Gianpagolo Baglione. For this purpose he applied for assistance to Lewis XII., king of France; who, with the hope of securing the pope's friendship, readily promised it, at the same time that he endeavoured to dissuade his holiness from an undertaking which might involve all Italy in a war. Nothing, however, could divert or discourage Julius from pursuing his design; and having resolved to embark in person on the intended enterprise, he set out from Rome at the head of the papal troops, and advanced against Perugia. Such was the effect of the spirit which he displayed, that Baglione was intimidated from making any resistance, and the pope entered the city in triumph. As his army now received daily reinforcements, Bentivoglio also despaired of being able to keep possession of Bologna; he therefore surrendered it upon treaty, and the pope, having made his public entry with extraordinary pomp, and settled the new government, returned to Rome. In the following year, the king of France made great military and naval preparations for the reduction of Genoa, which had lately revolted from his authority, and resolved to command the expedition in person. These preparations alarmed the pope, who could not be persuaded that they were designed only for the object avowed; and giving way to his suspicions, he sent a nuncio into Germany, who was to notify to the emperor and the electors, that the king of France's real design in coming into Italy at the head of a very powerful army, was to enslave the church and usurp the imperial dignity. The Venetians also, who were jealous respecting the true object of the French king's visit to Italy, endeavoured by their representations to the German princes to confirm the pope's information. Upon this the emperor summoned a diet of all the princes to meet at Constance, and having laid before them the papal notification, attempted to engage them in a common league against France. The conduct of Lewis, however, in returning to France with his army as soon as he had reduced Genoa, put an effectual stop to this business.

During the year 1508, the famous league of Cambray against the republic of Venice, was concluded between the pope, the emperor, the king of France, and the king of Spain, which threatened the entire ruin of the state. Before Julius signed this league, his unwillingness to increase the power either of the emperor or of the French king in Italy, induced him privately to communicate the terms of it to the Venetian ambassador, offering at the same time not to confirm it, provided that the republic restored to him the cities of Rimini and Faenza. The Venetians most unwisely rejected this proposal, and the pope confirmed the league by a bull. The hostilities of the confederates were preceded by a sentence of excommunication

against the republic; from which they appealed to a general council. Afterwards the armies of the respective powers entered upon action on all sides, and made such progress before the end of the year 1509, that the proud republic was stripped of the greatest part of its continental dominions. In this distress the Venetians sent a solemn embassy to the pope, who they knew was jealous of the increase of the French king's or the emperor's power in Italy, to implore his holiness's protection, and to pray that he would absolve them from the censures which they had incurred. Julius, who was sensible of the good policy of preserving the republic from utter ruin, and had no scruples about breaking his engagements when his interest was in view, having now recovered all the places to which he had any claim, and brought the ambassadors to submit to the most mortifying conditions, at length absolved them with the usual ceremonies. Not satisfied with absolving them, he took them under his own protection, and with a shameless breach of faith towards his confederates, granted leave to all the subjects and feudatories of the church to serve under their banners. The pope now formed a design of driving the French out of Italy. În subservience to it, he attempted, in vain, to prevail upon the emperor to conclude a peace with the Venetians, and to join them and himself against the king of France. His next step was, to force the allies of the French in Italy to withdraw from their connection with them. He began by quarrelling with the duke of Ferrara, under pretence that he had encroached upon the rights of the papal see, by establishing a manufactory of salt at Comachio; and without listening to the ambassadors whom the duke sent to adjust the matters in dispute, ordered the army of the church to march into the duchy, to do himself justice, as he pretended, by force of arms. His troops soon made themselves masters of several places in the Ferrarese; but the Marquis de Chaumont, the French governor of the Milanese, and the duke, joining their forces, quickly obliged them to abandon the captured places. The pope, determined either to crush the duke, or to oblige him to renounce his alliance with France, after his forces had taken those places a second time, ordered the necessary preparations to be made for the siege of Ferrara. To hasten them he returned to Bologna, where he solemnly excommunicated the duke, as well as the general and principal officers of the French army; but the latter, to show the little regard which they paid to the papal thunder, advanced unexpectedly against that city. The news of their approach occasioned no little consternation at Bologna, where the pope alone appeared collected and undisturbed; and when they had arrived within ten miles of the place, to gain time, the pope, who knew that his own forces and those of the Venetians were in full march towards him from all quarters,

made an offer to treat about peace with the French general. With this Chaumont was amused till the arrival of the expected succours at Bologna, when the pope terminated the nego-. ciations, and Chaumont was obliged to retreat from the neighbourhood.

