The Cambridge Modern History. R. Nisbet Bain
seized upon Rimini and Faenza. The aggression was most audacious, and Venice was to find that it was also most unwise. It was no less disastrous to Italy, giving the policy of Julius an unhappy bent from which it could never afterwards free itself. Notwithstanding the errors of his younger days, there is no reason to doubt that he was really a sound patriot, to whom the expulsion of the foreigner always appeared a desirable if remote ideal, and who had no wish to ally himself more closely than he could help with Spain or France. He now had before him only the alternatives of calling in the foreigner or of submitting to an outrageous aggression, and it is not surprising that he preferred the former. He was aware of the mischief that he and Venice were perpetrating between them. “Venice,” he said, “makes both herself and me the slaves of everyone- herself that she may keep, me that I may win back. But for this we might have been united to find some way to free Italy from foreigners.” It would have been wiser and more patriotic to have waited until some conjunction of circumstances should arise to compel Venice to seek his alliance; but when the fire of his temper and the magnitude of the injury are considered, it can but appear natural that he should have striven to create such a conjuncture himself. This was no difficult matter: every European State envied Venice’s wealth and prosperity, and her uniformly selfish policy had left her without a friend. By September, 1504, Julius had succeeded in bringing about an anti-Venetian League between Maximilian and Louis XII of France, which indeed came to nothing, but sufficiently alarmed the Venetians to induce them to restore Ravenna and Cervia, which had long been in their possession, retaining their recent acquisitions, Faenza and Rimini. The Duke of Urbino, the Pope’s kinsman, undertook that he would not reclaim these places: Julius dexterously evaded making any such pledge, and the seed of war went on slowly ripening.
During this period Julius performed two other actions of importance. He restored their castles to the Colonna and the Orsini, a retrograde step whose ill consequences he was himself to experience; and he promulgated a bull against simony in papal elections. His own had not been pure, and the measure may have been intended to silence rumours, but it is quite as likely to have been the fruit of genuine compunction. In any case it distinguishes him favourably from his predecessor, who regarded such iniquities as matters of course, while Julius signalised them as abuses to be rooted out. Nor were his efforts vain; though bribery in the coarse form of actual money payment is known to have been attempted at more recent papal elections, it does not appear to have actually determined any.
While nursing his wrath against Venice, Julius sought to compensate the losses of the Church by acquisitions in other quarters. Upon the fall of Cesare Borgia, Urbino and Perugia had reverted to their former lords. Ferrara had now lost the protection insured to it by the Borgia marriage, and the tyranny of the Bentivogli in Bologna incited attack. The Duke of Urbino was Julius’s kinsman, and Ferrara was too strong; but the Pope thought he might well assert the claims of the Church to Perugia and Bologna, especially as their conquest could be represented as a crusade for the deliverance of the oppressed, and no imputation of nepotism could be made against him as against his predecessors. Yet he could not avoid exposing himself to the reproach incurred by an alliance with foreigners against Italians. Bologna was under the protectorate of the French King, and Julius could do nothing until he had dissolved this alliance and received a promise of French cooperation. This having been obtained through the influence of King Louis’s prime minister, Cardinal d’Amboise, procured by the promise of three cardinalships for his nephews, Julius quitted Rome in August, 1506, at the head of his own army, a sight which Christendom had not seen for ages. Perugia was yielded without a contest, on the stipulation that the Baglioni should not be entirely expelled from the city. Julius continued his march across the Apennines, and on October 7 issued a bull deposing Giovanni Bentivoglio and excommunicating him and his adherents as rebels. Eight thousand French troops simultaneously advanced against Bologna from Milan. Bentivoglio, unable to resist the double attack, took refuge in the French camp, and the city opened its gates to Julius, who might boast of having vindicated his rights and enlarged the papal dominions without spilling a drop of blood. His triumph was commemorated by Michael Angelo’s colossal statue, destined to a brief existence, but famous in the history of art. But Julius was a better judge of artists than of ministers, and the misconduct of the legates successively appointed by him to govern Bologna alienated the citizens, and prepared the way for fresh revolutions.
