Faustus: The Life and Times of a Renaissance Magician

by Leo Ruickbie

  It was Admiral Guillaume Gouffier, Seigneur de Bonnivet (c.1488–1525), who led the army into the Milanese. Hugely outnumbered, Prospero Colonna wisely fell back on Milan, abandoning the western part of the Duchy to the French. If Faustus was there he would have found himself in an unprepared city that, if Bonnivet had only pressed on, would have easily fallen to the French. As well as Milan, the Empire still held Pavia, Lodi, and Cremona, and Colonna now concentrated his defence on these cities. By the time Bonnivet reached Milan he found the city ready for him and settled down to starve the Milanese into submission, sending von Sickingen’s old enemy Bayard to take Lodi and Cremona.

  Although Lodi surrendered, Cremona successfully resisted and Bayard was recalled. The election of Giulio de’ Medici as Pope Clement VII on 19 November 1523 brought money and men to the Empire’s side, compelling Bonnivet to break the siege of Milan and retreat to the Ticino. Not even the death of Colonna in December offered the French an advantage as the Viceroy of Naples, Charles de Lannoy (1487–1527), and the Marquis of Pescara stepped swiftly into the breach. With reinforcements arriving from Germany and support from Venice, the Imperialists advanced against Bonnivet, driving him back to Novara in the Piedmont. Bonnivet was finally defeated at the Battle of Sesia on 30 April 1524. France’s great hero Bayard was killed by a harquebus ball as he fought a rearguard action enabling the wounded Bonnivet and the rest of the army to escape.

  Bourbon and Pescara pressed their advantage, advancing into Provence and laying siege to Marseilles on 19 August. Here Renzo da Ceri, the Orsini captain, put up a strong defence, aided from the sea by the galleys of Andrea Doria. François hurriedly assembled an army to relieve Marseilles. With time running out, Bourbon urged his men to an all out attack on 4 September, but Marseilles was too strongly defended. With Pescara openly against the whole expedition and the relief army on its way, Bourbon conceded defeat and marched his men back the way they had come with Anne, Duc de Montmorency (1493–1567), snapping at his heels. The Imperial army went to ground once more in its strongholds of Milan, Alessandria, Pavia, Lodi, Pizzighettone and Cremona. The strategy had worked against Bonnivet before, but, in the shifting mire of Italian politics, would it work again?

  The Battle of Pavia (1525)

  For some historians it would mark the end of the Middle Ages, for others it would mark a new development in warfare; certainly it would be one of the most dramatic battles of the age. The French had been encamped outside the town of Pavia since late 1524 conducting a leisurely siege: ‘the king said, “Let us sit here until the bread cease”; and they died of hunger.’8

  Since marching triumphantly back into Milan – whose garrison had been decimated by plague – the French were moving confidently through Lombardy, strong in their new alliance with Pope Clement VII and with Giovanni de’ Medici now in their pay, but Pavia, that stone in their path some twenty miles to the south, would not yield. François I had somewhere between 26,000 and 40,000 men in Italy at his disposal, but this fortified town, garrisoned by only 6,000 to 9,000 men under Antonio de Leyva (1480–1536), Duke of Terranova, checked his advance.

  The long siege allowed the Imperial forces to organise themselves. Bourbon was the first to arrive, marching out of nearby Lodi to the north-east. By the beginning of February the commander-in-chief of the Imperial army in Italy, Charles de Lannoy, together with Fernando de Avalos, arrived with the rest of the army. The Imperialists could now field more infantry; François I had the advantage in cavalry and cannon.

  De Lannoy opened with a bombardment to distract the French from their assault on Pavia. Protected by the walls of the hunting park, the French were in a strong position. The bombardment lasted most of the month, achieving little. With food, munitions and morale running out for the defenders of Pavia, the Imperial army was compelled to step up the attack.

  The battle began on a misty morning in the dark hours before sunrise. Alfonso d’Avalos was first into action leading a force of harquebusiers, whilst French and Imperial light cavalry clashed swords. François I was quick to deploy his troops, countering the Imperial advance with artillery fire so that a fog of gunsmoke obscured the rising sun. Impetuously, François led his cavalry into the fray, routing de Lannoy’s centre, but he had ridden across his own guns, blocking their line of fire. François had single-handedly thrown away his advantages. Cut off and struggling on the boggy ground, the heavy cavalry was all but helpless. Turning to face advancing ranks of pikemen, heavy fire from Spanish harquebusiers tore the flower of French chivalry to shreds.

