Julius II

Julius II (1443-1513), pope (1503-1513), whose reign is considered one of the most brilliant in the Renaissance period. A powerful ruler, he was also the greatest patron of the arts among the popes. A man of ferocious energy, he showed little interest in spiritual matters, acting as a secular prince.

He was born Giuliano della Rovere, in Albisola, Italy, and became a Franciscan priest in 1468. After his uncle became Pope Sixtus IV, he was made a bishop and a cardinal. During this period he fathered three illegitimate daughters and accumulated considerable wealth. When his personal enemy Rodrigo Borgia became Pope Alexander VI in 1492, he fled in exile to France, where he stayed until Alexander died. He was elected Pope Julius II in 1503. Although bribery played a large part in his own election, the new pope promptly decreed all future elections influenced by simony invalid and subject to penalty.

The chief concern of Julius's pontificate was the reunification and expansion of the Papal States. By joining the League of Cambrai (1508) against the republic of Venice and by forming (1511) the Holy League against France, he secured his hold on the Papal States and extended papal rule over parts of northern Italy, also saving Italy from French domination. As a result of Julius's abiding interest in the arts, many buildings were added in Rome, and churches throughout Italy were enriched artistically. He planned the building of St Peter's and laid its foundation stone in 1506. He was a patron and personal friend of some of the Renaissance masters, including Bramante, Raphael, and Michelangelo, whose frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and superb statues for a proposed papal tomb he commissioned. Despite the contradiction between his spiritual office and secular concerns, he was generally regarded as one of the greatest men of his age, fully deserving the magnificent monuments created for him. His bellicose character and use of indulgences to finance the building of St Peter's provoked Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther to protest, thus inaugurating the Reformation and eroding papal domination of Western Christnedom.