Foundations of the Anglican Church XL

Pope Clement VII

Well, enough about Judie Brown and Michael Voris and their ilk for now, let’s get back to ol’ Henry and his annulment problems.  We left off that story with the 1527 Sack of Rome by the troops of the Emperor Charles V.  The troops were mostly German followers of Martin Luther, recent converts to the Protestant movement Luther had established less than ten years previously, and all their religious bile came out as they had the chance to sack the papal capital.  It was, as I wrote, a sickening sight with about 12,000 people murdered, from priests at their altars and nuns in their monasteries to women and children in the streets and alleys of Rome.  The Swiss Guard were massacred as they protected the Pope, permitting him to escape through a secret passageway in Leonine Wall to the Castle Sant’ Angelo where he was holed up for months like a rat in his warren until a hefty ransom could be paid to call off the German troops. 
Historians often say that Clement refused Henry his annulment because he was afraid that Charles—the nephew of Henry’s Queen, Katherine of Aragon—would return and revenge his aunt’s disgrace.  But the story is a bit more complicated.  We need to remember that Clement, like Luther’s Pope Leo X, was a Medici.  And the Medici were, as usual, “up to something.”
The Medici had been country folk from the Mugello, an area just north of Florence, who moved into the city sometime around 1200.  It was a time of urban expansion in Europe, and in the cities of Italy in particular.  From the very beginning the Medici began advancing up the social ladder.  They married into some of the better families.  They forged business alliances with some of the more successful families.  Little by little and generation after generation they did better and better.  Actually their rise was comparatively rapid.  In 1397 Giovanni di Bicci Medici established a bank which soon became the leading Bank not only in Florence but in Europe.  The family had had some previous experience in banking but it was when Giovanni di Bicci took his operation in Rome and moved it back to Florence that it really took off.  In the fifteenth century it was Florence that was the center of the Renaissance and indeed the economic center of Europe.  And the Medici were bankrolling it to their profit.
The Medici knew not only how to run a good bank but how to use a bank to advance themselves not only socially to become the premier family in Florence but politically to control the policies of the Republic.  Ironically few Medici ever held civil office and yet the family were the puppet masters of the great Republic.  Florence had longed been governed as a republic but with a rather clumsy governmental structure of a Council known as the Signoria and composed of representatives of the various guilds.   Members of the Signoria were chosen by the respective guilds to serve terms of two months during which they were sequestered in the municipal palace with little or no contact with the outside world so that they could not be influenced in their decision making by individuals or corporations that might want the city government to go this way or that.  So it worked in theory.  In practice the Medici were always able to make their will known to the officials and officials dutifully followed Medici policy.  So important was their position in society that Cosimo the Elder (1389-1464) became known as Pater Patriae (Father of the Fatherland) though the highest office he ever held was a brief term as Priore della Republica—one of the “priors” or members of the Signoria, the city council.  Cosimo’s grandson was Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492)
On Easter Day 1478 Lorenzo and his brother Guiliano were attacked while they were at Easter Mass in the Cathedral of Florence by a coalition of political rivals under the leadership of the Pazzi Family and with the support of Pope Sixtus IV.  Guiliano died, Lorenzo survived.  The plot failed and the Medici emerged victorious.  Lorenzo’s son went on to become Pope Leo X, the Pope with whom Luther struggled.  Giuliano’s illegitimate son, Giulio, became Pope Clement VII, the Pope Henry would petition for his annulment.
While they successfully staved off the attack by the Pazzi and Pope Sixtus, the Medici eventually ran afoul of the Republic and were banned from the city from 1494 until 1512 when Leo X Medici was able to use his power as pope to have the ban lifted and the family return from exile and restored to power.  They were again sent into exile in 1527 as the Florentines realized that their political machinations were a danger to the Republic.
Now this is where the story will intersect with the Annulment—or lack thereof—requested by Henry VIII.
When the Medici were exiled from Florence in 1527 there was a Medici—Clement VII—on the papal throne.  He was determined to have his family restored to power in Florence as his cousin Leo X had  managed to have them restored after their earlier exile.  But how?  Rome was in ruins after the sack by the troops of Charles VII.  Clement’s Swiss guards had been all but wiped out and indeed the papal armies were not only beaten but decimated.  There was no money to hire mercenaries.   What did Clement have to use as a bargaining chip.
Well, fortunately he had a bastard son, Allesandro (1510-1537).  And fortunately for Clement, the Emperor Charles V had an illegitimate daughter, Margaret of Austria (1522-1586).  Now illegitimate children, especially daughters, can be a bit tricky to place as far as marriages go and Clement—a bastard himself—was not one to quibble about which side of the blanket one had been born on (or actually conceived).   Charles had, of course, just beaten Clement silly in the Sack of Rome but Clement wasn’t one to hold a grudge when it came to family politics.  And besides, Charles himself was horrified that his troops had behaved so sacrilegiously and he needed to make things up to the Pope.  Of course the girl was only five or six, but marriages were arranged that early.  The wedding itself wouldn’t take place until 1536 but negations were underway throughout this period and the deal was this:  Charles should take his army and beat the cr** out of Florence just as he had Rome.  Then he should put an end to this pesky Republic and install the young couple in Florence as the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of a Florence that was now, in name, a fief of the Empire.  Thus the Medici would be restored to Florence and secure in their position.  There was only one problem.  That pesky King of England kept petitioning for an annulment of his marriage to Charles’ aunt.  For the Pope to grant an annulment to Henry would scotch his ambitions for the Medici to be restored in Florence.  Florence or England?  Hmmm.  Which should it be?  In the end Clement was willing to give up England rather than for his family to lose Florence.  As Jesus said, “A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them. This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep.” (John 10:12-13)

