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Papal States. Julius II (1503-1513) gold Ducat. The Warrior Pope! Or, the Fearsome Pope! He commissioned works by two of the four ninja turtles, met Martin Luther, approved the deal where Portugal and Spain split up the newly discovered lands outside Europe (and outside the Muslim middle east), he built St. Paul's, he started the Swiss Guards, and he personally led an army to beat Louis XII of France out of Italy.
Bologna mint, B-598. BONO | NI | Λ • | DOCET, St. Peter standing facing, keys of heaven in right hand, gospels in left, shield to either side / PONT • MΛX | IVLIVS • II •, coat of arms surmounted by crossed keys and Papal tiara. A quite rare issue from the "Warrior Pope". NGC has graded three others, one in AU55 and two graded higher, both in MS62.
Ex. Coin Galleries (in NY) Mail Bid Sale (25 May 1988, Lot 515), From the Morris Collection, the same collection the Alexander III stater came from.
This pope is thought to have adopted his papal name "Julius" from Julius Caesar, who was himself the "Pontifex Maximus" albeit of pagan Roman state religion. That's my kind of pope!
From Wikipedia: "Julius II centralized the Papal States and created the Swiss Guards. He was a great patron of the arts, and commissioned the Raphael Rooms and Michelangelo's paintings in the Sistine Chapel. Julius II ratified the Treaty of Tordesillas between Castile and Portugal, which had been agreed to by what is now Spain and Portugal, dividing the "new world" between those two exploratory powers along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, off the west coast of Africa.
He establishing the first bishoprics in the Americas and beginning the catholicization of Latin America. Julius II opposed the conciliarist movement promoted by foreign monarchs, and affirmed ultramontanism at the Fifth Lateran Council. In Italy, he crushed the Borgias and proved a bulwark against Venetian expansionism. Pope Julius II commissioned the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica and practiced the selling of indulgences: Martin Luther's visit to Rome occurred during the pontificate of Julius II.
Julius II became Pope in the context of the Italian wars, shortly after France occupied the Duchy of Milan and Aragonese troops arrived in the Kingdom of Naples. With France taking over the North of Italy after defeating Venice at the Battle of Agnadello and Ferdinand of Aragon coming to southern Italy to be crowned King of the Two Sicilies, Julius II planned to "free Italy from the barbarians" and orchestrated the recapture of the peninsula. After Ferdinand of Aragon recognized the Two Sicilies as a Papal fief with a cardinal as viceroy, Julius II personally led the Papal armed forces at the Battle of Mirandola and forced the French of Louis XII out of Italy.
A Holy League he formed came to include many European states, and Julius II planned to call for a crusade against the Ottoman Empire to retake Constantinople. His death caused the collapse of the League, and Italy returned to the French-Aragonese status quo before the war with the treaty of Brussels (1516). Nevertheless, the Papal States remained independent and centralized as a result of his policies, continued by Leo X. Julius II was described as the ideal Prince by Machiavelli and Guicciardini. In his Julius Excluded from Heaven, the scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam described a Pope Julius II in the after-life planning to capture the Paradise."