The Passage

Source

Lieutenant Herkules Göldli gestured frantically at the two men hurrying towards the opening of the Passetto, "Hurry, there is no time to waste!"

Andreas and Aloysius came out of the stairwell, listening to the pounding of feet coming up behind them. Fellow Guardsmen or enemy mercenaries? Andreas turned to look.

"Hold up Aloysius!"

Aloysius stopped and turned, his halberd at the ready, now he saw them, Landsknechts!

Göldli shouted at the two men, "What are you waiting for? The Pope must be taken to safety! Your comrades in the piazza have fallen, come with us."

As Andreas plunged the point of his halberd into a mercenary at the top of the stairs, Aloysius shouted back, "Landsknechts in the stair well, Lieutenant! We'll try and hold them here, get His Holiness to the Castel!"

Göldli could see that the two men were exhausted, game, but exhausted. Turning to the man next to him he barked, "Corporal, take four men and hold this corridor. To the death. Do you understand?"

"To the death, my lieutenant. We understand."

"Damn these Swiss bastards!" Franz Schmidt bellowed. "Hold up lads, no use dying in this squalid corridor! Back to the courtyard."

The Landsknechts stopped their rush, but not before one of them was cut down by one of the two Swiss on the landing.

Schmidt saw his friend collapse on the stairs, bleeding profusely from his chest. He was insane with rage as he bulled his way towards the two Swiss. His own men were concentrating on getting back to the piazza, they were more interested in loot at this point.

"Persistent aren't they?"

Andreas pulled back as Aloysius brought the axe of his halberd down on the crazy German charging at them. The man's helmet clattered down the stairs as he fell to his knees, his head bleeding badly, his eyes glazed as he tried to bring his own weapon up.

Andreas drove his halberd into the man's throat, "Die you German bastard!"

Schmidt's hands went to his destroyed throat. His brain was dying but there was a spark left which desperately wanted to live. For a moment he thought he saw the streets of München before him, the city of his youth. Then all went dark as his soul fled.

"Come on, that's the last of them. Let's get to the Castel!" Andreas turned and headed after the lieutenant and the men guarding the Pope.

The covered way, the Passetto di Borgo, led from the Vatican to the Castel Sant'Angelo, known to many of the locals as the Mausoleum of Hadrian. The Castel was far more defensible as it was smaller, had plenty of cannon, and with enough men to man those guns would probably withstand a siege for a number of months.

Andreas and Aloysius dashed down the covered way, listening for the sounds of fighting, but hearing nothing. It was beginning to look like they might survive this day after all.

The corporal and his men came up with Andreas and Aloysius, "Steady lads, are the Germans coming up?"

"No, they fled, they weren't really interested in fighting." Andreas answered.

"Good enough, head to the Castel, we'll stay here and hold this place. You lads, look done in."

Andreas and Aloysius continued on towards the Castel and safety.

Captain Röist was bleeding badly from a deep wound in his side. He had managed to get away from the massacre of his men and had made it to the quarters he shared with his wife and children.

He regretted leaving his men, but he was incapable of holding a weapon and his remaining sergeant had told him, "Leave now, while you can. Go, protect your family. See there?"

The sergeant had pointed towards the Castel where the Pope's banner now snapped in the dying light of the day. "You've accomplished your mission, His Holiness is safe."

So he had fled. There was no other way to look at it, he felt shame and relief at the same time.

"Sit husband!" His wife snapped at him as he staggered into the kitchen.

He groaned as his wife began to cut his shredded tunic away from his wound. She cleaned it as best she could, then she began to bind the wound with clean linen. It hurt, but he felt better already. He was home and ...

There was shouting outside the door, in German. Then someone began to pound on the door to the Röist home.

Captain Röist turned to his wife, he wanted to tell her to flee and take the children with her, but it was far too late.

The heavy door splintered and then fell in, Röist heard men in the entryway, they were in the kitchen quickly.

He tried to draw his dagger, but before he could, an enraged, drunken Landsknecht swung his short sword and took Röist's head.

The death of Röist's family took far longer.

"Andreas, you're hurt!"

