Gay Lobby in the Vatican? Ya Think?

Does this make
me look gay?

So Pope Francis says there is a “gay lobby” in the Vatican?  All due respect to the Holy Father, but there has been a gay lobby in the Vatican so long that it might actually qualify as “Apostolic Tradition.”  Peter Damian complained of it in the eleventh century and it was nothing new then.  
And we have had our share of gay popes.  Pope Paul II Barbo (reigned 1464-1471)—the Pope who built the fabulous Palazzo Venezia in Rome—died while being sodomized by a page.  Sixtus IV dellaRovere, (1471-1484) the Pope who built the Sistine Chapel, was openly homosexual during his pontificate and his nephew, Julius II dellaRovere, (1503-`1513) the pope who hired Michelangelo to fresco the Chapel ceiling, was a bisexual who allegedly rewarded one male lover with an archbishopric. Leo X Medici (1513-1521) was also said to be a practicing homosexual.  Julius III Ciocchi del Monte (1550-1555) made his lover,  a beggar youth of fourteen, a boy of great beauty and little intelligence, a Cardinal, and eventually Secretary of State, to the scandal of Church reformers such as Reginald Pole and Giovanni Carafa (later Paul IV).  To be fair, most popes of this period were, or had been before their election, sexually active; these few just preferred the company of gentlemen in their beds to those of the ladies.  There have been some rumors about more recent popes but at this point they are only rumors and not accepted as historically reliable stories. 
Not so for members of the Roman Curia or the Sacred College.  Among the American Cardinals it seems that Cardinal O’Connell of Boston (Archbishop 1907-1944) was blackmailed by his nephew, Monsignor James P. O’Connell, to keep secret a sexual relationship the Cardinal had with a judge.  There are some particularly salacious stories about O’Connell’s Roman Patron, the English/Spanish Cardinal Rafael Merry Del Val who served as Secretary of State (and almost vice-pope) to Pope Saint Pius X.  Upon the election of Pius’ Successor, the prudish Benedict XV, Merry del Val’s was pushed to the margins and his influence never again the same as it had been.  Stories alleging the death of George, Cardinal Mundelein (Archbishop of Chicago 1915-1939) was related to a homosexual love triangle have long circulated but what gives them credibility is that among those who told the gossip was the eminent Catholic Church historian, Monsignor John Tracy Ellis, himself a priest of Mundelein’s Archdiocese of Chicago.  And of course the stories about the homosexual double life of Cardinal Francis Spellman (Archbishop of New York 1939-1967) are widely accepted as factual.  Some stories even have ties between Spellman and the double life of long time FBI director, J.Edgar Hoover.  If the Spellman stories are true, and I think there is sufficient evidence to warrant their credibility, Spellman had to have protectors and allies not only in the Church but in law enforcement.    
As for the current scene in Rome, having lived there off and on over the last twenty-five  years and being a frequent visitor to the city, the gossip about prelates and priests with same-sex orientation abounds at every dinner party, every religious house, every seminary, every coffee bar.  The “Gay Bars” of Rome thrive with clerical customers.  Some prelates make little or no attempt to hide their homosexuality with their handsome young priests or seminarians trailing behind them whether to a Papal Mass at Saint Peter’s or embassy receptions.  Other prelates and priests live in fear of being betrayed or discovered but still have their liaisons with Swiss guards or young monks or petitioners who have come to Rome seeking some favor or dispensation.  Every so often the newspapers report a priest or monsignor being picked up by the police at the Termini (the train station) or the Pincio for soliciting sex and it never seems to be from a woman—though sometimes it is from one of Rome’s famous transvestite prostitutes.
So is there a “gay lobby” at the Vatican.  No doubt.  No surprise.  What this experience should teach the Church is that there is a need to rethink its theology of human sexuality from the foundations up.  Not only the mystery of sin and grace that is revealed to priests hearing confession should call for a re-estimation of sexual moral theology, but the lived experience of the clergy themselves should make them evaluate the true nature of human sexuality, whether “gay” or “straight.”   I am not saying that  that there should be a carte blanche for irresponsible sexual behavior but it does mean that we should know from our own experiences of grace that the magisterium’s current moral definitions are far more narrow than the parameters in which God works.    

