produced many novel approaches.

Brady gives us three or four examples to point out these trajectories. Erasmus, a contemporary of Luther focused on good works of the faithful individual rather than, penance or 'trips to Rome'. [pp. 61-2] This too, could and did directly counter the common stereotype of the day's lazy clergy, the gluttonous bishop or the stuffed collars, the pretenders who begged alms for false pieties.
The Devotio Moderno,  also Dutch in origin, similarly had a very devout, disciplined rigor in all matters of the faith, and was widely read, but was not canonical. Brady says there were over fifty editions of this printed between 1472 and 1500. [p.65]
There was the case of the miracle of the Wilsnack blood earlier in the fourteenth century. Cakes of the eucharist were said to grow red with the blood of Christ. The question Where did it come from or How did that get there was never fully explained. In a way, Brady suggests, it was there because people were missing something and wanted it to be there. This miracle generated a fabulous pilgrimage, was also denounced by prominent critics as it opened radical theological discussions, but was left to remain in place until 1552.
The last example Brady gives of the novel responses to the tensions of the age was that of the prophecies of the drummer of Niklashausen. He of course, was burnt at the stake on July 19, 1476 on order of the Bishop of Würzburg.
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quotes and pagination from: Thomas A Brady Jr: German Histories in The Age of Reformations, 1400-1650;  University of California, Berkeley for the Cambridge Univeristy Press, 2009

Columbus Leaving Shoals of Cuba: On Second Voyage, June-August 1494

Accepting the tale of the son of Columbus, it was on June 13, 1494, that Christopher Columbus decided to return to Hispaniola. The Admiral had been exploring the southern and westernmost coast of Cuba for several weeks already. Continually running into shoals, sandbars, bad luck, illness, his dispirited, even fearful, companions saw that it was clear they had to do something else. Taking aboard provisions at Isla de Evangelista, they then set off in a wrong direction.

This misdirected trip got them stuck again, on 30th of June, damaging the ship. When they could break free they found themselves in water only twelve feet deep.

"On top of these difficulties, they met every day at sunset with violent squalls of rain, which blew down from the hills on the further side of the lagoons which border the sea. They were greatly afflicted and troubled by these until they reached the eastern coast of Cuba along which they had sailed on their outward voyage. From here, as when they had passed before, there blew a scent as of the sweetest flowers."

By the 7th of July they landed there, came ashore and heard mass. A well-travelled local cacique sat with them and listened 'attentively'. After, the son of Columbus tells us clearly, that this man said he agreed, that it was a good thing,

"... a very good thing to give thanks to God, since if the soul was good it went straight to heaven and the body remained on earth and that the souls of wicked men must surely go to hell." [p. 180]

This straightforward expression of some of the most complex of Christian ideas, the soul, heaven, hell, gratitude to God are all put in the mouth of a local chief.  How could this be? How could it be more than mere parrotting of the sermon? How could a local articulate to Christians, in a language they would understand (?) these core understandings of Christian faith, unless it were some sort of miracle? It certainly stretches credulity, if not possibility. But there it is in this tale from the pair of  father and son Columbus. They would stay here and repair and replenish for over a week.

Leaving this place by 16 July, weather battered them again, forcing a heading to Cabo de la Cruz. A giant wave almost submerged them, they began taking on water 'from the bottom planks' faster than they could pump it out. Everyone was exhausted, from the rough seas, the miserable rations, the 'pound of rotten biscuit' and 'pint of wine' a day. Even Columbus wrote he ate the same as the rest of the men.

"Pray God that it be in His service and in that of your Highness. Otherwise I would never subject myself to these hardships and dangers. Every day we seem about to be engulfed by death." [p. 181]

 It was on the 18th of July they reached Cabo de la Cruz, welcomed by the locals with 'plenty of their cassava bread... much fish and... fruit...'. But there was not a favorable wind to Hispaniola. So they set out for Jamaica, which theyquickly reached by July 22. Here the locals gave them food as well, which the sailors said they preferred to that of the other islands. So it was here that they spent the next month exploring that island's lush coast,  friendly, food-bearing locals, and fair weather. By August 19, they set a course again for Hispaniola.
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quotes, pagination from: The Four Voyages, Christopher Columbus, edited, translated and with an introduction by JM Cohen, The Penguin Group, London, 1969 

Index of Subjects: Francesco Guicciardini: History of Italy i: Prelude to French Invasion, to end 1493

This aims only to act as a list of topics with pagination for the first section of book i from the edition printed by 1763 in English and found at the John Adams Library at the Boston Public Library. So it therefore reads as a nearly discursive table of contents for this section leading up to the end of 1493. A rambling and wandering table.

