[5][6][4] Assuming leadership at a time of crisis, with the Protestant Reformation spreading, the Church nearing bankruptcy, and large foreign armies invading Italy, Clement initially tried to unite Christendom by making peace among the many Christian leaders then at odds.

In contrast to his tortured pontificate, Clement was personally respectable and devout, possessing a "dignified propriety of character", "great acquirements both theological and scientific", as well as "extraordinary address and penetration—Clement VII, in serener times, might have administered the Papal power with high reputation and enviable prosperity.

[11][12][13] In matters of science, Clement is best known for approving, in 1533, Nicolaus Copernicus's theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun—99 years before Galileo Galilei's heresy trial for similar ideas.

"Learned, clever, respectable, and industrious",[attribution needed] Giulio de' Medici's reputation and responsibilities grew at a rapid pace, unusual even for the Renaissance.

[30] Cardinal Giulio's foreign policy was shaped by the idea of la libertà d'Italia, which aimed to free Italy and the Church from French and Imperial domination.

[7] Similarly, Cardinal Giulio's artistic patronage was admired (e.g., his commissioning Raphael's Transfiguration and Michelangelo's Medici Chapel, among other works), particularly for what goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini later called its "excellent taste".

[5] Adams chronicles the cardinal as having "reduced the business of the magistrates, elections, customs of office, and the mode of expenditure of public money, in such a manner that it produced a great and universal joy among the citizens".

[5] When it became clear that these rumors were untrue, a faction of mostly elite Florentines hatched a plot to assassinate him and then install their own government under his "great adversary", Cardinal Francesco Soderini.

"[5] Following Adrian VI's death on 14 September 1523, Cardinal Giulio overcame the opposition of the French king[44] and finally succeeded in being elected Pope Clement VII in the next conclave (19 November 1523).

At his accession, Clement VII sent the Archbishop of Capua, Nikolaus von Schönberg, to the kings of France, Spain, and England, in order to bring the Italian War to an end.

This treaty granted the definitive acquisition of Parma and Piacenza for the Papal States, the rule of Medici over Florence and the free passage of the French troops to Naples.

[48] In his 1529 bull Intra Arcana Clement VII gave a grant of permissions and privileges to Charles V and the Spanish Empire, which included the power of patronage within their colonies in the Americas.

[49][50] The Pope's wavering politics also caused the rise of the Imperial party inside the Curia: Cardinal Pompeo Colonna's soldiers pillaged Vatican Hill and gained control of the whole of Rome in his name.

[dubious – discuss] Charles of Bourbon died while mounting a ladder during the short siege and his starving troops, unpaid and left without a guide, felt free to ravage Rome from 6 May 1527.

He agreed to pay a ransom of 400,000 ducats in exchange for his life; conditions included the cession of Parma, Piacenza, Civitavecchia, and Modena to the Holy Roman Empire.

Subsequently, the Pope followed a policy of subservience to the emperor, endeavouring on the one hand to induce him to act with severity against the Lutherans in Germany and on the other to avoid his demands for a general council.

This was in contradiction to Catholic canon law,[51] which required priests to be clean-shaven, but had as precedent the beard Pope Julius II wore for nine months in 1511–12 as a sign of mourning for the papal city of Bologna.

In 1527 Henry asked Clement to annul the marriage, but the Pope, possibly acting under pressure from Catherine's nephew, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, whose effective prisoner he was, refused.

[55] Many people close to Henry wished simply to ignore Clement, but in October 1530 a meeting of clergy and lawyers advised that the Parliament of England could not empower the Archbishop of Canterbury to act against the Pope's prohibition.

Strathern writes of how he had been ill for months: "[he] was aging rapidly...his liver was failing and his skin turned yellow; he also lost the sight of one eye and became partially blind in the other.

As warfare on the Italian peninsula intensified in the mid-1520s, the imperative of autonomy [for the Catholic Church and Italy] required enormous financial outlays to field standing armies.

Should the new monarchs of the early modern period reduce the papacy to a mere appendage of secular authority, religious issues would become little more than state policy.... Clement VII attempted to restrain the expansion of royal power and maintain the independence of Rome and of papal prerogatives.

Chamberlin writes, "in all but his personal attributes, Clement VII was a protagonist in a Greek tragedy, the victim called upon to endure the results of actions committed long before.

Each temporal claim of his predecessors had entangled the Papacy just a little more in the lethal game of politics, even while each moral debasement divorced it just a little more from the vast body of Christians from whom ultimately it drew its strength.

At one time or another he battled the Holy Roman Empire (now fueled by precious metals from America), the French, the Turks, rival Italian powers, fractious forces within the papal states, and entrenched interests within the Curia itself.

[84][85][86][87] "As a patron, [Giulio de' Medici] proved extraordinarily confident in technical affairs," which allowed him to suggest workable architectural and artistic solutions for commissions ranging from Michelangelo's Laurentian Library to Benvenuto Cellini's celebrated Papal Morse.

Some of the best known works associated with him are Erasmus' On Free Will, which he encouraged in response to Martin Luther's critiques of the Catholic Church; Machiavelli's Florentine Histories, which he commissioned; and Copernicus' heliocentric idea, which he personally approved in 1533.

"[35] For example, "Clement VII had no difficulty in accepting Copernicus's heliocentric idea, and appeared to see no challenge to his faith in its implications; his Renaissance humanism was open to such progressive theories.

He also inherited something of his great-grandfather Cosimo de' Medici's skill with accounts, as well as a strong inclination to his legendary caution, making the new pope hesitant when it came to taking important decisions; and unlike his cousin Leo X, he possessed a deep understanding of art.

"[35] The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that while his "private life was free from reproach and he had many excellent impulses ... despite good intention, all qualities of heroism and greatness must emphatically be denied him.