Luigi's account is interesting enough, not simply because of the Sack itself but because of how the work captures Renaissance attitudes. History-writing in those days wasn't simply a factual exercise but also the primary way of engaging in political science and philosophy (Machiavelli's History of Rome is perhaps the most famous example). So, throughout the book Luigi is alluding to classical equivalents and drawing moral lessons about how leaders and nations ought to behave based on the events of the Sack. In his view (shared by most contemporaries), Rome was sacked because Italians had grown soft and had lost discipline and other critical values, and had given over leadership to churchmen who lacked all the moral firmness demanded by the faith. Only through such vast suffering could they learn their lesson and allow Italy to be reborn.

A few other interesting bits:

-Luigi dedicates the book to Cosimo de Medici, whom he mailed it to (yeah just like The Prince going to Lorenzo). Probably not confidentially, he spends a lot of the book's first half talking about what a totally rad leader Cosimo's dad was before he got sadly shot in the knee and died. Luigi praises him as tolerant, charitable, and brace, though does observe he was "very dedicated to venereal things." What a Chad!

-This line about Renaissance future wives: "Many are convinced that in this scene of outrage and terror, many noble and pure virgins, rather than fall into the hands of their lustful conquerors, stabbed themselves or leapt from some high point into the Tiber. I, however, have never heard that anyone has been able to identify a woman of such virtue and chastity. This should not be surprising considering how corrupt Rome is at present." Damn, what sluts!

-Apparently even as the soldiers were pillaging and murdering and torturing the whole city they didn't rob the banks and instead those kept operating normally, because soldiers used bank notes to obtain ransoms from prisoners.

-The Germans are praised for observing "the articles of war" by indiscriminately slaughtering people in the first moments of the sack, while the Spanish are shamed for starting to capture prisoners right away.

-Some defenders apparently tried to save themselves by blending in and joining the rampaging attackers.

-The account really captures the way early modern armies could not be easily controlled. Both the pope and Charles V's viceroy wanted peace, and had actually reached an agreement, but the army basically mutinied over a lack of pay and Bourbon had to March them on Rome just to hold the force together. If he hadn't died in the assault, the book's editor surmises Bourbon may have gone renegade and tried to forge his own Italian domain owing just nominal fealty to Charles.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3927599&forum_id=2#35676503)

But really Charles is barely present in this whole affair.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3927599&forum_id=2#35677864)