He is the sanctimonious crusader against the corruption of Pope
Alexander VI in The Borgias, but
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, later Pope Julius II, was a pontiff with a
record every bit as chequered as his more famous predecessor. Della Rovere is
cast as a pious contrast to the loose moralled Rodrigo Borgia, but in truth had
a track record of corruption in securing the election of Innocent VIII;
Borgia’s predecessor. Having amassed great wealth from holding a succession of
lucrative sees during his career, della Rovere had a string of palaces filled
with sumptuous artwork and had fathered at least three children. There are
rumours too of a homosexual affair with one Francesco Alidosi, a favourite
whose corrupt governance of Bologna resulted in the city revolting against
Papal rule. He was, in short, no saint.
Della Rovere, having survived various assaults upon his person during
the pontificate of his bitter rival Borgia, was elected to the supreme office
in 1503. His election as Pope Julius II followed the death of Alexander’s short
lived successor Pius III, who had reigned for a mere 26 days. Della Rovere had
no qualms about imitating Borgia’s methods in securing his own election through
bribery. Having done so, he then issued a hypocritical bull against simony.
Pope Julius II by Raphael
Julius II had swiftly secured the imprisonment and exile of the infamous Cesare
Borgia but the removal of the former Gonfaloniere had created a vacuum in which
those princes who had been divested of their territory by the Borgias, now
sought to regain it with Venetian support.
This brought Julius into confrontation with Venice, not-withstanding the
fact that he owed his election in large part to Venetian backing. Demanding the
return of those territories which Venice had appropriated, Julius embarked on a
long running feud with the Venetian Republic that would have grievous
consequences for Italy.
In 1508 Pope Julius concluded the formation of the League of Cambrai, by
which he intended to dismember the Venetian Empire; inviting the Kings of
France, Spain and Hungary and the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian to descend upon
the Italian Peninsula and carve up the territories currently under Venetian
control; excommunicating the Doge and placing the city itself under Papal
interdict in the following year.
The Venetians suffered a major defeat at the hands of King Louis XII at
Agnadello and despite heroically defending Pavia against the combined forces of
the League, nevertheless submitted unconditionally to Papal authority in a
humiliating ceremony on the steps of St Peters in 1510.
The genie could not so easily be put back in the bottle however. Those
forces which the Pope had invited into Italy with the promise of easy
territorial pickings continued their depredations. In one infamous incident,
civilians fleeing the sack of Vicenza had sought refuge in a network of caves
only to be asphyxiated when the pursuing French soldiers elected to smoke them
out.
Realising his error, Julius now turned against the French and their ally
the Duke of Ferrara; the husband of Lucrezia Borgia whom he detested and whose
lands he coveted. He concluded an alliance against them which included Spain,
England, the Emperor Maximilian and even Venice. A fresh round of bloodshed was
therefore visited upon Italy, in which Julius took a full and active part. Here
was the warrior Pope; personally taking charge of the siege of the castle of
Mirandola in the depths of winter 1511; supervising the siting of the cannons
and enduring the freezing conditions encamped in a wooden hut within range of
the defenders’ guns. On one occasion two of his cooks were killed by a shot
from the ramparts much to his fury. The French relief army was delayed in
coming to the assistance of the besieged garrison after their commander the
hapless Seigneur de Chaumont was injured by a snowball in the face of all
things and later fell off of his horse into a river. When the garrison finally
surrendered, Julius allegedly quibbled over their request that he should spare
their lives.
The war culminated in the Battle of Ravenna in 1512; one of the
bloodiest encounters of the period. The French, although victorious in this
encounter, suffered such losses as to force their withdrawal from Italy,
threatened as they were by an invasion mounted in support of the Pope by the
young King Henry VIII of England, although not before they had put Ravenna to
the sack.
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Battle of Ravenna
Julius now presided over the Congress of Mantua which aimed to settle
the territorial disputes arising from the war but the continuing animosity
between the Pope and the Venetians and his refusal to allow Venice to keep any
of the territory she had thought to regain through allying herself with the
Pope ultimately drove the Republic into the arms of the King of France.
When Julius II died from a fever early in 1513 he left Italy once more
threatened by a French invasion and a fresh round of mayhem and bloodshed
proved to be his political legacy. This Pope then, should be remembered as a
warmonger and man of blood. Julius, legend has it, once complained to Michelangelo
that a statue to be raised in Bologna in his honour held a bible in its hand
and insisted instead that it should hold a sword. The statue, torn down by the
people of Bologna when they revolted against the exactions of Alidosi, was sold
to the Duke of Ferrara who melted it down and made it into a canon which he named Julius.
The art-loving Julius’ patronage of Michelangelo, who at times feared
for his life from the Pope’s wrath, nevertheless has left us with the
incredible artistic legacy of the Sistine chapel and for that, I suppose, we
can forgive him a lot.
Life of Julius II
Yep, you have the long fandango disfunctional family that includes a former alcoholic father but you also have two brothers who have gone down different paths. The success that the movie ends with goes well beyond any sports victories as the two "grown apart" brothers are reunited and the viewer is left with the hope that the father will also once again become a part of the family.
ReplyDeleteGREAT fight sequences, great plotline....just one of those "get up and pump your fist" kind of movies. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, will watch it again and though I rented it from Amazon on Demand initially I will now buy a keeper copy. This is a movie worth watching several times.
SUPERB in every way, from the acting to the casting to the action sequences......simply megashare9.tv a superb movie that I highly recommend!!