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season three

Episode 46 – The Sack of Rome

Pope Clement tries once more to loosen Emperor Charles V’s grip on Italy, another revolution in Florence is narrowly avoided through one man’s incompetence, and the stage is set for one of modern history’s most notorious war-time atrocities.

Dirck Volckertsz, “Sack of Rome in 1527 and the Death of Charles III, Duke of Bourbon” from The Victories of Charles V (1555/1556). Source: British Museum, London.
Francisco Javier Amérigo, The Sack of Rome (1884). Source: Victor Balaguer Museum & Library, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Catalonia, Spain.
The Castel Sant’Angelo or the Mausoleum of Hadrian, where Pope Clement VII had to spend a nightmarish month taking shelter with 3,000 Roman civilians during the sack. Source: 0x010c on Wikimedia.

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season three

Episode 45: The Edge of the Abyss

Clement VII brings back the artistic glories of Renaissance Rome, but disaster for himself, his family, and for Rome looms overhead. 
The Baptism of Constantine I (1517-1524) . It is part of a series of frescos started during the pontificate of Leo X and continued under Clement VII on the life and conversion of Emperor Constantine I by Giulio Romano and Giovan Francesco Panini. Pope Clement is included in the painting as Pope Sylvester. Source: The Apostolic Palace, Vatican City.

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season three

Episode 44: Interregnum

After Leo X’s sudden death, the Medici are briefly out of power in the papacy. In the meantime, Emperor Charles V changes the landscape of European politics by getting elected as Holy Roman Emperor, and the fate of the Medici family is put in the hands of an orphaned, illegitimate son.

A 1528 portrait of Giulio de’ Medici, Pope Clement VII, by Sebastiano del Piombo. Source: J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California.

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season three

Episode 43: The Drunken German

While Pope Leo works with the artist Raphael toward the preservation of Roman antiquities and tries to steer Italy between the deadly rocks of France, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire, a little problem crops up to demand his attention. And that little problem had a name: Martin Luther. 

Michelangelo’s engravings with the tomb of Lorenzo “the Younger” in the New Sacristy at the Church of San Lorenzo, depicting Dusk and Dawn. Source: Romain Rolland, The Life of Michael Angelo (1912).
Michelangelo’s engravings with the tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici in the New Sacristy at the Church of San Lorenzo, depicting Day and Night. Source: Romain Rolland, The Life of Michael Angelo (1912).
A contemporaneous portrait of Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder. Date: 1528. Source: Coburg Fortress Gallery.

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season three

Episode 42: The Orphan

A new Medici is born amidst tragedy, Pope Leo struggles with the threats posed by France, Spain, and the Holy Roman and Ottoman empires and a deadly conspiracy close to home, and an obscure monk and university lecturer in Germany starts to inspire a bit of controversy. 

A portrait possibly of Madeleine de La Tour d’Auvergne, the mother of Catherine de’ Medici and wife of Lorenzo “the Younger.” Date unknown. Source: Uffizi Gallery.

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season three

Episode 41: The Prince

Pope Leo X goes through his own “annus mirabilis.” Meanwhile the next generation of Medici men come into their own: the wannabe aristocrat, Lorenzo “the Younger”, and the juvenile delinquent turned freelance mercenary, Giovanni of the Black Bands. 

A portrait of Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, by Raphael (1518). Note the ostentatious dress in the style of a French nobleman in contrast to the more modest patrician clothing worn by his grandfather Lorenzo the Magnificent and his uncle Giuliano. Source: Private collection.
A portrait depicting Giovanni “of the Black Bands” painted after his death by Francesco de’ Rossi (1548). Source: Soprintendenza Speciale Per Il Polo Museale Fiorentino.

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season three

Episode 40: New World Order

We look at Pope Leo X’s reign, from how he got an edition of a pivotal Jewish text dedicated to him to the elaborate practical joke he engineered involving his pet elephant and an old-fashioned Roman triumph. But Leo also has to face the fact that  the fate of Europe now lays in the hands of three young, ambitious, and powerful monarchs. 

A portrait of Giuliano de’ Medici, duc de Nemours, who was Lorenzo the Magnificent’s youngest son (c. 1515) by Raphael’s workshop. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
King Henry VIII as a young man. Date and artist unknown. Source: National Portrait Gallery, London.
King François I of France (c. 1530) from the workshop of Joos van Cleve. Source: Private collection.
Portrait of Emperor Charles V as a young man by Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen (1535). Source: Private collection.

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season three

Episode 39: The Lion of God

The unlikely partnership between the bookish, affable Giovanni de’ Medici and the rough-and-tumble Pope Julius II will finally bring the Medici back to power and set the stage for Giovanni’s turn as Pope Leo X, which would prove to be one of the most consequential papal reigns in history for reasons no one could have predicted.

A contemporaneous portrait of Giuliano della Rovere, Pope Julius II, by Raphael (1511). Despite their very different personalities, Pope Julius was Giovanni de’ Medici’s mentor and biggest benefactor, playing an essential role in the Medici’s restoration. Source: The National Gallery, London.

Raphael’s portrait of Pope Leo X with his cousins, Giulio de’ Medici (the future Pope Clement VII) and Luigi de’ Rossi, who were both cardinals (1518). Source: Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

Sketches of Hanno the Elephant by Giulio Romano (c. 1515). Hanno proved to be the most popular attraction at Leo X’s coronation and essentially became the Pope’s pet.

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season three

Episode 38: Mother Church

The Catholic Church was once the most important, omnipresent institution in Europe. Before we meet the Medici Popes, we’ll delve into what exactly the Church did for the people, from providing early nursing homes to giving people one of the few shots at social mobility, and how powerful the Popes really were.

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season three

Episode 37: The Exile

Still in exile, Piero de’ Medici throws himself on the mercy of the new king of France and Cesare Borgia. But will they prove to be reliable friends?


“Bayard on the Bridge of Garigliano”, a painting depicting the Battle of Garigliano (December 29, 1503) by Félix Henri Emmanuel Philippoteaux (1840). Source: Palais de Versailles.
A contemporaneous portrait of King Louis XII of France from the workshop of Jean Perréal (c. 1514). Source: The Royal Collection at Hampton Court Palace.