Giuliano della Rovere, aforementioned nephew of Sixtus IV fled to France shortly after Alexander

One of the most influential political figures in Europe during this time was Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, a politician from Piedmont-Sardinia who had very small and realistic goals for Italy (Hearder 40). To him, there was no hope for a democratic revolution across Italy, and he viewed the settlement from the Congress of Vienna as “arbitrary [and] defective” (Doc. 4). He only

During the late 14th century and the early 15th century there was a great division in the Catholic Church. The Papacy was becoming blurred. The center of the Roman Catholic Church had been moved from Rome to the city of Avignon during the reign of Pope Clement V; and there was now a movement to return the center of power back to Rome. This movement was first truly seen under Pope Gregory XI and his successor Pope Urban VI. Earlier Pope Urban V had moved the center to Rome but it had been proven to be no more than a temporary idea; he had gone back to Avignon to die and there his replacement, Pope Gregory XI was elected . This along with other political problems and circumstances created a split in the loyalty among

Later on, Lorenzo did his best to keep Rome and Florence on good terms when Sixtus IV died. He did not want to repeat years of war with another pope. Immediately, he set out to get on

He proclaimed a jubilee year, in which thousands of pilgrims came to Rome, leaving massive amounts of money behind. Then the papacy began to unravel; Pope Boniface VIII excommunicated Philip IV, King of France, who in turn kidnapped the Pope and held him hostage. As a result of his captivity, Pope Boniface VIII died miserably. His successor, Benedict XI, lived for only a short while, and after his death the papal election was deadlocked. The College of the Cardinals finally elected Clement V, a Frenchman, as pope. He then moved to Avignon, which was essentially in France. Seven successive popes ruled out of Avignon; their reigns lasting almost 70 years. Pope Gregory XI then moved to Rome, ending the Avignon papacy. The College of Cardinals then selected Pope Urban VI as pope, but then they regretted it and elected another pope, Pope Clement VII, who moved back to Avignon. The rival popes and their successors continued to rule separately until Pope Martin V was elected by an ecunemiel council. The events of the 14th century weakened the papacy, and some started to see its hypocrisy. The stage was set for an attack on papal power, but not merely its temporal power, as before. The spiritual authority of the Pope as the Vicar of Christ, was about to be under

On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II gave a supposedly important speech at the end of a church meeting in Clermont, France. In it he had called upon the nobleness of the Franks, to go to the East and assist their Christian “brothers”, the Byzantines, against the attacks of the Muslim Turks. He also apparently encouraged them to liberate Jerusalem, the most sacred and holy city in Christendom, for the Muslims had ruled it since taking it from the Christian Byzantines in A.D. 638. The Crusades were a series of wars between Christians and others to take back Jerusalem.

Louis XI and the Valois line formed a royal army, overpowered unruly nobles and bandits, and increased the monarch’s power over both parliament and the clergy. Louis XI was able to raise taxes without the approval of parliament and eventually parliament asked for him to rule without their input. The monarch’s power over the clergy increased due to the Concordat of Bologna. In the Concordat of Bologna, King Francis I and Pope Leo X signed an agreement that stated that the pope was to be paid by French ecclesiastics, religious figures such as priests or the clergy, and the king would appoint bishops and abbots.

The First Crusade took place from 1096 to 1099. When the Byzantine army was defeated by the Seljuk Turks at the battle of Manzikirt, this created an outburst of chaos and civil war within themselves. When Alexius Comnemus took the throne, she decided to send Pope Urban II a letter asking for help. Pope Urban made a speech declaring the call for a Crusade to fight against the Seljuk Turks. Urban asked Christians to join forces to work to free the Holy Land from Muslim invaders.

Pope Urban II preached a sermon at the Council of Clermont in which he proposed that Western European noblemen and their armies join ranks with the Eastern Christian Byzantine Emperor and his forces in order to mount an attack against the Muslim Turks (“Crusades”). Before hand Alexius I, emperor of the Byzantine Empire, called for the Pope’s aid. Byzantium, as the empire was also called, was under attack from all sides, especially from the Seljuk Turks, who had recently converted to Islam (“Crusades”). Alexius feared that they would take over Constantinople. He pleaded for the Pope to send a few Knights to protect the weak fortifications of the city (“Crusades”). However, the Pope had his own political interest in mind. Instead he sent an army of thousand of not only Knights, but also peasants, women,

Emperor Alexius I Comnenus asked Pope Urban II to help defend the Byzantine Empire in 1095 CE. The Pope agreed because he wanted to secure his own power over the church and called a military expedition to conquer the Holy Land.

