Sack of Rome

May 6, 1527

Unpaid imperial troops, many of them Lutheran landsknechts, stormed Rome and spent eight days murdering, raping, and desecrating churches. Pope Clement VII cowered in the Castel Sant'Angelo as his Swiss Guards were butchered on the steps of Saint Peter's. The Italian Renaissance was effectively over. Artists and scholars scattered across Italy, paradoxically spreading the Renaissance ideas the sack had devastated.