Foundations of The Anglican Church XXXVIII

Young Luther in his days as an

Augustinian Friar

In posting his theses for debate Martin Luther had no intention of leading a revolt against the Catholic Church—far from it.  He was a most devout priest but he was also a serious academic and wanted these 95 points argued out in an academic forum in hopes of refocusing the Church and returning it to its roots in scripture and Apostolic Tradition.  Europe was alive with such debate and desire for Church Reformation.  In England you had John Fisher who had been tutor to young Henry before he succeeded to the throne and was now Bishop of Rochester.  And there was John Colet, Dean of London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral. His friend and collaborator in the desire for Church Reform was the Flemish scholar, Desiderius Erasmus, who came to England and taught five years at Cambridge before returning to the Continent where he preached and wrote about Christian humanism and its potential for a renewed Catholicism.  Prior Houghton of the London Carthusians was another enthusiast for Reform as was the rising political star, the lawyer Thomas More.  Throughout Europe—and especially in northern Europe: England, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Austria, Bohemia—academics, churchmen, and serious laity discussed ways in which the Church might be revitalized. 
There had been in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the Rhineland—both German and Dutch—a flowering of spiritual writers including Henry Suso, Johannes Tauler, Thomas á Kempis, Jan Ruysbroeck, and others who made spirituality something for the everyday Christian.   The influence of this spiritual renaissance had spread to England as well with Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich and other spiritual authors who created a vast body of spiritual and devotional literature.  Luther himself had been very much influenced by Tauler and Suso. 
Nothing is more dangerous for the institutional Church than when you have an educated and devout laity and a lazy and comfortable clergy.  Of course many priests and religious had been touched by the revival of spirituality and by a desire for reform in the Church, but the hierarchy, for the greater part,  consisted of men who held their positions for reasons of politics and family.  They were more interested in maintaining their comfortable lives and social prestige.  (Does this sound familiar???  I mean an educated laity interested in renewal and Church leadership interested in protecting the institution for its own sake and their own sake???)  
As I said Luther had personally undergone a deep conversion, not from a sinful life to a graced one, but from a religion of fear of God’s Justice to a faith in God’s mercy.  He wanted to see others learn to trust that faith in Jesus Christ was sufficient and to be freed from the compulsive religiosity that too many clergy were instilling—or trying to instill—in the faithful.  His 95 theses represented not an attack on the Church but on a superficial and unhealthy religiosity that distorted the faith presented in the Scriptures.
The great events of history usually are rooted in conflicts of interest.  Luther—and others—were interested in a spiritual renewal for the faithful.  You may remember that back in 2011 we did a series of posts on the history of Saint Peter’s Basilica. (You can review those posts by clicking on Saint Peter’s Basilica in the column on the right of your webpage marked “labels.”)  In 1505 Pope Julius II—the patron of Michelangelo—had made the decision to demolish the basilica that Constantine had built almost twelve centuries earlier over the tomb of the Apostle and build a new basilica there.  He wanted a grand basilica to hold the elaborate tomb for himself that he had Michelangelo design.  And so the project of building the current basilica began.  It was an enormously expensive project and special indulgences were offered in return for contributions that would go to the building.  (In fact half the proceeds went to Albert of Brandenburg to enable him to recover the immense sum of money he had paid the Holy See to be named Archbishop of Mainz.  You see the problems?)  A Dominican friar by the name of Johann Tetzel was named the Commissioner of Indulgences for Germany and in his zeal to raise the required funds made some outlandish claims about indulgences.  Two of Luther’s 95 theses concerned these claims.  As Tetzel went about preaching indulgences, Luther went about preaching against them.  Luther’s theology was sounder and appealed to the more thoughtful and educated populace—and to the many who did not give a fig about theology but who resented the vast sums leaving Germany for Rome—and sales of indulgences began to drop.   Luther appealed to Pope Leo X, whom Luther mistakenly believed would be more concerned about souls and orthodoxy than basilicas and money but ended up being admonished by the Pope to back off his objections to the sales campaign.  Luther, who had been scandalized by his 1510 visit to Rome, now became increasingly disillusioned with the papacy and with the institutional Church in general.  He stated that far from being assured that “when money clinks in the collection chest” that souls are released from purgatory, one can be assured that “when money clinks in the collection chest” greed and avarice are increased in the hearts of prelates.   By 1521 sales had been in sufficient decline that Luther was excommunicated by the Pope.  (Keep in mind that Leo X was a Medici—that is an important piece of information for when we pick up with Henry and his request for an annulment.  And we will get there—this background is an important piece however to understand what led to Henry’s being refused.) 
Luther did not much bother about excommunication.  Plenty of good people, including saints, had been excommunicated at one time or another.  (And since as well, if you remember the story of Saint Mary MacKillop, the Australian foundress of the Sisters of Saint Joseph.)  What did happen was that more and more people flocked to Luther’s side of the argument.  The Elector Frederick was delighted with the reputation this brought his university.  And Luther began to write extensively attacking the theological exaggerations of the Scholasticism and Late Medieval Theological meanderings and to bring doctrine and practice more in line with the New Testament texts.  Unfortunately Luther did not have much of the historical critical tools we have today and his exegesis is by our standards rather primitive but in the sixteenth century it was state of the intellectual art. 
One of the defenders of Catholic doctrine at this time was no less than King Henry VIII who in 1519 wrote his own theological treaty against Luther, In Defense of the Seven Sacraments.  Henry dedicated the work to Pope Leo X who awarded Henry the title Fidei Defensor, Defender of the Faith.  Ironic, isn’t it; but the title is still carried today by the British Monarch. 