The easy conquest of Bologna could not but whet the Pope’s appetite for revenge upon Venice, and ought to have shown the Venetians how formidable an enemy he could be. They continued, nevertheless, to cling with tenacity to their ill-gotten acquisitions in the Romagna, unaware of or indifferent to their peril from the jealousy of the chief States of Europe. No other Power, it was true, had any just cause of quarrel with them. Their most recent acquisitions in Lombardy had indeed been basely obtained as the price of cooperation in the overthrow of Ludovico Sforza: the Neapolitan cities, though acquired by the grant of Ferrantino, had been retained by connivance at the destruction of Federigo; they were, notwithstanding, the stipulated price of these iniquities, which the conquerors of Milan and Naples had no right to reclaim. Their late gains from Maximilian had been made in open war, and confirmed by solemn treaty. These considerations weighed nothing with him or with France; and at Julius’s instigation these Powers concluded on December 10, 1508, the famous treaty known as the League of Cambray, by which the continental dominions of Venice were to be divided between them, reservation being made of the claims of the Pope, Mantua, and Ferrara. Spain, if she acceded, was to have the Neapolitan cities occupied by Venice; Dalmatia was to go to Hungary; even the Duke of Savoy was tempted by the bait of Cyprus. It seemed to occur to none that they were destroying “Europe’s bulwark ‘gainst the Ottomite.”
Julius, though the mainspring of the League, avoided joining it openly until he saw that the allies were committed to the war. His assent was given on March 25, 1509; on April 7 the Venetians offered to restore Faenza and Rimini. But the Pope was too deeply engaged, and probably thought that the offer was only made to divide the allies, and would be withdrawn when it had served its purpose. On April 27 he published a violent bull of excommunication. His troops entered the Romagna; but the Emperor and Spain held back, and left the conquest of Lombardy to France. It proved unexpectedly easy. The Venetians were completely defeated at Agnadello on May 14, and the French immediately possessed themselves of Lombardy as far as the Mincio. They halted there, having obtained all they wanted. Maximilian had not yet appeared on the scene, and the extraordinary panic into which the Venetians seemed to fall is to be accounted for not so much by the severity of their defeat as by the mutiny or dispersion of the Venetian militia. They hastened to restore the disputed towns in the Romagna to the Pope,—an act right and wise in itself, but carried out with unthinking precipitation. If the towns had been bravely defended, Julius would probably have met the Venetians half way; as they had no longer any hold upon him, he remained inexorable, and vented his wrath with every token of contumely and harshness. They were equally submissive to Maximilian, who was by this time in partial occupation of the country to the east of the Mincio; nor was it until July 17, that, encouraged by the scantness of his troops and the slenderness of his pecuniary resources, they plucked up courage to recover Padua. Stung by this mortification, Maximilian succeeded in assembling a formidable army; but Venice had in the meantime reorganised her scattered forces, and obtained fresh recruits from Dalmatia and Albania. Padua was besieged during the latter half of September; but the siege was raised early in October. Most of Maximilian’s conquests were recovered by the Venetians, and their spirit rose fast, until it was again humbled by the destruction of their fleet on the Po by the artillery of the Duke of Ferrara.
All this time Julius had been browbeating the Venetians. Not content with the recovery of his territory, he demanded submission on all ecclesiastical questions. Venice was to surrender its claims to nominate to bishoprics and benefices, to entertain appeals in ecclesiastical cases, and to tax or try the clergy. Freedom of trade was also demanded, with other minor concessions. It seems almost surprising that the Venetians, who had no great cause to fear the Pope’s military or naval strength, and knew that he was beginning to quarrel with the King of France, should have yielded. In fact this resolution was only adopted by a bare majority in the Council, and they guarded themselves by a secret protest as respected their ecclesiastical concessions. The Pope’s successors soon found that non ligant foedera jacta metu. Venice never permanently recovered her possessions in the Romagna; but most of her territorial losses in other quarters were regained