atholics. Many an image
and shrine was destroyed, while Luther was acclaimed pope by his
boisterous champions. But far away on the Elbe he heard of the sack
and expressed his sorrow for it.

The importance of the sack of Rome, like that of other dramatic events,
is apt to be exaggerated. It has been called the end of the
Renaissance and the beginning of the Catholic reaction. It was neither
the one nor the other, but only one incident in the long, stubborn
process of the Hispanization of Italy and the church. For centuries no
emperor had had so much power in Italy as had Charles. With Naples and
{381} Milan were now linked Siena and Genoa under his rule; the states
of the church were virtually at his disposal, and even Florence, under
its hereditary duke, Alexander de' Medici, was for a while under the
control of the pope and through him, of Charles.

Nor did the fall of the holy city put the fear of God into the hearts
of the prelates for more than a moment. The Medici, Clement, who never
sold his soul but only pawned it from time to time, without entirely
abandoning the idea of reform, indefinitely postponed it.
Procrastinating, timid, false, he was not the man to deal with serious
abuses. He toyed with the idea of a council but when, on the mere
rumor that a council was to be called the prices of all salable offices
dropped in a panic, he hesitated. Moreover he feared the council would
be used by the emperor to subordinate him even in spiritual matters.
Perhaps he meant well, but abuses were too lucrative to be lightly
affronted. As to Lutheranism, Clement was completely misinformed and
almost completely indifferent. While he and the emperor were at odds
it grew mightily. Here as elsewhere he was irresolute; his
pontificate, as a contemporary wrote, was "one of scruples,
considerations and discords, of buts and ifs and thens and moreovers,
and plenty of words without effect."

[Sidenote: Paul III, 1534-49]

The pontificate of Paul III marks the turning point in the Catholic
reaction. Under him the council of Trent was at last opened; the new
orders, especially the Jesuits, were formed, and such instrumentalities
as the Inquisition and Index of prohibited books put on a new footing.
Paul III, a Farnese from the States of the Church, owed his election
partly to his strength of character, partly to the weakness of his
health, for the cardinals liked frequent vacancies in the Holy See.
Cautious and chol