Franciscans of the Immaculate

Cardinal Burke with several Franciscan Friars

of the Immaculate

I came to know the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Immaculate during the more recent time I was living in Rome  between 2001 and 2008.   The friars were given custody of a small Church just as you cross the bridge at Traspontina to go to the Vatican.  You see the friars and the sisters in their blue habits everywhere in Rome.  Well, not everywhere.  You don’t see them in restaurants or bars or hotel lobbies—but everywhere else.  They are lovely people, always kind and welcoming.  
Their order started as a movement within the Conventual Franciscan Order (OFM Conv.).  The Conventuals were the “unreformed” branch of St. Francis’ Order as compared to the Friars Minor (OFM) who were comprised of a number of Reform Movements in the Franciscans that Pope Leo X separated out from the Conventuals in 1517 in order to foster their reformed ideal of returning to Francis’ ideals of poverty.  In 1896 Pope Leo XIII united these various discalced reformed Franciscans into the Friars Minor, the “Brown Franciscans.”  The Conventuals were often known as the “Black Franciscans” for their Black habits.  The black habits, because of the dyes required for the cloth, were considered to be given more to luxury and a less austere life than the “Brown” Franciscans, but having frequently dined (and drank) with the OFM’s. I think that claim about the Black Franciscans being given to luxury was mostly Brown Franciscan publicity material.  Trust me, the Brown Franciscans enjoy life and not at its most simple.  I must admit that I have always preferred the Brown Franciscans but that is because I knew them growing up and they are a great group of guys and do some really fine work in their parishes, retreat centers, Colleges and Universities, and other ministries.  Their Church on 31^st Street in New York and their Arch Street Church in Boston are real beacons of faith in those cities.  They also have custody of the Shrines in the Holy Land and I have always found a warm welcome there when I have been on pilgrimage.  I don’t begrudge them their single malts or aged beef. 
The Conventuals also do fine work and after Vatican II there were a lot of rumblings among the Conventuals about the need to return to Francis’ ideals.   Many of the Conventuals went back to a habit of rougher grey cloth, the original color of the Franciscan habit—the color of undyed wool.  Nevertheless, I remember one time visiting the Conventuals at the Sacro Convento in Assisi—the Church and monastery that mark the site of Francis’ burial.  It is a moving place to go and I have been there often.  I was standing in the courtyard with several friars and a large tanker truck pulled in and began discharging its contents into an underground storage tank.  I asked the friars if that was the heating oil for the winter.  Embarrassed, they replied no, it was their wine being delivered!  I had never seen wine coming in a tanker truck before!!!   At least you know that it would be the vin ordinaire and not a vintage.  In the same Sacro Convento, the story goes, Pope John was being shown around when he took that memorable trip to Assisi in 1962—the first time the Pope had left Rome in over a century.  Of course when the Pope comes everyone is always anxious to impress him and the Pope was being taken through the ancient monastery with the many treasures that had been left as gifts at Francis’ tomb.  Brought into one particularly sumptuous parlor, John has been said to have exclaimed: “Don’t tell me, I know this one—this is the room where Lady Poverty died.”  I am sure that Francis would have seen the Lady Poverty soon followed him to the grave but then Francis, while a saint, had been given to extremes.  Naked to follow the Naked Christ—a beautiful ideal but charity is the greatest gift of all and my experience is that the Franciscans, of whatever stripe, are greatly given to charity.   Well, no, I do have one exception to that rule and he is rather famous—but that is for another posting. 