The season of the year was now unfavourable for military operations; but Julius was determined to make an attempt to reduce Ferrara. It was now necessary, in order to prevent the city from being relieved, to obtain possession of Mirandola, and accordingly, the pope's army laid siege to that place, and suffered much distress from the spirited resistance of the garrison, the extraordinary rigour of the season, and the interception of their convoys of provisions. Impatient at the slowness of the siege, the pope resolved to assist at it in person; and accordingly, repairing to the camp, took up his quarters so near the batteries of the place, that two persons were killed in his kitchen by a shot from them. He was perpetually riding about the lines, notwithstanding the intense cold, scarcely supportable by the soldiery, reprimanding some, encouraging others, and discharging in every respect the duty of a general. The town at length capitulated, and Julius entered it through the breach, and as soon as it was properly secured, gave orders for investing Ferrara. Before this city his ambition received a most mortifying check, for the duke, attacking unexpectedly the pope's troops, completely defeated them with great slaughter, and obliged them to raise the blockade, with the loss of all their artillery and baggage. In the meantime, the king of Spain, with the hope of putting an end to the calamities of Italy, proposed that a congress should be held at Mantua, for a general pacification. To this proposal the emperor and the king of France were not averse; but the pope would not listen to any overtures for peace with France, until he obtained possession of the duchy of Ferrara and its capital. In the beginning of 1511, marshal Trivulzio, who now obtained the command of the French army, drew his forces together, and recovered the places in the Milanese which had been taken by the papal army, and then advancing unexpectedly against Bologna, made himself master of that city without opposition, and restored it to the Bentivogli, its ancient lords. He then marched against the united forces of the pope and Venetians, which he defeated with the loss of their baggage and artillery, many colours, and several officers. Notwithstanding all his firmness and intrepidity, Julius, who was now at Ravenna, did not receive unmoved the news of these calamitous events, and thinking himself no longer safe in that city, set out on his return to Rome. During his journey, he received the unwelcome intelligence, that an order for assembling a general council at Pisa was posted up at Modena, Bologna, and other cities in Italy, and that he himself was summoned to appear at it in person,

This council the emperor and the king of France, finding that the pope would listen to no terms of accommodation, and looking upon him as the disturber of the public peace, had agreed to call, and to lay their complaints against his holiness before it. Five cardinals, who had been acquainted with their design to call it, and had withdrawn from the papal court, at first to Florence, and afterwards to Milan, gave their sanction to the summons. In order to counteract their proceedings, of which he had reason to entertain apprehensions in his present circumstances, the pope summoned a general council to meet in the following year at Rome; pretending by that measure to have superseded the council convoked by the cardinals; which the latter maintained ought to take place, as it had been summoned and proclaimed the first. Before the meeting of the council of Pisa, Julius, in order to gain time, ordered his nuncio at the French court to negociate a reconciliation between him and the king; while, with the most scandalous duplicity, he was privately carrying on a treaty with the king of Spain and the Venetians against the French, and endeavouring to persuade the king of England to join the confederacy. While negociations were carrying on, the pope was taken dangerously ill, which seemed to have awakened in him some degree of remorse, on account of the corrupt means which he had practised in order to obtain the pontificate. This led him to cause a bull to be published, denouncing terrible penalties and curses against any who should procure that dignity by money or any other reward whatever, and declaring all such elections to be null and void. In the mean time the council of Pisa was opened on September 1, 1511; and as that city was at this time subject to the Florentines, the pope, provoked at their suffering such a schismatical conventicle, as he called it, to meet in their dominions, laid the cities of Florence and Pisa under an interdict, pronounced a sentence of deposition against the cardinals who had been engaged in this schism, excommunicated all those who should countenance it, &c. From the pope's sentence, the Florentines appealed to a general council, at the same time obliging their ecclesiastics to perform the rites of the church as usual. At length the league which the pope had been negociating with the king of Spain and the Venetians was concluded and published, and the king of France could no longer be amused with the nuncio's conciliatory proposals. Lewis therefore sent instructions to his generals in Italy, adapted to the state of things, and wrote to the cardinals assembled at Pisa, to pursue without delay the necessary steps for the reformation of the church. In the mean time the people of Pisa, alarmed at the papal interdict, insulted the members of the council in the public streets, and even the cardinals, and daily quarrels took place between them and the French soldiers who were appointed to guard the council. These circumstances

induced the cardinals and other prelates, from a regard to their personal safety, to pass an act for adjourning the council to Milan.

At the commencement of the year 1512, the Spanish forces arrived in Romagna, which formed a junction with the ecclesiastical army, and they laid siege to Bologna. They were soon obliged to raise the siege, for Gaston de Foix, duke of Nemours, having thrown himself into the place with a strong body of troops, they despaired of being able to reduce it, and withdrew privately in the night. The duke of Nemours then received orders to march against the combined forces, and to draw them, if possible, to a decisive battle. For some time the allies encamped in situations where they could not be attacked but at great disadvantage; when the duke, in order to tempt them into the field, laid siege to the important city of Ravenna. This measure produced the effect which he expected, and induced the general of the allies to try the issue of a battle for its relief. As they approached, the duke of Nemours went out to meet them; and one of the most bloody engagements ensued, which had been fought for many years in Italy. The French were the victors, though not without the loss of a considerable number of brave men and officers; and among others their brave commander; but the allies were little less than ruined; their loss in killed was double that of the French; all their baggage, colours, and artillery were taken; and many persons of the first rank were made prisoners. This memorable defeat of the allies was followed by the loss of Ravenna, and almost all the cities and fortresses of. Romagna. When this news reached Rome, the cardinals conjured the pope to make peace with the king of France. However disposed Julius might be in the first instance to comply with their request, from the unfavourable aspect of his affairs, he was soon encouraged to continue the war, by being informed that the Swiss had espoused his cause, and were marching to join the confederates; and by the accession of the king of England to the league against France. The entrance of the Swiss into Italy, decided the ruin of the French affairs in that country. Having, to the number of eighteen or twenty thousand, joined the Venetian army in the Veronese, the confederates marched to the duchy of Milan, where the French were only able to retain the possession of a few fortified places, and to complete their disasters in Italy, the Genoese revolted from their authority, expelled the French, and conferred the dignity of doge on the author of the revolt.

When the confederates entered the Milanese, an end was put to the sessions of the council transplanted from Pisa; but not before a decree had been passed declaring pope Julius II. a disturber of the public peace, a sower of discord among the people of God, a rebel to the church, a public incendiary, a