Wikipedia
The Juliusbanner ("Julius banners") are elaborate silk banners given to the cantons and other entities of the Old Swiss Confederacy by Pope Julius II in 1512, in recognition of the support he received from Swiss mercenaries against France in the Pavia campaign (Pavier Feldzug).
The Swiss contingents succeeded in forcing the French forces to abandon Pavia on 14 June. As a reward for this service, Julius on 5 July granted to the Swiss the title of Ecclesiasticae libertatis defensores and gave them two large banners, besides a blessed sword and hat. . The Julius banners themselves were given by papal legate Matthias Schiner. This gift was a matter of considerable prestige for the recipients, seen as such both by the recipients and by their neighbours. This was true especially of the blessed sword and hat, which had previously only been bestowed on kings and princes, while the Swiss were still considered not fully soveregin, but subjects of the Holy Roman Emperor. The Swiss chroniclers of the time gave a detailed description of the gifts, and a great woodcut was commissioned, probably still in 1512, which shows the papal banners, sword and hat surrounded by sixteen banner-bearers holding the Juliusbanner of the twelve cantons, plus those of Appenzell, Valais, St. Gallen and Chur. Brantôme later commented from a French point of view on the excessive "flattery and vanity" bestowed on the Swiss in view of their crushing defeat against the French only three years later, at the Battle of Marignano.
The banners were in expensive damask silk and included heraldic augmentations and in the canton a Zwickelbild, an image rendered in needlework of precious thread showing a religious scene. Some of the recipients by implication first received the Bannerrecht, the right to raise troops under their own banner. After the Swiss Reformation, as part of the recatholization effort after the Second War of Kappel, this right was revoked for the Freie Ämter, and the Juliusbanner confiscated.