was elected in November 1503, it became at once apparent that he intended to complete what his hated predecessors, the Borgias, had begun, by reducing to his sway all the provinces over which the See of Rome had any claims, and creating a central power in Italy.
Unlike the Borgias, however, he entertained no plan of raising his own family to sovereignty at the expense of the Papal power.

The Della Roveres were to be contented with their Duchy of Urbino, which came to them by inheritance from the Montefeltri.

Julius dreamed of Italy for the Italians, united under the hegemony of the Supreme Pontiff, who from Rome extended his spiritual authority and political influence over the whole of Western Europe.

It does not enter into the scheme of this book to relate the series of wars and alliances in which this belligerent Pope involved his country, and the final failure of his policy, so far as the liberation of Italy from the barbarians was concerned.

Suffice it to say, that at the close of his stormy reign he had reduced the States of the Church to more or less complete obedience, bequeathing to his successors an ecclesiastical kingdom which the enfeebled condition of the peninsula at large enabled them to keep intact.
There was nothing petty or mean in Julius II.; his very faults bore a grandiose and heroic aspect.