404 cecilia cristellon and silvana seidel menchi
from a military perspective, the defeat at Agnadello was a triumph for
the king of france; from a moral perspective, it was the pope’s victory. in
1509 Pope Julius ii set his mind to acquiring Ravenna and the cities and
territories of Romagna that Venice had occupied when the state of Cesare
Borgia had disintegrated, and at the same time he intended to deprive
the Republic of control over the major ecclesiastical benefices within the
Venetian state. The pope thus resorted to a consciously political use of
spiritual weapons, excommunicating the doge, the Council of Ten, the
senate, and the entire Venetian ruling class, and placing Venice and all
its possessions under interdict. The Monitorium contra Venetos of 27 April
1509, the detailed document announcing the imminence of these mea-
sures, was an act of great severity (sanudo: “a bull of extreme cruelty”)
intended to overcome the city’s moral resistance.54 The interdict was a
condition which struck particular fear into the faithful, as it ordered all
the clergy to leave the territory in question, suspended celebration of the
divine offices, and prevented administration of the sacraments. The city
fought fire with fire, responding to the use of spiritual arms with more
of the same: the senate put its seal of secrecy on the papal decree and
sent guards to all churches to impede its publication,55 while some Vene-
tians invoked the authority of Christ against that of the pope.56 The most
open challenge was an appeal for a Church council: against excommuni-
cation and the interdict, the doge and senate appealed for an ecumenical
council and had copies of their appeal nailed to the doors of st Peter’s
and on a column of Castel sant’Angelo in Rome. This translated to plac-
ing the authority of a church council, understood as the true Church of
Christ, above that of the papacy.57 in the end it was military defeat which
brought the city to its knees.58
in 1606 an ordinary jurisdictional controversy between Venice and
Rome, the so-called “interdict controversy,” evolved into a conflict of
principles where what was at stake was Venice’s autonomy as an ethical
commentators that Venice was attempting to create for itself a “monarchy of italy,” see
seneca, Venezia e papa Giulio II, pp. 14–15.
54 The text of the Monitorium contra Venetos is reproduced by sanudo, Diarii, vol. 8,
cols. 187–204. for sanudo’s judgment of the monotorio, and that of the Venetians, Diarii,
vol. 8, col. 169.
55 sanudo, Diarii, vol. 8, col. 170.
56 sanudo, Diarii, vol. 9, cols. 567–70.
57 sanudo, Diarii, vol. 8, cols. 170, 187 (affissione a Roma). The Venetians turned directly
to the Patriarch of Constantinople to invite him to convene a council.
58 sanudo, Diarii, vol. 8, cols. 247–53, esp. col. 252.