He is accused not of betraying but of defending liberty; he
is guilty not of surrendering but of holding the Capitol.
The supreme crime with which he is charged, and which merits
expiation on the scaffold, is that he dared affirm that the
Roman Empire is still at Rome, and in possession of the
Roman people. Oh, unpious age! Oh, preposterous jealousy,
malevolence unprecedented! What dost thou, O Christ, ineffable
and incorruptible judge of all? Where are thine eyes with
which thou art wont to scatter the clouds of human misery? Why
dost thou turn them away? Why dost thou not, with thy forked
lightning, put an end to this unholy trial?--PETRARCH.[i]
[Sidenote: [1347-1354 A.D.]]
The story of Cola di Rienzi furnishes a unique chapter in Italian
history. It is the story of a patriot and reformer, whose early
enthusiasm was not supported by true moral greatness, and whose efforts
were thus foredoomed to failure, after a momentary semblance of success.
The date of the accession of Charles IV is coincident with that of
the first and greatest rise of Rienzi to power in Rome. To disengage
Rienzi from the atmosphere of romance into which he has been cast for
the reader of to-day by the unguarded rhetoric in Lord Lytton’s novel,
and its offspring the libretto of an opera by Richard Wagner, is a task
which could serve little by its accomplishment. In whatever light we
regard the tribune we are bound to admit that his history is an eloquent
memorial of the sudden extinction of what at least appeared to be the
most brilliant possibilities. Who can refuse an ear to the story that
captivated the attention of Petrarch--that story whose fantastic glamour
the poet never entirely shook from him even when his faith in the power
of his friend was being rudely shaken? It is through Petrarch that the
romantic vision of Rienzi’s career has been transmitted to us, and
though we may smile at the poet’s unreal sense of government, we are
left to wonder at his great imaginative sympathy with the dreams of the
young Nicholas from the moment when he first heard them from the lips
of his friend at Avignon (in 1343) to the time when it needed all his
eloquence with the pope to save Rienzi from execution (in 1352). Against
such a story, illustrated in numerous glowing letters of Petrarch,
Hallam’s cold sense of justice rebels. He quotes the words of the staunch
republican Giovanni Villani,[b] a contemporary of Rienzi. “The design
he formed was a fantastic work and one of short duration.” He reminds
us of the passage in Madame de Staël’s _Corinne_, in which Oswald, Lord
Nelvil, and the heroine happen upon the castle of St. Angelo in their
intellectual perambulations through Rome. Nelvil is a descendant, in the
direct line, of another English hero in French fiction, Edward, Lord
Bumpton--the saddened English peer with beautiful manners and a heart
all Rousseau. Corinne attacks the monuments with a conscientious zeal
worthy of Baedeker and with more than Baedeker’s tenderness for the
general spirit of reflection which such sights are wont to raise. But her
critical faculty is never dormant. She couples Rienzi with Crescentius
and Arnold of Brescia, calling them “those friends of Roman liberty who
so often mistook their memories for hopes.” The phrase strikes a note of
enthusiasm from Hallam which all the rhetoric of Rienzi himself fails to
produce in the historian. Could Tacitus have excelled this, he asks?
But even robbed of the setting by which Petrarch has made it forever
memorable, the story of Rienzi’s attitude towards the institutions of
his time is in itself picturesque. Sismondi[c] says of him, “He rejected
with deep indignation the usurpation of two barbarians, the one German,
calling himself Roman emperor; the other a Frenchman who called himself
the pontiff of Rome.” In the disruption into which Rome was thrown by
the contests of the noble families, Rienzi saw a possible foundation for
creating a powerful sovereignty. The removal of the popes to Avignon made
his designs appear all the more feasible. The people of Rome were to be
the backbone of his strength. He won them by a singular eloquence to
which Petrarch bears evidence even at that period when he is tempted to
minimise the wisdom of his early enthusiasm for Rienzi. Rome was the prey
of feudal anarchy: the municipal government was reduced to impotence.
