Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/672

 and the later Counter-Reformation, rather than of the peace-loving Contarini and the learned Giberti.

Clement VII, of the House of Medici, was well-meaning and wished to remove the worst abuses in the Church. The hell through which the Papacy passed during his pontificate was indeed paved with good intentions, but they all came to nothing. The cares of the temporal power and the interests of his family left little time for the reformation of society. Still in 1524 the Roman Congregation was set up to reform the clergy; but in the troublous years which followed, leading up to the Sack of Rome, little could be done. Giberti, who with Nicholas Schomberg, the Cardinal of Capua, appears to have influenced Clement's policy in those early years of his reign, had little time to spare from secular affairs; and it was not until he finally retired to his Bishopric of Verona that he obtained an opportunity of playing the part of a reformer. Thus, while the Teutonic lands were rapidly falling away from the Church, nothing was done in Rome itself to heal the abuses which all men acknowledged to be crying for reform.

There was one remedy for the Church's evils which was a nightmare to Clement. A reform of the Church by a free General Council was a cry which grew in intensity and sprang up from many quarters as Clement's vacillating reign dragged on its way. Luther had appealed from the Pope to a free General Council; and the appeal was echoed in the German Diets. Charles himself took up the idea; but, as it soon came to be seen that what Charles meant by a General Council was very different from that desired by the Protestants, the enthusiasm for it soon cooled down in Germany; and the idea of a National Council for the settlement of the affairs of religion took its place. At times, when it was a useful weapon to be used against the Pope, Charles also gave the idea of a National Council his support; but he sincerely desired the convocation of an Ecumenical Council, and he fell back on the alternative only when the conduct of the Papacy forced his hands. General Councils had ominous memories for the Papacy since the days of Pisa, Constance, and Basel; and Clement no doubt felt that the government of the Church during his pontificate would not stand the ordeal of a public examination. General Councils were apt to get out of hand, and no one could foresee whither they might ultimately lead. Clement succeeded in putting off the evil day at the price of letting events in Germany take their own course.

With Clement's successor, Alessandro Farnese, who took the title of Paul III (1534), a new era began; and at last the party of Catholic reformers found their opportunity. One of the first acts of the new Pope was to confer a Cardinal's hat upon Gasparo Contarini; and soon after Caraffa, Sadoleto, and Pole also received the sacred purple. The leaders among the Catholic reformers were summoned to Rome. On January 30, 1536, a Bull was read in the Consistory for the reform of many of the