| #### JULIUS II |

| #### #### Four weeks and a day after Alexander's death thirty-seven cardinals went into conclave. Two were French, there was a block of eleven Spaniards, and twenty-two very divided Italians. Had Cesare Borgia been able to act, he might have imposed a pope of his own choice. But the cardinals, aided by the ambassadors of France, Spain and the emperor, were able to induce the sick man to make terms. His army was but one of three in the neighbourhood of Rome, and, the cardinals guaranteeing him his possessions and a free passage to them with his forces, and the French and Spanish ambassadors pledging that the armies of their sovereigns would not move nearer to Rome while the conclave debated, this most dangerous enemy of religion left Rome on September 2, still so ill that he was carried in a litter. Two days later the solemnities of the late pope's funeral began. On September 5 Giuliano della Rovere came back to Rome, after his long exile, and on the sixteenth the conclave began. #### Giuliano made no secret that he meant to be pope himself. Two other powerful men were equally determined to be elected; Ascanio Sforza and the French king's chief minister, Georges d'Amboise, Archbishop of Rouen. For the cardinals, after the disgraceful history of the last thirty years, to elect another Italian or Spaniard and disregard the wishes of Louis XII would, so the French considered, be an unbearable insult. "Our generals, said this French Wolsey, "are aware of these intrigues, and they will not patiently endure such a slight to their king. " #### For five days the conclave was hopelessly deadlocked, despite Giuliano's success in winning the Spanish cardinals to his side. Then d'Amboise and Ascanio joined forces to propose a quiet, neutral man against whom none had a word to say, the senior member of the college, Francesco Piccolomini, the nephew of Pius II. The whole college rallied to him, and on September 22 he was proclaimed as Pius III. He was indeed a colourless personage, though not a weakling of the type of Innocent VIII, and he was a man of unblemished life. [ ] Hopes of reform accordingly ran high, especially when he promptly announced that he would summon a General Council. But Pius III, sixty-five years of age, and like his uncle a lifelong martyr to gout, was indeed a very feeble old man. The long ceremonies that followed his election -- his ordination (for he was only a deacon), [ ] his consecration as bishop and his coronation -- and the first rush of routine business, were too much for him. He very soon fell ill, and in less than four weeks after his election he was dead. In October 1503 the competitors of September took up again their round of busy intrigue and, this time, of bribery and simony too. Cesare Borgia had now returned to Rome. On the eve of the conclave he made his bargain with Giuliano della Rovere. The cardinal was to have the votes of the Spaniards, and he was to confirm Cesare in his possessions, and in his post of commander-in- chief. A short conclave of a few hours' duration sufficed to elect Giuliano, and on November 1 he was proclaimed as Julius II. #### The new pope had reached just to the end of his sixtieth year. He was notoriously violent and self-willed, restless, a politician who, when not in office, had always been a rebel; and during the greater part of the reign of Alexander VI he had been the pope's most dangerous enemy. What his contemporaries saw in the election was the emergence of a strong pope, and they looked forward to a time of order, good government and peace. This last hope was not to be fulfilled, and Giuliano della Rovere was to show himself in a new role as Pope Julius II, for his immense energy was to work itself out in military expeditions quite as much as in diplomatic manoeuvres. There was, of course, little that was lamblike in such of the pope's contemporaries as Ferdinand of Spain, Louis XII of France, our own Henry VII, the Emperor Maximilian or the Venetian Senate. It was a world of hard lying, of perfidy, of cruelty and violence that the pope had known, and worked in, during the thirty years since, at the invitation of his uncle, Sixtus IV, he had left his Franciscan cell to become a cardinal and man of affairs. He did not propose to retire from that world now, nor to shrink from using in defence of his rights the only argument whose force that world would appreciate. #### Julius II found Cesare Borgia installed as the actual ruler of the greater part of his state, a vassal more powerful than his suzerain; and what cities of the Romagna were not in Cesare's power, Venice, in these late disturbed years, had laid hands on. But, in fact, Cesare Borgia's position was critical. His French patron's star had declined; and he was not himself well established, as yet, with the Spaniards. When the terrible condottiere betook himself to Naples, as a first step towards making himself once again a reality in Italian politics, his admiring friend the viceroy, Gonsalvo de Cordova, was nevertheless compelled, by Ferdinand's instructions, to arrest him. When the pope now suggested to the King of Spain that Italy would be a happier place for all its princes were Cesare out of it, Ferdinand readily agreed, and under a strong guard the most dangerous of