(5)     Ludovico Sforza described as usurper to Dukedom of Milan.      

(6)     above described as potential problem for king Ferdinand of Naples, along with Venice, and

(7)     nobles in Naples, w/Angevin French interest. Sforza felt secure from attack by Venice and

(8)     sought at first to maintain alliances w/Florence, Naples as set prior to this in 1480 - for 25 years.

(9)     This alliance was to protect against Venice, described as threatening Milan, Ferrara.

(10)   This alliance built tensions between the allies, each wanting to outdo the others. Then Lorenzo died.

(11)   Lorenzo had helped quell tensions between Ludovico and Ferdinand. Then pope Innocent died.

(12)   Rodrigo Borgia elected as pope Alexander VI w/ promises of gifts for cardinal Ascanio Sforza

(13)   as vice-Chancellor in Rome. Description of that office under Borgia, then Ascanio's downfall,

(14)   Description of traits of Rodrigo Borgia.

(15)   Description of traits of Piero, heir to Lorenzo de'Medici but married to Ordelaffi interests.

(16)   But Ordelaffi interests included king Ferdinand & Alfonso of Naples, which Ludovico of Milan feared.

(17)   Ludovico proposes all princes enter Rome the same day to honor new pope. All agree, but 

(18)   Piero begged off to Ferdinand citing the oratory would be eclipsed by so many others that day.

(19)   Ferdinando agreed and pleased 'in Effect if not in Manner'; but Ludovico was furious at secrecy.

(20)   The castles at Cervetri near Rome, Ferdinand had wanted in hands of Orsini, an ally since 

(21)   Calixtus III, the previous Borgia pope who had tried to take them from his (F's) father. Aragon-Borgia

(22)   relations turn sour, with pope Alexander claiming the castles as Rome's, denouncing Ferdinand et al.

(23)   Ludovico of Milan jealous of Ferdinand's power, beseeches the new pope to keep his dignity, that

(24)   these provocations could seem small but later would seem bigger & bigger, to remember history.

(25)   Ludovico offered pope money & soldiers; he petitioned Ferdinand, the Orsini and Piero de'Medici,

(26)   to remember their shared history. But Ferdinand of Naples convinced Orsini to take the castles.

(27)   Ludovico then sought some other form of security. Alfonso pressed on with diatribes against Milan.

(28)   Isabella, daughter of Alfonso and her letter. Ludovico's subjects, upset with usurper, high taxes, would not be swayed by further arguments of Ludovico that 

(29)   Naples was legacy of a former Milanese duke Visconti. So Ludovico sought his fortune. The Borgia pope did love his children and wanted to advance them and

(30)   offered a son to a daughter of Alfonso. Ferdinand accepted but Alfonso disputed dowries. So pope Alexander turned his efforts toward Ludovico and Venice.

(31)   Venice was delighted by all these disputes as they had trouble with previous popes.

(32)   Agreement between Milan, Venice and Rome April 1493, for mutual support and oust Orsini from castles, alarms everyone else.

(33)   An aliance between Alfonso of Naples, Piero of Florence, the Orsini and Giuliano della Rovere, bishop of Ostia, for mutual aid.

(34)   Ferdinand saw the dangers in this and tried to mollify the pope. Then Ludovico saw the dangers if his new allies backed out, and he began then to think of French aid.

"...Resolutions taken out of Fear seldom appear sufficient to the Fearful..."

(35)   History of Naples since it was siezed by Manfred from Frederick II, then taken and given (in 1262) to Charles of Anjou by St Louis IX.

(36)   History of House of Anjou in Naples.

(37)   Charles Durazzo, and Joanna II who adopts Alfonso of Aragon to protect her dominion. 

(38)   This Alfonso was thrown out and she gave her legacy to Rene of Anjou. She died in 1435.

(39)   Rene and Alfonso would fight many battles for control of Naples. Rene gave it to the kings of France.

