Today, Jesus Christ is officially the King of Poland (It’s true: the coronation ceremony was in 2016).
But in 1527, Jesus was also officially the King of Florence. The length of His reign as King there? Just three years.
The story begins with the Sack of Rome in May of 1527, when primarily Protestant German mercenaries entered the city and pillaged it in the same manner as the Vandals exactly 1,100 years earlier.
The sack proved debilitating for the League of Cognac, an alliance including the Kingdom of France, Pope Clement VII, the Republic of Venice, the Kingdom of England, the Duchy of Milan, and the Republic of Florence.
The resulting chaos led to the ousting of the Medici’s by members of the anti-Medici faction in Florence shortly after the Sack of Rome.
The ousting of the Medici’s led to a new wave of puritanism that swept over Florence and many strict, fundamentalist laws were passed following the founding of the new Republic of Florence.
One of those laws, however, officially declared Jesus Christ as the King of Florence.
After the League of Cognac was finally defeated, Pope Clement VII signed the Treaty of Barcelona with Charles V. In exchange for the pope’s blessing, Charles V was to invade Florence and restore the Medicis to power.
After a long, protracted siege from October of 1529 to August of 1530, the city surrendered to the forces of the Papal States and the Holy Roman Empire. Alessandro de’ Medici was then installed as Duke of Florence, and the reign of Christ as King of the Republic of Florence was no more.
Editorial credit: Dziurek / Shutterstock.com
Saint Joseph, terror of demons, cleanse this site from insensitive mischievous abuse. Saints Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney, Louis-Marie de Montfort, pray for us. Amen.