26 Facts About Pope Julius II

1. Pope Julius II sent Cardinal Reginald Pole as legate with powers that he could use at his discretion to help the restoration succeed.

2. At the start of his reign Pope Julius II had seriously desired to bring about a reform of the Catholic Church and to reconvene the Council of Trent, but very little was actually achieved during his five years in office.

3. Pope Julius II was a popular painting subject for this artist as well as his students.

4. The Pope Julius II lavished on him six bishoprics in France and three in Italy along with an abundance of wealthy abbeys and benefices.

5. Pope Julius II was a great patron of art, and Raphael, Michelangelo, and Bramante enjoyed his favor.

6. Pope Julius II began the attack by excommunicating and deposing Alfonso, the duke of Ferrara, who at the time was allied with France.

7. Pope Julius II hired Michelangelo to design and execute a tomb for the Pontiff and to decorate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

8. Pope Julius II began preparing new alliances to drive them from Italy.

9. Pope Julius II now had to deal with the final threat to papal supremacy in Italy, the French.

10. Pope Julius II took advantage of the Venetian isolation and created the military League of Cambrai to drive Venice from Faenza and Rimini.

11. The French believed Pope Julius II had engineered the revolt in order to force their withdrawal from Italy, and the French king, Louis XII, dispatched an army to smash the insurrection.

12. Pope Julius II was nevertheless the first pope since antiquity to grow facial hair, a practice otherwise forbidden by canon law since the 13th century.

13. Pope Julius II was generally absorbed in deep and silent thought.

14. Pope Julius II often treated subordinates and people who worked for him very badly.

15. Pope Julius II was a friend and patron of Bramante and Raphael, and a patron of Michelangelo.

16. Early in his papacy, Pope Julius II decided to revive the plan for replacing the dilpidated Constantianian basilica of St Peter's.

17. On Christmas Eve, Pope Julius II ordered Paris to summon the College of Cardinals and the Sacristan of the Apostolic Palace, quia erat sic infirmus, quod non speraret posse diu supravivere.

18. Pope Julius II wanted to remind everyone of his legislation on papal conclaves, in particular against Simony, and to fix his regulations firmly in canon law so that they could not be dispensed or ignored.

19. Pope Julius II had seemingly restored fortuna or control by exercising his manly vertu, just as Machiavelli wrote.

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

21. Pope Julius II relied upon Guidobaldo's help to raise his nephew and heir Francesco Maria della Rovere; the intricate web of nepotism helped secure the Italian Papacy.

22. Pope Julius II used his influence to reconcile two powerful Roman families, the Orsini and Colonna.

23. Pope Julius II became an open partisan of the French and Venice, and accepted their goal, the destruction of the Sforza hold on Milan.

24. Pope Julius II warned King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain that Alexander was intriguing with the French, which brought an immediate visit of a Spanish ambassador to the Pope.

25. Pope Julius II encouraged trade with the sizeable Turkish community at these ports.

26. Pope Julius II commissioned the rebuilding of St Peter's Basilica, Michelangelo's decoration and full-scale painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and his discerning eye in hiring the artist Raphael as a young man brought numerous improvements to the Vatican.