Venice Excommunicated.

Giuliano della Rovere, elected Pope Julius II in 1503 by an overwhelming majority of his fellow cardinals, was the pontiff who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and founded the Swiss Guard for his personal protection. Believing the papacy's temporal power to be essential to its spiritual authority, he was determined to recover control over the whole territory of the Papal States, which had been partly gnawed away by rivals such as the Republic of Venice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]