Later that year, Sicily and Naples became apart of the newly unified Italy. A year following, Emmanuel II became the king of Italy. “The political framework of the united Italy could not overcome these problems” (693). Although Italy had gained

Urban’s public call to launch the crusade was made when he addressed the council at Clermont. However this was not a sudden notion but had been carefully planned.. He arrived in France in late July of 1095,- the first visit by a pope to France for over 50years - and began travelling around the country visiting various towns and villages, interviewing bishops, abbots and powerful nobles. It was during these four months that he had the chance to meet and discuss ideas with seasoned war veterans, such as Raymond of Toulouse and Adhemar of Monteil. It is likely that these influential people already knew of Urban’s plans for a crusade well before the Clermont speech. In addition, after the Clermont Council Urban was very keen to coincide most of his visits to the French towns with the national saints days of the regions, so ensuring large crowds for his speeches and increasing the chances of recruiting soldiers for his “Holy war”.

In addition to the horrors carried out by the Seljuk horde on Christians and their shrines, the Byzantines were also begging the pope to protect their empire from other Turkish tribes. Urban II's main incentive for answering this plea for help was not entirely contingent on the letter he received from the Holy Roman Emperor, but more so from the notion that the Eastern and Western sects of the church could be unified. Moreover, they might be fused under the Pope, granting him sovereignty over the entire Christian church. This Papal hope has been revealed to historians through, among other sources, the different accounts of his speech at Clermont. For example, Guibert of Nogent recalls the pope declaring: "And you ought, furthermore, to consider with the utmost deliberation, ..., that the Mother of churches should flourish anew to the worship of Christianity, whether perchance, [God] may not wish other regions of the East to be restored to the faith against the approaching time of the Antichrist" (Peters, Guibert of Nogent, 35). Unfortunately, the Holy Roman Emperor feared his throne was in jeopardy due to the large number of crusaders that arrived to drive out the Turks. He demanded that they press on towards the Holy Land, and for reasons that need not be discussed, strong ties with the Papacy were severed soon

Lorenzo was born in 1499 and was known as Lorenzo il Magnifico, the Magnificent. Lorenzo continued with his grandfather’s work and funded talented artists such as Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and also a public art school. Lorenzo was definitely more concerned with his power, popularity, and success rather than the banking business. He married a niece of a cardinal, and to keep his success locked in, Lorenzo married off his daughter to Pope Leo VIII’s son. Lorenzo also bought his son, Giovanni, the role of Cardinal. Giovanni eventually became Pope Leo X. In doing all of this, Lorenzo widened the Medici family’s influence, but he also lessened their personal bank account. Because the amount of money they had was getting smaller and smaller, the Medici power began to weaken. Luckily, Cardinal Giovanni de Medici had become Pope Leo X in 1513. Giovanni, Pope Leo X, was able to make the family wealthy again by selling the freedom from punishment of sins. Starting now, the Medici family turned its attention from the banking business to the business of the church. In 1523, Giulio, son of Giuliano and cousin of Giovanni, became Pope Clement VII. To keep the family full of wealth, Giulio married off his cousin, Catherine, to the heir of the French throne. The Medici family eventually had three French kings through this arrangement. Lorenzo had a great-great-grandson named Cosimo I who was born in 1569. As the Grand Duke of

attack Catholic cities. This war ended in 1568 with virtually the same results of the

Furthermore, the divisions between the revolutionaries were accentuated when the Roman Republic was declared in favour of the Pope being the leader of the Papal States. The previous Pope, Pius IX had fled to Naples after not being able to declare war on a fellow Catholic state and continued to work with a constitutional government until his flight from Rome. The republic was led by Mazzini who took care of all political issues and provided inspiration whilst Garibaldi was in charge of