Giovanni II Bentivoglio ruled Bologna not as a formal signore but as a dominant private citizen — a legal fiction that suited both him and a papacy unwilling to formally alienate the city. That arrangement collapsed in 1506 when Julius II personally led his troops into Bologna and drove the Bentivoglio into exile, ending the family's grip on the city after nearly a century. This ducato was struck during the fifteen years bracketed by those two dates, a window defined by Giovanni's cautious consolidation of power and his ultimately unsuccessful attempt to hold it against a pope determined to reassert temporal authority over the Romagna.
Giovanni II Bentivoglio ruled Bologna not as a formal signore but as a dominant private citizen — a legal fiction that suited both him and a papacy unwilling to formally alienate the city. That arrangement collapsed in 1506 when Julius II personally led his troops into Bologna and drove the Bentivoglio into exile, ending the family's grip on the city after nearly a century. This ducato was struck during the fifteen years bracketed by those two dates, a window defined by Giovanni's cautious consolidation of power and his ultimately unsuccessful attempt to hold it against a pope determined to reassert temporal authority over the Romagna.