of an independent Italian kingdom. Italy was not at peace either. The French were preparing new campaigns to reconquer Milan, and Julius II confessed to a Venetian ambassador a plan to invest his counselor Luigi d'Aragona with the kingdom of Naples in order to end Spanish presence in the south. In fact, after the death of Julius, war would resume and the treaties of Noyon and Brussels in 1516 would again divide much of Italy between French and Spanish influence. Lateran Council In May 1512 a general or ecumenical council, the Fifth Council of the Lateran, was held in Rome. According to an oath taken on his election to observe the Electoral Capitulations of the Conclave of October 1503, Julius had sworn to summon a general council, but it had been delayed, he affirmed, because of the occupation of Italy by his enemies. The real stimulus came from a false council which took place in 1511, later called the Conciliabulum Pisanum, inspired by Louis XII and Maximilian I as a tactic to weaken Julius, threatening to depose him. Julius' reply was the issuing of the bull Non-sini gravi of 18 July 1511, which fixed the date of 19 April 1512 for the opening of his own council. The Council actually convened on 3 May 1512, and Paris de Grassis reports that the crowd at the basilica was estimated at 50,000. It held its first working session on 10 May. In the third plenary session, on 3 December 1512, Julius attended, though ill; but he wanted to witness and receive the formal adhesion of Emperor Maximilian to the Lateran Council and his repudiation of the Conciliabulum Pisanum. This was one of Julius' great triumphs. The Pope was again in attendance at the fourth session on 10 December, this time to hear the accrediting of the Venetian Ambassador as the Serene Republic's representative at the council; he then had the letter of King Louis XI (of 27 November 1461), in which he announced the revocation of the Pragmatic Sanction, read out to the assembly, and demanded that all persons who accepted the Pragmatic Sanction appear before the Council within sixty days to justify their conduct. This was directed against the current French King Louis XII. The fifth session was held on 16 February, but Pope Julius was too ill to attend. Cardinal Raffaele Riario, the Dean of the College of Cardinals and