the Borgia returned in 1504 to his native land. Like many another of his kind he ceased to be terrible from the moment he came up against superior force and equal determination. #### By this time Julius II had regained the most of the Romagna towns where Cesare Borgia had been lord. But the Venetians, with a polite kind of contempt, refused to take seriously the pope's repeated demands for a restoration of what they held, such great cities as Rimini, Faenza and Ravenna. And their intrigues to seduce from him the newly-acquired Romagna never ceased. The pope began to look round for allies; Venice was a power far beyond what his slight resources could hope to subdue. And the pope no longer looked to the other Italian states. Naples was now ruled by Spain, Milan by France. The new papal diplomacy must be international; the next war, if war there must be, would be a general European war. But while France and Spain were still at war about Naples, the pope's great schemes had to wait. #### In the next two years (1504-1506) the pope secured from Venice a few small towns -- surrenders made in a manner that emphasised the Venetian determination to keep the main strongholds, and also the Venetian sense of the pope's helplessness -- and he took back the papal fiefs in the Campagna which Alexander VI had granted to the Borgia. Then, by three diplomatic marriages, he sought to bind to the Holy See the most turbulent of his own barons; one of his nieces married a Colonna, while, for a nephew and for one of his own daughters he arranged marriages with the Orsini. In October 1505 France and Spain finally came to an accord about Naples, [ ] the pope's diplomacy completed his alliances with the Italian states, [ ] his last preparations were made, and in the summer of 1506 he announced his plan. It was to reduce his own two cities of Perugia and Bologna, neither of which had ever been more than nominally subject to the popes. Despite the opposition of Venice, and of France, the expedition started, August 26, 1506, and Julius II led it in person. It was almost three years since his election. The remaining six years of his reign were to see almost continuous war. #### The pope was absent from Rome for just seven months, and the event justified his courage. As had more than once happened in the days of the ruthless Cesare Borgia, the tyrants did not wait to try a fall with fate. While Julius halted at Orvieto (September 5-9), the Baglioni came in from Perugia to surrender at discretion. The pope took possession of the town four days later. He reached Imola by October 20, and while he planned there his last moves against Bologna, the news came that the tyrant -- Bentivoglio -- had fled. On November 10 Julius entered the city, the first pope to be really its lord. He remained at Bologna, reorganising the government, until after the New Year and returned to Rome on March 27, 1507. It was the eve of Palm Sunday, and the next day Julius made his ceremonial entry in the most magnificent procession known for years, under triumphal arches, and amid showers of flowers, with choirs singing in his honour the hymns from the day's great liturgy -- to the unconcealed scandal of the pope's master of ceremonies, who said openly to Julius that this was a scandalous way for a pope to begin Holy Week. [ ] #### The next objective of the victorious pope was Venice. But a new obstacle now blocked the plan of a grand alliance. Ferdinand of Spain was introducing into his new kingdom of Naples that system of royal control over Church affairs which was one of the characteristics of his rule in Spain, where the king was all-powerful in appointments to sees, and where without his leave none dared, under pain of death, bring in any bulls or other documents from the Holy See. And while this trouble was yet unsettled Ferdinand, to the pope's chagrin, not only made his peace with Louis XII in a personal interview at Savona (June 1507), but refused to meet the pope. However, by the end of the next year, 1508, the needs of the Emperor Maximilian had brought about the long desired league against Venice. On December 10, 1508, the emperor and the King of France signed a pact of alliance at Cambrai -- a peace-treaty between the two powers and a league against the Turks. But secretly they had come to an agreement to attack Venice and to partition the republic's possessions on the European mainland, offering an appropriate share of the spoil to all interested. If the pope joined the league -- he was not represented at Cambrai -- he was to bring against Venice his spiritual powers also, and he would receive at the peace his own Romagna cities that Venice still detained. It was not until nearly four months later that Julius joined the league, until after the Venetians had repeatedly, and with their usual scorn, refused his new demands for the return of his territories. When the news came that the pope had joined the alliance they offered restitution. But Julius now stood by the pact, and on April 27 he laid an interdict on the republic. #### The first act of the long war which followed was soon over. On May 14, 1509, the Venetian army was scattered like chaff at the battle of Agnadello. Venice was, for the moment, at the mercy of the league, and evacuating immediately the papal