And he was, blood was staining his tunic and was beginning to drip onto the floor. They were nearly at the end of the Passetto. Aloysius was concerned, he had noticed a number of bodies along the way, both Guardsmen and Landsknechts, it was apparent that the enemy had forced their way into the passageway at some point.

The two men stopped, Andreas went down on one knee. "I'm afraid this is it for me, laddie."

Aloysius shook his head, "You've come this far, surely you can make it a few more rods!"

Andreas' halberd clattered to the stone floor of the Passetto, his hands were cold and his grip had loosened involuntarily. "I think not, lad."

Aloysius stood over the corpse of his friend and shook his head. Now what should he do?

"Da ist noch einer!¹"

The shout came from behind him, in the direction of the Castel, he was cut off!

The two mercenaries rifled the clothing of the dead Guardsman sprawled on the floor. One spoke.

"There was another one here, standing over this fellow. Who apparently hasn't been paid in ages, he has nothing on him!" The Landsknecht spat on the dead man in disgust.

"Maybe you saw a ghost, Norbert?"

Norbert's companion then shook his head, "Should we follow him?"

Norbert Schoerner stood up and shook his head, "Why, d'ya think he's richer than this one?" Schoerner kicked the body for emphasis.

The two Germans went back up the passageway, they had no desire to fight anyone armed, there were riches elsewhere.

Aloysius waited until nightfall before making his way back towards the Castel, he passed the body of Andreas, his clothes were torn and his meager possessions scattered on the floor. Bastard Landsknechts, he thought as he walked past. He said a quick prayer for his friend. Then he disappeared into the shadows. Rome was being raped, he had to get back to his comrades.

He had no other hope.

¹ There is another one! (German)

The Stand

The engraving shows a German soldier dressed as the pope being paraded through the streets of Rome.
In the background, fighting and pillaging ensues. In the distance, Castel Sant’Angelo and Ponte Sant’Angelo can be seen.
Mattäus Merian, “Sack of Rome,” engraving in Johann Ludwig Gottfried’s Historiche Chronica (Frankfurt 1630–34), p. 33.
Source

The entry to the piazza was filling with Landsknechts, Aloysius noticed that their flamboyant style of dress was even more noticeable at such a short distance. Many of the men who had assaulted the wall had spread through the nearby neighborhoods, seeking loot and women, the men facing them now seemed to know that the Vatican had plenty of things to steal.

"I see no muskets¹ among them." Andreas remarked.

"Thank heaven for small favors!" said Günther, the man to Aloysius' other side.

Aloysius grinned, small things to ease the terror of the moment, he thought. Then the enemy began to move towards them.

"Formation, lads! Keep together! Remember your drill!" one of the corporals yelled to the men near him.

Aloysius followed the motions of the men to either side of him, blade up, ready to block a thrust or strike an opponent down. They had drilled this many times, but never against men coming to kill them.

Captain Röist was watching the advancing Landsknechts and his own men at the same time. The advancing enemy seemed tentative, almost as if they were not expecting resistance. Röist's Guardsmen looked steady and determined.

One of the Landsknechts cried out, "Lauf, du papistischer Abschaum!²"

A Guardsman shouted back, "Komm und iss meine Klinge, du Söldnerschwein!³"

Though Röist grinned at the well-timed insult, he shouted out, "Save your breath, boys! You'll need your energy to slaughter these heretics!"

One of the Landsknechts growled and dashed forward, followed by several of his comrades, his great two-handed sword, the infamous Zweihänder, held high, ready to cut down any unwary guardsman. The man had to be either drunk or overconfident.

Aloysius felt the fear in the pit of his stomach, the man advancing towards him was huge. His sword seemed to be some mythical blade and not a real thing. But Aloysius reacted precisely how he'd been trained, he thrust his halberd forward and took the Landsknecht in the throat. His assailant dropped immediately, blood spraying like a fountain.

The Guardsmen dealt with that man's comrades in much the same way, in a few short seconds, the impetuous Landsknechts, ten of them, lay butchered on the paving stones of the piazza San Pietro.

With a roar the main body of the Landsknechts advanced on the Guards at a trot.

