JULIUS II, POPE. — Giuliano della Rovere, born in Albissola near Savona in 1445 to an obscure family. He spent a poor youth; he was, probably through the care of his paternal uncle, the Franciscan cardinal Francesco della Rovere, a student at the Convent of St Francis in Perugia. The fact that he then acquired a manuscript of Justinian’s Institutes suggests that he devoted himself to legal studies, although he later claimed to have devoted himself to letters. In Perugia he also entered the clerical state; but he remained in the shadows until his uncle, who had become Pope Sixtus IV, first gave him the bishopric of Carpentras, and then, on 16 December 1471, the purple with the title of St Peter in Chains.
The cardinal then held, either in title, administration, or commendam, for a longer or shorter time, a great number of bishoprics, abbeys, and benefices: among many, the Abbey of Grottaferrata (from 1472), the bishopric of Bologna (1483–1502), the archbishopric of Avignon (1474–1503), the cardinalatial sees of Sabina (1479–83) and of Ostia and Velletri (1483–1503); from 1474 he was Major Penitentiary. And even under Sixtus IV he received assignments of great importance: he was legate in the Marca (1473); with a firm hand he restored order in Umbria, in Todi, Spoleto, and Città di Castello; legate in Avignon and in the Venaissin and throughout the Kingdom of France (1476), at a time when relations between the Pope and Louis XI were tense, he succeeded in strengthening papal dominion over the
Even at the last moment Giuliano had yielded to the election, obtaining compensations. But, despite a fleeting reconciliation, in which he seemed to have become a “second pope” (August 1493), he remained not only a fierce opponent of the Borgia, when opposition could in many cases be justified, but an immoderate hater of them; and, staying now in Marino, a Colonna stronghold, now in his very strongly fortified Ostia, he conducted himself “in the manner of an antipope.”
When, on the eve of Charles VIII’s descent into Italy, the Pope allied himself with the Aragonese, the “Vincola” shared in the same hatred. Fearful, not without reason, for his life, he fled from Ostia (23–24 April 1494) and took refuge in France, where he became very influential; he urged Charles VIII to undertake the Neapolitan campaign and stood at his side during the descent, in the illusion, then shared by not a few, even excellent men, that the king of France could promote the necessary reform of the Church. For a time he drew closer to the Pope (1498) and helped to arrange the marriage of Cesare Borgia to Charlotte d’Albret; but he soon fell out again with the Borgia because of their enterprises against his kinsman the Duke of Urbino and his nephew Francesco Maria della Rovere. And he remained away from Rome, now in France, from whose king, who considered him entirely his own, he received (1499) the rich Abbey of Chiaravalle near Milan, now in Savona, where he was bishop, or in other parts of Italy, feared and respected.
He returned to Rome after Alexander’s death, on 3 September 1503; and, perhaps because of the painful experience of his long exile and the unreliable support of foreigners, certainly interpreting the sentiment of much of Italy, he declared that he wished to be a “good Italian.” He succeeded in preventing the election as pope of the Frenchman Amboise, although he did not then obtain the tiara, which went to the aged Pius III. At the latter’s death, he managed to win the support of the still-powerful Valentino through promises that he neither could nor intended to keep; and, not without simoniacal machinations, he obtained the papal election by unanimous vote (19 November 1503). He assumed the name of JULIUS II, as if to indicate his purpose of a work of restoration not unlike that which Julius Caesar had accomplished.
The final goal of his unceasing toil was that religious restoration which was then most necessary. He indeed set about raising the prestige and spiritual authority of the papacy and the Church. With a bull which he published on 14 January 1505 and had reconfirmed at the Lateran Council on 16 February 1513, he declared null any papal election procured by simony and decreed the loss of dignity and goods for those who participated in II. With another bull, which renewed Pius II’s Execrabilis, he imposed excommunication on anyone who opposed the free exercise of papal power or appealed from the pope to a council. He reformed the bull In coena Domini, by which every Holy Thursday those under excommunication were denounced; he resolutely upheld the rights of the Church against the Catholic powers; he combated heresy, while also facilitating the conversion of heretics and seeking to moderate the severity of the Spanish Inquisition.
