ABSTRACT
The Romans also knew that Clement's chief source of political as well as financial power was rapidly slipping through his fingers - namely, the Republic of Florence, which his family, and for some years he personally, dominated through the well-tried system of controlling elections. The Sack of Rome did not take the Romans wholly by surprise. Finally, the Romans had known since January, when their renegade French commander used up every cent he had managed to squeeze from the unfortunate citizens of Milan and beg from the bankers of Ferrara to pay off his chronically unpaid German soldiers, that the army would no longer obey orders. Thus the significance of the Sack of Rome lay not in its singularity, nor in its intensity - although the sackers were indeed more numerous and the booty more abundant than in other similar cases - nor even in its duration. The Sack of Rome was neither unexpected nor unprecedented.
