Pope Julius II

“ Julius II., A.D. 1503-1513.―Alexander’s successor, Pius III., son of a sister of Pius II., died after a twenty-six days’ pontificate. He was followed by a nephew of Sixtus IV., a bitter enemy of the Borgias, who took the name of Julius II. He was essentially a warrior, with nothing of the priest about him. He was also a lover of art, and carried on the works which his uncle had begun. His youthful excesses had seriously impaired his health. As pope, he was not free from nepotism and simony, in controversy passionate, and in policy intriguing and faithless. ”

“ The treaties of Blois occasioned a vast amount of diplomacy, and projects of marriage between Claude of France and Charles of Austria, which came to nothing but served as a prelude to the later quarrels between Bourbons and Habsburgs.
It was Pope Julius II. who opened the gates of Italy to the horrors of war. Profiting by Louis XII.’s weakness and the emperor Maximilian’s strange capricious character, this martial pope sacrificed Italian and religious interests alike in order to re-establish the temporal power of the papacy. ”

“ In our times we have seen nothing great done except by those who have been esteemed niggardly; the others have all been ruined. Pope Julius II., although he had made use of a reputation for liberality in order to attain the papacy, did not seek to retain it afterwards, so that he might be able to make war on the King of France, and he carried on so many wars without imposing an extraordinary tax, because his extra expenses were covered by the parsimony he had so long practised. ”

“ Several cardinals attend, in spite of the prohibitions of the Vatican; and on the 21st of April, 1512, the pope Julius is suspended, as notoriously incorrigible and contumacious. “Arise, Cæsar,” write with one accord the members of this assembly to the emperor Maximilian: “Arise, be firm and watchful; the Church falls; the good are oppressed; and the wicked triumph.”
Julius II. opposed council with council, and assembled in the basilic of the Lateran the prelates who remained faithful to him. ”

“ Julius II in vain congratulated himself on having expelled the French, who had first imposed a foreign yoke on Italy; he vowed in vain that he would never rest till he had also driven out all the barbarians; but he deceived himself in his calculations: he did not drive out the barbarians, he only made them give way to other barbarians; and the new-comers were ever the most oppressive and cruel. However, this project of national liberation, which the pope alone could still entertain in Italy with any prospect of [439] success, was soon abandoned. ”

“ There existed a great spirit of enmity between Louis XII. and the pope. Julius II. was a violent and implacable man: his former suspicions against the French monarch were changed into excessive hatred. He was animated, also, by the desire of acquiring the glory of liberating Italy from the barbarians. [124] He sent troops against Genoa, which belonged to the king; Florence had been unable to refuse a safe passage for them through their territory: at the same time, fearing that this concession had offended Louis, they despatched Machiavelli to make their excuses. ”

“ And in our own time, God help us! how much Christian blood has been shed on account of the oath and bond which Pope Julius made and unmade between the Emperor Maximilian and King Louis of France! How can I tell all the misery the popes have caused by such devilish insolence, claiming the power of breaking oaths between great lords, causing a shameful scandal for the sake of money? I hope the day of judgment is at hand; things cannot and will not become worse than the dealings of the Roman chair. The Pope treads God's commandments under foot and exalts his own ”

“ The villa was still far from finished when Julius III's short pontificate came to an end. The Conclave almost unanimously chose as Ms successor their saintly brother, Cardinal della Croce. [4] The world had entered upon a new phase. Northern Europe had brought the spirit of the Reformation to the gates of Rome, and men were ashamed of Pope Julius III, whose misfortune it had been to live half a century too late. ”

“ For him, and the succeeding Popes of Rome,
To hold the Emperors their lawfull Lords.
Pope.
Pope Julius did abuse the churches rites,
And therefore none of his decrees can stand.
Is not all power on earth bestow'd on us? ”

