Venice Excommunicated
On April 27th, 1509, the Pope attempted to restrict the power of Venice.
Giuliano della Rovere, elected Pope Julius II in 1503 by an overwhelming majority of his fellow cardinals, was the pontiff who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and founded the Swiss Guard for his personal protection. Believing the papacy’s temporal power to be essential to its spiritual authority, he was determined to recover control over the whole territory of the Papal States, which had been partly gnawed away by rivals such as the Republic of Venice.
Venice had taken control of the cities of Faenza, Rimini and Ravenna to extend its territories on the Italian mainland. Announcing his intention to reduce Venice to the status of a fishing village, Julius organised an alliance with Louis XIII of France, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and King Ferdinand II of Aragon who, scenting rich pickings, allied as the League of Cambrai. Julius issued a ferocious bull that declared a solemn excommunication and interdict against the Republic which, as the historian John Julius Norwich summarised it, authorised
‘any other state or person to attack or despoil her or any of her subjects, to obstruct her traffic on land or sea and to do her all possible harm and hurt ...’
The Venetian authorities refused to accept the bull and forbade its publication anywhere in their territory, but in May a force of Venetian mercenaries was decisively trounced in battle by the French at Agnadello, near Cremona. Venice fell into profound gloom as the League went on to seize not only Faenza, Rimini and Ravenna, but Padua, Verona and Vicenza too, as well as Brindisi and Otranto in the south of Italy.
The horrified Venetians submitted to Pope Julius who, in a remarkable volte-face, allied the papacy with Venice to prevent the French from menacing his power in Italy.
After his improbable transformation into the saviour of Venice, Julius died in 1513. After years of fighting, complicated manoeuvrings and shifting alliances, the situation in Italy returned to the uneasy stalemate of the beginning of his papacy.