ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the early modern period when the aim was to reach a wide audience, poetry was the favoured language of political communication. The themes developed by Julian propaganda were conceptually linked to the great topoi of humanistic Renaissance culture: the classical myth of the golden age based on pax et concordia, the reminiscence of Roman antiquity, the whole perspective of the plenitudo temporum and of the renovatio imperii. The Augustinian Prior General reworked Roman Platonism into a philosophy of history that legitimated spiritually the temporal action of the papacy as a Christian empire. The link with contemporary reality is the essential interpretive element for understanding how the philosophical and theological ideal of the golden age could be used in the realm of political propaganda. The pro-Julian production developed the function of fostering the consensus populi and of celebrating the image of Pope Julius II among his contemporaries.
