Pope Julius II

Born Giuliano della Rovere in 1443, he became head of the Catholic Church in 1503 and immediately set about expanding papal territory by force, earning the nickname "Warrior Pope" for his personal military campaigns in Romagna. In 1506 he established the Vatican Museums, founded the Swiss Guard, and ordered the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica - funding it through indulgences that would later ignite the Reformation. Two years on he commissioned Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Raphael Rooms, twin monuments of High Renaissance ambition. Across the Atlantic he ratified the Treaty of Tordesillas and established the first American bishoprics, extending Rome's reach to the New World. He died in February 1513, powerful enough that Erasmus felt compelled to write a satire imagining him drunk at heaven's gate, barred by St. Peter and scheming to storm paradise itself.