“ The request more especially that bishops should be resident and that the Pope should resign the right of collation to all benefices was stoutly resisted by Julius; ‘rather than suffer that, we will suffer all misfortune,’ he said. The Papal court subsisted on foreign benefices since the Italian bishoprics were poor, and the independence of national churches would destroy the Papal power. The Pope, moreover, was disturbed at the refusal of Henry II. to acknowledge the Council or to allow French bishops to attend it, and by that King’s preparations for renewing the war in Italy. ”

“ To these he was very liberal, but to say true, not prodigal, as his Predecessors had been. ’Tis true, he did what he could, to make his Brother Baldwin Duke of Camerino, and deprive the Church of so good a State, but the Cardinals oppos’d him so vigorously, that he was fain to desist from his design.
Julius being dead, the very name of the Nipotismo dyed with him, for in the year 1555 Marcelius the Second was made Pope; who would never endure, that any of his kindred should come neer Rome, no not his own Brother. ”

“ Nor could nature have created a more vigorous intellect, or one to exercise his art and carry it into execution with greater invention and proportion, or with a more thorough knowledge, than Bramante. But no less essential than all this was the election to the Pontificate, at that time, of Julius II, a Pope of great spirit, full of desire to leave memorials behind him. ”

“ No sooner had Julius driven back the Venetians, and reduced them to seek for peace, than he found occasion to quarrel with the French, and a new league was formed to protect the Pope from what he termed the ambitious designs of the French, into which Ferdinand, Maximilian, and Henry entered. Louis XII., seeing this powerful alliance arrayed against him, determined to carry a war of another nature into the camp of the militant Pope Julius. ”

“ Julius was the first politician on the Papal throne who devoted all his power to freeing Italy from alien dominion. The slogan "Italia fara da $e" was written on his banner long before it was ever uttered. The worldly possessions of his See were to him merely a lever with which he could make the Papacy strong and Italy free. Nepotism and concern for the power of his house did not place his great concep- tion in the bondage which before his time the Borgias, and after him the dynastically narrow policy of a Medici Pope, would make so injuri- ous to the whole nation. ”

“ Louis was reported as saying: "The Rovere are a peasant family; nothing but the stick on his back will keep the Pope in order." Julius sent Cardinal Pallavicino to Savona, but he was not admitted to the counsels of the monarchs. It was rumoured that they meditated the reform of the Church: which meant a council and an inquiry into the election of Julius II.
Papal diplomacy, which, when Papal interests were endangered, never considered "Italian independence," for a moment now dictated an alliance with the Emperor-elect, Maximilian, who had himself proposed to come to Rome for his coronation. ”

“ Pope Julius came afterwards and found the Church strong, possessing all the Romagna, the barons of Rome reduced to impotence, and, through the chastisements of Alexander, the factions wiped out; he also found the way open to accumulate money in a manner such as had never been practised before Alexander’s time. Such things Julius not only followed, but improved upon, and he intended to gain Bologna, to ruin the Venetians, and to drive the French out of Italy. ”

“ This merit elected popes have usually been found to strive after with all their strength. Julius II., by a bull issued in 1505, declared that any pope elected by means of bargains or promises is elected simoniacally; that his election is null even if he have the vote of every cardinal; that he is a heresiarch and no pope; that such an election cannot become valid by enthronation, or by lapse of time, or by the obedience of the cardinals; that it is lawful for the cardinals, the clergy and the people of Rome to refuse obedience to a pope so elected. ”

“ In 1513, on the death of Julius II., he went to Rome for the express purpose of bringing about his own election as pope. He was received with more than princely pomp, and all but succeeded in his design, thanks to his extraordinary adroitness and the command of an almost unlimited bribing-fund. ”

“ He was the Pope's confidant and quite at home in all those political intrigues which later under Leo X brought ruin upon him. His book can only be regarded as a blow aimed at Julius II, Alexander's old enemy, who now wore the tiara and was preparing to glorify his pontificate by the highest effort of which Christian art was capable. Providence had granted him for the execution of his plans three of the greatest minds the world of art has ever known: never had a monarch three such men as Bramante, Michelangelo, and Raffaelle at once under his sway. ”