Popes Come and Go, but Saint Peter's Basilica Remains

the tomb of Leo X in Santa Maria Sopra

Minerva, Rome,

We mentioned that Julius II died in 1513,  Hopefully God judged Julius with mercy but the humanist scholar Erasmus who along with his English friends, Sir Thomas More and Dean (of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London) John Colet were leading voices calling for Church Reform  did not.  The Dutchman  wrote:
The popes are sufficiently generous with …the terrible bolt of the papal bull, which by a flicker hurls the souls of men to the depths of hell.  Our Christian fathers and Vicars of Christ wield the bold against no one with more zeal than against those who are moved by the devil to nibble at an diminish the patrimony of Peter  …  they look on themselves as true apostles…scattering what they are pleased to call her enemies   As if the Church had more deadly enemies than impious popes who by their silence cause Christ to be forgotten, who use His laws to make money, who adulterate his word with force interpretations, and who crucify him with their corrupt life 
Whatever the judgment rendered and where Julius finds himself today, his death meant that there was to be a new pope.  He was worse.  At least Julius, if not a good man was a good—even great—Pope.  His successor, Leo X, was a disaster both as a man and a pope.  As a man he was indolent and given to the most indulgent luxury.  He was a Medici, son of il Magnifico, and had been raised to see conspicuous consumption to be the highest of the virtues.  His sexual exploits were more discreet than most of his contemporaries but no less avid.  His preferences in bed were for other males—not an uncommon trait in the high renaissance—so he left no progeny but rumors abounded of young artists and even younger clerics anxious to advancement who feathered their nests by feathering his bed.  As a pope—well, it wasn’t that he did much bad just that he didn’t do much of anything.  “The papacy is ours, let us enjoy it” was his theme and so the Chair of Peter was mostly an opportunity for hunting, dining, theatricals, and entertainments of all sorts. He had absolutely no interest in Julius tomb and little more in the basilica.  At this point the basilica was a hodgepodge of new construction and old ruins, for the most part unroofed, with the papal altar left exposed to the elements beneath the open sky where the dome was planned to someday rise.   Julius for whatever his faults was a soldier and weathered the papal ceremonies in the open air, but Leo was of a more delicate constitution and so Bramante was told to build something of an open shed to enclose the papal altar—not unlike those carports one sees in the less well to do neighborhoods of Mississippi or East Texas. Bramante was getting old and the death of Julius meant that the changes of patronage were blowing through the Renaissance.   With Julius—and under Bramante’s influence—the Renaissance threw its patronage to artists from Urbino.  But Leo was a Medici and the Medici were Florentines.  And the Florentine artists, kept on the margins of influence under Julius—were now the chief beneficiaries of patronage.  Bramante was out of favor.  But Leo was a gracious man who showed his displeasure with a velvet gloved hand.  Bramante was not removed as chief architect of Saint Peters, only given two “assistants” to help him.  Like Bramante they were old men—Leo didn’t want to make long term commitments.  One was the Dominican friars Giovanni Giocondo.  He was no mere theologian—a philosopher, engineer, mathematician, Latinist, illustrator, antiquarian—he was a true renaissance man.  But he was eighty.  The other “assistant”—and one who was given managing control over the project—was Giuliano da Sangallo.  Sangallo had been both friend and architect to Julius until Bramante maneuvered his way into the Pope’s confidence.  (Again, he did it by building the Tempietto which may be the most beautiful building in Rome so it wasn’t an unmerited advancement.)  Now Sangallo was back—and holding the real power.  It was I imagine a sweet revenge.  It did not last long,however.  Bramante died within the year.  Strangely it was not a Florentine who replaced him but the young artist from Urbino who had so charmed Julius—Raphael 

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Julius II

Well Popes may  be infallible at times but they are never immortal.  (The “t” is crucial in that word, they are often, as we have seen, immoral.)  Julius died in 1513.  It was only at the very end of his life, in those last few days, that he thought to ask the members of his household for their prayers for his soul.  Better late than never.  And Julius, though not a good man, was a good pope—in fact a great pope.  That is how it often is.  Saints almost invariably make bad kings, presidents, rulers-for-life, and popes.  And they are, of course, absolute failures at being despots.   Nevertheless, Julius went off to his reward, whatever it may have been (and would, of course, still be).  Personally, I am inclined to trust in the mercy of God even for someone like Julius, but the Dutch humanist Erasmus wasn’t.  He wrote a scathing essay: Julius Exclusus de Caelis (Julius kicked out of heaven) a biting satirical dialogue between an adamant Peter and a Julius bewildered that with all his power and wealth Peter won’t admit him to paradise.  After all what is a little pederasty (and a lot of simony) compared to all the art he sponsored, the battles won, the wealth accumulated for the Church.  (Boy it sounds like Bernie Cardinal Law, doesn’t it???   Of course Bernie’s battles were with people like Cardinal Bernadin and Joan Chittister and I don’t recall any art. Well, moving on--)    
     Julius died and he left Michelangelo 10,000 ducats (approximately 450,000.00 in toda’s money).  The tomb was never built.  But the Basilica would continue.  Julius was interred in the vault of his uncle, Sixtus IV.  The arrangement was meant to be temporary and in a certain way it was.  About fifteen years later, during the sack of Rome, the tomb was violated and the graves desecrated.  The elegant bronze tomb of Sixtus IV was  displaced (it is now in the museum of the Treasury in Saint Peter’s Basilica) and replaced--a cenutry anhd a half later--by stone slab marking the vault as the grave of Clement X who died in 1676.  The three popes are jammed in the vault like the poor three to a bed.  Sic transit gloria mundi. 
      Julius died leaving the Church quite secure financially—with the equivalent of about  18,000,000 USD in the treasury—half in gold the other in jewels and ornaments.  It wouldn’t go far in the Vatican today but was a lot in those days.  Nevertheless, Julius was anxious to provide a steady flow of income for his basilica and so only a few months before he died he approved his banker, Agostino Chigi’s, scheme of selling indulgences.  Julius didn’t know it, but it was an unfortunate note to go out on.    On the brighter side he also called a Council—Lateran V—for the reform of the Church.  It was not totally a noble gesture; it was meant to ward off the threat from calls for Reform coming from papal enemies such as Louis XII of France, but better to do the right thing for the wrong reason than not to do the right thing.  We’ll talk more about Lateran V when our blog entries on Reformations catches up to this point.  In the meantime stay tuned. 

