The Papal States that Julius II inherited in 1503 existed mostly on paper. Local dynasties held Perugia, Bologna and much of the Romagna, Venice had taken papal towns along the Adriatic, and the temporal authority a pope needed to govern Rome independently of France or Spain had eroded to almost nothing. Julius chose to recover it in person. In 1506 he rode north at the head of an army, took the submission of Perugia, and entered Bologna in triumph after its ruling family fled, a campaign in which a pope in his sixties commanded troops in the field in a way no successor has done since.
He then built and dismantled alliances with the same directness. The League of Cambrai of 1508 joined France, the empire and Spain against Venice and stripped it of its mainland gains; when French power in Italy grew too great as a result, Julius formed the Holy League of 1511 against France with Venice now as an ally, declaring that he meant to drive the foreigners out of Italy. Erasmus, who had seen him enter Bologna, is generally taken to be the author of the anonymous satire Julius Exclusus, in which the dead pope arrives at the gate of heaven in armour and cannot get in.
The judgment on the temporal wars has always been divided, and it was divided at the time. They restored a papal state that survived until 1870 and gave his successors independence they would otherwise have lacked. They also spent the church's money and moral standing on siege trains, and they were among the abuses that Luther, arriving in Rome as a young friar in 1510, took home with him.