Seizing the opportune moment Cola di Rienzi (Nicola Gabrini), the son of
an innkeeper, makes a brilliant _coup d’état_ and becomes tribune elect
of the people in 1347. The feuds of the families of Colonna, Orsini and
Savelli have served the ends of the ambitious youth who at the age of
thirty-four found himself in a position of power all the greater that it
was comparatively undefined and absolutely unparalleled in the annals of
history. We can hardly be surprised that the success of his endeavours,
the material realisation of what even to Rienzi himself must have clearly
possessed some of the attributes of a dream, should have misled him into
the most extravagant abuses of power. He had dreamed even at that early
period of the unification of Italy, and now it seemed as if he were the
divine agent to bring about this unification. Sovereign princes became
his allies. He surrounded himself with all the tokens of magnificence
that occurred to a fertile and greedy imagination. He bathed in the
porphyry font of Constantine; he assumed the dalmatic worn by the ancient
emperors at their coronation, took the sceptre of government in his hand
and placed seven crowns on his head symbolising the seven gifts of the
Holy Ghost; he even compared himself to Christ.
The novel of Lord Lytton is a genuine attempt to convey a picture of an
achievement that offered an attractive subject for romantic treatment.
It lacks the sincere ring of the silver eloquence of Petrarch--its main
source of inspiration. It has little of the critical faculty revealed
in the phrase quoted from Madame de Staël; it is a curious combination
of diligent research, sympathetic insight, and a passion for high talk.
In the case of one to whom contemporaries affix the epithet “fantastic”
with noticeable frequency, the difficulties of precise delineation
are more than usually great. But such a chapter as that describing the
climax of Rienzi’s power during his first and greatest tribunate is a
valuable contribution towards that truth of narrative which lies midway
between the barren enumeration of facts and the perfervid rhapsodies of
those whom the facts have dazzled. For the main narrative of Rienzi’s
picturesque career, however, we shall trust to the more prosaic, yet
still appreciative, account of a recent Italian historian.[a]
THE RISE OF RIENZI
[Sidenote: [1342-1347 A.D.]]
Cola di Rienzi, full of the glories of ancient Rome, thought it possible
to realise politically the thoughts contained in his own works, and those
of his friend Petrarch, and of other great minds of his century. One idea
dominated Rienzi. He was the great dreamer of his time; but he was not
mad in thinking that Rome should rise above the party spirit of Guelfs
and Ghibellines which he equally blamed whilst lamenting the strife
continually excited by the one against the other.
In 1342, after the election of Clement VI in Avignon, the thirteen good
men who ruled Rome sent orators to the new pope asking him to return to
St. Peter’s seat. They had done the same at the election of Clement V,
John XXII, and Benedict XII. A young Roman, born to a tavern-keeper and
a washerwoman about the time of the coronation of Henry VII, took part
in the embassy. He was learned in Livy, Seneca, Cicero, and Valerius; he
was enthusiastic over the deeds of Julius Cæsar; he had learned to read
the ancient inscriptions which were no longer understood, and he loved to
expound them to the degenerate citizens; and, whilst telling them of the
good Romans and their great justice, he regretted not having been born in
their time. He either did not know or he forgot the stormy scenes of the
republic, the pusillanimity and the iniquity of the empire, and ignored
the virtues and the victories of that Rome which now lay abandoned not
only by her emperor, but even by her pope.
Being presented to Clement VI, Rienzi described to him the robberies
of the lords at Rome, their misdeeds, and the desolation of the city;
he spoke in such forcible words that Clement was astonished, and the
elegance of the Latin language used by the gifted citizen seemed
extraordinary. Petrarch also, who a few years previously had pressed
Benedict XII to return to Rome, represented to the new pope the city that
invited his return.
But Clement, more impressed by the miserable condition of Rome and the
states of the church than by the ardent words of poet or orator, had no
wish to leave Avignon. He authorised the jubilee for the year 1350, and
he deputed the young Stefano Colonna and Bertoldo Orsini to be his vicars
in Rome. He complimented Cola and appointed him notary of the chamber;
but the latter now began to show his teeth. The murder of a brother for
which he was unable to obtain justice had exasperated him against the bad
judges of Rome; so now returning from Avignon in favour with the pope, he
took courage to reprove them as kings of the “blood of the poor people”;
he admonished them with mysterious pictures; and he had a presentment
made of a ship about to sink in a stormy sea, under which was written:
“This is Rome.”
In his increasing assurance, and ascendency over the people, Cola
convoked them one day to the Lateran when he spoke in the vulgar tongue
so as to be understood by all. He showed the people the _Lex Regia_ of
Vespasian, which he had brought to light for the first time, and which he
thought had been hidden by Boniface VIII out of hatred of the empire. In
this the senate in the ancient Roman forms conferred the imperial power
on Vespasian. Cola, who took it literally, extolled the authority of the
Roman people: “See how fine the senate was, what authority it gave to
the empire;” and he lamented the loss of so much greatness, and deplored
above all the present desolation of the city, and implored the people not
to disgrace themselves before the pilgrims who would come to Rome for the
jubilee of 1350.
