Sebastiano del Piombo and Pope Clement VII Medici

Sebastiano del Piombo
Portrait of Pope Clement VII Medici
ca. 1526
oil on canvas
Museo di Capodimonte, Naples

     "On November 19, 1523, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, a prelate of unimpeachable dignity, was elected to the papacy with considerable difficulty. What was wanted was an enlightened prince, a diplomat, to succeed the brief pontificate of the Dutchman, Adrian VI (January 1522-September 1523), whose austerity and desire for reform were received with general unpopularity. Such a pope was found in the nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent." 

Sebastiano del Piombo
Portrait of Pope Clement VII Medici
ca. 1531
oil on slate
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Sebastiano del Piombo
Portrait of Pope Clement VII Medici
ca. 1532-34
oil on canvas
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

     "On October 6, 1528, Clement returned to Rome with an escort of infantry and cavalry. The caput mundi had been a ghost town for six months.  . . .  When Clement returned to Rome he looked quite different. He had aged and now wore a long beard, as was noted by the entire diplomatic corps. Sanuto's Diario says, "He has a long and hoary beard." This tradition took on great significance in the case of a pontiff. Many members of the clergy imitated him to perpetuate the memory and sorrow of their common misfortune. Clement kept his long beard of 1528 until his death [in 1534]. That intense and noble portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo [the final one, directly above] became the standard figuration of Clement VII.  . . .  Facial hair, a sign of mourning that suddenly became widespread among Roman clerics, seems to have been a way of protesting against the perpetrators of the sack, the imperialists." 

– André Chastel, The Sack of Rome, 1527, translated by Beth Archer, 1983 (expanded from the A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1977, and published by Princeton University Press and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)

Anonymous Flemish Artist
King Sapor of Persia humiliating Valerian
ca. 1525-35
oil on panel
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts

The anonymous painting directly above can plausibly be interpreted as a commentary on the 1527 Sack of Rome.  It ostensibly represents an episode from the later history of the Roman Empire, when the 3rd-century Emperor Valerian was defeated in battle by the Persians, subsequently kept prisoner for the remainder of his life, and ritually degraded by being forced to perform as a footstool when the Persian King mounted his horse.  The Flemish artist has, however, given the Persian King the features of his own sovereign, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.  And at just the time when this picture was created, it was Charles who ordered the Sack of Rome and who benefitted by the consequent humiliation of the Pope.