Julius II

Julius II created pope the night between the thirty-first of October and the first of November, 1503, was nephew to Sixtus IV, and was called Julian de Rovere. It is said that he had been a waterman: Erasmus has inserted this tradition in his adages. “From the oar to the tribunal, is proverbially said when any one is suddenly raised from a low condition to an honourable employment. I know not whether this happened more luckily to any one than to Julius II; for it is reported that when he was a young man, he used to row for hire, and yet he was raised from a boatman not only to the seat of justice, but even to the highest of human honours; and not satisfied with this elevation, he greatly enlarged the Papal authority, and would have carried it still farther, had he not been prevented by death.” Anastasius Germonius, archbishop of Tarentaise, has maintained that all the stories concerning the birth of Sixtus IV and Julius II, are false, and that Leonard de Rovere, father of Sixtus IV, was a very noble knight, and that before the exaltation of this pope, the family of Rovere was in a flourishing state; but Mr de la Monnoie pretends that Anastasius Germonius, who only copies Onuphrius, cannot stand against Philelphus, Baptist Fregosus, Volaterranus, Corio, Erasmus, Machiavel, Chasseneuz, Bandello, Du Ferron, Masso, and so many others cited by Spondanus in his continuation

of Baronius, on the year 1471, n. 10. Bandello affirms that Julius II boasted that he had steered a little vessel. “Pope Julius II made no difficulty frequently to say, that from Arbizuola, a village in the Savonese, he many times when a boy, carried onions in a boat to sell at Genoa. He was nevertheless a man of great parts, and an exalted genius.”

There was something very remarkable in his election; he was sure of it before the cardinals entered the conclave, so that he came into it pope. He was an exception to the common proverb that he who enters the conclave pope, comes out cardinal, “Chi entra papa, esce cardinale.” He had secured his faction by so many promises, and had in his power so many means of enriching such as would serve him, that it was not possible for him to miss the papal dignity. Besides the riches which he had already gotten, he had in hand those of others; every one was eager to offer him money and even their benefices, so that he saw himself in a capacity of promising more than was asked. Thus you see the iniquitous way by which he rose to the pontificate; It is not a Protestant but an Italian author that says it. Guicciardini, lib. vi. fol. m. 165, verso. ¹²² “But that which served most in his advancement, was the promises immoderate and infinite which he made to the cardinals, princes and barons, and to all others whom he might make profitable to him in that action. Besides, he had the means to distribute money, benefices, and spiritual dignities, as well such as were his own, as those that were the rights of others; for that such was the bruit and renown of his liberality, that many made willing offers to him to dispose as he best liked of their treasures, their names, their offices, and benefices. They considered not that his promises were far too great then, than being pope he either could or ought to observe; for that he had of so long continuance enjoyed the name of just and upright, that

pope Alexander himself, his greatest enemy, speaking ill of him in all other things, could not but confess him to be true of his word, a praise which he made no care to defile and stain thereby to become pope, knowing that no man more easily beguileth another, than he that hath the custom and name never to deceive any.” If he had not made use of this simony, how could he have induced the cardinals to give him their voices? he who had always discovered so terribly and turbulent a temper, and had made many enemies. Money brings about every thing; it made a pope before they had met for the election, a thing never known before. Julius gained the faction of the duke of Valentinois, by making him believe that he was his father, and promising to treat him as his son; he did afterwards just the contrary. No man had ever a more martial spirit than he; he was in person at the taking of towns, and appeared more fiery than those who commanded his armies. Du Plessis Mornai adds nothing to the expressions of Guicciardini when he says “Being resolved to attack Ferrara, he was advised first to take Mirandola, and being tired with the slow progress of that siege which went not to his mind (a thing not expected, and never known before) the vicar of Christ on earth was there in person against a Christian town,” says Guicciardini; “and though old and sick, was so obstinate and impetuous in a war which he himself had raised against the Christian princes, that nothing was done soon enough; he was always calling to the captains in a fury, having his quarters so near the battery that two men were killed in his kitchen, notwithstanding the remonstrances the cardinals made to him of the disgrace he brought both upon himself and his see.” Monstrelet says on that occasion, “he deserted St Peter’s chair to take the title of Mars the god of battle, to display his three crowns in the field, and to sleep in a watchtower; and God knows what a fine figure these mitres, crosses, and crosiers made, fluttering in the camp; the devil was not such a fool as to be there, for benedictions were too cheap.” Guicciardini does very well represent what concerns the siege of Mirandola; for he observes that this pope had no regard to the horrible cold of the season, which retarded the works of the besiegers. Complaining of his captains, he encouraged his soldiers with the hopes of plunder, for he promised them not to capitulate with the town, but to suffer them to sack it. Mezerai says that the town being taken by composition, the nineteenth of March, the pope would be carried into it through the breach.