cities of Ravenna, Cervia, Rimini, and Faenza, the republic appealed to the pope for mercy. The envoys had a grim reception (July 1509), for almost the last act of Venice before the disastrous battle was to appeal against the pope to a future General Council. Before the pope would discuss the desired absolution from excommunication and interdict, the Venetians must accept his terms, promise to abandon their habit of installing bishops without the pope's consent, for example, or of levying taxes on the clergy. Moreover, the Venetians must restore. all their Italian conquests of the last eight years and more. While the pope held out, the fortunes of war suddenly changed; Venice, within a few weeks, had regained Padua and captured the pope's chief general. Julius, at the news, went off into one of his rages, throwing his biretta to the ground, cursing and swearing violently. The republic broke off the negotiations. And then the pope set them going once more. What brought the pope to approach Venice was a new fear of France, not only dominant now in northern Italy, but showing itself unpleasantly able to force from the pope new concessions in jurisdiction. On February 15, 1510, the pope made peace with Venice, and so deserted the league. The Venetians gave way on all points, and Julius reduced the humiliating ceremony of the reconciliation to a thin formality. But, in their hearts, the Venetians still held out. Nine days before the act of submission, the Council of Ten had drawn up a secret declaration that they would not hold themselves bound by what, so they declared, they only signed under compulsion. The gains of the war would be the pope's only so long as he had strength to keep them; and meanwhile he had mortally offended his allies, especially the French. #### To Julius II this last particular was welcome rather than otherwise, for the pope now proposed to crown his career by driving the French out of Italy once and for all. If he did not actually utter the famous words "Out with the barbarians, " the sentiment was, from now, for ever on his lips. The year 1510 opened with the certainty of a speedy new war between the pope and France. He could not eat nor drink, nor sleep, he said, for the thought of the French. It was obviously the will of God that he should punish their ally, the Duke of Ferrara, and free Italy from their power. The first stage in the business was for the pope to destroy this powerful vassal, the Duke of Ferrara, who had disregarded the papal command to desert his French ally, and who was still harassing the Venetians. On August 9, 1510, Julius II excommunicated him, in a bull of staggering severity, and declared his fief forfeited. Then, at the end of the month, the pope once more left Rome at the head of an army marching north. #### The French king had not passively awaited the pope's assault, but he was gravely handicapped by the loss of the shrewdest of his advisers, the cardinal Georges d'Amboise, [ ] whom a personal hatred of the pope stimulated to brave any extremity, and who was the one force that could keep the king's own vacillating will fixed and true to its purpose. And while the pope made an alliance that secured him the invaluable Swiss -- rightly reputed the finest soldiers of the day -- Louis XII fell into the abysmal mistake of attacking the pope through the spiritual arm. It was perhaps a natural kind of reprisal for Julius II's lavish use of excommunications to forward his plans. But all history was there to show how, in the hands of a Catholic prince, this weapon breaks sooner or later. To such contests there is but one end, submission and retraction on the part of the prince -- unless the prince turns heretic and leaves the Church, in which case all hope of dominating the Church is at an end. #### But Louis XII was ill-advised, and Julius knew it. While the pope watched the French cardinals narrowly, imprisoning one of them and threatening to behead him, Louis, so Machiavelli, now Florence's ambassador in France, wrote home, was resolved to renounce obedience to the pope "and to hang a council round his neck. " Julius II was to be annihilated, in spirituals as well as in temporals, and another set in his place. This was on July 21, 1510, and nine days later the French king sent out to the bishops of France a summons to meet and arrange the preliminaries of the council. The technique for dealing with awkward popes invented by Philip the Fair, and by now a tradition with the French kings, was beginning to function. On August 16 a royal edict forbade French subjects to visit Rome, and in September, at a great meeting at Tours, the bishops gave Louis their support, and voted a generous subsidy to help the expedition that was to invade Italy once more and, this time, depose the pope. #### By now Julius II was nearing Bologna, and there misfortunes crowded upon him. On October 17 he heard that five of his cardinals had gone over to Louis, and the next day the sickness, under which he had been labouring for some time, took a sudden turn for the worse. He fell into a delirium and raved that rather than fall into the hands of the French he would kill himself. The cardinals expected his death, and began to think of the conclave. Meanwhile the French were within ten miles of the