What if Rome fell into protestant control during the reformation?

For some unespecified reason, the protestant reformation is more succesfull in this timeline, and results on the city of Rome being occupied by the reformers, be it a peasant army, or from the King of emperor of a realm that converted. Under such circunstances what would happen?
 
Tbh, to have a Protestant militia get that far, the Hapsburgs must be in utter chaos, or smashed themselves.

Well, it could be a weird fluke like the Arab raid on Rome, like some radical preacher whips up a mob in Umbria (unlikely as that sounds, Perugians in particular hated the Pope enough for this to be possible) and marches on Rome before anyone knows what’s happening.

Still, they won’t last more than a month.
 
Or, even worse... the Habsburgs might themselves have gone... I can't finish this sentence.

I dunno, the idea of a Caesaropapist Hapsburgs seems interesting. Considering the historic back and forth between Emperor and Pope, this could be the final victory over the Pope.

A Protestant Austria, and a Commune of Rome declared a Free City by the Hapsburgs and brought into the Empire. What an odd possibility.
 
I know very little about the italian reformation. Italy and certainly norther Italy is very similar to the Netherlands and Flanders*. Why did it never became protestant? Avoinding that, would be the first step in making Rome fall to the protestants.


*Yes Flanders was protestant. It was were the Dutch reformation started. It just was reconverted to catholisism when Spain recaptured it and forced the protestants out of it.
 
There were Protestants in Northern Italy though not that many, absenteeism was less bad and the Italian Church like every Catholic Church was less corrupt than the Reichskirche. But their small numbers and proximity to Rome meant they didn't last long.
 
There were Protestants in Northern Italy though not that many, absenteeism was less bad and the Italian Church like every Catholic Church was less corrupt than the Reichskirche. But their small numbers and proximity to Rome meant they didn't last long.

That and that a good deal of the corruption in Germany and the like went to funding the church in Italy, Italy was also rich and willing to spend on its clergy service, and that by the time Protestantism went south those in power came prepared for it as opposed to the northern lands.
 
I know very little about the italian reformation. Italy and certainly norther Italy is very similar to the Netherlands and Flanders*. Why did it never became protestant? Avoinding that, would be the first step in making Rome fall to the protestants.
Well... cultural issues and proto-nationalism play a role. There was a level of cultural estrangement from perceived "Italianness" of the Papacy in Northern Europe upon which the Protestants could latch upon. That was obviously not the case in Italy. Catholic authorities had a far easier time at enforcement in "core" areas (also, all local rulers were happy to toe their line, except, at times, Venice, while in Germany many princes chose the Reformation). There was Protestantism in Italy of course, and usually of a Calvinist bent, like in the Low Countries and for similar reasons, but it never got the time and opportunity to gain enough traction to stabilize (with small exceptions). The fact that both politically dominant power, France and the Habsburgs, were firmly Catholic, and the Habsburgs were seen as bulwark against the Turk by many Italians is probably part of it (and that was big issue for Venice, the least Papacy-aligned of Italian states most times).
 
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