Saint Peter's and the Complex of Personalities

    I had hoped to post this yesterday but then we had an internet issue and I didn't have access to the blog site.  I have a lot of material on the building of Saint Peter's--and that is one of the most Popular topics that I have been posting on--so I hope to make sure that I can do a posting each day this week, 
     As I mentioned yesterday, as the center of the Renaissance moved from Florence to Rome in the papacy of Julius II Rome was alive with artists and architects and musicians.  Among the painters, Pinturicchio, Signorelli, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi—known as Il Sodoma—Lorenzo Lotto, Johannes Ruysch, Perugino all were in Rome looking for patronage. 
     Of all these the competition for leadership of the pack was between Michelangelo and Donato Bramante.  In retrospect, there was no real competition—Michelangelo stood alone—but papal patronage was a fickle thing and when it came to the arts, Julius was no monogamist.  Michelangelo was entrusted with Julius’ greatest personal project—his tomb.  And Bramante was entrusted with Julius greatest public project—the building of a new Basilica to hold that tomb.  Think Julius might have been a “4” on the enneagram?  It was, at least in his mind, all about him.  In any event, the competition for papal recognition was bitter between the two artists and for Michelangelo, at least, it was all a matter of pride.  Michelangelo was an artist for the sake of the art he needed in his inner drive to create.  He was indifferent to the financial and career aspects of art.  He also was impossible to work with, temperamental and insecure.  He worked alone.  In fact, very few people ever broke through Michelangelo’s shell and he went through life, for the most part, a loner.  Michelangelo’s homosexuality is well established historically though it seems that it also caused him considerable personal turmoil and inner conflict.  Whether Michelangelo in fact ever let the deep love he felt (and wrote about) for a succession of younger men manifest itself in sexual intimacy is debated among Michelangelo scholars.  It may have been this conflicted sexuality that made the artist so eccentric and melancholic.  In any event, his personality worked against him for Bramante, though much less talented than Michelangelo (and much more talented than the other 99.999% of the human race) had a charming and extroverted personality that gave him an advantage over the high strung and moody Florentine. Some have suggested that it was Bramante that put Pope Julius up to withdrawing Michelangelo from the tomb project and forced him—against his will—to fresco the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, knowing that Michenangelo—a sculptor, not a painter—would fail miserably.  The Sistine project was very high on Julius’s priorities, the chapel having been built by Julius’ uncle and patron, Sixtus IV della Rovere.  Of course Michelangelo pulled the rabbit out of the hat and produced what well might be his greatest work, the Sistine ceiling.  But Bramante had more than one trick up his sleeve.  Ok, Michelangelo could paint.  But Bramante found a rival for him in this field too and brough Rafaello Sanzio, today generally known as Raphael, to Julius’ attention.  While Michelangelo was sulking on his scaffold in the Sistine and now allowing anyone to see his work, Bramante’s protégé Raphael, was cheerily painting the new papal apartments.  In fact Julius was so taken Raphael’s talents that he had the recently completed works by Piero della Francesca and Signorelli destroyed so that Raphael could point over them.  Like Bramante, Raphael was charming and extroverted.   And he did work alone but had an entourage of assistants whom he had trained to fulfill a host of minor functions. Raphael would prepare the cartoons of his painting but his team would apply the fresh plaster, mix the paints, even paint in the figures from Raphael’s cartoons and sketches and then the Master would come through and do the detail work and fine points.      
      Bramante for his part was so different than Michelangelo.   Whereas Michelangelo was obsessed with detail and would never entrust his work, as did Raphael, to others, Bramante was a “big-picture” man.  Brash and outspoken, he got along better with Julius—himself an out-of-control extrovert—than Michelangelo.  But Bramante’s flaw was his lack of attention to detail.  A great basilica requires an architect of wide vision but the revolutionary size of the projected building also required an engineer of meticulous detail.  That Bramante was not.  In many ways Bramante was more suited to design for the illusions of the stage than for the physics of architecture.  To cut costs he also cut quality of building materials.  Marble and stone was replaced by tufa (a material found in the region near Rome which is like soft earth when cut from the ground but which hardens like stone after being exposed to the atmosphere), brick, and cement.  He began building the four piers that would support the projected central dome over the tomb of the apostle, but had no idea how to actually raise a dome over the open spaces left by the supporting arches that would rise from those piers.  Domes were tricky things.  While the ancient Romans had known how to construct them, the art had been lost until Brunelleschi had built the dome of the Cathedral in Florence only some sixty or seventy years before.  The Vatican dome was to be much larger and in retrospect it seems reckless, indeed stupid, to have built the foundations without having a plan for the dome itself.  But that was Bramante—he went step by step, trial and error, flying by the seat of his pants as we say—as he built his basilica.  In the end, it would not be he who solved the problem or built the dome. 

