Whether they’re called the Swiss Guard, Papal Swiss Guard, or Pontificia Cohors Helvetica, those 135 men wear what may be today’s most colorful full dress uniforms.
Although they look like something straight out of the Renaissance, the uniform’s not much over a century old.
Up until 1914, when Pope St. Pius X died, each pope had tweaked the design a bit. Maybe because our next Pope, Benedict XV, came on duty about the same time that World War I started, the Swiss Guard’s then-commander, Jules Repond, did the uniform redesign. Or authorized it, at any rate.
I gather that the blue, red, and yellow stripes are Medici family colors. The Basque hat reflects Swiss Guard uniforms painted by Raphael.1 And none of that’s what I was going to be talking about today.
Background: Vatican by the Tiber —
Folks in my part of the world, when they talk about such things at all, say “the Vatican”, “Vatican City”, and “the Holy See”, as if they’re all one thing. They’re not.
The Holy See has been around for two millennia. It’s our organizational structure, going back to when being Christian was a criminal offense.
Before the Roman Republic trashed its reputation and usefulness, “the Vatican” was a marshy tract of land and a hill on the west bank of the Tiber, across from Rome.
During imperial times, it was an upscale residential district. The land is now a few miles inside Rome’s city limits, and if I go through the whole story, I’ll never finish this in time.
Long story short, part of the Vatican was a cemetery. A notorious criminal and enemy of the state was buried there. We know him as St. Peter. We kept track of his gravesite until, a few centuries later, Christianity was decriminalized.
The current St. Peter’s basilica was built over St. Peter’s tomb — allegedly, since the last I checked, some academics say that this mustn’t be so.
This is the same lot who said Troy didn’t really exist, that the Trojan War never happened, and that’s almost another topic.
Anyway, Vatican City didn’t exist (no, really, it didn’t) until 1929. That’s when the Lateran Treaty sorted out some some long-standing SNAFUs.
How long Vatican City will exist, that I don’t know. It’s a political entity as well as being the Holy See’s headquarters. But the Holy See was around long before Italy was a kingdom,2 and I’m wandering off-topic again.
Popes, 16th Century Politics —
I’ve read that the Swiss Guard is one of the oldest military units in continuous operation; and that it dates back to 1506 and 1814. Like pretty much else involving humans, the situation’s complicated.
Oversimplifying things something fierce, Pope Julius II organized the original Swiss Guard in 1506.
This was back when the Holy See and secular leaders had very close working relationships.
Constantine the Great’s decriminalizing Christianity was arguably a good idea: but carrying ancient habits and attitudes into the post-Roman world caused problems we’re still sorting out.
On the ‘up’ side, I think Europeans have finally stopped trying to reanimate the Roman Empire, and that is another topic.
Where was I? Swiss Guard. Pope Julius II. European 16th century politics. Right.
Julius II’s Swiss Guard were, I gather, a personal bodyguard for the pope.
The Hundred Year’s War was over by 1506, and the Thirty Year’s War hadn’t started yet. But European warlords were either supporting the Holy Roman Empire, fighting it, or simply at war with their neighbors.
And Julius II had both feet planted firmly in the middle of that mess. Small wonder he wanted a bodyguard.
Fast-forward to 1527. Clement VII was Pope.
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, sent some muscle down to lean on Clement VII. Or was plagued with mutinous soldiers who besmirched his fair name. Take your pick.
Either way, an armed force was inside Rome: looting, pillaging, and not being at all polite. This was the eighth “Sack of Rome”, and — so far — the last.
This was in the spring of 1527. There was massive property damage, and an appallingly large number of people were killed, but I’m focusing on what happened in the general vicinity of St. Peter’s Square.3
And Unpaid Troops
I’ve talked about the Holy Roman Empire before and probably will again. Today I’ll quote what Voltaire said, about two and a quarter centuries after the 1527 sack of Rome, and (pretty much) leave it at that.
“Ce corps qui s’appelait et qui s’appelle encore le saint empire romain n’était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire.