Aloysius saw that many of the Landsknechts carried halberds much like the one he carried. He saw no pikes, that was fortunate. Had the Germans been carrying their pikes they would have outreached the Swiss halberds. Apparently those had been discarded before going over the wall. Aloysius rather wished that they had done the same with their shorter pole arms.

Andreas' halberd flashed up before Aloysius' face as Andreas blocked a German's thrust at Günther. Aloysius stomped forward and thrust his own halberd into the German's groin.

"Back, back, step back!" the men heard their captain command.

The paving stones were growing slippery with blood, Aloysius noticed that there were dead and wounded Guardsmen down on the pavement among the slaughtered Landsknechts. By sheer weight of numbers, the Swiss were being forced back towards the basilica.

Aloysius was gasping with the effort of parrying and thrusting his halberd, his arms were growing heavy and the shaft of his weapon was slick with sweat and blood. He couldn't believe how much blood was inside a man.

Captain Caspar Röist hacked down a Landsknecht who was in the process of trying to kill a wounded Guardsman at Röist's feet. As he drew his blade back, he felt a sharp pain, almost like fire, slide across his left upper arm. He had taken the point of an enemy blade in his bicep. His arm dropped to his side.

One of his Guardsmen stepped in front of him and used the axe blade of his halberd to spilt the head of the man who had stabbed the captain.

The fighting was becoming confused as individual Landsknechts were starting to work their way in to the ranks of the Swiss formation. Röist realized that his men would have to fall back even more, they were close to the steps leading into the basilica.

"Back lads! Step back, tighten your ranks!" He bellowed at his men.

"Oh Lord, there are too many of them!" Andreas cried out as he parried an enemy thrust and followed through with a thrust of his own. His foe went down screaming, his hands pressed to his face where Andreas' point had stabbed into his eyes. More blood on the pavement.

"Back, step back, Andreas!" Aloysius yelled at his comrade.

The formation tightened and the Landsknechts fell back for a moment, almost as if to catch their collective breath before pressing the attack again. Aloysius didn't see Günther as he glanced to his left.

"Günther! Where are you?" he yelled.

"Save your breath, Junge, Günther is out there!" Andreas called out, pointing with his halberd to a pile of intermixed Swiss and German bodies.

"Captain?" Andreas asked, as he noticed that their Captain had joined them.

"Andreas, Aloysius, get inside, tell His Holiness that we cannot hold them back. He must get to Sant'Angelo, use the covered way." Röist paused and looked to his front when he heard the Landsknechts bellowing and advancing.

"Go! Tell His Holiness that I'll hold them as long as I can!"

Aloysius hesitated, then Röist shoved him at the same time as Andreas yanked him by the sleeve, "Come on, boy! Let us be off!"

Aloysius turned one last time towards the piazza, the Swiss were almost enveloped by a sea of snarling Landsknechts. Then he and Andreas went inside, towards where they were told the Pope should be.

¹ The arquebuses in use were commonly referred to as "muskets" at that time.

² Run, you papist scum! (German)

³ Come and eat my blade, mercenary pig! (German)

The Assault

La Sconfitta della cavalleria francese.
La Battaglia di Pavia¹
Bernard van Orley (PD)

Aloysius couldn't help but notice that his hands were sweating, a lot. Where he gripped his halberd was wet, not so wet as to affect his grip, but wet enough that he noticed it. It reminded him of drill, hours in the hot sun and his weapon would look soaked with moisture. But the day was cool, he and his fellow Swiss Guardsmen were lined up in the Piazza San Pietro, waiting.

Everyone knew that the assault would come soon, they could hear the first cannons booming as the Imperial Army approached. While the forces defending the city had a numerous artillery, there weren't many artillerists in the garrison.

A cannon fired nearby, from the Leonine Wall to their right. Aloysius jumped at the sound.

A plan of Rome in the Middle Ages.
The Leonine City is visible in the upper left section.
Source

Andreas reached over and placed his hand on Aloysius' right shoulder, "Easy lad, you'll get used to the sound after a while."

Aloysius looked at his comrade, "If I live long enough."

"Aye, there is that."

Pablo Alvarez noticed the Duke of Bourbon riding up to the lines. Surely the man wasn't thinking of assaulting the walls on horseback. When the Duke dismounted, Pablo turned to his friend Francisco Hernandez.

