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Updated: May 22, 2025
In his general estimate of Leo, Vettori confirms all that we know about this Pope from other sources. He insists more perhaps than other historians upon the able diplomacy by which Lodovico Canossa, Bishop of Tricarico, made terms with Francis after Marignano, and traces Leo's fatal alliance with Charles V. in 1520 to the influence of Jeronimo Adorno.
It was Henry IV. who then ruled, and partly by his own faults, partly by those of others, the crown had indeed become to this sovereign one of thorns. Wolf of Hammerstein had made the historic pilgrimage to Canossa alone with his master.
Henry carried out his design, even though it was in the middle of winter; and neglecting the welcome of the imperialists of North Italy, he ultimately tracked the Pope to the Countess Matilda's fortress of Canossa, in the Apennines, above Modena. But Gregory would listen to no mediation, and demanded absolute submission to his judgment.
"You shall learn as soon as we understand each other, signora." "Then let us come to an understanding at once, for the Countess Canossa does not receive princely gifts from strangers." "Of course not, nor would a stranger take so unpardonable a liberty with a lady of her rank and birth.
Shut out from Augsburg by the treachery of the emperor, Gregory VII retired to Canossa, where he resolved to let the affairs of Germany shape themselves for a time, while he awaited a more favorable moment for action. Nor was his gigantic mind occupied with Germany alone, and the movements there which menaced his life and the liberty and purity of the Church.
After running a thousand dangers, the King and his queen arrived at Turin, and proceeded to Placentia. Thence the prince announced that he would proceed to Canossa, by way of Reggio. The Countess Matilda met him with Hugo, Bishop of Cluny. She wished to restore harmony between the Pope and the King. Gregory seemed to desire that Henry should return to Augsburg, to be judged by the Diet.
Desirous of convincing his hearers, he often felt the need of repeating the same thought in various ways until he at last hammered it in, as it were, with one big blow with one phrase easily remembered and readily quoted. It is these phrases which have given the names to many of his speeches, namely: "The Honest Broker," "Practical Christianity," or "We shall never go to Canossa."
It would be difficult to discover puerility in any of Buonarroti's utterances; and his only vanity was a certain pride in the supposed descent of his house from that of Canossa. The frequent allusions to melancholy and madness do not constitute a confession of these qualities. They express Michelangelo's irritation at being always twitted with unsociability and eccentricity.
In the following year the Countess opened her gates of Canossa to an illustrious fugitive, Adelaide, the wife of her old foeman, Henry, who had escaped with difficulty from the insults and the cruelty of her husband.
He was then on his way to Augsburg, and, in doubt as to the intentions of his enemy, took hasty refuge in the castle of Canossa, then held by the Countess Matilda, recently a widow, and the most powerful and influential princess in Italy.
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