“ The anti-papal Council fled into France, and Cardinal Medici was rescued by the Lombard peasantry. The Duke of Urbino, who, estranged from the Pope by the summary justice he had exercised upon Cardinal Alidosi, had for a time kept aloof and afterwards been on the point of joining the French, now came forward to provide Julius with another army. The Bentivogli fled from Bologna, and the papal troops further occupied Parma and Piacenza. But Julius thought nothing done so long as the Duke of Ferrara retained his dominions. ”

“ A nature formed on great broad lines—a man of spontaneous impulses carrying away others as he himself was carried away, a genuine Latin in the whole of his being—he belongs to those imposing figures of the Italian Renaissance whose character is summarized in contemporary literature by the word terrible, which is best translated “extraordinary” or “magnificent.”
As cardinal Julius II. had been the adversary of Alexander VI., as pope he stood equally in diametrical opposition to his predecessor. The Borgia’s foremost thought had been for his family ”

“ Now while Raphael was painting these drooping-eyed, mild-faced Madonnas and learning great lessons from the masters of Florence, a wonderful honor came to him. He was called to Rome by the Pope and given some of the apartments of the Vatican to decorate in any way he wished.
The Pope at this time was Julius II. and he was a very interesting man. He was a warrior and had spent many years fighting to gain lands and cities for the Church. ”

“ After him came Pope Julius, who found the Church strengthened by the possession of the whole of Romagna, and the Roman Barons exhausted and their factions shattered under the blows of Pope Alexander. He found also a way opened for the accumulation of wealth, which before the time of Alexander no one had followed. These advantages Julius not only used but added to. He undertook the conquest of Bologna, the overthrow of the Venetians, and the expulsion of the French from Italy ”

“ Florence feared that Venice might cross the Apennines;European combinations leading to the League of Cambray. Ferdinand was determined to recover the cities in Apulia. Above all, Pope Julius was bent on humbling the proud republic. Her acquisitions in the Romagna interfered with his darling scheme of establishing the papal rule in that district. Between France in Milan, and Spain in Naples, Julius might hope to hold the balance, and to establish the temporal dominion of the Papacy, but Venice, or indeed any strong Italian power, would strenuously oppose it. ”

“ First, Alexander VI., a sharp fellow,159 a ne’er-do-well, an Italianised Spaniard,—and what was worst of all,—at Rome! a man without conscience, without God, who cared for nothing, provided he accomplished his desires. Next came Julius II., proud, choleric, studying his bottle more than his breviary; mad about his popedom, and having no thought but how he could subdue not only the earth, but heaven and hell.160 Last appeared Leo X., the present pope, learned in Greek and Latin, but especially a good musician, a great glutton, a deep drinker ”

“ Julius, in that document, sets forth that, after reducing Bologna to obedience of the Church, he placed over it the Cardinal as legate, who ungratefully betrayed his duty to the Pope and the Church by secretly plotting for restoration of the Bentivoglii, and for defeat of the army under command of the Duke, as well as by withdrawing to Ravenna on pretext of terror, but in fact to conceal his treason. That having, by these and many other enormities, incurred the guilt of treason and lèse-majesty, he was slain by Francesco Maria ”

“ Julius, though the mainspring of the League, avoided joining it openly until he saw that the allies were committed to the war. His assent was given on March 25, 1509; on April 7 the Venetians offered to restore Faenza and Rimini. But the Pope was too deeply engaged, and probably thought that the offer was only made to divide the allies, and would be withdrawn when it had served its purpose. On April 27 he published a violent bull of excommunication. His troops entered the Romagna; but the Emperor and Spain held back, and left the conquest of Lombardy to France. ”

“ Bayard soon after attacked him, and all but took him prisoner. A congress at Mantua followed: but the Pope sternly refused to make terms with the French: the war must go on. Then Louis took a dangerous step. He convoked an ecclesiastical council at Pisa, and struck a medal to express his contempt and hatred for Julius II. ... The Pope had gone back to Rome, and Bologna had opened her gates to the French; the coming council, which should depose Julius, was proclaimed through Northern Italy. ”