THE SACK OF ROME
was thrice tempted by the Devil once enacted as an example for those who were to be His viceroys on earth. Everyone knows the Renais- sance Popes and knows the worst ones best. What they did for Rome abides as a service to humanity; what they left undone and what they did ignobly (perhaps these things are not separable from the service, for saints do not function as warlords, builders, and fosterers of the arts) the Church must pay for in the coinage of historical satire to which there is no reply save the answer of her Master that He had given Satan power also over His own.
The political events which took place on the European scene during this period were dominated by the rise of the Spanish Habsburg power and by the efforts of the other great powers, among which were the territorial sovereigns of the two central states of the old Empire, Ger- many and Italy, to oppose that rise. But though they were divided among themselves, the nations continued to develop an autonomous cultural life. France became the most determined rival of the Span- ish Habsburg House. After it had concluded the war with England, it effected the collapse of the hostile state of Burgundy and strength- ened its own power through the King's successful resistance to the nobles. It was again in a position to assume leadership in the trend toward absolute monarchy which was so marked a characteristic of the first half of the sixteenth century, and to foster its imperialistic plans in Italy. The governing idea was to gain control of the states of the eastern Mediterranean area. After a successful expedition enabled Charles VIII (1494) for a time to subject Italy to French influence, the fortunes of the peninsula were bound up with the outcome of the great contest between Spain and France. The prelude to this contest had been the struggle between the Houses of Aragon and Anjou for control of Southern Italy, Then the Spanish kingdom and Germany (France's ancient rivals) were united in the one empire of Charles V; and Francis I found himself in danger of being overwhelmed by the universal monarchy.
Since Germany was meanwhile split into two camps by the Refor- mation, the religious question also became a political factor in this struggle between Charles and Francis. The dissolution of the spiritual unity of Europe, long since preceded by a political centrifugalism,
FRANCE
