against Charles V., in whose name this insult had been offered to the Holy City of Christendom, together with Charles's own tardy willingness to make amends, restored the Papacy to the respect of Europe.
[1] See, for instance, Berni's sonnets.

In one of these, Berni very powerfully describes the vacillation and irresolution of Clement's state-policy.
[2] See Varchi's picture of the state of Rome, _St.Fior._ ii.
[3] So Luigi Guicciardini in his account of the sack of Rome relates.
It is well known that at this crisis the Emperor seriously thought of putting an end to the State of the Church.

His councilors advised him to restore the Pope to his original rank of Bishop, and to make Rome again the seat of Empire.[1] But to have done this would have been impossible under the political conditions of the sixteenth century, and in the face of Christendom still Catholic.

His deliberations, therefore, cost Rome the miseries of the sack; but they were speedily superseded by the determination to strengthen the Papal by means of the Imperial authority in Italy.

Florence was given as a make-peace offering to the contemptible Medici; and it remains the worst shame of Clement that he used the dregs of the army that had sacked Rome for the enslavement of his mother-city.
[1] See the authorities in Greg.