"The man's got cojones, I'll give him that."

Francisco shrugged, "Cojones and a white cloak won't get this tercio over those damned walls. Better hope those herejes malditos² take that section of wall and open that gate to us. Perhaps within the city we can maneuver."

Pablo shook his head, as if a tight formation of pikemen and arquebusiers could maneuver in the confines of a city. He hoped that when the Landsknechts broke in to the city, they would be released to loot and pillage. He was hungry, as were his comrades. Being Imperial troops they knew that they would be paid at some point, their mercenary colleagues couldn't be that sure.

The Germans were hot to sack the city, they fought for pay, not politics.

Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, handed the reins to his servant, then flung his cloak open to the troops arrayed before him. A rough cheer went up as the men recognized their popular leader.

Looking to the nearest officer, Charles shouted out, "What say you, Captain? Let us be over these cursed walls and open the gates!"

Seeing a scaling party carrying a ladder behind the captain, the Duke strode over to them and shouted again. "Let me help you lads with your burden!"

The men cheered again and started to move towards the wall. The captain bellowed in the Duke's ear, "Monsieur le duc, let my men do this, you are too valuable ..."

Charles turned to the man and said something, his words were drowned out as one of the cannons in the wall belched death towards the men moving up to the assault. But he did release his grip on the ladder so that he could draw his sword.

"Hey, Benvenuto, who's the fancy pants bastard prancing around down there?"

Benvenuto Cellini, goldsmith by trade, defender of the Faith on this day, looked where Luigi Fabrizi was pointing. The man stood out like a sore thumb waving his sword in the air, a white cloak over his armor.

"My oath, I would wager that that is the Duke of Bourbon himself!"

Cellini aimed his primitive weapon in the direction of the Duke, and pulled his trigger. The powder in the pan flashed, igniting the charge in the breech of his weapon. As the range was short and he was an expert with the arquebus, he had some hope of hitting his target. Other than being blinded by smoke, he knew the weapon had fired properly by the kick to his shoulder.

As he reloaded and the smoke cleared, he no longer saw the man in the white cloak. Where he thought the man had been, was a swirling crowd of Landsknechts.

The Duke had gone down hard, collapsing without a word, his helmet snatched off as if by the very Hand of God. The captain only needed one look to see that the Duke was gone, as was much of his face.³

Without thinking he bellowed, "The Duke has fallen! We must avenge him!"

The nearby soldiers surged forward, ignoring the slackening fire from the walls ahead. The Duke had been a very popular commander, his successor Philibert of Chalon wasn't anywhere near as well-regarded by the men. His shouts to try and gain control of the assault fell on deaf ears.

Andreas saw them first, members of the militia fleeing from their positions on the wall and disappearing into the nearby streets of the city. He turned to Aloysius.

"Brace yourself lad, it's our turn."

Aloysius didn't understand at first, then he saw them, Landsknechts.

One of the mercenaries dragged a man, presumably a man captured on the wall, into the street. He shouted something then kicked the man. One of his comrades brought his sword down on the unfortunate, severing the man's head.

"Steady lads!" Captain Röist called out. Immediately the enemy turned in their direction.

One of the men laughed and pointed to his right, where the nearest gate lay. Some of the Landsknechts went in that direction, the others drew up some distance from the Swiss, waiting.

"What are they waiting for?" Aloysius managed to gasp out.

"The rest of their unit, there are only a score of them now, soon a thousand will come through that gate."

Aloysius nodded, he said a quick prayer. He didn't want to die, but it was beginning to look like he had no say in the matter.

None at all.

¹The Defeat of the French Cavalry. The Battle of Pavia - Detail of van Orley's tapestry of the battle fought in 1525.

² Cursed heretics. Many of the German-speaking Landsknechts were indeed Protestants, or "heretics" as the Catholic Spaniards considered them to be.

³ I have no idea if Charles III was hit in the face, call it dramatic license. Also the idea that Benvenuto Cellini was the man responsible for the Duke's death has come down to us almost as legend.