Financing the Basilica

The Chapel of Nicholas V in the Vatican

Palace

Let’s go back to the saga of building Saint Peter’s.  We had discussed in earlier blogs  (April 16, 2011)  that by the fifteenth century Constantine’s basilica was falling down—the north wall was totally out of plumb and in danger of collapse.  There had been plans to expand the old basilica and enlarge it under Nicholas V in the middle of the fifteenth century and the papal architect, Bernardo de Matteo Rossellino had actually begun building a new apse, but with the Nicholas’ death in 1455 the project came to nothing.  (One thing that does last to Nicholas’ everlasting credit—at least measured in earthly values, if not heavenly—is the exquisite chapel in the Vatican frescoed by Dominican friars, Fra Angelico. To my mind it is the most beautiful of all the churches and chapels in the Vatican—more than the Sistine Chapel or Saint Peter’s itself.  It is quite small—smaller than most bedrooms in a modest suburban American home—but exquisite for the sublime frescoes of Saints Laurence and Stephen.   O well, back to the Basilica (which I have always thought to be rather garish). 

Fra Angelico fresco of Saint Laurence

distributing alms

     Anyway, it was Julius II della Rovere who decided to tear down the old Basilica and construct a new one—a radical decision. (Imagine of Benedict decided to tear down the current Basilica and build a new one “in the modern style;” don’t you think that infallible or not his ass would be in a sling with all the neo-cons?  Well Julius had it no easier.  People were horrified.  Julius was called all sorts of things even by the Cardinals.  (I bet the biggest critics of any pope are from among the Cardinals though they keep their deprecations among their closest friends.)  Originally Julius’ motivation was he wanted the space to hold this new tomb that he had Michelangelo carving over 40 larger-than-life figures to adorn.  But Julius was a man with many irons in the fire.  Michelangelo was working on the tomb, Bramante on the basilica.  But the pope wanted to expand his palace.  First he didn’t want to live in the apartments of his predecessor, Alexander VI Borgia, whom he hated.  Alexander was an evil man, but that wasn’t what stopped Julius from liking him.  Julius understood weaknesses of the flesh as well as anyone.  It was just that the Borgias and the Della Roveres were the Hatfields and McCoys of fifteenth century Rome.   Each family had held the papacy at different times and tried to shut out the other family from power and influence in their turn.   So Julius had new apartments built and commissioned Raphael to fresco them. But that was only part of the remodeling project.  Innocent VIII had built a villa on a hill just north of the Vatican palace to which he could retire in the heat of Roman summers—the hill commanding refreshing breezes that missed the palace lying on lower ground.  The villa was named the Belvedere—“beautiful to see” or “beautiful views” because it gave lovely views of the meadows and orchards at the time lying between the Vatican and the Castle Sant’Angelo. Julius decided to connect the palace and the villa with two long narrow buildings, creating a massive courtyard between.  When one visits the Vatican Museum today you spend a lot of time in these wings that are wonderfully frescoed and which for years held the treasures of the Vatican Library.   Not only was Julius building basilicas and palaces and tombs, but everyone who was anyone in Rome was into building—palaces, churches, monuments.  With Julius, Rome had displaced Florence and become the center of the Renaissance.  Rome was swarming with artists, sculptors, architects, musicians, littérateurs, gold and silversmiths, all seeking patronage.  And the Church officials were only too happy to patronize them.  An essential part of the career path in the Church was liberality in patronizing the arts.  Prelates became known for the churches they were building or furnishing and for the opulent palaces in which they lived and the lavishness with which they entertained.  I make fun, as you know, of the clerical coxcombs who parade around in trains of scarlet silk and furred capes today—but it fit the espirit of the times. (Whether it fit the Gospel any better then than now is another question, but then I am sure Jesus has shed more tears over his Church than he ever did over Jerusalem of old.) This created huge employment—stone masons and carpenters, cooks, stewards, servants, mixers of paints, cutters of stone, hewers of trees, pages, vinters, brewers, bakers, chandlers, glass blowers, weavers,  tailors, grocers, stable hands, milliners, construction workers, brickmakers : Renaissances are not cheap.  As I mentioned in earlier blogs money was being drained from all over Europe to pay for the extravagance but at the same time—as Democrats know and Republicans fear—spending 

Ordination of Laurence as Deacon

creates jobs and Rome was abustle with work and employment means money and money means more jobs.  But how could it be kept being fueled?  Pope Julius had an excellent banker—we would refer to him today as a Finance Minister or Secretary of the Treasury, he didn’t stand behind a window counting out twenties.  His name was Agostino Chigi and he had an idea. “ Why not,” he asked Julius, “why not sell indulgences?”  indeed, why not?

More abut Martin Luther's Trip to Rome

This is not what it looked like in Luther's Day, or even

a century ago, but here is a contemporary picture of

the Vatican Basilica at night.