He supported the religious orders and promoted their reform; he fostered devotion to the Most Holy Sacrament and to the Passion of Christ; he took care to ensure the decorum of sacred functions, and for those celebrated in St Peter’s he established the choir chapel, which took its name from him, the Giulia. He erected dioceses in lands beyond the ocean and favoured the work of missionaries. He issued bulls against duelling and against the custom of appropriating objects cast up by the waves. He also attempted a reform of the Curia, which the difficulties of the times and the resistance of men prevented from being carried out; and he proposed a radical reform as the goal of the Lateran Council, which opened on 3 May 1512, although the Council, absorbed by the not easy task of providing for the extinction of the schism and the abolition of
the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, could do little for reform. He spoke much of the Crusade and gave it serious thought, collecting money and guarding it with jealous care, fitting out ships, and promising to take part in it himself, although he did not believe a Crusade possible until peace had been restored to the world.
Certainly not negligible was his religious activity. But in an age when political and cultural interests prevailed over religious ones, Julius II saw the salvation of the Church less in a spiritual renewal than in the affirmation of its political power, of its external splendour: he wished to elevate the temporal dominion of the papacy as a bulwark of its spiritual independence, to gather Italy around it against the foreign cupidities that threatened both Italy and the Church, to make of himself—or rather of the papacy—the external ruler of the world (M. Sanuto, *Diarii*, X. Venetian, 1883, col. 80).
He therefore set to work first of all for the renewal, security, and enlargement of the Papal States. He kept the turbulent barons in check, or bound them to himself through marriages with his natural daughter or with his nephews and kinsmen; he brought order and tranquillity to Rome, also availing himself of the new institution (1506) of the Swiss Guard, firmly disciplined and commanded by captains chosen by the pope. To the senator, the conservators, and the other civic magistracies he left as much authority as seemed useful for the interests of the state, and he supervised their work through the governor and the vice-camerlengo, chosen by him. He strengthened the powers of the legates and castellans in the lands of the Patrimony; and in the various cities he worked, even personally, to bring peace between the factions.
He reorganized the administration of justice: he maintained, in accordance with the common procedure of the age, the distinction between cases involving ecclesiastics or those, even laymen, attached to the Curia, and those of other laymen, and subjected the former to the Auditor of the Chamber, a high prelateship; but he abolished all other varieties of jurisdiction, and concentrated the adjudication of laymen’s cases in the hands of the magistrates of the Capitoline Curia, whose sentences could be reformed by the new magistracy of the *appellati*. For disputes concerning wages, the governor was empowered to cut short ordinary procedure and had the final decision. A strict audit at the end of each year, from which not even the governor was exempt, was to prevent or repress abuses. G. also reorganized the college of notaries and ensured the proper discharge of their duties and the safekeeping of documents, creating a college of *scriptores archivii Curiae Romanae* with functions chiefly of supervision. For the tribunals and notarial offices, he commissioned Bramante to design and begin the construction of a building of truly Roman grandeur: the Palazzo di Via Giulia remained unfinished owing to the Pope’s death.
The same concept of a strong and firmly ordered State inspired G. II’s measures in the fields of finance and the economy, even though some of these were dictated by the prejudices of the age and not all are worthy of praise. He restored the papal treasury, which had been nearly exhausted by the extravagance of the Borgias, without, however, overburdening the people with taxes or resorting to extortion: when he discovered—though not always—malpractices, he punished them without mercy. He imposed rigorous control over income and expenditure; he was frugal in his own person and with his family, prudent in saving, and judicious in spending. He increased regular revenue by a bold monetary reform, restoring money to its real value and ordering that censuses be paid in the new silver coins, for which Leonardo da Vinci gave advice and perhaps the design, and which removed the Pope’s name from the *giuli*. Extraordinary revenue came from the inheritances of cardinals and high dignitaries of the Curia, the proceeds of confiscations, and—following a common practice of the time in all states—the sale of offices, which sometimes bordered on simony.
The frequent granting of jubilees and indulgences was also too like a sale. With these means the Pope met the immense expenses of wars, administration, and patronage; and yet the papal treasury rose to perhaps half a million ducats, which the Pontiff intended for future Crusades.
Aware that the prosperity of the State was bound up with the welfare of its citizens, he attended to their needs, ensuring grain supplies in times of famine (for which he created 141 “presidents of industry,” particularly in the alum trade) and promoting commerce.
