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Summary
At the start of the 15th century, Rome seemed to be at the end of a long decline. The city that had dominated the entire world centuries earlier was a shadow of its former self, both physically and politically. In the 1st century CE, Rome had a population of about 1 million. At the start of the 15th century the city held perhaps 25,000. Rome was no longer a great center of commerce, and the papacy, which had long sustained the city through its riches and international influence, had moved from Rome to Avignon, France, during the 14th century. In 1420, the papacy returned to Rome under Pope Martin V, and the Papal States, centered in Rome, would assume a position of great importance in Italian affairs in the coming centuries.
After the return of the papacy, the first step in resurrecting Rome was the ascension of Pope Nicholas V in 1447. As a monk in Tuscany, Nicholas V had been helped financially by the Florentine banker Cosimo de Medici, who had lent him money without asking for collateral. As a result, Nicholas appointed Cosimo as Papal Banker. Financed by the Medici family, Nicholas set about founding the Vatican library, where he collected influential works of the ancient scholars from all corners of the continent. With this, he instilled a value of intellectualism at the Vatican, spurring the beginning of Rome’s transformation into a Renaissance city capable of contending with northern Italy.
The Papacy continued to be a force for change in Rome, but as Rome became wealthier and more powerful, corruption grew alongside it. With the election of Pope Sixtus IV in 1471, nepotism reached new and corrupt heights. Sixtus’s “nephews” (the papal nephew was a long-standing way of referring to the pope's illegitimate children) were granted influential posts and huge salaries. Sixtus IV even entered into a conspiracy to have the powerful Medici family assassinated when he thought they were interfering with one of his nephew’s goals. This model for papal rule was followed throughout the Renaissance, undermining papal moral authority, but allowing the Papacy to grow politically and economically strong.
However, at the same time, Pope Sixtus IV took great strides to redesign and rebuild Rome, widening the streets and commissioning the construction of the famed Sistine Chapel. As Rome was gradually transformed and infused with wealth, artists flocked to the city at Sixtus’s behest, seeking Roman gold. In receiving it, they redecorated and rebuilt almost all of Rome, returning it to a state of splendor it had not seen since the Roman Empire.
Analysis
The Middle Ages had not been kind to the city of Rome. By the time of the fourteenth century schism in the Catholic Church, Rome had already fallen into disrepair, its citizens feeling disconnected from their historical roots and reluctant to preserve the already crumbling city. With the Papacy’s headquarters now moved to Avignon, Rome lost the final vestige of wealth and power that had kept it afloat. Romans of the fourteenth century, far removed from the glory of centuries past, saw no hope for their city in the present, and as a result, many emigrated to the flourishing cities of northern Italy to better their lives.
Finally, in 1420, the first glimmer of hope appeared for Rome to catch up to its northern rivals. The Papacy returned to Rome and brought with it the wealth and prestige Rome needed to ascend once again to great heights. Not only was the papacy responsible for the international Catholic Church, whose influence stretched across Europe, but it also headed the government of the turbulent Papal States in Italy. However, this large sphere of influence came with a price.
Conflicts of interest were common, and the pope had to reconcile these conflicts without the backing of a royal family, a strong support system upon which every other monarch in Europe depended. Having no official direct heirs, the pope often turned to papal nephews, who, while claimed to be the children of his brothers and sisters, were more often the illegitimate children of the pope himself. While nepotism was common practice among the Renaissance popes, most popes did little harm by it. Others, however, like Sixtus IV, substantially weakened the moral authority of the Papacy and turned many of his advisors and cardinals against him by giving undue benefits to his papal nephews.
Perhaps even more important than the return of the Papacy to Rome was the connection established with Florence by appointing Cosimo de Medici as Papal Banker. If Florence benefited from its role in the handling of Roman gold, Rome benefited even more from the infusion of Florentine ideas and immigrants. In this way, Rome was able to ride the tide of the Renaissance that had grown strong in Florence, absorbing the principles of humanism and the intellectualism flowing from the north. By the later 15th century, Rome could finally be said to have become a peer of the northern city-states, and its power showed no sign of fading.