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF VENUS, ROME]
All the people applauded, and the nobles scoffed, but he replied in
allegorical pictures and discourses. Rome was in a miserable condition;
murder and rapine were practised on the highways with impunity, pilgrims
were robbed and wounded, and honesty was out of court. Robert and Peter
Colonna were senators, but they were not sufficient to restrain anarchy.
Stefano Colonna, the elder, the valorous and terrible head of the
powerful family of that name, was a cornet in the Roman military; and
Cola thought that the time had arrived to summon the people to reorganise
the city and to substitute the “good state” for the present disorder.
On the 20th of May, 1347, he assembled the populace and addressed it
from the Campidoglio. Three standards were displayed before him--on
the one was depicted Rome, and signified Liberty; upon another was
St. Paul, who represented Justice; and upon the third was St. Peter,
indicating Peace and Concord. He was accompanied by Raymond, bishop
of Orvieto, the pope’s vicar in Rome for ecclesiastical matters. Cola
spoke of the misery and servitude of the people of Rome, and as “he for
the love of the pope and the salvation of the people exposed his person
to every danger,” he then published his decrees for the prevention of
murder, for the right distribution of justice, the organisation of the
soldiery of the corporation and for the assistance of widows, orphans,
and monasteries--the barons were to maintain the security of the
thoroughfares and not to favour any malefactor. Stefano Colonna returned
to Rome in indignation, but as he heard the sound of uproar and saw the
people bearing arms, he fled to Palestrina and shut himself up in his
family castle. The Orsini, Colonnas, and other barons who caused the
desolation of the city by their incessant strifes were expelled. Those
who had fled in terror at the sudden revolution responded to Cola’s
invitation and gradually returned, took the oath, and offered their
assistance to the city.
Cola di Rienzi hastened to restore peace by punishing the evil-doers,
and reinstating justice and security. He then took the title of tribune,
as head of the people. The pontifical vicar had been appointed his
colleague; but this was only nominal, for the true and sole head of Rome
was Cola.
The distance of the pope from Rome gave the tribune freedom to establish
his authority. Neither he nor the Roman people would have thought of the
tribunate if the pope had been there; but his absence, and the faint hope
of his return after his recent refusal, made a profound impression upon
the Romans.
Now the idea of the empire and the republic dazzled the eyes of the new
tribune. He wrote letters to the pope at Avignon, and to the cities of
Tuscany, Lombardy, and Romagna, to Lucchino Visconti, lord of Milan, to
the marquis of Ferrara, and to Ludwig the Bavarian at Naples.
He who called himself “_Nicolaus severus et clemens, sancte romane
reipublice liberator illustris_,” reported himself to the territories of
Italy as having assumed the title of tribune to repair the evils which
oppressed Rome, and requested that on the 1st of August all should send
two orators to treat on the welfare of the whole of Italy (_della salute
di tutta Italia_). The fame of the ardent dreamer who sought to reinstate
the Roman Empire, with Rome at the head and the Italian territories
dependent upon it, and united almost in confederation, ran throughout
Italy. The courier sent to Avignon said that thousands of people pressed
upon Rienzi as he passed by to kiss the wand he bore. The pope gave a
favourable reply.
The tribune, moreover, wishing to revive the pomp of old imperialism,
made a triumphal course through the city, and visiting the church of St.
Peter he was received by the clergy singing: “_Veni Creator Spiritus_.”
He ordered the barons to concede to the restoration of the palace of
the Campidoglio, the seat of the tribunate, and instituted the trained
bands of cavalry and foot-soldiers according to the wards of the city,
so that thirteen hundred infantry and three hundred and sixty cavalry
were enrolled. All the barons had obeyed, with the exception of Giovanni
da Vico, who by direct inheritance maintained the title of prefect of
the city, in which dignity he had succeeded his father. He was descended
from a family of German origin and of the imperial party which several
times gave Rome reason for war. He had been vicar in Viterbo during the
pontificate, and during its absence he had been tyrant; and he was not
inclined to submit now to the tribune. But Cola, with the aid of Tuscany,
the Campania, and the maritime provinces, forced him to obey the people
of Rome. Cola then reinvested him with the prefecture and left him
Viterbo; Cività Vecchia, Anagni, and the other territories submitted.