While engaged in this complex and, internally, successful work of reorganization, G. II turned his attention to reasserting papal authority in those cities of the Papal States that acknowledged the Pope’s rule in little more than name. With the collapse of the personal dominion of the Valentino, he recovered several cities of Romagna for the Church; he wrested from the duke the fortresses that had remained loyal to him and did not restore them to their former lords; in the Duchy of Urbino he secured the succession for his nephew Francesco Maria della Rovere. By a campaign he led in person, he obtained—without fighting—the submission of Gian Paolo Baglioni, lord of Perugia (Sept. 1506), and forced Giovanni Bentivoglio to leave Bologna, where he was hailed as the “liberator from tyranny” (11 Nov. 1506).
From the beginning of his pontificate, he had resolutely demanded from the Venetians the return of the lands they had occupied in Romagna after the fall of the Borgias; and for this purpose he had even resorted to foreign powers, though he did not welcome their armed intervention, perhaps deluding himself that he could limit their action to diplomatic pressure and a show of force. He recovered some minor territories, but not Rimini or Faenza, which commanded the northern routes; and, indignant also at the frequent violations of ecclesiastical privileges by the Serenissima, after many vain attempts at agreement and with great hesitation, he adhered (23 March 1509) to the league which the representatives of Louis XII of France and Maximilian of Austria had formed against the Republic in December 1508 at Cambrai—a league that would have operated anyway, and in that case to his disadvantage. He then struck the Venetians with a most severe bull of excommunication and interdict (27 April 1509) and took part in the war. But when the Republic, defeated at Vialate (14 May) and reduced almost to extremity, restored to him the cities of Romagna, he saw the necessity of saving her from imminent ruin; and after long negotiations he reached an agreement with her on terms highly advantageous to the papacy, since the Republic renounced, among other things, its interference in ecclesiastical affairs and the monopoly of Adriatic navigation, which was prejudicial to the coastal cities of the Papal States (15 February 1510).
Fearing then lest he be reduced to the role of “chaplain” of the French (Sanuto, *loc. cit.*, col. 631), who were dominating Italy, he drew closer to the Venetians in order to “liberate Italy from the barbarians,” a program summed up in the famous cry—perhaps not his own—“Out with the barbarians!” He marched in person against Ferrara, “the root of the French” (cf. A. Luzio, *Isabella d’Este di fronte a G. II*, in *Arch. stor. lomb.*, 39 [1912, II], p. 120), of which he was the feudal overlord; he took Modena from the duke; but at Bologna, dangerously ill, he nearly fell into French hands: he was saved by the people, whom he knew how to rouse to resistance (Oct. 1510). He besieged Mirandola, the key to the Ferrarese, regardless of the dangers of war and the severity of winter, and entered it through a breach (20 Jan. 1511). But he had the sorrow of losing Bologna, whether through unpopularity or perhaps the treachery of the legate Alidosi, to whom he was excessively devoted, and of seeing him killed almost before his eyes by his own nephew, the Duke of Urbino.
A grave political error by the King of France, who, at the Synod of Tours (Sept. 1510), revived the ancient Gallican doctrine and agreed with the Emperor to convoke, in the name of some rebel cardinals, a council at Pisa (16 May 1511), gave the Pontiff the opportunity to link the struggle against the “barbarians” with the defense of the unity and freedom of the Church. While he in turn summoned a council at the Lateran (25 July 1511), he negotiated a league with Venice and Spain; and, having recovered from an illness that seemed mortal, he concluded with them the “Holy League” (4 Oct. 1511), to which England adhered; the Emperor withdrew his support from the Pisan council, which was distasteful even to the German prelates.
The defeat of the League at Ravenna (11 April 1512) and the occupation of Romagna by the French seemed for a moment to crush the Pope, whom the so-called Pisan council, transferred from Pisa to Milan, suspended (21 May). But the indomitable G. soon recovered his strength: on 3 May he opened the council in the Lateran, in which the supreme authority of the Pope was reaffirmed. To the coin struck by the King of France with the legend “Perdiam Babylonis nomen,” he responded with a medal representing himself on horseback driving out the barbarians with a whip and trampling on the arms of France. And indeed the French were driven out of Romagna and soon after out of Italy: G. could raise a cry of triumph; the Romans paid him honors such as “no Caesar or other Roman captain ever received” (Sanuto, *op. cit.*, XIV, Venice 1886, col. 458).