“This body which called itself and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”
(“Essai sur l’histoire générale et sur les mœurs et l’esprit des nations“, Chapter 70; Voltaire (1756) via Wikiquote)
The soldiers who had been looting, pillaging, and committing human rights violations in Rome were mostly Landsknecht. Probably.
Landsknecht were mercenaries, mostly German, and — from the late 1400s to the early 1600s — formed the bulk of Holy Roman Empire’s army. Some of them said they were Catholic, some said they were Protestant.
Let’s see. What else? The Reformation was in progress, and had been for a decade.
It inspired allegedly-holy zeal and made for generations of propaganda. We’ll be cleaning up the mess for centuries.
I figure that Holy Roman Emperor Charles V had reasons for sending muscle to Rome. Apparently what he had in mind was leaning on Pope Clement VII, who’d been insufficiently cooperative.
Versions of events I’ve found say that the emperor hadn’t said ‘sack Rome’, and that Martin Luther didn’t approve, either.
So, what happened?
Apparently, it boiled down to a labor dispute.
Georg von Frundsberg, who’d been leading the imperial troops, hadn’t paid them for entirely too long. Mainly because funds had run out.
His troops, therefore, insisted on plundering Rome as an alternative. They eventually ran out of Romans to kill or ransom, buildings to pillage and/or burn, and food. That, plague, and troops who weren’t on the guest list, stopped the party in February of 1528.4
I think the emperor’s game plan probably didn’t included a lethal frat party that lasted about eight months. From a public relations perspective, at that time, it wasn’t a good look for the Holy Roman Emperor.
May 6, 1527: Death and Honor —
When I started ferreting out information about what happened on May 6, 1527, I figured the “secret passage” the Swiss Guard used to evacuate Pope Clement VII would really be something like a back door or service entrance.
Turns out, it really was a “secret” passage. Or at least one that was somewhat screened from view.
Remembering the Rearguard: 147 Against 20,000
The Passetto (“small passage”) is a corridor at the top of an old fortification wall between St. Peter’s Square and the Castel Sant’Angelo.
If there’s a detailed account of what happened in and near St. Peter’s Square on May 6, 1527, I haven’t found it.
What I have gathered is that, as around 20,000 of Holy Emperor Charles V’s troops approached St. Peter’s Basilica, 42 men of the Swiss Guard hustled Pope Clement VII up to the Passetto and over to Castel Sant’Angelo.
The latter started out as Hadrian’s tomb and that’s yet another topic.
Make that probably 42. One source said 40, but that might have been a rounded number or a typo.
The rest of the Swiss Guard, (probably) 147 in number, stayed behind. They took positions in or near the Teutonic Cemetery and the steps of St. Peters.
Their orders may have been to cover the pope’s retreat. Or maybe their job was keeping imperial troops out of St. Peter’s. Maybe both.
My guess is that they were a rearguard. St. Peter’s is a magnificent, massive structure: but it’s designed to let people in, not keep them out. Expecting 147 men to hold off 20,000 at a public venue does not strike me as reasonable.
All 147 fought valiantly, and were killed.
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V’s troops treated St. Peter’s pretty much the way they’d treated the rest of Rome.
Pope Clement VII stayed at the Castel Sant’Angelo for a while, then escaped and/or paid his way out. Maybe there’s truth to both versions of the story.
Today’s Swiss Guard hold their induction ceremony on May 6, honoring the day in 1527 when they saved a pope’s life.5
May 6, 1527, may have been what’s been called “their darkest hour”. But I think it is arguably also their finest. And I hope that it remains so. That was not a pleasant time.
Reputations —
It’s now four years shy of five centuries after 147 men of the Swiss Guard fell in and near St Peter’s. Giving a coherent account of their stand against imperial troops is more than I can manage this week.
Finding descriptions of the pope whose life they saved, that was fairly easy. Bear in mind that my native language is English, and that search results seem to favor ‘what everybody knows’ resources.
I’ve read that Pope Clement VII was a Renaissance man whose ready acceptance of new ideas was a stark contrast to the narrow-minded reactionaries who followed him.
That fits my native culture’s ‘Galileo, champion of truth and science against the fell forces of ignorance, oppression, and superstition’ mythic narrative.