A great number of writers affirm that he once threw St Peter’s keys into the Tiber; hitherto I have found no authority for this, besides this Latin epigram of one Gilbertus Ducherius Vulto Aquapersanus:—

In Galium ut fama est, bellum ges turns acerbum,
Armatum educit Julius urbe manum:
Accinctus gladio, claves in Tibridis amnem
Projicit et sævus, talia verba facit:
“Quum Petri nihil efficiant ad prælia claves,
Auxilio Pauli forsitan ensis erit.”

Fame says Pope Julius once the sword did wield,
And to engage the Frenchman took the field.
Fierce into Tiber’s stream the keys he threw,
Exclaiming loudly as his sword he drew:
“Since in my aid thy keys, O Peter, fail,
Thy sword, O Paul, in battle may avail.”

It must be confessed that this is a very weak foundation; for when a poet has a pretty thought, and finds no proper subject that he may apply it to, he makes no scruple to supply the want of it by his amplifications and fictions; and he will dispense with the truth rather than lose a witty saying: be that how it may, this action true or false, of Julius II is to be found in many authors. One of the latest writers in whom I

I have read it, relates it thus: Joan. Henricus Heidegg. Historia Papatus, pag. 192, 193. ¹²³ “Having made an alliance with the Venetians, this most unjust and perfidious warrior led his army against the emperor’s allies, the duke of Ferrara and Lewis XII king of France, with an expression which denoted him rather the successor of a most abandoned and wicked robber, than of St Peter; for marching out of Rome with his army, he in a rage threw St Peter’s key into the Tiber, adding these words: ‘Since St Peter’s key is of no farther use (at the same time he drew his sword), let us try St Paul’s sword.'” However this may have been, if this pope wanted the qualities of a good bishop, he had at least those of a conquering prince. He had great courage and a political bead, by which he formed leagues and broke them according to the exigency of his interest; he made a most formidable one against the republic of Venice, and made use among other things, of the thunder of his excommunications; but when he saw that the victory which the king of France, one of the heads of that league, obtained over the Venetians, too much weakened that republic, he forsook his allies and reunited himself with it. The emperor and the king of France equally dissatisfied with him, endeavoured to bring him to reason by a way always formidable to the popes, which was by the calling of a council; but he was not daunted at that, he proceeded severely against this council, and called another himself which had the better of it, to which at last the king of France submitted in a low manner: it is true that Julius II was then dead. The sacred league which he formed in Italy received a terrible check by the battle of Ravenna; and if they had known how to make use of that advantage, they would doubtless have humbled this haughty pontiff, whereas they permitted him to recover himself from that severe blow, by the little use they made of that victory, to which the powerful diversion in his behalf contributed very much. He recovered himself so well, that the same year the French were forced to abandon the Milanese. Nothing was so prejudicial to Lewis XII as the superstition of Anne of Bretagny his wife. She filled her head with so many scruples about the war that France made with the pope, that she retarded all the good designs of her husband. Julius obtained great succours from the Swiss, and was very liberal of titles and marks of honour towards the cantons; he died of a sickness, full of vast designs, the twenty-second of February, 1513. This is what Guicciardini says: “He was a prince of incredible constancy and courage, but so full of fury and unruled conceptions, that the reverence that was borne to the church, the discord of princes, and the condition of the times, did more to stay him from his ruin than either his moderation or his discretion; worthy no doubt of great glory, if either he had been a secular prince, or if that care and intention which he had to raise the church into temporal greatness by the means of war, had been employed to exalt it by the mediation of peace in matters spiritual. Nevertheless he was lamented above all his predecessors, and no less esteemed of those who having either lost the true consideration of things, or at least, ignorant how to distinguish and appease them rightly, judged it an office more duly appertaining to popes, to increase the jurisdiction of the apostolic see by arms and blood of Christians, than by good example of life and due curing and correction of corrupt manners, to travel for the saving of those souls, for whom they glory so much that Jesus Christ hath named them his vicars on earth” How judicious is this, and what an admirable censure upon those impatient doctors who believe all to be just, provided the temporal grandeur of the church be improved by it! It in particular hits cardinal Palavicini, who speaks so faintly of Julius II’s faults, and excuses them by reason of the temporal advantage they brought to St Peter’s patrimony. “He was endowed with a high spirit, insomuch that if he had been a temporal prince, he would deserve to be put in the number of the heroes. Certainly, had it not been for that fierceness, he would not have recovered to the church the best part of her patrimony.” Istoria del Concilio, lib. i, cap. 1, n. 5. ¹²⁴ Paul Jovius affirms that Julius II died having a vast design upon the kingdom of Naples. It was said that the title of deliverer of Italy, with which he suffered himself to be flattered, was but an empty name while the Spaniards were possessed of Naples: “If God let me act,” answered he, striking his stick upon the ground, “this shall not last long. Ad quod Pontifex quassato scipione quo innixus pavimentum infrendendo pertundebat, responds brevi futurum, ut Neapolitani non iratis superis externum jugum excuterent."

