[1] As a result of his policies during the Italian Wars, the Papal States increased their power and centralization, and the office of the papacy continued to be crucial, diplomatically and politically, during the entirety of the 16th century in Italy and Europe.

Once crowned, Julius II proclaimed instead his goal to centralize the Papal States (in large part a patchwork of communes and signorie) and "free Italy from the barbarians".

However, Julius II was far away from the possibility to form a single Italian kingdom, if that was his goal at all, since foreign armies were largely involved in his wars and the French were preparing new campaigns against the Swiss for Milan.

[10] His successor, Pope Leo X, along with Emperor Maximilian, would re-establish the status quo ante bellum in Italy by ratifying the treaties of Brussels and Noyon in 1516; France regained control of Milan after the victory of Francis I at the Battle of Marignano, and Spain was recognized as the ruler of Naples.

He returned to Rome in May in the company of Duke Federigo of Urbino, who promised his daughter in marriage to Giuliano's brother Giovanni, who was subsequently named Lord of Senigallia and of Mondovì.

He reached Paris in September, and finally, on 20 December 1480, Louis gave orders that Balue be handed over to the Archpriest of Loudun, who had been commissioned by the Legate to receive him in the name of the Pope.

This actually occurred in the case of Pius III (Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini), who was ordained a priest on 30 September 1503 and consecrated a bishop on 1 October 1503 by Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere.

The principal complaints of the barons were the heavy taxation imposed by Ferdinand to finance his war against the Ottomans, who had occupied Bari in 1480; and the vigorous efforts of Ferrante to centralize the administrative apparatus of the kingdom, moving it away from a feudal to a bureaucratic system.

[59] King Charles VIII of France, the last of the senior branch of the House of Valois, died on 7 April 1498 after accidentally striking his head on the lintel of a door at the Château d'Amboise.

When Cesare Borgia passed through southern France in October 1498 on his way to meet King Louis XII for his investiture as Duke of Valentinois, he stopped in Avignon and was magnificently entertained by Cardinal della Rovere.

[60] They then moved on to meet the King at Chinon, where Cesare Borgia fulfilled one of the terms of the treaty between Louis and Alexander by producing the red hat of a cardinal, which had been promised for the Archbishop of Rouen, Georges d'Amboise.

[70] A veteran of the Sacred College, della Rovere had won influence for the election of Pope Pius III with the help of Florentine ruler, Lorenzo de' Medici.

Being thus secure in Rome and the surrounding country, he set himself the task to expel the Republic of Venice from Faenza, Rimini, and the other towns and fortresses of Italy which it occupied after the death of Pope Alexander.

[51] With a campaign in 1506, he personally led an army to Perugia and Bologna, freeing the two papal cities from their despots, Gian Paolo Baglioni and Giovanni II Bentivoglio.

As part of the Renaissance program of reestablishing the glory of antiquity for the Christian capital, Rome, Julius II took considerable effort to present himself as a sort of emperor-pope, capable of leading a Latin-Christian empire.

[84] Urbino's magnificent Ducal Palace was infiltrated by French soldiers in the pay of the Margrave of Mantua; the Montefeltro Conspiracy against his loyal cousins earned the occupying armies the Pope's undying hatred.

[87] Julius left a spy at the Urbino Palace, possibly Galeotto Franciotti della Rovere, Cardinal of San Pietro, to watch the Mantua stables in total secret; the secular progress of the Papal Curia was growing in authority and significance.

[88] In addition to an active military policy, the new pope personally led troops into battle on at least two occasions, the first to expel Giovanni Bentivoglio from Bologna (17 August 1506 – 23 March 1507), which was achieved successfully with the assistance of the Duchy of Urbino.

Neither the King of France nor the Holy Roman Emperor was satisfied with merely effecting the purposes of the Pope; the latter found it necessary to enter into an arrangement with the Venetians to defend himself from those who immediately before had been his allies.

[95] Attempts to cause a rupture between France and England proved unsuccessful; on the other hand, at a synod convened by Louis at Tours in September 1510, the French bishops withdrew from papal obedience and resolved, with the Emperor's co-operation, to seek dethronement of the pope.

When a desperate battle felled over 20,000 men in a bloodbath the Pope commanded his protege, a newly released young Cardinal Medici to re-take Florence with a Spanish army.

The French were preparing new campaigns to reconquer Milan, and Julius II confessed to a Venetian ambassador a plan to invest his counselor Luigi d'Aragona with the Kingdom of Naples in order to end Spanish presence in the south.

According to an oath taken on his election to observe the Electoral Capitulations of the Conclave of October 1503,[100] Julius had sworn to summon a general council, but it had been delayed, he affirmed, because of the occupation of Italy by his enemies.

[101] The real stimulus came from a false council which took place in 1511, later called the Conciliabulum Pisanum, inspired by Louis XII and Maximilian I as a tactic to weaken Julius, threatening to depose him.

[105] In the third plenary session, on 3 December 1512, Julius attended, though ill; but he wanted to witness and receive the formal adhesion of Emperor Maximilian to the Lateran Council and his repudiation of the Conciliabulum Pisanum.

[109] On Christmas Eve, Julius ordered Paris to summon the College of Cardinals and the Sacristan of the Apostolic Palace, since he was so ill that he did not expect to be able to stay alive very long.

Through Cardinal della Rovere, Sangallo had presented Charles VIII a plan for a palace, and in 1496 he had made a tour of the architectural monuments of Provence,[117] returning to his native Florence in 1497.

In the framework of Rome's urban renewal (Renovatio Romae), the pope commissioned to Bramante the creation of two new straight streets respectively on the left and right bank of the Tiber: the Via Giulia and the Via della Lungara.

The pope's hirsute chin may have raised severe, even vulgar criticism, as at one Bologna banquet held in 1510 at which papal legate Marco Cornaro was present.

[126][page needed] Erasmus also implied sexual misconduct in his 1514 dialogue Julius Excluded from Heaven; a theme picked up in the denunciation made at the conciliabulum of Pisa.