ABSTRACT
Pope Julius II passed through Urbino on his way back from Bologna to Rome in March 1507. Bologna was the second most important city within the territories of the Church and de jure a papal fiefdom. With the election of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere as Pope Julius II in November 1503, after the brief papacy of Pius III, the security of Guidobaldo's position improved, for he was related to the new pope by marriage. The pope's brother Giovanni della Rovere had married the duke's sister Giovanna da Montefeltro in 1474, and their son, Francesco Maria della Rovere, was not only the nephew of both Julius and Guidobaldo, but also the heir to the duchy of Urbino. Castiglione, by setting his Courtier dialogues just after the pope's departure from Urbino in 1507, situated them at a highly critical juncture, a turning point that arose because of the way in which the Bologna campaign had changed the status of three key individuals.