As I mentioned in the last entry, Martin Luther went to Rome in  late 1510.  He was a young priest, twenty-seven years old and ordained only three years.  Martin was a very scrupulous man and had undergone a “conversion” as a young man of twenty-one when he was nearly missed by lightening on his way back from home to the university where he had been studying law.  Giving up the profitable career in Law he entered a reformed monastery of Augustinian hermits in Erfurt.  Luther was by own admission a monk’s monk—scrupulous in every detail of his religious life.  He strived to say ever prescribed prayer, keep every mandated fast, avoid even the smallest sins.  He worried endlessly about his salvation.  A wise superior, knowing that the young friar had to loosen up a little, sent him to Rome as the companion of an older friar who was going on business for the Order.   Luther could use a break and could use also to see that sin ran deeper in the human experience than this naïve friar allowed for.  Unfortunately, with an idealist like Martin, this strategy was not the wisest.  
     Luther spent about two months in Rome.  Passing through the city gate he fell to his knees and prayed: Hail, Holy Rome, Thrice Blest for the Blood othe Martyrs who died here!  This guy was a believer!  He ran from church to church, said mass at every shrine he could arrange.  He climbed the Scala Sancta (The Holy Stairs—a set of stairs supposedly brought to Rome from Jerusalem where it was said Christ had climbed these steps on his way to be judged by Pilate.)  He sought out relics for veneration and lighted votive candles. He made a general confession of all the sins of his life.  As I said this boy was a believer.  But his eyes were gradually opened to the corruption of the city.  The priest to whom he confessed treated lightly the sins that Luther bore with such serious guilt.  He saw that there were brothels reserved for the clergy and the monks.  The Cardinals and other high churchmen were immensely wealthy and amidst the poverty of the crowds they displayed their wealth in a show of red silk and fine horses and luxurious palaces.  Priests were sloppy in their duties and said mass with little or no reverence.  Luther himself claimed to have seen a priest distributing communion declare “panis vinumque es et panis vinumque manebis”  ( Bread and wine you are; and bread and wine you will remain.”  Personally, while I am sure that most of the Roman priests said mass with little or no attention to the sacred rites, I suspect this story is what the clergy refer to as a “pulpit tale;” that is a preacher’s exaggeration or fabrication to illustrate a point.  The reason I say that I believe this story to be unlikely is that I don’t believe that a priest would undermine his own earning ability by making little of the Sacrament; furthermore at the time it was only the bread that was given to the faithful at communion, not the wine; and finally I wonder how many priests then—or now—would know enough Latin to be able to put together an original sentence.  But who knows—the situation was every bit as bad as Luther described it.  And I am not convinced—as a person who has lived in Rome for considerable periods of my life—that it is all that better now.  When Martin Luther headed back on his two month journey to his monastery in Erfurt, he was a far less naïve fellow.  He had not lost his idealism but he had lost his confidence in the institutional Church.  Meanwhile Julius’ church was rising, the artists were hard a word, and the chamberlain of the Roman Church—the Cardinal in charge of finding money to pay the bills—was working hard to come up with new sources of revenue to finance this renaissance.             

Saint Peter's Basilica and Martin Luther.

This fresco in one of the Roman basilicas is the only

surviving depiction of Old St' Peter's which was torn

down by Julius II to build the current St, Peter's.

Well, the Rome of Julius II was a busy place.  The south-west pier of what was to be the central dome was rising up behind and towering over Old Saint Peter’s.  This would be one of the four piers that would support the central dome.  The old basilica was still standing and in fact being used, but the plan was for the new one was to grow up around and over it.  As his rival (and nemesis) Bramante was supervising the building plans, Michelangelo was collecting marble in a vast workyard –wagonload upon wagonload of marble from Cararra, tons of marble, to be used for the 40 larger-than-life figures that were to adorn the tomb.  Julius was expanding the Vatican Palace and hiring Raphael—a friend of Bramante’s—to decorate the suite of rooms that he had built for himself overlooking the Belvedere courtyard.  Meanwhile, Raphael and Bramante were conspiring together to bring down Bramante’s rival, Michelangelo and they persuaded the pope to abandon, at least for the present, the project  of his tomb have Michelangelo, a sculptor and not a painter, fresco the ceiling of the chapel that Julius’ uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, had built some thirty years before.  Michelangelo was not happy about this change in project—he was even more dedicated to the tomb project that Julius, its future occupant (or so Julius thought).  All this was enormously expensive.  The first year’s construction cost over 12,000 ducats.  The second year’s building more than doubled that to just under 30,000.  To give you an idea of cost—a middle class family income might be about 40 ducats a year.  That would translate to approximately 15,000,000 the first year and 35,000.000 the second.  This is not to complete the church—far from it.  The Church was to take approximately 105 years to complete and while every year’s projects may not be as intensive as this first year, all they had to show at this point—50,000,000 spent—is one pier of the dome!  And that doesn’t include the work on the palace or the tomb.  And there are other projects going on all over Rome—though many are being paid for my various cardinals and princes who, like the pope, were vying for displays of power and wealth. 
     So where is the money going to come from to pay for this basilica?  Welll, there were various sources of income.  The Papal States, like other nations, have taxes.  They also have monopolies on certain items.  Central Italy—the Papal States—contained some of the richest alum mines in the world and alum was a necessity for the dying of cloth and Europe’s economy rested heavily on the cloth trade.  But still—this was barely enough.  Well there were a wide variety of fees coming in to Rome.  Every Archbishop, bishop, abbot, cathedral dean, and other major official needed to have his election or appointment confirmed by the Holy See.  He was expected to pay the “annate”—the first year’s income from his new post—to the Holy See.  Moreover, during the time the see or abbacy or deanery had been empty—its income was frequently appropriated by the Holy See.  Money was flowing into Rome from every part of Europe!  Lots of money!  Renaissances are not cheap!  When kings and dukes and minor nobles needed to have a marriage annulled—well there were fees for that sort of thing.  A university or a cathedral or a monastic foundation required a certain privilege that exempted them from a particular law or obligation or gave them some honor over their peers—it could be arranged, for a price. During the reign of Julius II, a young Augustinian friar was sent down to Rome from Germany on business for his congregation.  Entering the city through the Flaminian Gate—he fell to his knees on the site of today’s Piazza del Popolo (in front of the Church and monastery of Santa Maria del Popolo where he would live for his stay in Rome, and cried “Hail, Holy Rome—thrice Holy for the Blood of the Martyrs shed here.  When he left Rome a month later he had a different opinion. “Everything is for sale in Rome,” he would declare.  And indeed it was!!!  This was the visit of Martin Luther and it established a direct connection between the construction of Saint Peter’s Basilica and the Reformation.      