Oh, right. Galileo’s abrasive personality chafed already-frazzled nerves about 83 years after 1527: and, again, the situation wasn’t simple.
Seeing Pope Clement VII as last of the enlightened popes isn’t entirely wrong.
Every half-millennium or so, we — I’m an American, but just now I’m speaking as a Catholic — go through a rough patch.
Maybe we let problems pile up until something snaps. Maybe it’s a socio-cultural cycle that scholars haven’t defined yet. Either way, we hit one rough patch as the Roman Empire was crumbling, and another — a bad one — about a thousand years back.
The last one, that my culture calls the Renaissance, was complicated by Europe’s northern rulers using grass-roots movements — and that’s yet again another topic.6
I’m about as sure as I can be, that what we call the Counter-Reformation would have happened even if what we call the Reformation hadn’t. And that it would have been called something else.
I think we’re in another rough patch now. And, compared to ones we’ve been through — this one isn’t all that bad, actually. Compared to the others, that is. My opinion.
And Raphael
It’s late Friday as I write this. I spent more time than maybe I should have, trying to find and verify accounts of what happened on May 6, 1527. That may be good news, since this post isn’t as long-winded as it might have been.
On the other hand, I’ve got material that probably won’t fit into another post. Not for quite a while, anyway.
So I’ll drop excerpts from the Polish Wikipedia and two other sources, and wrap things up for this week.
First, about a Raphael fresco that escaped with no more than a little graffiti.
Sacco di Roma, Szczegóły; Wikipedii (Wikipedia, Polish)
Wikipedia”…Gwałtowność i okrucieństwo działań można częściowo wytłumaczyć zapałem protestanckich – głównie niemieckich – landsknechtów Frundsberga, aby zniszczyć centrum duchowe Kościoła katolickiego. Naprzeciw twierdzy, gdzie schronił się papież urządzano parodie procesji katolickich, podczas których żołnierze krzyczeli ‘Vivat Lutherus pontifex!’. Imię Lutra zostało wyryte mieczem na słynnym fresku Rafaela Dysputa o Najświętszym Sakramencie, a w innych miejscach wyryto teksty wychwalające cesarza Karola V. W zwięzły i dosadny sposób opisał te wydarzenia przeor klasztoru św. Augustyna: ‘Mali fuere Germani, pejores Itali, Hispani vero pessimi’ (Niemcy byli źli, Włosi jeszcze gorsi, a Hiszpanie najgorsi)….”Sack of Rome, Details; Wikipedia, (trans. by Google Translate into English)
“…The violence and cruelty of the actions can be partly explained by the zeal of Frundsberg’s Protestant – mainly German – Landsknechts to destroy the spiritual center of the Catholic Church. Opposite the fortress, where the pope took refuge, parodies of Catholic processions were organized, during which soldiers shouted ‘Vivat Lutherus pontifex!’ Luther’s name was carved with a sword on Raphael’s famous fresco Disputation on the Blessed Sacrament, and in other places texts praising Emperor Charles V were engraved. These events were described in a concise and blunt way by the prior of the monastery of St. Augustine: ‘Mali fuere Germani, pejores Itali, Hispani vero pessimi’ (The Germans were bad, the Italians even worse, and the Spaniards the worst)….”
[emphasis mine]
Next, one of the few specific descriptions of shenanigans in Rome during the 1527 sack. One of the few in English, that is:
“The Mastery of Space in Early Modern Political Thought“, p. 60
Giovanni Botero, the Gallery of Maps in the Vatican and the fusion of the civitas and urbs in sixteenth-century Italy.
Joshua Favaloro (2017)
Dedicated to my Nonna Santa Maria Favaloro who taught herself to read and write.