In the Evening

The Duke of Bourbon’s Halt at La Riccia, on His March to Assault Rome, May 3d, 1527
Robert Walter Weir
Source

"So tell me young Aloysius, can you tell how many men there are from those campfires we can see?"

Aloysius stared into the distance. The campfires of the Imperial Army were numerous.

"I don't believe that we can see them all, Andreas. Many would be behind the hills, but it certainly is a large army. Larger than what we have within Rome."

Andreas sighed, "Yes, it is said that they number twenty thousand, we have what? Perhaps five thousand, mostly militia, mostly untrained."

"Why is His Holiness insistent on staying in the city?" Aloysius asked, not understanding any of the politics of the day.

"Where would he go Junge¹? The Emperor has troops everywhere, he's safer here, in the Vatican. He wanted to stay at the Lateran Palace, but Captain Röist convinced His Holiness to come here, he feels the Vatican is more defensible and, if need be, we can convey the Holy Father to the Castel Sant'Angelo via the Passetto. That old Roman tomb would be a tough nut to crack, even for the Emperor."

"Wouldn't he be trapped there?"

"Ah Junge, the Holy Father still thinks he can negotiate with the Emperor, buy his way out of this predicament."

Aloysius nodded, but he still didn't really understand. He had a sinking suspicion that he would never see his homeland again. But to die in defense of the Pope, that had to be worth doing.

"We will fight them and die, if necessary." Aloysius pronounced with an air of confidence.

Andreas cleared his throat and spat over the battlements, "If it were only that simple."

Hans-Wolfram von Holbeck shook his head, "My men are without pay, Colonel. They want to sack the Eternal City and make it scream to the Heavens."

Colonel Hernando de Alzado nodded, drank the remnants of his wine, then stood up from his table. "I understand that, Captain. We are in negotiations with the Vatican to obtain some coin to pay the troops."

"You know that's not enough, right? The men won't be satisfied with coin at this point. They need a blood bath, they need to loot and pillage for a few days. Once they're satiated, then we pay them and march back north."

"Your Landsknechts want blood do they?"

Von Holbeck nodded, "Yes, and I don't blame them. We've been marching for days, rations are terrible, and the men's morale is in the shitter. Don't your Spaniards feel the same?"

De Alzado almost mentioned that the men who manned his tercios were far more disciplined than the German mercenaries, but they needed those mercenaries to take Rome. That was his bottom line.

"You two! Come with me!"

Aloysius and Andreas turned as their corporal barked at them. They followed the man down to the courtyard. There they fell into ranks with the rest of the Swiss Guard. Captain Röist was pacing back and forth before them.

"There's no way we're going to hold those walls, we are too few. So we'll leave that to the city militia. We also know, almost to a certainty, that that rabble won't hold the wall for very long."

There was a murmuring in the ranks as the men looked at each other.

"SILENCE!"

The Captain let that word hang in the air for a long moment. The men were silent now, eyes straight ahead, their backs rigid.

"Most of us will stand here, buying time for His Holiness. I've detailed forty men to be ready to fall back to be near the Holy Father, and if need be escort him to Sant'Angelo. The rest of us will hold back the Imperial troops as long as we can."

Captain Röist paused, looking down the ranks, looking at each man, before he spoke again.

"We are sworn to defend His Holiness the Pope at all costs. If any man here feels he cannot live up to his oath, step forward now and I will discharge you. Mind you, you will be disgraced and can never return home if you quit your comrades now. We swore a Holy Oath, and I for one will die to fulfill that oath. Those who cannot do so, step forward."

The ranks remained unwavering, not a man moved.

"Very well, let us prepare."

Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, was preparing for bed. He would lead the assault on Rome in the morning, he was nervous but he felt a few hours of sleep might be beneficial.

"Gaston!"

"Yes, Monsieur le Duc?"

"You have laundered my white cloak, have you not?"

"Yes, it is as white as the snows of the Alps, Your Grace."

"Very well, wake me well before sunrise, I will wear the cloak into action so that the men might be inspired. I shall be first up the ladder!"

"Very good, Your Grace."

Gaston thought his master a fool. A brave fool, but a fool nonetheless.

¹ German, "boy" or "youngster."