X-Nico

9 unusual facts about Pope Clement VII


Alfonso Lombardi

According to Vasari, Lombardi was commissioned and prepared models for Pope Clement VII’s sepulchral monument, but this project was never completed due to the death of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, who had promised the work to Lombardi.

Benedetto Accolti the Younger

He was promoted bishop of Cadiz on 24 July 1521, before reaching canonical age of 27, so he was named administrator after his uncle.Then he was transferred to Cremona on 16 March 1523 again after his uncle and then named Secretary of Pope Clement VII the same year.

Edward Foxe

In 1528 he was sent with Bishop Stephen Gardiner to Rome to obtain from Pope Clement VII a decretal commission for the trial and decision of the case between King Henry VIII of England and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Florentine Histories

At the end of that year, Cardinal Giulio de Medici, later Pope Clement VII, commissioned him history of Florence.

Giglio Gregorio Giraldi

About the year 1514 he removed to Rome, where, under Clement VII, he held the office of apostolic protonotary; but having in the sack of that city (1527), which almost coincided with the death of his patron Cardinal Rangone, lost all his property, he returned in poverty once more to Mirandola, whence again he was driven by the troubles consequent on the assassination of the reigning prince in 1533.

Moyenmoutier

In 1604 the resulting new constitution of the Congrégation of St. Vanne and St. Hydulphe received papal approval.

Papal conclave, 1521–22

The conclave was marked by the early candidacies of cardinal-nephew Giulio de'Medici (future Pope Clement VII) and Alessandro Farnese (future Pope Paul III), although the Colonna and other cardinals blocked their election.

The preferred choice of Henry VIII was Thomas Wolsey (for whom he was prepared to spend 100,000 ducats), although Giulio de'Medici (future Pope Clement VII) was also acceptable to him.

The Baptism of Constantine

The painter has given Sylvester the traits of Clement VII, the Pope who had ordered the frescoes to be finished, after the work was interrupted during the papacy of Hadrian VI.


Agnolo Firenzuola

Firenzuola left Rome after the death of Pope Clement VII, and after spending some time at Florence, settled at Prato as abbot of San Salvatore.

Castel Sant'Angelo

The fortress was the refuge of Pope Clement VII from the siege of Charles V's Landsknechte during the Sack of Rome (1527), in which Benvenuto Cellini describes strolling the ramparts and shooting enemy soldiers.

George Learmond

It was not to last, however: he was plucked from the cloister on May 20, 1529 when Pope Clement VII appointed him colleague and successor to Bishop Gavin Dunbar, although Learmonth predeceased the Bishop of Aberdeen, dying on March 18, 1531.

Peter of Ancarano

The dispensation was granted by John XXIII, against quite recent precedent (the 1392 case of Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac who wished to marry the widow of his late brother John III, Count of Armagnac, and was refused by Pope Clement VII); and proceeded on the basis of an opinion of Peter of Ancarano (influenced by Andrea).

Pozzo di S. Patrizio

It was built by architect-engineer Antonio da Sangallo the Younger of Florence, between 1527 and 1537, at the behest of Pope Clement VII who had taken refuge at Orvieto during the sack of Rome in 1527 by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and feared that the city's water supply would be insufficient in the event of a siege.


see also

Primo visto

A brief poem by the French Humanist Mellin de Saint-Gelais written in 1525 describes Francisco I, Pope Clement VII and Charles V (each involved in a struggle for the possession of Italy) playing a hand of "Prime" (a game similar to Primero and to the "Flux").