Back to Our Story of Saint Peter's Basilica

Vitrivuian Man, sketch of Leonardo

da Vinci

You know, we left Old Saint Peter’s falling down, Julius II in need of a place to put his tomb—the one he had Michaelangelo working on (see entries of April 19^th and 20^th)—and lots of intrigue going on in Rome.  Lots of intrigue still goes on in Rome, but let’s return to the story of how we moved from Old Saint Peter’s to new Saint Peter’s.  it takes a lot of guts to tear down the monumental basilica over the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, built by Constantine, standing for a thousand years plus, and a symbol of the Catholic world.  Imagine if today Pope Benedict said “Let’s tear down this old basilica and built something modern here…”  Well, it does take a lot of imagination to think of Benedict wanting to do something modern, but only a pope with the guts of Julius II could have done it in his day and do it he did.  And he took heat for it!  After all seven Emperors had been crowned there; one hundred and eighty four popes had presided in the basilica; dozens of saints were entombed in its altars, and unknown numbers of the dead lay beneath its floor.  Julius had a personal architect—Giuliano Sangallo.  When Julius as a Cardinal had gone to France in exile during the papacy of his implacable enemy, the lecherous Alexander VI, Sangallo had accompanied him.   He was sure the job was to be his—but it wasn’t.   A quiet and unassuming architect of no great previous accomplishment was building a small church—a very small chapel actually—the Tempietto, which was astonishing Rome for the perfection of its design.  It won over Julius who hired Donato Bramante to design his new basilica. 

Bramante's Plan for the new Vatican Basilica

     Bramante had come from a family of farmers but showed not aptitude for the plow and did show an aptitude for canvas and brushes and pigments—so he became an artist.  He studied originally in his native Urbino where the court of the Duke, Federigo di Montefeltro, was one of the most spirited centers of Renaissance culture.  From Urbino he moved to Milan where he was introduced to the Florentine genius, Leonardo da Vinci.  The two formed a twenty-year friendship and the influence of Leonardo on Bramante’s philosophy of art is apparent to anyone who compares Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man to Bramante’s designs for the Tempietto and later for his original design for the new basilica.  When Julius saw the design for Saint Peter’s he was overcome by its geometrical perfection. 
     Bramante’s plan was a totally symmetrical plan which would have located the tomb of the Apostle directly beneath a central dome.  It was a curious combination of two types of ancient Roman buildings—the basilica and the temple.  Like the Pantheon, a temple to all the gods (pan theon) it was centrally domed.  Like the Basilica of Maxentius it would be a vaulted hall—or actually the new basilica would be four vaulted halls converging at the papal altar beneath this central dome over the tomb of Saint Peter.   But this new basilica was to leave the ancient monuments in the dust of history—higher, wider, longer than the surviving buildings of ancient Rome.  It is a question if it could even have been built with the engineering materials and skills of the time: it would have been almost  a third larger than the basilica eventually built.  And it was innovative not only in its engineering but in its design.  The altar would be not in an apse, but central, approachable from every side.  (There are several surviving ancient Roman Churches with a central altar—San Stefano Rotondo, Santa Costanza, and San Teodoro to name three.)  The work required a “new” masonry—the “old" masonry of stone with which the great gothic cathedrals had been built would not allow for the vast spans of Bramante’s design.  Bramante carefully studied the ruins of ancient Rome and discovered the lost art of making concrete from crushed volcanic gravel, sand, lime, and broken stone.  This was the magic the architect needed.  Concrete was the material that made the vast barrel vaults possible.  Concrete and brick construction could be faced with marble, granite, and other stone to give the impression of stone masonry but provide a far more flexible building material to bear the weight of the huge vaults and the soaring dome.  This new basilica would be everything Julius dreamed of as a setting for his tomb.  But the work was just beginning and so much would happen in between and Julius—well he lies today in a borrowed vault beneath a monument bearing another pope’s name.  The last will be first and the first last.  But that story is yet to come.      

