Julius II (1443–1513)

Pope from 1503 until his death in 1513. Born in the village of Albissola as Giuliano della Rovere, he was the member of a noble but poor family. He was educated in the city of Perugia by his uncle, Francesco della Rovere, a member of the Franciscan order. When Francesco was elected as Pope Sixtus IV in 1471, Giuliano's prospects in the church improved dramatically. He was immediately made bishop of Carpentras, a diocese in France, and named cardinalpriest of San Pietro in Vincula (Saint Peter in Chains), an important Roman church. He won several more appointments as bishop, in Lausanne, Coutances, Catania, Mende, Viviers, Sabina, Bologna, Ostia, Lodeve, Savona, and Vercelli. In 1476, he was named archbishop of Avignon, and in 1480 became the papal legate (ambassador) to the king of France.

Della Rovere's ambition reached all the way to the papal throne, and through skillful diplomacy and bribery attained a powerful position within the College of Cardinals

, the body responsible for electing the pope. In 1492, on the death of Sixtus IV, he was thwarted in his goal by Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, his rival, who attained the Papacy as Alexander VI. Angrily denouncing the election, Della Rovere fled Italy in fear for his life and journeyed back to Paris, where he convinced King Charles VIII to attempt an invasion of Italy and the conquest of Naples. Della Rovere's aim was to depose Alexander, but when he reached Rome in the company of the king, the pope outmaneuvered him by bribing one of Charles's key ministers.

In 1503 Alexander became gravely sick after a banquet and soon died. His successor, Pius III, reigned for only a few days after his election. Della Rovere then convened the College of Cardinals and through bribery managed to have himself raised to the Papacy through the shortest conclave in the history of the church.

Taking the name Julius II, he set out to regain control of the Romagna region of north central Italy, where many prosperous cities were being ruled by tyrants, including Cesare Borgia, and rival states, particularly the Republic of Venice, that had little allegiance to the Papacy. In 1506, marching northward at the head of a papal army, he defeated the Baglioni clan of Perugia and Giovanni Bentivoglio, the ruler of Bologna. In 1508 Julius formed the League of Cambrai with Louis XII of France, Maximilian I, and Ferdinand II of Aragon against Venice. The pope put the city under an interdict. At the Battle of Agnadello the League routed the mercenary army raised by Venice, and Julius brought the cities of Rimini and Faenza back under his own authority. Seeking to liberate Italy completely from foreign domination, Julius then turned against the French, forming the Holy League with Ferdinand II, Henry VIII of England, and his former enemy, Venice, to attack French troops in Italy.

Julius began the attack by excommunicating and deposing Alfonso, the duke of Ferrara, who at the time was allied with France. The pope's actions raised the ire of the French king Louis XII, who gathered his bishops into a synod at the city of Tours to declare themselves free of obedience to the pope, and who conspired with Emperor Maximilian to dethrone Julius. The French invaded Italy and seized Bologna in 1511, reinstating Giovanni Bentivoglio as the city's ruler. The French army was thrashed at the Battle of Ravenna in 1512 and driven out of Italy, Bologna as well as Param, Piacenza, and Reggio came under the pope's control, but Julius found to his chagrin that the cities of Italy, weakened by many years of warfare, remained an inviting prey to the armies of the Holy Roman Empire, which after the death of Julius in 1513 would invade the peninsula and devastate Julius's imperial city in the brutal Sack of Rome in 1527.

Julius is remembered by historians as the “Warrior Pope,” determined to make the Papacy a political and military power that would be feared throughout Italy and in the rest of Europe. But he is more respected as a patron of the arts. Determined to turn Rome into an imposing symbol of the church's power, he brought artists and architects to the city and paid them generously to dedicate their lives and works to producing monumental works for the church. He commissioned Donato Bramante to rebuild Saint Peter's Basilica and Michelangelo Buonarroti to decorate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with a series of fresco paintings that would become the single most imposing work of Italian Renaissance art. He contributed a large portion of the income he earned from his estates and benefices to the raising of palaces and fortifications in the city, playing a key role in transforming Rome from a chaotic medieval town into the imposing and monumental city that it remains to this day.

See Also: Alexander VI; Bramante, Donato; Charles VIII; Michaelangelo Buonarroti