(40)   The state of the kingdom of France in 1400's. Advances of Charles in Guienne and Normandy, by Louis XI in Picardy, Burgundy and Provence and Charles VIII in Brittany by marriage.

(41)   Charles VIII of France wanted Naples, if not by inheritance then as platform to beat back the Turks.

(42)   Ludovico plays on ploys of persuasion to France and for pope to help send a delegation to France.

(43-51)   Charles Barbiano, count of Belgioioso appeals to the nobles and prelates of France with the designs of Ludovico of Milan.

(52-4) French officers of Prudence counsel against such an attack.

(55)   Charles VIII 'founded on Levity and Impulse rather than Maturity of Counsel', listened instead to his own attendants 'of mean Condition', some of whom were 'venal' and accepted payment from Ludovico.

(56)   List of some of these French advisors to Charles VIII. These were assisted by desperate Neapolitan agitators.

(57)   Charles VIII prevaricates then agrees with Ludovico. Terms of agreement follow including Ludovico granting passage through Milan, and 200,000 ducats sent to King Charles.

(58)   Ludovico could expect support from the king, help with forces at Asti, & control of Taranto by the end of the war. History of Francesco Sforza on behalf of Naples in fending off Rene of Anjou.

(59)   Francesco Sforza's reasons for such deliverance. The avoidance of Louis XI in affairs of Italy:

"... a Scheme which would be attended with great Expense, many Difficulties, and prove, in the End, pernicious to the Kingdom of France."

(60)   Opinions in Italy, of the Duke of Ferrara, Ludovico's father-in-law

(61)   possibly gave bad advice to him since Milan had sided with Venice over salt mines. Or,

(62)   Opinions of King Ferdinand of Naples about such an invasion, that by sea it would fail, and by land would cause chaos for everyone in Italy.

(63)   Ferdinand thought it as likely that France would come and take Milan instead, reasoning that Naples was well supported in goods, arms, leaders and friends.

(64)   Ferdinand trusted also in the friendship with Spain and his relations there, despite size and reputation of the French army.

(65)   But, narrator tells us that Ferdinand's army was not so great and he had few friends in all of Italy. Even Spain and then there were the bad portents, letters and prophecies.

(66)   Ferdinand turned to trying to dissuade Charles from the trip. By marriages, bribery, negotiation for an annual tribute.

(67)   Ferdinand tried to blame the entire issue of the castles near Rome on Orsinio obstinacy,

(68)   fixed an agreement with the pope for them and married a grand-daughter to the pope's youngest son.

(69)   This agreement included a mutual defense pact between Naples and Rome. But this did not materialize. Ludovico of Milan was telling Rome, Florence and Naples that

(70)   he was trying to dissuade France from coming, at times saying they were talking about their rights re:Genoa. This would change. Charles VIII went securing relations with

(71)   Spain who agreed not to help the House of Aragon, but to receive Perpignan at the foot of the Pyrenean mtns. Narrator convinced French people disliked this.

(72)   Charles also secured peace with Maximilian II with

(73-4) History of Imperial actions with Louis XI and Mary of Burgundy and Margaret sister to Philip of Austria, who was promised Artois by Charles for peace.

(75)   Ludovico sought to marry his niece [ this happened Nov1486] Bianca Maria (sister to Gian Galeazzo) to emperor Maximilian after death of M's father Frederick. Visconti family had a 

(76)   History and how this was related to such relations, including Francesco Sforza and

(77)   how Ludovico used these relations to his advantage. Along with another rumored 400,000 ducats.

(78)   Ludovico got more people to believe he should be invested with title of Duke since he was the last Duke's brother.

(79)   Aged Ferdinand gets a last list of hopes, that Milanese alliances would fail.

(80)   King Charles VIII France sends letters of his demands to Rome, Florence, and Venice of his intentions to cross alps next year to take Naples.

(81)   These letters were instigated by Ludovico, but this was discovered only later, FG says.

(82)   Piero of Florence brought these letters to Ferdinand but was rebuffed with bitter complaints from the old king.

(83)   Cardinal della Rovere stays in Naples while pope tries to 'secure' him. Description of della Rovere, future pope Julius II.

(84)   This redounds badly for king Ferdinand as well. 1494, a terrible year for Italy begins.