city, and Cardinal Alidosi, the pope's favourite, was treasonably negotiating with them. #### But the old pope recovered as speedily as he had collapsed. He managed to keep the French away by a feint of negotiations and then, as the Venetians and Spaniards arrived, the French fell back. By the end of the year 1510 the initiative had once again passed to the pope, his armies were besieging the fortresses of Concordia and Mirandola that were the keys to Ferrara, and, scorning the doctors, he pressed on to take his place in the front of the attack (January 2, 1511). Never was the fiery spirit of Julius II so satisfied as in these weeks. Since his dangerous illness the pope had grown a great beard, and wearing his armour he stamped through the deep snow before the walls of Mirandola, delighting the soldiers with his familiarity as he mixed with them round the camp fires, and by the blunt, coarse language in which, from time to time, he raged at the incompetence and over-cautiousness of his generals. Men were killed at his side and the roof of the farmhouse where he lodged was shot away as he sat there. But the pope hung on, promising the soldiers the sack of the city once they had taken it. On January 20 Mirandola fell, and Julius made his way in with the troops up the scaling ladders and through the newly-opened breach. #### But soon the Duke of Ferrara had beaten the papal army in open battle (February 28), the French were once more masters in Bologna, and the pope only just got away in time to Ravenna. Here there were violent scenes between Julius and his nephew, the Duke of Urbino, whom the pope blamed for the loss of Bologna, and who in turn blamed the favourite Alidosi. On May 27 the duke and cardinal met in the streets and, as the cardinal smiled contemptuously at him, the passionate young man cut him down and finished him off with a dozen wounds. The pope had, however, no time to indulge his sorrow, or his rage, nor to repress the unconcealed delight of all his court and cardinals at the disappearance of the wretched traitor. He had now to fly to Rimini, and there he found, fixed to the doors of the church with due formality, a summons from the rebellious cardinals citing him to a council which would meet at Pisa in the coming September; and not only the King of France, but the emperor too, supported them. The glories of Mirandola were ended indeed, and with all possible speed the pope made his way back to Rome. [ ] It was a dark hour in his life; Julius II was isolated, and the coming council would no doubt "depose" him. #### But the religious situation was not so bad as it seemed. Although, in France, the University of Paris was once again stirred up to popularise that theory of the pope's subordination to General Councils which had already done the French kings such service, and although, along with this, a campaign was organised, in the press and on the stage, of anti-papal calumny and ridicule, the scheme for a great council at Pisa died almost at birth. The emperor found it impossible to persuade Hungary and Poland to join him; the English held aloof, and so did Spain. But it was the reply which the pope made to the rebels that killed the movement. For, on July 25, 1511, just a month after his return to Rome, Julius II made the plan of the rebels his own, and summoned a General Council which should meet at Rome on April 19, 1512. And during the summer his diplomacy managed to knit a new combination against France -- the Holy League, for the protection and defence of the pope. This was signed on October 4. On November 17 the new young King of England, Henry VIII, joined it and in the first week of the New Year the war began again. #### Meanwhile, on November 1, 1511, the four rebel cardinals arrived at Pisa, with a dozen or so French bishops in support, to find that no one in the town would lodge them and that the canons had locked up the cathedral. In the next fortnight they managed to hold three pretentious sessions, where, with a wealth of declamation, they reaffirmed the ideals of the famous fifth session of Constance, and then, all but chased out by the townsfolk, they declared the council transferred to Milan, where Louis XII still reigned as duke. #### The new anti-French offensive opened well. The Venetians took Brescia (February 2, 1512) and the Spanish and papal army laid siege to Bologna (January 26). But there now appeared one of the greatest military geniuses of all time, Gaston de Foix, a kinsman of Louis XII, twenty-three years of age, and in a few brief weeks he all but destroyed the league. He managed to make his way into Bologna (February 5) and forced a raising of the siege. On February 18 he retook Brescia, and on April 11 -- Easter Sunday -- he inflicted on the Venetians and Spaniards the terrible defeat of Ravenna. It was the bloodiest battle fought in Italy for a thousand years. The vanquished lost 10,000 killed, and a vast horde of prisoners, among them the Papal Legate Cardinal de' Medici. But the victor was himself slain in the battle. #### When the news of the defeat reached Rome there was universal panic. Even the pope' for a moment, gave way. The French were masters of the key' province of his state. How long would it be before Julius was in their hands? And at Milan the rebel