August approached, and the ambassadors arrived from Florence, Siena,
Teramo, Spoleto, Rieti, Amelia, Tivoli, Velletri, Foligno, Assisi;
the Venetians showed themselves favourable. The majority of the
tyrants of Lombardy made light of embassies (like Taddeo, Pepoli
of Bologna, Francesco Ordelaffi of Forlì, and Malatesta of Rimini)
although many almost repented later of having treated the invitation so
disrespectfully. It seems that Ludwig the Bavarian himself sent secret
envoys to Rome because the tribune wished to conciliate him with the
church. Also Louis of Hungary, who, by the murder of Andrea was Robert’s
successor to the kingdom of Naples, aspired to that kingdom, and,
accusing Joanna of complicity in the death of her husband, sent orators
to demand justice; and he wrote letters to the tribune, as also did
Joanna. Letters, moreover, arrived from Philip of France; but they came
too late--when Cola had fallen.
Cola, wishing to unite the glamour of pomp with the honour of the tribune
of Rome, was dressed as a _cavaliere_. In the presence of the orators
of the various Italian cities and amid a great concourse of people he
proceeded in triumph towards the Lateran. Cavaliere Vico Scotto presented
him with the sword and order of a cavaliere, and he had the vanity to
bathe in Constantine’s bath, in which it was said that Constantine
washed after being cured of leprosy by St. Silvester. Much was said by
the people at this seeming act of profanation, and Cola was unconscious
of the grave error that he made. His vanity began to be his ruin. Made
a cavaliere, he addressed a speech to the people on the dignities lost
by the citizens of Rome, he spoke of the empire and the popedom, and
finally summoned before his presence the imperial electors and Ludwig the
Bavarian and Charles IV of Bohemia who were pretendants to the empire
under the ancient law of the election of the future emperor by the Roman
people.[d]
Turning for the moment from the calm narrative of the historian, let
us listen to the eloquent account in which Lord Lytton describes this
remarkable scene.
LORD LYTTON ON THE SPEECH OF RIENZI
The bell of the great Lateran church sounded shrill and loud, as the
mighty multitude, greater even than that of the preceding night, swept
on. The appointed officers made way with difficulty for the barons and
ambassadors, and scarcely were those noble visitors admitted ere the
crowd closed in their ranks, poured headlong into the church, and took
the way to the chapel of Boniface VIII. There, filling every cranny, and
blocking up the entrance, the more fortunate of the press beheld the
tribune surrounded by the splendid court his genius had collected, and
his fortune had subdued. At length, as the solemn and holy music began
to swell through the edifice, preluding the celebration of the mass,
the tribune stepped forth, and the hush of the music was increased by
the universal and dead silence of the audience. His height, his air,
his countenance, were such as always commanded the attention of crowds;
and at this time they received every adjunct from the interest of the
occasion, and that peculiar look of intent yet suppressed fervour, which
is, perhaps, the sole gift of the eloquent that nature alone can give.
“Be it known,” said he, slowly and deliberately, “in virtue of that
authority, power, and jurisdiction, which the Roman people, in general
parliament, have assigned to us, and which the sovereign pontiff hath
confirmed, that we, not ungrateful of the gift and grace of the Holy
Spirit--whose soldier we now are--nor of the favour of the Roman people,
declare that Rome, capital of the world, and base of the Christian
church, and that every city, state, and people of Italy, are henceforth
free. By that freedom, and in the same consecrated authority, we proclaim
that the election, jurisdiction, and monarchy of the Roman Empire
appertain to Rome and Rome’s people, and the whole of Italy. We cite,
then, and summon personally, the illustrious princes, Ludwig duke of
Bavaria, and Charles king of Bohemia, who would style themselves emperors
of Italy, to appear before us, or the other magistrates of Rome, to plead
and to prove their claim between this day and the Day of Pentecost. We
cite also, and within the same term, the duke of Saxony, the prince of
Brandenburg, and whosoever else, potentate, prince, or prelate, asserts
the right of elector to the imperial throne--a right that, we find it
chronicled from ancient and immemorial time, appertaineth only to the
Roman people--and this in vindication of our civil liberties, without
derogation of the spiritual power of the church, the pontiff, and the
sacred college.[15] Herald, proclaim the citation, at the greater and
more formal length, as written and entrusted to your hands, without the
Lateran.”