Old St Peter's Basilica: Caught in the Della Rovere-Medici Crossfire

 Julius II had  been the cardinal-nephew of Sixtus IV Della Rovere.  Sixtus who had headed the Franciscan Order before his election, named a number of his nephews Cardinals and they, in turn, had spent much of his papacy fighting one another for power and influence (and money).  Most of them weren’t worth spit but Guiliano was a cut above the rest and proved himself competent enough to hold several important offices in the Roman Curia as well as being entrusted with a variety of bishoprics—holding eight at the same time, though being an absentee pastor in each of his dioceses.  It was common to name important Roman officials to dioceses not only in Italy but throughout Europe so that they could collect the salaries as a means of financial support.  This drew money from all over Europe into the Roman economy and empowered these Curia officials to build the palaces and  churches of Renaissance Rome. 

Speaking of Roman palaces, another of Sixtus’ cardinal nephews, Raffaele Riario hosted an evening of gambling at which Franceschetto Cybo, bastard son of Pope Innocent VIII (the current pope and successor to Giuliano’s uncle, Sixtus IV), lost 15,000 ducats (Two and a half million modern dollars).  Not a lucky night.  The pope asked Cardinal Riario to return the money, but the Cardinal explained that he had already spent the money to finance the construction of a new palace—the beautiful palazzo della Cancelleria near the piazza Campo dei Fiori.  If it is any consolation to the memory of Innocent VIII, the palace is still owned by the Vatican and it serves today to hold various administrative offices.  It truly is one of the most lovely buildings in Rome—won all in a night’s gambling.   As for Cybo, he was not a cardinal as he was married (to a Medici—rivals of Pope Sixtus, Cardinal Giuliano, and other Della Roveres.  Mortal enemies as we shall see.  While unable to be made a Cardinal, Cybo was entrusted with several military and administrative offices, including the governorship of Rome, that provided him a handsome income.  He was, after all, the Pope’s son. In 1490 he attempted to steal the papal treasury to finance his extensive gambling debts, but as Dad was still pope, he was not prosecuted for his lack of good judgment.  One of his own sons would become a Cardinal—not only was he the grandson of a pope (Innocent VIII) but remember he was a Medici on his mother’s side, so one of his uncles was destined to reign as Leo X—the pope at the time of Luther’s saying that he had enough of the whole Roman Church. “Everything is for sale in Rome.”  When you see this sequence of events, can you blame Luther?  Well, we will talk about that in future postings.

We are still not ready to return to Julius yet as there is one more important story about his Cardinal Cousin—Rafaelle “lucky at cards” Riario.  The seventeen year old Cardinal stopped in Florence on his way from Pisa where he was studying canon law (how would you like to have a Cardinal in your canon law class?) to Rome.  Unbeknown to the lad, his visit was used as a pretext by his uncle the Pope and several others to lure the Medici brothers—Lorenzo and Giuliano—out of the Medici Palace to attend High Mass at the Cathedral.  It would have been considered rude, a snub to the Cardinal, to miss the mass in his honor.  The elevation of the host was used as a signal for the conspirators to attack. Giuliano was stabled to death on the Cathedral floor; Lorenzo, seriously ( but not fatally) wounded escaped to the sacristy where, once in, the doors were barred for his protection. The plot failed as the Florentines supported the Medici and in the subsequent bloodshed many of the conspirators were killed—including the Archbishop of Pisa, Francesco Salviati, who was hung naked from the walls of Florence’s town hall, the Palazzo della Signoria.  The young Cardinal seems to have been only a pawn in his uncle’s game and, though arrested, he was shortly set at liberty.  In fact Lorenzo and Pope Sixtus soon made up.  In Renaissance Italy, attempted murder was no reason to break off a friendship.  It was done all the time.   But the plot does tell you something about this Della Rovere family.  They played for big stakes and they played for keeps.  Well, back now to Julius, but also note tht  Raffaele Riario was also the patron who first brought Michelangelo to Rome. 

Julius, or more properly at this pont, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, also had his ups and downs as we have seen.  He fled to France after his enemy Rodrigo Borgia was elected Alexander VI.  In France he became buddies with Charles VIII whom he persuaded to invade Italy in hopes of deposing Alexander.  Though Charles did get to Rome, Alexander out maneuvered Giuliano’s plan and Charles, instead of convoking a Council to depose Alexander, moved on to fight a war with Naples in a vain hope of adding it to his realms.  In the second 1503 conclave, however, Cardinal Della Rovere’s fortunes improved and he was elected pope.

As I pointed out, the Della Roveres were strong people.  The family had been poor until uncle Sixtus had become pope and started making all the nephews Cardinals.  They were scrappers and they didn’t mind a fight to get what they wanted.  Indeed Julius himself loved a fight—a real fight in which he could put on armor and get on a horse and go out and bash some heads. In a 1506 battle for Bologna, the pope was one of the first up the scaling ladders and over the city wall.  He was a man’s man which isn’t to say that he didn’t enjoy having a man in bed.  While he had an illegitimate daughter, Julius seems to have been either gay or bi-sexual.  I have heard stories that he made one of his lovers the Archbishop of Ravenna but I can’t find this anywhere and I wonder if the sources are confusing him with Julius III whose lover was a street urchin, Innocenzo Ciochhi Del Monte, whom, in his infatuation, he made Cardinal. 

