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Julius II: The Warrior Pope
Hard cover in very good condition, with unclipped dust jacket in good condition. General shelf and handling wear, including creasing to edges, corners and folds of jacket, with light tanning, rubbing and minor scores to cover. Historic sales ticket to rear. Boards in fine condition, pages tightly bound, content bright, clear and unmarked. CN
360 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 14, 2025
“Julius did try to fulfil the duties and responsibilities of his office as he saw them, but he was really not cut out to be a pope. He was the type of the plain-spoken, short-tempered, vigorous, impetuous, big-hearted man of action, of uncomplicated, genuine faith. A Franciscan he may have been, but he was never made for the religious life: he said of himself that he would have made a bad monk, because he could not stay still. He should have been a soldier: with some training, he might have been a good one.
"'Certainly worthy of great glory, if he had been a secular prince' an ironic comment from Guicciardini, and a strange epitaph for a pope, but perhaps the most fitting for the 'warrior pope', Julius II.”
Very useful biography that gives useful background on the Italian Wars during his pontificate.
One note of contention is that the beginning is a bit confusing because it's so easy to miss the author's switch from using his birth name "Giuliano della Rovere," to his nickname/churchname, "Vincula." Vincula such a cool name, too. "In chains," from his title church, St. Peter in Chains.
"'Certainly worthy of great glory, if he had been a secular prince' an ironic comment from Guicciardini, and a strange epitaph for a pope, but perhaps the most fitting for the 'warrior pope', Julius II.”
Very useful biography that gives useful background on the Italian Wars during his pontificate.
One note of contention is that the beginning is a bit confusing because it's so easy to miss the author's switch from using his birth name "Giuliano della Rovere," to his nickname/churchname, "Vincula." Vincula such a cool name, too. "In chains," from his title church, St. Peter in Chains.
April 30, 2021
Once again, he avoided Faenza, though the Venetian governor based there came to greet him privately on the road.
“All politics is local” I whisper to myself in order to push myself through page after page of Italian bishoprics, fortresses, waystations masquerading as towns, half a dozen variations of the same family line and a few more variations of the same individual bearing different names according to their title.
Everything that Pope Julius II saw with his own eyes we see, everything he didn’t we don’t. On one page (then cardinal) Julius deals with Charles the Bold, barely two pages further it is Charles’ daughter Mary and her husband Maximillian, with nary a word about the titanic upheaval that was the Burgundian Inheritance separating father and daughter. Cesare Borgia manages to both be critically important and non-existent. But at least we know the name of a minor French functionary for the two paragraphs that he intrudes upon the story.
He was always a doctor's nightmare as a patient, consistently ignoring their injunctions. On the other hand, given the treatments visited on hapless patients in those days, his obstinacy may have been as much as responsible for his long and vigorous life as was his iron constitution.
I have read comments that the writing is dry and sure, that is accurate, except when Julius has to ransom a mule for 50 ducats. But that’s an insufficient descriptor for a book that really leaves it to you to provide the context, so that the target reader appears to both:
- needs to read Julius II to know more about his life; and
- already knows nearly everything else about 16th century Europe.
That target reader is welcome to praise this book but it stood as a poor introduction to the period for me. If you want to write a book primarily for academia, then that is your right, and I have seen this book subsequently cited in a more popular style history. So good for Julius II, I guess, and it does have appeal as a very personal study of a man who wasn’t quite up to it and did not quite have the temperament:
He was sincere in his desire to defend and promote the authority of the Church and of the papacy. To some extent he confused his own personal status and honour with those of the Church…
…as well as being the head of a minor power that struggled to keep up with the majors once the Italian Wars kicked off. Julius being carried by events rather than creating them does cut against portrayals of him as the catalyst for the reformation by overfocus on temporal affairs (see The March of Folly). Even then, I do have a couple of criticisms beyond simply not being educated enough for this book.
Firstly Shaw, right at the end, refers to Julius’ proto nationalism, in that he wanted to 'bend all my thoughts to the liberation of Italy' and I have to say… ...sure, but that was hardly what the rest of the book was telling me, other than perhaps partying with the Genoese pirates while the complainant Aragonese ambassadors waited on shore. You can piece Julius’ actions together in support of Shaw’s view, but it’s not necessarily a natural read and contradicted by Julius’ part in the French intervention into Italy in 1494 and his monomaniacal focus on localities such as Bologna. Shaw might be right, and I’d trust her over me, but she did not convince me within the book itself – throwing stuff like that into the epilogue is not enough.
Secondly, Shaw appears to portray Julius as relatively honest (if stubborn), let down by either the people he chose or his own abilities, such as fluffing the siege of Città di Castello. Yet, it’s hard to reconcile that with how the League of Cambrai morphed into the Holy League, with Julius switching from war with Venice to war with France – hardly a pro-Italian beginning nor an honest finish. I suspect the problem is listing “one damn thing after another” rather than providing a proper context for Julius’ actions in switching sides.
