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[5] ed as Julius II.
The new pope had reached just to the end of his sixtieth year. He was
notoriously violent and self-willed, restle
[6] , 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. T
[7] reciate.
Julius II found Cesare Borgia installed as the actual ruler of the
greater part of his state, a vassal more powerful than his
[8] ased 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
[9] xpedition 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 alm
[10] ile Julius halted at Orvieto (September 5-9), the Baglioni came
in from Perugia to surrender at discretion. The pope took possessi
[11] na, 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 aft
[12] er 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
[13] he 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 Venic
[14] . 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 t
[15] he 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 foll
[16] f general. Julius, at the news, went off
into one of his rages, throwing his biretta to the ground, cursing and
swearing violently. The
[17] eague. 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
[18] e French.
To Julius II this last particular was welcome rather than otherwise,
for the pope now proposed to crown his career by driving the
[19] 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 mont
[20] cking 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 Cat
[21] 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,
[22] "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, 15
[23] 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 g
[24] of Julius II so satisfied as in these weeks. Since his
dangerous illness the pope had grown a great beard, and wearing his
armou
[25] t. 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 Ferr
[26] 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
[27] l 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
[28] 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.
An
[29] he
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 hi
[30] 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
[31] elp 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 app
[32] r 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 imp
[33] 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. Th
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