  De Leyva led the garrison out of Pavia and the French were hammered on all sides. As the smoke cleared from the battlefield it became obvious that de Lannoy had won a decisive victory. François I had been captured and his army scattered and put to flight, and all on the Emperor’s birthday.

  Faustus would not have been surprised. As he may have been able to inform the victorious Imperial leaders, the outcome had been foretold. According to the astrologer Erasmus Rheinhold (1511–1553): ‘Those that have Mars in the fourth house, in a position of dejection, are unfortunate warriors.’9 François I had Mars in the fourth house.

  Writing shortly afterwards, the Spanish Humanist, Alfonso de Valdés (1500–1532), crowed over the victory: ‘It seems that God has miraculously given this victory to the Emperor.’10 The French may have been defeated, but the war was far from over. The French had been trounced at Pavia, but before long they would be back for more.

  De Valdés also expressed concern about ‘the Turk’, and he had good cause. Continued French aggression gave the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I a golden opportunity and he marched out from Belgrade at the head of a vast army, numbering between 70,000 and 100,000 soldiers. With Poland and Venice declaring neutrality, Ladislas II (1506–1526) of Hungary was left to face the approaching horde on his own. Ladislas led what troops he had in a glorious cavalry charge against greatly superior forces. It was a gesture of defiance, of chivalric insouciance, and was doomed to fail. Suleiman was only compelled to delay his continued assault on Europe by the necessity of quelling revolts in Cilicia and Maramania.

  A prophecy made by Augustin Bader of Augsburg in 1527 and repeated by Paracelsus foretold that the Turks would reach the Rhine, destroying the current order and subjugating all in an empire that forcibly united Christian, Jew, Turk and pagan.11 Suleiman would be back.

  The Sack of Rome (1527)

  According to the Faustbook, Faustus, like the Imperial army, also made it as far as Rome. After trudging around the ‘Holy City’ taking in the sights, Faustus returned to the west bank of the Tiber and the Vatican complex to see the Pope’s palace and ‘his manner of service at his table’.12 The palace that Faustus would have seen was a mishmash of Nicholas III’s (r.1277–1280) incomplete fortress, Nicholas V’s (r.1447–1455) enlargements, Sixtus IV’s (r.1471–1484) library and Sistine Chapel, Innocent VIII’s (r.1484–1492) Belvedere Palace, Alexander VI’s (r.1492–1503) Borgia Tower and Julius II’s (r. 1503–1513) huge Belvedere Court.

  But Faustus was not interested in architecture. Walking under the shadow of the imposing stonework looming above them, ‘he and his Spirit made themselves invisible’ and slipped past the halberds of the Swiss Guards ‘into the Popes Court, and privie chamber where he was’.13 Someone like Faustus could chose from three prescriptions ‘for invisibility’ in Codex 849 alone.

  In the inner sanctum of Clement VII (r.1523–1534), Faustus and Mephistopheles watched ‘the many servants attendant on his holiness, with many a flattering Sycophant carrying of his meat’. Even the Faustus of the Faustbook, so used to clothing himself in the finest raiment and eating the choicest faire, is astounded by the ‘unmeasurable and sumptuous’ feast: ‘fie (quoth Faustus) why had not the Devil made a Pope of me?’14 The heavy satire did not end there.

  Faustus, looking around, saw many like the Faustbook’s version of himself: ‘proud, stout, wilful, gluttons, drunkards, whoremongers, breakers of wedlock, and followers of all manner of ungodl
y exercises.’ Marvelling at such a debauched crew, he turned to Mephistopheles and complained that ‘I thought that I had been alone a hog, or pork of the devils’. Feeling quite at home, Faustus decided to stay awhile.15

  In the Faustbook he stayed three days, watching the Pope throw one sumptuous party after another. Roused by the author’s Protestant disgust at the Pope’s habit of continuously blessing and making the sign of the cross over his mouth, the invisible Faustus slapped him on the face and burst into a fit of loud laughter. The startled Pope quickly composed himself and explained the incident away as a damned soul, ‘commanding a Mass presently to be said for his deliverie out of Purgatory’. The Pope waved his hand and it was done, while he continued to sit at his dinner table. When the next dish was brought in Faustus snatched it up, saying ‘this is mine’, and rushed out. Faustus ordered Mephistopheles to bring him wine and the Pope’s own goblet to ‘make good cheer in spite of the Pope and all his fat abbey lubbers’.16

  Robbed of their wine, the Pope and his companions blamed the damned soul again. Mass was ordered to be said in every Church and the bells to be rung in every belfry throughout Rome, and in addition that the spirit be cursed with ‘Bell, Book, and Candle’.