If you want to know whether the Duchy of Ferrara was worth the bones of the Swiss Guard then give this book a shot. If you want to understand the wider era, a book where Julius plays a small part would be more useful to you.
“All politics is local” I whisper to myself in order to push myself through page after page of Italian bishoprics, fortresses, waystations masquerading as towns, half a dozen variations of the same family line and a few more variations of the same individual bearing different names according to their title.
Everything that Pope Julius II saw with his own eyes we see, everything he didn’t we don’t. On one page (then cardinal) Julius deals with Charles the Bold, barely two pages further it is Charles’ daughter Mary and her husband Maximillian, with nary a word about the titanic upheaval that was the Burgundian Inheritance separating father and daughter. Cesare Borgia manages to both be critically important and non-existent. But at least we know the name of a minor French functionary for the two paragraphs that he intrudes upon the story.
He was always a doctor's nightmare as a patient, consistently ignoring their injunctions. On the other hand, given the treatments visited on hapless patients in those days, his obstinacy may have been as much as responsible for his long and vigorous life as was his iron constitution.
I have read comments that the writing is dry and sure, that is accurate, except when Julius has to ransom a mule for 50 ducats. But that’s an insufficient descriptor for a book that really leaves it to you to provide the context, so that the target reader appears to both:
- needs to read Julius II to know more about his life; and
- already knows nearly everything else about 16th century Europe.
That target reader is welcome to praise this book but it stood as a poor introduction to the period for me. If you want to write a book primarily for academia, then that is your right, and I have seen this book subsequently cited in a more popular style history. So good for Julius II, I guess, and it does have appeal as a very personal study of a man who wasn’t quite up to it and did not quite have the temperament:
He was sincere in his desire to defend and promote the authority of the Church and of the papacy. To some extent he confused his own personal status and honour with those of the Church…
…as well as being the head of a minor power that struggled to keep up with the majors once the Italian Wars kicked off. Julius being carried by events rather than creating them does cut against portrayals of him as the catalyst for the reformation by overfocus on temporal affairs (see The March of Folly). Even then, I do have a couple of criticisms beyond simply not being educated enough for this book.
Firstly Shaw, right at the end, refers to Julius’ proto nationalism, in that he wanted to 'bend all my thoughts to the liberation of Italy' and I have to say… ...sure, but that was hardly what the rest of the book was telling me, other than perhaps partying with the Genoese pirates while the complainant Aragonese ambassadors waited on shore. You can piece Julius’ actions together in support of Shaw’s view, but it’s not necessarily a natural read and contradicted by Julius’ part in the French intervention into Italy in 1494 and his monomaniacal focus on localities such as Bologna. Shaw might be right, and I’d trust her over me, but she did not convince me within the book itself – throwing stuff like that into the epilogue is not enough.
Secondly, Shaw appears to portray Julius as relatively honest (if stubborn), let down by either the people he chose or his own abilities, such as fluffing the siege of Città di Castello. Yet, it’s hard to reconcile that with how the League of Cambrai morphed into the Holy League, with Julius switching from war with Venice to war with France – hardly a pro-Italian beginning nor an honest finish. I suspect the problem is listing “one damn thing after another” rather than providing a proper context for Julius’ actions in switching sides.
If you want to know whether the Duchy of Ferrara was worth the bones of the Swiss Guard then give this book a shot. If you want to understand the wider era, a book where Julius plays a small part would be more useful to you.
August 1, 2015
Very dry until he becomes pope, then moderately dry after that. It's good when he gets angry.
September 20, 2014
Benefits from using actual sources rather than other accounts of the pope which are without. Slow start, requires a good understanding of Italian politics but picks up once he becomes pope. An unfortunate dry and academic style of writing kills any sparkle in the story and clearly disinterested in his famous artistic patronage too. Latter hundred pages reveal the true "mala natura" and sheer force and personality of the pope so worthwhile read in the end.
April 12, 2024
Lots of facts. She starts calling Giuliano della Rovere/Pope Julius II, Vincula after the 12th page. There is one sentence on page 11 that tells you he was called Vincula (church title) after that, but if you don't burn that into your memory on page 11 you will have to wait till page 121 to know that Vincula is Julius II. I'm used to reading dense books, but if you are going to use a third name for the main character, maybe you should make a bigger deal about it than one sentence. I know more about Julius II or Giuliano della Rovere or Vincula- whatever you want to call him.
January 4, 2014
Althought the first part of the book is a little messy (you must know some italian history of the period to keep up) the rest is just fine.....personal anecdotes about Julius II are probably the best of the book and helps with the reading
October 31, 2007
Like "The Pope's Elephant," I thoroughly enjoyed this book because it gives insight to Renaissance art without being an art history book.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews