Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 6 and 7

Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 6 and 7, by John Addington Symonds, is headed The Catholic Reaction and given In Two Parts. Chapter I, The Spanish Hegemony, is summarised as covering Italy in the Renaissance, the Five Great Powers, the Kingdom of Naples, the Papacy, the Duchy of Milan, Venice, the Florentine Republic and Wars of Invasion closed by the Sack of Rome in 1527.

A passage says that when Clement entered the city on October 24, none of the common folk responded to the shouts of his attendants, Viva Papa Clemente. The Pope and his Court were in mourning, under a vow to wear their beards unshorn in memory of their past sufferings. The text says Bibboni's white hose were drenched with blood, that he agreed to separate from Bebo, and that his ill luck brought him face to face with twenty constables. A passage speaks of an age mournfully conscious that its scepter had departed, and of those in vital sympathy with its critical and analytical spirit.