  Bell, book, and candle; candle, book and bell,

  Forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell.17

  ‘Bell, book and candle’ is the popular phrase for ceremonial excommunication from the Church of Rome. A bishop attended by twelve priests would recite the terrible formula before the altar. It is as close to a curse as Christianity gets. The victim is denied the succour of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and is condemned to hell where Satan will mortify his body.

  The bishop rings a bell to symbolise the death knell, closes a holy book to symbolise the excommunicant’s separation from the church and snuffs out a candle or candles, knocking them to the floor, to symbolise the excommunicant’s soul being extinguished and removed from the light of God. In effect it is a sentence of spiritual death and anyone thus excommunicated who does not seek absolution within one year is automatically suspected of heresy. For all the gravity of the ceremony, Marlowe could not resist satirising the peevishness of the Pope and his gang, having them chant: ‘Cursed be he that took away our holiness’ wine’ (iii.2.101–110). In the Faustbook Faustus was nonplussed by the din of bells and chanting priests, and instead ‘made good cheer’ before summoning up a terrifying thunderstorm and taking his leave of the Holy City.18

  It is the incident not mentioned in the Faustbook that Faustus surely claimed responsibility for. It was another great victory for the Imperial army, but it was also their disgrace. The so-called ‘Sack of Rome’ of 1527 by the troops of Charles V was, to his chagrin, the culmination and crowning victory of his Italian campaigns. Pope Clement VII’s double-dealing to try and free himself from Imperial domination had finally led to his ruin.

  With the French king François I now his prisoner, Charles V constrained him to sign the Treaty of Madrid (14 January 1526), to confirm its terms by his solemn oath and swear to abide by it upon his honour as a knight. Under its conditions François agreed to marry the Emperor’s sister, Eleonora, to renounce all his rights over Milan, Naples, Genoa, Asti, together with the suzerainty of Flanders, Artois, and Tournai. He ceded to Charles the Duchy of Burgundy, excluding its traditional dependencies. The Duke of Bourbon was to be pardoned, all of his confiscated lands to be restored, and to be reimbursed for his expenses. François was to cease to be the ally of the Duke of Gelders and retract all the claims of d’Albret to Navarre. He agreed to hand over his two sons as surety and to surrender himself in the event of non-fulfilment. Satisfied by his word of honour, Charles released François in February 1526.

  As soon as François was safely back in Paris he reneged on his promises to the Duke of Bourbon, broke the terms he had sworn by the Treaty of Madrid, denied that he had been defeated at Pavia and sold off the Duke of Bourbon’s lands to other French nobles, notwithstanding the fact that he had handed over his sons as hostages. On 22 May, together with Rome, Venice, Milan and Florence he concluded the League of Cognac against the Empire. Charles V’s army would soon be facing him again on the field of battle.

  The Duke of Bourbon, once more betrayed by his perfidious king, asked Charles V for financial help, but the Emperor had more pressing matters to contend with and granted Bourbon the title of Duke of Milan and the command of another large army with which to occupy northern Italy. In the summer of 1526, as the money ran out, Bourbon’s control over this army began to deteriorate. Unable to provide for his troops in any other way, Bourbon began selling off the last of his family heirlooms and jewels to pay the soldiers.

  Charles V had meanwhile sent an envoy to the Pope, but obtaining no satisfaction from that quarter, sought out the disaffected Colonna family and renewed old alliances. Lulling the Papal army into a false sense of security by pretending a reconciliation, Pompeo Colonna led an unexpected assault upon Rome on 20 September 1526. He cornered Clement in the Castle of Sant’Angelo whilst his followers plundered the Vatican. Charles distanced himself from the action, but took advantage of the situation. Clement was lost. With no idea what to do he turned from the League to the Empire and, following a minor victory, back to the League again. Finally, he signed an eight month truce with Charles on condition that he pay an immediate indemnity of 60,000 ducats.

