The Federalist Papers - Alexander Hamilton [324]
p. 52. till, becoming an object to the other Italian states, PopeJulius the Secondfound means…: Julius II (1443–1513) was pope from 1503. An aggressive champion of Church interests, he drove Cesare Borgia from the Romagna and organized an alliance with France and Germany against Venice. Realizing that the French posed a greater threat than the Venetians, he made peace with the latter (1510) and personally took the field against the former. In 1512, with the help now of Swiss and Spanish troops, he succeeded in ridding Italy of the French, but immediately faced the peril of conciliating these new friends. His death in 1513 precluded any further adjustments. Julius was a great patron of the arts. He sponsored work by Michelangelo and Raphael, among others, and initiated the design and construction of St. Peter’s Cathedral (1506).
p. 52. to accomplishthat formidable league, which gave a deadly blow to…this haughty republic: Publius refers to the League of Cambrai, an alliance between the Holy Roman Emperor, the king of Aragon, the king of France, and the pope, formed for the purpose of conquering and dividing the territory of the republic of Venice. The league was short-lived (1508–1510) and only partly successful. In 1510, the pope withdrew and formed the Holy League, this time siding with Venice, Aragon, and the emperor against France.
p. 52. The provinces ofHolland, till they were overwhelmed in debts and taxes….: Lying on the frontier between the Holy Roman Empire and the kingdom of France, Holland and its neighboring Low Countries developed along lines distinct from these much greater powers. Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, the cities of the Netherlands wrestled charters of municipal privileges from their respective feudal lords and became powerful commercial centers. But by the end of the fifteenth century, the Netherlands had fallen under the rule of the Hapsburgs. Cruel repression at the hands of the Spanish agents of the Hapsburg sovereign hardened opposition in the seven northern provinces even as the ten southern provinces acquiesced. This split between north and south, reinforced by the spread of Calvinism among the city-dwellers of the north, became permanent and resulted finally in the birth of two modern states: the United Provinces of the Netherlands(1581) and Belgium (1830).
p. 52. that memorable struggle for superiority between the rivalhouses of Austria and Bourbon…: Bourbon is the name of a French royal family founded in 1272 by Robert, Count of Clermont. The kings of France from 1589 (Henry IV) until 1793 (Louis XVI) and from 1814 to 1830; of Spain (intermittently, from 1700 until 1931 and again after 1975); of Naples (1735–1805); and of the Two Sicilies (1815–1860) were all of Bourbon stock. The phrase "house of Austria," refers to one branch of the house of Hapsburg, a family that produced European monarchs from the thirteenth to the twentieth centuries. In 1273, Rudolf of Hapsburg (the name originally attached to the family castle in Switzerland) was elected king of the Germans. He acquired Austria in 1282 as an hereditary possession. Hapsburgs ruled as kings of Germany and Austria until 1452, when Frederick II was crowned Holy Roman Emperor, a title that remained with the family until Napoleon conquered the empire in 1806. The Hapsburgs were at the peak of their power in the sixteenth century, when a single member of the family, Charles V, laid claim to Spain (as Charles I) and to the Holy Roman Empire. At Charles’s death the Spanish and Austrian branches of the family diverged.
p. 52. seconding the ambition, or rather the avarice, ofa favorite leader…: The "favorite leader" is the English general John Churchill (1650–1722), first Duke of Marlborough. After successful military service in campaigns against the Dutch (1672–1678), he became the favorite and confidant of the Duke of York. When the latter acceded to the English throne (as James II, in 1685), he was raised to the peerage. Meanwhile, his wife