The League Congress in Mantua (August 1512) granted Milan to Massimiliano Sforza, as the Pope desired in order to save the Duchy from Spanish ambitions, and resolved upon the return of the Medici to Florence, which was too closely tied to France. But to G. this seemed «a dishonor et danno suo» (A. Luzio, op. cit., p. 120), because it saved the Duke of Ferrara and left foreigners too powerful in Italy. He now wished to strip the rebellious vassal Ferrara of its territories, to curb Spanish power, and «veder Italia in man de Italiani» (op. cit., p. 136). To achieve this, and more especially to secure imperial recognition of the Council, he was forced to sacrifice Venetian interests, which were drifting back toward France. Amid these designs, death broke his resolve after a long struggle.
The same aim of glorifying the Church inspired his magnificent work as a patron. He was not a man of great learning, though he knew civil and Latin literature and enjoyed having the *Divine Comedy* read aloud to him, perhaps because of some affinity between his own nature and Dante’s. He possessed, however, a keen intellect, exquisite taste, and an excellent eye for artists and works of art. Even as a cardinal he had assembled a library, which he later transferred to the Vatican, and had restored the basilicas of S. Pietro in Vincoli and the SS. Apostoli, raised the archiepiscopal palace in Avignon, and built strong and magnificent fortresses at Grottaferrata, Ostia, and Chiaravalle. As Pope, he protected scholarship and the university; founded at Fano the first Arabic printing press; and enjoyed close ties with illustrious men of letters such as Sadoleto and Bembo.
Above all, he proved a remarkable patron and inspirer of artists. As early as spring 1505 he commissioned Michelangelo to execute the vast funerary monument, soon afterward suspended. Later he entrusted the sculptor with a statue of himself, which was placed in February 1508 over the door of S. Petronio in Bologna and destroyed in 1511 by the fury of the rebellious Bolognese. Yet with singular insight into a value unknown even to the artist himself, he induced Michelangelo—against the latter’s wishes—to paint on the vault of the Sistine Chapel (autumn 1508–31 October 1512) the vast poem of the ancient world straining toward the coming of Christ. Raphael, who several times portrayed G.’s manly features, executed in the Vatican Rooms, at G.’s behest, the grand conception of Christian medieval harmony between human and divine science, and celebrated in various episodes G.’s faith in divine aid and his victory over the Church’s enemies and the barbarians. Over the tomb of the first Roman Pontiff, G. decreed that in place of the ancient basilica—then tottering but rich in relics of faith and art, much of which was tragically dispersed—a new *domus* designed by Bramante should rise, surpassing in size and beauty every other house of worship; he laid its first stone on 18 April 1506 and already saw the arches rising on their piers, destined to support the dome.
Within the Vatican Palace, also under Bramante’s design, work began on the Cortile di S. Damaso and the Cortile del Belvedere; in the latter were gathered the *Apollo*, the *Venus*, and the *Laocoön*, forming the nucleus of the future museum. A new Rome arose with its straight streets lined by sumptuous buildings, most splendid of all the Via Giulia. The church of S. Maria del Popolo, dear to the della Rovere, was adorned with Pinturicchio’s frescoes and Andrea Sansovino’s sculptures. Truly Rome appeared, as G. wished it to be, the center of the world. Beyond the city, Civitavecchia received from Bramante its mighty fortress, Loreto its basilica portico, apostolic palace, and marble revetment of the Holy House; churches, palaces, and fortresses bore witness to G.’s munificence.
G. was tall, with a round head, prominent cheekbones, large dark eyes, a deep and stern gaze, and tightly closed lips; the beard by which he is customarily depicted he wore for only a year and a half (late 1510–April 1512), it was said as a sign of his unyielding resolve to defeat the French. Physically as well he seemed «di natura sopra tutte le altre fortissima» (Sanuto, op. cit., XI, Venezia 1884, col. 741); yet he subdued great sufferings with iron will. He had notable character flaws: a Florentine who knew him in youth described him as «capitoso et poco prudente» (cf. Picotti, op. cit., p. 180); he was impetuous, quick-tempered, often violent, intemperate—or rather dissolute—in eating and drinking, and thus earned, perhaps unjustly, the reputation of «vecchio imbrìaco» (A. Luzio, loc. cit., p. 29, n. 1). Morally, at least in his youth, he was not untainted, and this may explain the shameful malady that tormented him until his last years; yet he was better than most prelates or pontiffs of his age. Whatever was said of some unconscionable vice in his old age and as Pope was very probably baseless slander.