(A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment [sic] of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in History, University of Sydney.)“…Over the next year, the city was violently plundered and its people murdered. In perhaps the lowest moment in papal history, Lutheran German Landsknecht soldiers taunted him from the outside. According to reports they ran around donning pontifical robes looted from the papal palace shouting: ‘Vivat Lutherus Pontifex!’… 239
[emphasis mine]Footnotes
239 Charles L. Stinger, The Renaissance in Rome, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), p.322
Third and last excerpt:
“…Forty-two Swiss Guards brought the Pope to safety, while the remaining 147 men took up position on St. Peter’s Square to protect St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican. Alone against the 20,000 attackers, the guards were completely overwhelmed and every single one was massacred. The next day, the rest of the city fell into the hands of the mercenaries and the months-long sack spiralled completely out of control. Without a leader and on the rampage, the mercenaries roamed the streets, pillaging, raping and murdering. The Vatican, churches and palaces were looted, noblemen were forced to pay huge ransoms, and citizens were tortured into handing over their valuables. Even the papal tombs in St. Peter’s Basilica were forced open.…”
(“The darkest day in the history of the Swiss Guard“, Thomas Weibel, Blog (English), Swiss National Museum (May 4, 2023) [emphasis mine]
Maybe someday I’ll find and verify more details. And, on a related note, talk about cartoons/sketches by Raphael that apparently still haven’t been returned to Vatican City.
A mixed bag, talking about Christmas, science, and living in a less-than-ideal world:
- “Pope’s Christmas Message: ‘Urbi et Orbi’, December 25, 2023“
(December 27, 2023) - “The Pope, Same-Sex Couples, an Informative Link: and Headlines“
(December 19, 2023) - “Free to Agree With Me: Cancel Culture and Freedom of Expression“
(November 18, 2023) - “Hamas, Harvard, Ukraine and Alaska Air: Looking for a Bright Side“
(October 28, 2023) - “A Star by Any Other Name, and a Galilean Interlude“
(November 13, 2021)
1 A little history, a little culture:
- Wikipedia
- Full dress uniform
- Jules Repond (a “lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations” page)
- Pope Benedict XV
- Pope Pius X
- Swiss Guard
- World War I
- Swiss Guard Uniform From The Pontificate of St. Pius X
Papal Artifacts - Uniforms
Swiss Guard, Foundations
2 An organization, territories and a treaty:
- Wikipedia
- Battle of Allia (390 B.C.)
- Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
- Constantine the Great
- Hundred Year’s War
- List of oldest military units and formations in continuous operation
- Pope Clement VII
- Pope Julius II
- Pope Innocent VIII
- Pope Sixtus IV
- Sack of Rome
- Sack of Rome (1527) (a “lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations” page)
- St. Peter’s Square
- Swiss Guard
- Wikipedia
- Georg von Frundsberg (a “relies largely or entirely on a single source” page)
- Holy Roman Empire
- Landsknecht
- Reformation
- Sack of Rome (1527) (a “lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations” page)
- War of the League of Cognac
- “The darkest day in the history of the Swiss Guard“
Thomas Weibel, Blog (English), Swiss National Museum (May 4, 2023) - frat party
Merriam-Webster.com
- Wikipedia
- “The darkest day in the history of the Swiss Guard“
Thomas Weibel, Blog (English), Swiss National Museum (May 4, 2023) - “The Swiss Guard Induction Ceremony“
Blog, Papal Artifacts (May 6, 2022) - “How Swiss Guards And Sacred Geese Saved Rome“
Kee Malesky; Special Series, Kee Facts: A Few Things You Didn’t Know; NPR (May 8, 2012) - The Passetto
StPetersBasilica.info
6 Wrapping up this week’s post:
- Wikipedia
- Counter-Reformation
- Disputation of the Holy Sacrament
- Raphael Cartoons
- Raphael Rooms (Stanze di Raffaello)
- Modello (AKA schizzo, cartoon)
- Reformation
- Saeculum obscurum (“the dark age/century”, a rough patch in Church history: ca.890s-960s)
- Disputation of the Holy Sacrament
Artble - Raphael
Catholic Encyclopedia, via NewAdvent.org - My somewhat counter-cultural take on science, history and (folklore?)
- “A Star by Any Other Name, and a Galilean Interlude” (November 13, 2021)
- “Old St. Peter’s, Visigoths and a Henry” (November 6, 2021)
- “Christopher Marlowe and His World” (March 6, 2021)