  By early 1527 the Duke of Bourbon had sold off all of his treasures and was forced to turn a blind eye while his soldiers looted neighbouring towns. From February to May Imperial soldiers ravaged the northern Italian countryside with impunity, all the time on the verge of open mutiny. Churches were stripped of any gold and silver that could be melted down to pay the mercenaries as Bourbon’s pleas for funding went unheard. Even von Frundsberg was having problems controlling his men. Elderly and in poor health, he resigned his commission and returned home. Now, on hearing of the 60,000 ducats, the soldiers’ threats of mutiny became louder. The Imperial commissioners went back to Clement VII and squeezed 40,000 more ducats out of his coffers.

  The promised ducats did not reach the men whose prowess in arms had made it all possible. In April Bourbon had little choice but to accede to the wishes of his men to attack and loot the fabulously wealthy city of Rome. Pope Clement VII thought that he was safe behind his wall of treaties and promised gold, safe in the belief that no one would ever dare to storm the inviolable capital of all Christendom, but as the hungry Imperial army approached Rome, he hastily ordered the inhabitants to rally to the city’s defence. Only a few thousand answered the summons to meet the 20,000 strong army when it arrived on 5 May. Thinly spread along the walls and with only a few old cannons, the citizen levies must have had little hope in resisting the coming attack. It did not take an astrologer to divine the outcome, but Faustus might have comfortably made his prediction. Rome’s star was in the descendent.

  There was a comet that year; astrologically it portended terrible things: war, plague, famine, earthquake, fire and flood. There were other signs for Faustus to interpret. Parhelia, a phenomenon in which light intensifies at the rim of the solar halo to give the appearance of up to two additional suns in the sky, was seen prior to the battle. The numerical significance of three was often connected to the Trinity and hence indicated a Christian victory. But the coming battle was Christian against Christian, which one would prevail? Who was the more Christian? The heretical Protestants, or the debauched, idolatrous Romans? Providence, as always, was on the side of the big guns.

  On the morning of 6 May, as thick fog swathed the walls, Bourbon gave the order to attack. His men took up the cry ‘kill, kill, blood, blood, Bourbon, Bourbon’.19 Leading gallantly from the front, Bourbon was almost immediately struck by a harquebus ball fired by one of the defenders and killed. The Italian artist, musician and goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571) later claimed credit for the fatal shot. Despite the loss of their general, the army easily overwhelmed the city’s meagre defences, and leader-less were freed
to vent the darkest cruelty of their hearts upon the city and its people in a murderous rampage and orgy of rape.

  The Swiss Guard put up a brave defence on the steps of St Peter’s Basilica, allowing Clement VII to scurry to safety down the passetto, the secret passage linking the Vatican to the Castel Sant’Angelo. His escape was short lived. Without any further secret passages to lead him out of the city, he managed to hold out in his castle until 5 June. The Castel Sant’Angelo now became his prison, but 400,000 ducats bought a comfortable confinement.

  Of the 55,000 men, women and children in Rome many had fled the city. Of those unlucky enough to find themselves without the convenience of a secret passage, thousands were put to the sword by the rampaging soldiers. One sober estimate put the number of dead at 4,000. Their religious differences aside, Catholic and Protestant soldiers united in desecrating the Eternal City. Thomas More (1478–1553) described captives having their genitals torn off. Women, even those in religious orders, were violated, ambassadors were robbed, cardinals were ransomed, ecclesiastical dignitaries and ceremonies were mocked, and the soldiers squabbled over the spoils of war. Churches, shrines and other historic monuments were looted and in some cases destroyed. ‘Luther’ was scrawled upon the walls of rooms decorated by Raphael. The great library of Bishop Egidio di Viterbo was ransacked and lost. From the battlements of Sant’Angelo, Cellini and others watched ‘the indescribable scene of tumult and conflagration in the streets below’.20 Only the Sistine Chapel, not long redecorated by Michelangelo and where Charles de Bourbon’s body had been taken to lie in state, was spared their fury. The Trinity of this parhelia was one of greed, lust and murder.

  When news of the sack of Rome reached Charles V, he quickly sent his deepest apologies to the Pope, claiming that Bourbon’s renegade army had acted without his approval. Charles may have been embarrassed by the sacking and by his inability to control his army, but he could not have been displeased by the fact that they had struck decisively against Clement VII.