As Rienzi concluded this bold proclamation of the liberties of Italy, the
Tuscan ambassadors, and those of some other of the free states, murmured
low approbation. The ambassadors of those states that affected the party
of the emperor looked at each other in silent amaze and consternation.
The Roman barons remained with mute lips and downcast eyes; only over
the aged face of Stefano Colonna settled a smile, half of scorn, half
of exultation. But the great mass of the citizens were caught by words
that opened so grand a prospect as the emancipation of all Italy; and
the reverence of the tribune’s power and fortune was almost that due to
a supernatural being; so that they did not pause to calculate the means
which were to correspond with the boast.
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF NERVA]
While his eye roved over the crowd, the gorgeous assemblage near him,
the devoted throng beyond; as on his ear boomed the murmur of thousands
and ten thousands, in the space without, from before the palace of
Constantine (palace now his own!) sworn to devote life and fortune to
his cause; in the flush of prosperity that yet had known no check; in
the zenith of power, as yet unconscious of reverse, the heart of the
tribune swelled proudly; visions of mighty fame and limitless dominion;
fame and dominion once his beloved Rome’s, and by him to be restored,
rushed before his intoxicated gaze; and in the delirious and passionate
aspirations of the moment, he turned his sword alternately to the three
quarters of the then known globe, and said, in an abstracted voice, as a
man in a dream, “In the right of the Roman people this too is mine!”
Low though the voice, the wild boast was heard by all around as
distinctly as if borne to them in thunder. And vain it were to describe
the various sensations it excited; the extravagance would have moved the
derision of his foes, the grief of his friends, but for the manner of
the speaker, which, solemn and commanding, hushed for the moment even
reason and hatred themselves in awe; afterwards remembered and repeated,
void of the spell they had borrowed from the utterer, the words met the
cold condemnation of the well-judging; but at that moment all things
seemed possible to the hero of the people. He spoke as one inspired--they
trembled and believed; and, as rapt from the spectacle, he stood a moment
silent, his arms still extended, his dark dilating eye fixed upon space,
his lips parted, his proud head towering and erect above the herd, his
own enthusiasm kindled that of the more humble and distant spectators;
and there was a deep murmur begun by one, echoed by the rest, “The Lord
is with Italy and Rienzi!”
The tribune turned, he saw the pope’s vicar astonished, bewildered,
rising to speak. His sense and foresight returned to him at once, and,
resolved to drown the dangerous disavowal of the papal authority for this
hardihood, which was ready to burst from Raymond’s lips, he motioned
quickly to the musicians, and the solemn and ringing chant of the sacred
ceremony prevented the bishop of Orvieto all occasion of self-exoneration
or reply.
The moment the ceremony was over, Rienzi touched the bishop, and
whispered, “We will explain this to your liking. You feast with us at the
Lateran. Your arm.” Nor did he leave the good bishop’s arm, nor trust him
to other companionship, until to the stormy sound of horn and trumpet,
drum and cymbal, and amidst such a concourse as might have hailed, on
the same spot, the legendary baptism of Constantine, the tribune and his
nobles entered the great gates of the Lateran, then the palace of the
world.
Thus ended that remarkable ceremony and that proud challenge of the
northern powers, in behalf of the Italian liberties, which, had it been
afterwards successful, would have been deemed a sublime daring; which,
unsuccessful, has been construed by the vulgar into a frantic insolence;
but which, calmly considering all the circumstances that urged on the
tribune, and all the power that surrounded him, was not, perhaps,
altogether so imprudent as it seemed. And, even accepting that imprudence
in the extremest sense, by the more penetrating judge of the higher order
of character, it will probably be considered as the magnificent folly of
a bold nature, excited at once by position and prosperity, by religious
credulities, by patriotic aspirings, by scholastic visions too suddenly
transferred from reverie to action, beyond that wise and earthward policy
which sharpens the weapon ere it casts the gauntlet.[e]
RIENZI’S OPPONENTS; HIS FRIENDS; HIS PROCLAMATIONS
Germany was at this time divided, and Ludwig the Bavarian, who in the
first years of his reign had found a rival in Frederick of Austria,
and now another who was much more formidable in Charles, son of John
of Bohemia, grandson of Henry VII, was no longer reconciled with the
pope. In 1337 he approached the king of France, but here his friendship
with Edward of England stopped the way of unanimity. His protests of
submission provoked the declaration of the German electors on the
independence of the empire of the pontificate (1338). The negotiation was
continued in 1346. Ludwig wavered, and Clement VI again excommunicated
him, enjoining the electors to fill the vacancy by the election of the
king of the Romans.
