The dialogue Iulius exclusus e coelis - a violent attack on Pope Julius II (1503-1513) and a lucid analysis of papal power regarded as an anti-apostolic institution - has been the object of a centuries-long debate. Applying the methods of philology and bibliology, which the scholarly debate has hitherto overlooked, this edition reconstructs for the first time in documented and verifiable fashion the pamphlet's origin and early circulation. Erasmus emerges from this study not only as the dialogue's author, but also as responsible for its first circulation in print. The portrait of the...