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Meltdown: Sacred silver lost by the church of S. Agostino in the 1527 Sack of Rome
Cowan, Sharon Lee
Cowan, Sharon Lee
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Abstract
An entire category of Central Italian art was all but eliminated in the 1527 Sack of Rome, as finely wrought silver and gold liturgical vessels, crosses, candlesticks and other sacred objects fell victim to looting by the army of Emperor Charles V. As his militia was no match for the invaders, Pope Clement VII reluctantly signed a humiliating capitulation agreement just four weeks after the initial attack. The agreement stipulated that the Pope, his cardinals, and other members of his retinue would remain imprisoned in Castel Sant’Angelo until a ransom of 400,000 ducats was paid. If Clement failed to meet the rapid payment schedule, imperial troops would remain in Rome, torturing and extorting her citizens, looting and re-looting palaces and churches. These were the urgent conditions under which the so-called siege coins of Clement VII were produced. Now extremely rare, these silver ducats were coined by melting down Papal treasure inside Castel Sant’Angelo, as one part of a desperate, multi-pronged effort to raise the necessary funds. To learn how one church outside the Vatican complex experienced the terrifying events of 1527, this study examines the archives of the church and convent of S. Agostino in Campo Marzio for the years just before and after the Sack. Sacristy inventories, account books, and an unusual “incident report” written into the 1524 inventory all shed light on an extraordinary moment in S. Agostino’s history. Careful reading and comparison of these documents reveals a story of death and destruction, money and property, personalities and relationships. In the end, the Augustinians obeyed the Pope’s order, and their sacred silver went into the crucible only to emerge as crudely formed coins. Today, just a few scattered exemplars of the siege ducats of Clement VII are known to exist – the last physical residue of the fine Renaissance works of art that were sacrificed to produce them.
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Master of Arts in Art History -- John Cabot University, Spring 2025.
Date
2025
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Keywords
Siege of Rome, 1527, Art, Mutilation, defacement, etc.
Citation
Cowan, Sharon Lee. "Meltdown: Sacred silver lost by the church of S. Agostino in the 1527 Sack of Rome". Master's Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2025.