Fuoco, acciaio e oro. Per una cultura materiale del Sacco di Roma, 1527-1528

The book on the Sack of Rome presented here recounts the dramatic days of the occupation of the papal city by the troops of Emperor Charles V through its impact on the world of objects that defined the identity of Rome and its inhabitants. It examines the practices to which domestic and ecclesiastical silverware, jewelry, garments and precious textiles, ancient and modern statues, relics, sacred images, as well as books and archives were subjected—objects that were variously profaned, fragmented, destroyed, dispersed, mocked, and sold, according to logics that upended both their economic value and their cultural significance. These upheavals affected every aspect of Roman life, from the sacred and the economic spheres to humanist scholarship and collecting practices, overturning hierarchies and inflicting incalculable losses on the city’s inhabitants, both material and symbolic. The scale of this phenomenon brought about a radical and violent disruption of Rome’s image and led, in the years that followed, to a profound rethinking of papal authority and of Rome’s role within Western Europe.