Duchy of Milan, which Ferdinand and Maximilian wished to give to their grandson the Archduke Charles, afterwards the Emperor Charles V. Julius had not driven the French out in order to put the Spaniards and Austrians in. He demanded the restoration of the expelled Italian dynasty in the person of Massimiliano Sforza. Fortunately the decision of the question lay with the Swiss, who from motives of money and policy took the side of Sforza; and he was installed accordingly. All must have seen that this arrangement was a mere makeshift; but the restoration, however precarious, of an Italian dynasty to an Italian State so long usurped by the foreigner was enough to cover Julius with glory. He had unquestionably in this instance done his duty as an Italian sovereign, and men did not over-nicely consider how impotent he would have been without foreign aid, and how substantial an advantage he was obtaining for himself by the annexation of Parma and Piacenza, long held by the ruler of Milan, but now discovered to have been bequeathed to the Church by the Countess Matilda four hundred years before.
A deplorable contemporary event, meanwhile, passed almost unnoticed in the general joy at the expulsion of the French, and the unprecedented development of the Pope's temporal power. This was the subversion of the Florentine republic and the restoration of the Medici, discreditable to the Spaniards who achieved it and to the Pope who permitted it, but chiefly to the Florentines themselves. Their weakness and levity, the memory of the early Medicean rulers, the feeling that since their expulsion Florence had been no strong defence or worthy example to Italy, and the fact that no foreigner was placed in possession, mitigated the indignation and alarm naturally aroused by such a catastrophe. It was not foreseen that in after years a Medicean Pope would accept the maintenance of his family in Florence by way of consideration for the entire sacrifice of the independence of Italy.
The time of Julius's removal from the scenes of earth was approaching, and it was well for him. The continuance of his life and of his reputation would hardly have been compatible. He was about to show, as he had shown before, that, however attached in the abstract to the liberty of Italy, he was always willing to postpone this to his own projects. He had two especially at heart, the subjugation of Ferrara and the success of the Lateran Council, which he had convoked to eclipse the schismatical Council of Pisa. For this the support of the Emperor Maximilian was necessary; for the Council, which had already begun to deliberate, might appear hardly more respectable than its rival, if it was ignored by both France and Germany. As a condition, Maximilian insisted on concessions from the Venetians, whom the Pope ordered to surrender Verona and Vicenza, and to hold Padua and Treviso as fiefs of the Empire. The Venetians refused, and Julius threatened them with excommunication. Fortunately for his fame, the stroke was delayed until it was too late. He had long been suffering
