The Pope again fled to the castle of St.Angelo; and for weeks Rome endured an orgy of sacrilege, blasphemy, robbery, murder and lust, the horrors of which no brush could depict nor tongue recite.

"All the churches and the monasteries," says a cardinal who was present, "both of friars and nuns, were sacked.

Many friars were beheaded, even priests at the altar; many old nuns beaten with sticks; many young ones violated, robbed and made prisoners; all the vestments, chalices, silver, were taken from the churches....

Cardinals, bishops, friars, priests, old nuns, infants, pages and servants--the very poorest--were tormented with unheard-of cruelties--the son in the presence of his father, the babe in the sight of its mother.

All the registers and documents of the Camera Apostolica were sacked, torn in pieces, and partly burnt."[487] "Having entered," writes an imperialist to Charles, "our men sacked the whole Borgo and killed almost every one they found...
All the monasteries were rifled, and the ladies who had taken refuge in them carried off.