He has been called a patriot, because from time to time he raised the cry of driving the barbarians from Italy: it must, however, be remembered that it was he, while still Cardinal di San Pietro in Vincoli, who finally moved Charles VIII.

from Lyons; it was he who stirred up the League of Cambray against Venice, and who invited the Swiss mercenaries into Lombardy; in each case adding the weight of the Papal authority to the forces which were enslaving his country.

Julius, again, has been variously represented as the saviour of the Papacy, and as the curse of Italy.[1] He was emphatically both.

In those days of national anarchy it was perhaps impossible for Julius to magnify the Church except at the expense of the nation, and to achieve the purpose of his life without inflicting the scourge of foreign war upon his countrymen.

The powers of Europe had outgrown the Papal discipline.
Italian questions were being decided in the cabinets of Louis, Maximilian, and Ferdinand.