For Niccolò Machiavelli, Pope Julius II was the model Renaissance prince. He was highly intelligent. He was skilled at diplomacy, politics, and war. And he was a visionary patron of the arts. Julius was also, according to those who served him, intensely vindictive. He was moody, humorless, and coarse, with a violent temper. He had a gift for making enemies and alienating the less worldly and more committed Christian faithful. And the result was predictable.
