The Sack of Rome and The Sun King moves to the Suburbs

May 6th, 1527 is the date of the infamous Sack of Rome. Most people think this took place during the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, made famous in the book by Edward Gibbon (p 158 in A Book of Ages). Actually, the Empire collapsed a thousand years earlier. This episode took place at the end of the Italian Renaissance. Michelangelo was living in Florence at the time and missed the whole thing. Three years later the greatest sculptor of the age, the painter of the Sistine Chapel frescoes, w