Well, by and large, the Franciscans in all their branches have taken Vatican II and its call to return to the charism of the founder seriously.  In 1970 a group of Conventuals in the Naples region of Italy, inspired by Saint Maximilian Kolbe, a Conventual Franciscan who gave his life for another prisoner at Auschwitz,  and Saint Maximilian’s devotion to the Immaculate Conception, began a reform in their monastery at Frigento.   Their goal was to lead a Marian life—that is a life in imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.   Fathers Stefano Maria Manelli and Gabriel Maria Pellettieri were the leaders of this movement. 
For reasons that I cannot discover, 30 friars at Frigento and in the Philippines separated themselves from the Conventual Franciscans and started a new congregation of diocesan right (under the local bishop) in 1990.  A sisterhood for women desiring to lead this Franciscan/Marian/Kolbe way of life was established about the same time.  in 1998 these  two communities were made “of pontifical right”—that is responsible to the Holy See, not the local bishop. 
This new Congregation—technically they are not an “Order,” but a “Congregation” (only the communities founded in the Middle Ages such as the Augustinians, Dominicans, Carmelites, Franciscans are Orders; groups founded later—even if they are tied to one of the ancient Orders—are Societies or Congregations)—has found a strong appeal among arch-conservative factions of the faithful.  This is probably due to a number of factors—their strong Marian emphasis, their traditional habit, their ties to Saint Maximilian Kolbe among other reasons.  They seem to be a sound group of religious who are conservative but not off the wall.  A sign of their health is that after forty years they only number about 400 friars and 400 sisters.  This is a good growth rate, a healthy growth rate, but it shows that they are making wise selections in their membership and not open to every nut case who comes along as some of the neo-trad sisterhoods.  Several religious order vocation directors have told me that they turn down nine out of ten applicants because the candidates are not psychologically or spiritually balanced.  Unfortunately, these directors have told me, some of these candidates then apply to dioceses and are accepted to be diocesan priests.  It is obvious that the Franciscans of the Immaculate must be exercising some discretion in their recruiting to have a slow but very steady rate of vocations.  It also says that their formation program must be very sound.
I am not sure what provoked this dispute among them over which Rite to follow in the Mass but an exclusive use of the Tridentine Rite would probably be disastrous both for their ties with the laity and for vocations.  It seems that only between 2 and 4 percent of practicing Catholics are interested in returning to the pre-conciliar rites.  For the Franciscans of the Immaculate to give themselves entirely, or even predominately to these rites would cut off vocations and benefactors.  And while one has no idea how Saint Maximilian Kolbe would feel about the new rites had he lived to see them, they certainly embody the spirit of Saint Francis who was interested in how to evangelize those on the margins of the Church and used many popular techniques, new and innovative to his day, to bring the faith to them.    

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