Julius was a lover of wine and women, and he is accused even of the unnatural sin; and there is no sort of crime but he is charged with, in a dialogue it is feigned he had with St Peter at the gate of Paradise. We are told of an exclamation of the emperor Maximilian: “Good God! what would become of the world, if thou didst not take a particular care of it under the reign of such an emperor as I am, who am but a poor hunter, and under that of so wicked and drunken a pope as Julius II.” Some historians observe that this pope invented a new name to accuse the French of drinking too much wine, and discharging it immediately by urine, and they add that this was his great vice. “He gave the French the general appellation of Micturovini, thus adding a new word to the Roman language, implying that they were immoderate drinkers of wine, which was afterwards to be discharged, of which vice he himself was very guilty." It is said that one of his officers, a Norman by nation, told him one day, “Faith, holy father, you are then a true

Frenchman, for you are one of the greatest Micturovini upon earth.”

His hatred against France, where he had found a good sanctuary under the pontificate of Alexander VI, was so excessive, that he ordered that all the French which could be met with, should be killed, and promised a recompense to whomsoever should execute his order. We are not to believe that the wine and hams which he sent to the king of England, were the true cause of the war of the English against France. Spondanus has been so unjust as to insinuate this, and to jest upon it; and he pretends that Polydore Virgil said nothing of it, to save at once the honour of Italy and England. Polydore was an Italian and lived in England; he was therefore concerned in the glory of both these nations. Now he thought it unworthy of Italy to win people by such allurements, and unworthy of England to suffer itself to be caught by such a bait. These are the words of the annalist: Spondanus, ad ann. 1512, n. 3, pag. m. 289. ¹²⁵ “It is a merry story which Guicciardini relates, that a ship belonging to the pope, laden with Falernian wine, cheeses, and Westphalia hams, arrived at that time in England, which being made a present of in the pope’s name to the king, nobles, and prelates, was received by them all with wonderful applause; and that the common people, whom trifles affect no less than things of moment, flocked to see that ship with great pleasure, boasting that they had never before seen in that island, any ship with Papal colours. Guicciardini tells us that nation was fond of wine and high-seasoned meats, by which the Pope knew he should easily draw them to his party, as they say Narses once enticed the Lombards into Italy, sending them all kinds of fruit and other delicacies with which Italy abounds, that they might be induced to leave their own native poverty, and take possession of a

country full of all sorts of riches. Now whereas Polydore Virgil has not inserted in his history of England this memorable fact, so highly acceptable to the king, nobles, prelates, and people, I take the reason to be, because being an Italian and residing in England, he had regard to the gravity of both nations.” Mezerai comes much nearer the truth, for he observes that the pope spurred on Henry VIII with the ambition of protecting the true church. “The English,” says he, “were upon the point of breaking with the king; for the pope had made them drunk with the vain-glory of defending the holy see, and with the flavour of delicious wines of all sorts, with which he had sent them a great ship laden, together with hams, sausages, and spices to make them relish the better.” According to Varillas it was from a motive of religion that an English bishop sounded an alarm for war the day after the feast given by Henry VIII, where the chief members of the parliament were treated with the good wines and excellent cheeses which the pope’s ship had brought to London. This prelate represented that Lewis XII was a persecutor of the church, and that it “would be an eternal disgrace to the English nation to live in peace with the persecutors of the holy see.” Varillas should have a little better explained all the reasons of this prelate, and not have been contented to give us to understand that some political reasons were added to those religious motives. The English prelate urged no doubt that Lewis XII would depose the pope only to create another in bis room, who would permit him to conquer Italy. This certainly was the true spring that put Henry VIII in motion; he plainly perceived that if no opposition were made to it, Lewis XII would reap all the glory of deposing Julius II the scourge of Christendom, and of creating a new pope devoted to him, and of subduing all Italy. Human policy and jealousy do not suffer a prince to consent to such an aggrandizing of the glory and power of his neighbours; and for this reason Lewis XII saw the forces of England, Switzerland, and Spain against him.

The history of Venice written by Cardinal Bembo, is sufficient to shew the passion, treachery, and prodigious ambition of Julius II, though this historian is less prolix upon it than Guicciardini. Bandelli tells a story that is pleasant enough: “The Germans,” says be, having asked the Pope leave to eat flesh upon St Martin’s day when it should fall on a fish day; Julius would not flatly deny them that favour, but granted it on condition they should drink no wine the same day.” This was the same thing as a refusal, there being more to be lost than gotten by such a favour. In the year 1511, Julius II interdicted the whole kingdom of France except Brittany.

Art. Julius II.