Cultural Trauma, Prophetic Discourse and the Sack of Rome in 1527
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The aim of this article is to shed new light on the relationship between catastrophic historical events, cultural trauma and prophetic discourse, by making use of both historical and sociological analytical models. For this purpose, an exemplary case study has been found in the horrible and devastating sack of Rome in 1527. The destruction of Rome had been prophesied countless times, and in 1527 these prophecies seemed to have come true. How, then, did the prophetic discourse influence the ways in which the traumatic violence and breakdown of social order were perceived, experienced and remembered by various contemporaries? To answer this question, combining historical and sociological models in an original way, I will argue that trauma can—with great reward—be studied as a cultural construct, in which prophetic discourse can be interpreted as a template for framing the traumatic experience into a narrative.
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Alexander Jeffrey C. , et al. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity (Berkeley, London: University of California Press, 2004).
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6
Chastel, The Sack of Rome, 172–174. For Vasari’s assessment of Sebastiano’s idle mood and condition after the Sack, see: G. Vasari, Le Vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori (Florence: Giunti, 1568), 4: 491–492.
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11
Cathy Caruth (ed.), Trauma: Explorations in Memory (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 156.
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13
Jeffrey C. Alexander, et al., Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity (Berkeley, London: University of California Press, 2004), 1.
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19
Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 59–60. One should keep in mind the discussion that Cohn’s monumental work produced, especially when using his sociological concept of millenarianism as a primarily subversive, revolutionary phenomenon—even as a medieval foreshadowing of national-socialism or communism. The critique of this approach was voiced, among others, by Bernard McGinn, who claimed that this approach ignores the fact that prophetic expectations could as easily be used to legitimate established institutions such as the Church or the Empire, as to incite revolutionary millenarian movements. For present purposes, therefore, I must examine sources from both sides of this apocalyptic coin—the revolutionary, anti-Roman voices and the conservative voices of, for example, the papal curialists—in order also to locate the various coping strategies associated with them. See Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), 29–30.
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23
M. Reeves (ed.), Prophetic Rome in the High Renaissance Period (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). The collection of essays in this volume provides a splendid overview of the various prophetic traditions of this period, including an overview chapter on prophecy and the sack of Rome by Reeves, based on Chastel’s essential work. Ottavia Niccoli, Prophecy and People in Renaissance Italy, trans. L.G. Cochrane (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 1990), quotation on p. 192; for a survey and comparison of eschatology in different parts of Europe, see Denis Crouzet, "Millennial Eschatologies in Italy, Germany, and France: 1500–1533," Journal of Millennial Studies 1 (1999) 2; D. Weinstein, Savonarola and Florence: Prophecy and Patriotism in the Renaissance (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 1970). For a very thorough overview of prophecy in Italy at the end of the Middle Ages, see Roberto Rusconi, Profezia e profeti alla fine del Medioevo (Roma: Viella, 1999).
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24
Judith Hook, The Sack of Rome, 1527 (London: Macmillan, 1972).
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37
English translation from Chastel, The Sack of Rome, 117–118. The Latin original can be found in F. Secret (ed.), Scechina e libellus de litteris hebraicis (Rome: Centro Internazionale di Studi Humanistici, 1959), 105: "Urbem Romam caput feceram: quae beneficii oblita nulli peccando cedit: ego quoad licuit defendi: per multorum voces territavi: excidium minata: mutare mores: resipiscere: ad sanitatem redire: hortata sum. Quia minus facta secuta sunt: manum adduxi tuam cum Borbonio."
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38
Chastel, The Sack of Rome, 180. See p. 185 for Clement’s appeal to the cardinals and prelates to do penance for their sins which had caused the sack, as recorded by the Venetian diplomat Sanuto in Orvieto, 1528.
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41
Chastel, The Sack of Rome, 103–104. For Erasmus on the destruction of learning, see p. 96. For Erasmus’ general opinion on the corruption which led to the sack of Rome, see pp. 129–136.
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43
Longhurst, Alfonso de Valdés, 87. The idea that all the punishments had been worthwhile was, however, not only put into the mouth of a Roman member of the clergy by the imperial propagandist Valdés. In a letter to his friend Girolamo Negri, the bishop Sadoleto, having left Rome for his diocese of Carpentras one month before the sack, writes: "Who would justly mourn? And who would not reckon this to have been a type of good luck rather than a calamity?" See Gouwens, Remembering the Renaissance, 123.
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Cultural Trauma, Prophetic Discourse and the Sack of Rome in 1527
In: Journal of Religion in EuropeSearch for other papers by Joost van den Oever in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
The aim of this article is to shed new light on the relationship between catastrophic historical events, cultural trauma and prophetic discourse, by making use of both historical and sociological analytical models. For this purpose, an exemplary case study has been found in the horrible and devastating sack of Rome in 1527. The destruction of Rome had been prophesied countless times, and in 1527 these prophecies seemed to have come true. How, then, did the prophetic discourse influence the ways in which the traumatic violence and breakdown of social order were perceived, experienced and remembered by various contemporaries? To answer this question, combining historical and sociological models in an original way, I will argue that trauma can—with great reward—be studied as a cultural construct, in which prophetic discourse can be interpreted as a template for framing the traumatic experience into a narrative.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 1437 | 502 | 18 |
| Full Text Views | 336 | 17 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 170 | 39 | 0 |