As I said yesterday, Julius’ great passion was for his projected tomb and that returns us to the fate of Old St Peter’s and the Destiny of New Saint Peter’s. Before we pick up the story of the Basilica, however, one more thing about Julius.  As part of the terms under which he was elected pope, Julius had promised to convoke a Council of the Church to address the need for reform.  (Ya think there was a need for Reform???)  He delayed this as long as possible, but finally on July 18, 1511 he convoked the Council to meet at the Lateran on April 19, the following year.  Finally fifteen Cardinals, two Latin Patriarchs, ten archbishops, fifty-six bishops, various abbots, the generals of the mendicant orders, and ambassadors from various states convened on May 3^rd 1512.  Giles of Viterbo, the charismatic General of the Augustinian Friars preached the opening sermon—a bombastic demand for reform in root and branch.  Julius would die the following February, escaping any personal worries about having to reform. 
the image today is Giuliano de Medici, killed in the Pazzi Conspiracy due to the rivalry between the Della Rovere family and the Medici. 

St, Peter's Basilica: Roll over Peter, Julius needs a grave.

Julius II Della Rovere

Well, to pick up our saga of the popes and Old Saint Peter’s—Alexander VI, rotting even before they got him into his coffin—was laid to rest (temporarily) in Old St. Peter’s but his son, Caesare, was alive, well, and determined to control the papacy because his own power depended on papal patronage.  The very last thing he wanted was a pope from the Della Rovere faction among the Cardinals (the family of Sixtus IV—the guy who made the pretty-boy cardinals and built the Sistine Chapel) as the Della Roveres and the Borgias were mortal enemies.  You may remember that Caesare’s father, the dead and rapidly decomposing Alexander, beat out Giuliano della Rovere in the 1492 conclave despite Giuliano’s shelling out 300,000 ducats in “tokens of esteem” to the electors.  (Bribe is such a coarse term.)

It is hard to know from the sources what exactly Caesare’s role in the election was.  In fact Caesare himself was under the weather when his father died.  He and his father had both become ill after having dinner with Cardinal Adriano da Corno (aka Cornetto or dei Castelli).  Here is where the story gets even more confusing.  Adriano was a partisan of the Della Rovere faction and some say that the dinner was an attempt at reconciling with the Borgias.  Others say that Borgia—Father and Son—had accepted the invitation to have the opportunity to poison Adriano and the death of Alexander and illness of Caesare was due to the Borjas’ confusedly drinking from the cup they had “prepared” for the Cardinal.   While the state of Alexander’s body almost immediately after death—discolored, swollen, mouth black and  protruding, emitting gases and fluids—indicates poisoning, modern historians attribute the death of Alexander and the serious (but not fatal) illness of Caesare to malaria which was indeed the nemesis of many a Renaissance Roman.   I myself favor the poisoning theory except for the fact that I can’t figure out a motive of the Borjas trying to do away with Adriano.  He may have been a friend of the Della Roveres, but Alexander had made him a cardinal only the year before.  And if Caesare wanted him out of the way, he would have framed him with some accusation that would have enabled Caesare to seize his property—which was considerable.  The Cardinal had built the Palazzo Torolonia standing on what is today the Via della Conciliazione just outside the Vatican.  To my estimation it is one of the most beautiful palaces in Rome. If Adriano died naturally—or even by murder—his property would go to his heirs.  Perhaps Adriano was trying (successfully) to poison the Borjas.  Frankly it is just one of those things historians argue about.  Furthermore, when a della Rovere finally did come to the papal throne, the Cardinal fled Rome, so he probably had betrayed his Della Rovere allies and turned his loyalty to the Borjas and they, in turn, probably had malaria to blame for their problems.  Just with the Borjas and poison one never knows. 

Caesare may have been too sick to leave his bed, but he had troops at his command and they dominated the conclave of 1503.  Or, I should say, the first conclave of 1503 because the new pope, Pius III—a Piccolomini and nephew of Pius II Piccolomini (The pope who refashioned and renamed Pienza and used to write letters to Dracula—see April 17) only lasted 26 days on the papal throne.  He died either of an ulcerated leg or was poisoned on the orders of an old enemy from Siena.  It wasn’t easy being pope in those days—great perks and low expectations for moral character, but you better have your own chef and sommelier. 

Caesare wasn’t able to control the next conclave and the Cardinals thought it was time for a change.  Giuliano della Rovere finally got his chance.  The nephew of Sixtus IV, he had tried in three successive conclaves to get his uncle’s old job but had never made it.  He spent 300,000 ductats –again almost 50 million dollars in a vain attempt to be elected in 1492.  On November 1, 1503 he was elected on the first ballot  of the Conclave.  Now finally we have a pope who will decide to do something about the basilica that was all but falling down. 

It is Julius II who decided to build a new Saint Peter’s, but before you give him too much credit you need to know why.  It wasn’t that he decided to build a new shrine to the Apostle; it was that one of the first decisions he made was to build a tomb for himself and needed a church to hold it.  This was no ordinary tomb, no simple sarcophagus.  It was to be over 20 feet wide, 30 feet long, and twenty feet high.  it was to be free standing in the middle of a great space and Michelangelo was hired to carve the forty statues that were to adorn it.  All he needed was that great space in which it could stand.  This new Basilica was not to be a monument on the grave of Peter, but a monument over the grave of Julius.  You have to understand papal chutzpah.  More tomorrow.   By the way, don't give up hope just because the Church is going to be built--there is still plenty of sex in the Vatican left to tell you about