cardinals, on April 21, declared him suspended from his office, that all his acts henceforth were void in law, his appointments also; and they explicitly forbade him to create any new cardinals. #### The ultimately decisive event, however, was not the victory at Ravenna, but the death of Gaston de Foix. This the Cardinal Legate shrewdly foresaw, and he managed to send his cousin, Giulio de' Medici [ ] to the pope to impress upon him the difference this must make. While the emperor recalled the troops he had sent to serve under Gaston -- the German professional mercenaries who had been a main element in the victory -- the Swiss now descended on Verona. The French, utterly disordered, led now by a weak and incompetent commander, and beyond the reach of reinforcements, were forced to retreat or see their line of communications cut. The pope now looked on at the most amazing spectacle of a victorious army in full retreat. Like mist before the sun the great threat disappeared. The Romagna, Bologna, Pavia, Milan itself, were abandoned, and in ten weeks after the victory of Ravenna the victors were back in France, a broken remnant. Somewhere in the rout were the cardinals and bishops of the rebel council. " Papa Bernadin" [ ] was finished. Meanwhile, on May 3, only a fortnight after the appointed date, the General Council which the pope had summoned, assembled in the basilica of the Lateran. #### In August the allies met at Mantua to regulate the future of Italy. Milan, now recovered from the French, was given back to the Sforza, and Florence to the Medici. But from Milan were detached Parma and Piacenza, handed over to the pope, who also received Reggio. One awkward question defied settlement, the claim of the emperor on Venice for Verona and Vicenza. The pope was most anxious to win Maximilian's support for the council and he now, for the third time in his short reign, reversed his policy. On November 19, 1512, he made a treaty with Maximilian against Venice, his late ally. The emperor was to support the council, and to hand over Modena to the pope -- whose new territories were thus linked to the old -- while Julius was to join in compelling Venice to give up the fiefs which the emperor claimed, and to use on behalf of his new ally spiritual weapons too. This treaty was made public on November 25. Its effect, of course, was to drive Venice to seek help from France, and in March 1513 a new alliance was negotiated between them and a new war began. But by that time Julius II was no more. #### Towards the end of 1512 the pope -- he was close on seventy -- began to fail rapidly, and he was apparently the first to realise that, this time, it was the end. His last days were harassed by the realisation that while he had destroyed the hold of the French on Italy, the Spaniards had very effectively taken their place. "If God grants me life, " he had been heard to say, "I will free the Neapolitans from the yoke which is now upon their necks. " Whether such feats were a proper occupation for popes, whether indeed, Julius seriously meditated such a war, death found him still restless and anxious about the menace of Spain. One thing he impressed on the cardinals who stood round his bed, that they should observe the new law he had just made about simony in the conclave. In the night of February 20-21, 1513, he passed away. #### Julius II had died at a critical moment in the complicated international life of which the pope was now a principal figure. There was no certitude that his successor, even if faithful to his ideals, would choose the same alliances through which to realise them. All Europe would watch the conclave with even more interest than usual. The dead pope was sincerely mourned by his subjects, a new feature of papal obsequies, and it was a testimony to his administration that, for the first time in fifty years, the cardinals assembled in a city of unbroken calm. #### There were twenty-five of them, in all, to go into conclave on March 4, 1513. Those lately in active rebellion against the pope were excluded. There were no outstanding personalities among the cardinals, no intriguers of genius, and no well- defined groups. In a leisurely way they first drew up the usual pact to secure from the new pope what they thought their due share of money and offices and privileges. On March 7 the impatient guardians of the conclave reduced their rations of food, to hasten their deliberations, and reduced them still further three days later. The only line of conflict in the college was, seemingly, that of age, the older cardinals against the younger men, Riario Sansoni, a cousin of the late pope, against Giovanni de' Medici. It was evident that no Venetian could be chosen, still less a Frenchman. At the first ballot -- March 10 the votes were well scattered. Then Sansoni and Medici met, the son of the all-but-murdered Lorenzo de' Medici and the cardinal whom the murderers had used as a decoy and in whose presence the crime had been committed. The older man had too many personal enemies for his own election to be possible. He agreed that his friends should support Medici. A second scrutiny, pro forma, confirmed the pact, and on March 11 Medici was proclaimed as Pope Leo X, to the surprise of Rome and of the whole Christian world. ####  |