Giuliano della Rovere was elected to the office of Pope on 1st
November 1503, taking the title of Julius II. Despite the corruption,
double-dealing and other very worldly activities of which he was doubtless
guilty, Julius’s reign would leave some remarkable legacies that have lasted to
the present day.
Giuliano della Rovere’s rise to power
Giuliano, born in 1443, was the nephew of Pope Sixtus IV,
after whom the Sistine Chapel in Rome is named. Giuliano gained hugely from the
relationship, being made a cardinal in 1479 and given charge of nine
bishroprics and numerous abbeys, all of which produced a considerable
income. He also managed to father three
illegitimate daughters, one of whom, Felice, was destined to become a wealthy
and powerful woman in her own right.
When Sixtus died in 1484, Giuliano expected to be elected as
pope in his place, but was outvoted by Innocent VIII who only lasted for eight
years. At his second attempt Giuliano was defeated by Alexander VI, the
notoriously corrupt Rodrigo Borgia, whose bribes were larger than those that
Giuliano della Rovere could muster.
Giuliano was not willing to take this rebuff lying down, so
he left Italy in order to join the French King Charles VIII in a military
campaign to invade Italy and depose Pope Alexander. The attempt failed and
Giuliano was forced to seek sanctuary in France after Alexander ordered his
assassination.
Alexander died in 1503 and Giuliano once again put himself
forward for election. He failed again, this time at the hands of Pius III, who
had the advantage of being neither a Borgia nor a della Rovere, but the
disadvantage of being in such poor health that he died after less than three
weeks, thus giving Giuliano his fourth shot at being pope, this time
successfully. After a lifetime of striving for the top job, he was nearly 60
when he eventually achieved it.
A warrior pope
As pope, Julius II had to defend his throne against his
enemies. The first of these was Cesare Borgia, son of Alexander, who was soon
expelled from Italy and died four years later fighting in Spain. Julius then
moved against the Bentivogli family who governed Bologna as despots. The city
state was subsequently annexed to the Papal States in 1507.
Julius also defeated the powerful Venetians (in alliance
with France and the Holy Roman Empire) in a dispute over two towns that they
had taken from Rome, and then persuaded Venice to join him in an alliance to
expel his previous allies, the French, from the territory they held in
Italy.
He therefore showed himself to be both a clever diplomat and
a fearsome military leader, who greatly strengthened the temporal power of Rome
by expanding the borders of the Papal States far beyond where they had been
during the Borgia period.
A commissioning pope
But despite all his success as a warrior pope (the last of
that particular line), Julius is best remembered for being the pope who laid
the foundation stone for the new St Peter’s Basilica, which was completed a
century later, and commissioning Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel.
Julius II was a pope who did nothing by halves. The plans
for St Peter’s were criticised at the time as being far too grand and
guaranteed to cost much more than could be afforded (the critics were to be
proved right). The pope’s relationship with Michelangelo was notoriously
frosty, with the Sistine Chapel project being one that Michelangelo would have
loved to turn down if he could – he was a sculptor, not a painter. Julius had previously commissioned a statue
from him that took a year to make but which Julius ordered to be smashed as soon
as it was completed, just to show who was boss.
Everything that Julius commissioned, including the design
for his own tomb (also from Michelangelo) was done for the glory of Pope Julius
first, and God a somewhat distant second. However, Julius was also a shrewd
judge of many things, including artistic genius. He may have hated Michelangelo
personally, but he knew that he was the man for the ceiling job, despite having
another genius painter in his employ, namely Raphael. The result is there to
this day, for all to see.
Julius died of a fever in 1513, long before his tomb was
completed. Indeed, the original design was greatly curtailed and – ironically
enough – Julius’s remains do not lie within it. The tomb (which incorporates Michelangelo’s
famous statue of Moses) is in the minor church of St Peter in the Vatican,
whereas Julius was re-buried under the floor of St Peter’s Basilica near the
monument to a later pope, Clement X.
If one imagines popes to be saintly and devout men whose
only concern is the well-being of the Church they lead and the people that it
serves, that is certainly not the impression one gets when reading about the
popes who reigned during the period in question, Julius included. However, he
was responsible for some remarkable artistic endeavours that have survived to
the present day.
© John
Welford
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