Charles meanwhile, a candidate of the kingdom, came to Avignon to
renew the promises of Henry VII. He was elected the same year. Ludwig,
now weary of such a long strife, felt the need more than ever of
reconciliation and peace.
Now the tribune with no other power than that of the name of Rome
summoned before his tribunal the two rivals already adjudged by the pope
without regard to the orders given by the pope, nor of those of the
electors. “But the Roman Empire remains in Rome,” said Rienzi. “There
is no name on earth more august than that of the Roman Republic; all
the world recognises its supremacy. Rome is also the foundation of the
church. Can the Roman Empire be found elsewhere than at Rome? Do we not
find its laws among the Parthians, Persians, and Medes, and is it in Rome
that we are not to find the Roman Empire? And if not at Rome, where is it
to be?”
These were the ideas of Francesco Petrarch, who had become the firm and
enthusiastic friend of the tribune, having first been thrown with him at
Avignon. Thus when the daring attempt began to fail, the poet laureate
was untiring in exhorting the tribune to insure the welfare of Rome and
Italy. He was astounded at hearing many who were accredited with wisdom
doubt the importance of the cause that Rome and Italy should be in
concord.
The gentle spirit of Petrarch, intolerant at the pope’s residing at
Avignon, and regretting his sojourn in Gaul, and complaining of the
western Babylonia, now forgot his Colonna friends and incited Cola
against the barons. Cæsar Augustus at one time had prohibited the
Romans using the title of _domini_, and now everything is changed. “_O
miserabilem fortune vertiginem._” But in the meanwhile a great cause of
discord had arisen. Raymond, alarmed at the tribune’s speeches, made a
formal protest, but the voice of the notary who recorded it was drowned
by musical instruments.
Cola withdrew all the privileges and the concessions given solely to
the Roman people, and declared the Italian cities free; and on the 3rd
of August in a festival which can be called that of the Italian cities
he presented symbolical standards to the orators of some of the towns.
Those of Perugia, Siena, and Todi received the standards; but those of
Florence, to whom he wished to present a standard with Rome represented
as an aged woman seated before two young ones, were not there to receive
it, because they thought it would compromise the independence of their
city, as they opined that one of the young women represented Florence.
Henceforward the Florentines, practised in the affairs of the world, knew
that Cola’s enterprise “was a fantastic work of short durance.” Cola
figured as a messenger of God, and took the title of “candidate of the
Holy Spirit,” and had his titles engraved on a marble tablet on the door
of Santa Maria in Ara Cœli. He afterwards wrote to the pope acquainting
him with the deeds done, and wrote to the Italian cities repeating and
delineating his programme with greater exactitude. He was to re-establish
the laws of Rome; he declared that the monarchy of the world should
belong to Rome and all Italy. He summoned the ruling authorities in
Italy, the electors, and the German chancellors to appear in Rome before
him, and the other officials of the pope and the Roman people to justify
his laws (the 5th-6th of August). He wished to elect a new emperor at
Rome, and whilst (August) the matter was being debated in Rome before him
between Joanna of Naples and Louis of Hungary, his orators went to the
different cities (November, December) asking them to send ambassadors to
Rome for the coming festival of St. John, to treat on the election of
the new emperor, maintaining that in antiquity his election was always
looked for at the hands of the Romans and Italians, and to find means of
preventing the Germans ever descending that side of the Alps.
Subsequently when Cola himself was forced to take refuge with Charles
IV in Bohemia, he was astonished at the audacity with which, trusting
in the “majesty of the name of Rome,” he had cast down the gauntlet of
defiance before the German emperor.
On the 15th of August he had himself crowned in the Lateran with several
symbolical crowns, of oak, ivy, myrtle, laurel, olive, and silver. The
comptroller placed a golden apple in his hand. Then he forbade the use of
the names of Guelf and Ghibelline; he promulgated the Roman freedom of
the city of all Italians, and believing himself a hero of antique type,
he wrote of his coronation to the pope and to Charles IV. He gave feasts
and dressed in sumptuous attire.
He also ignored the signification of Guelf and Ghibelline, the laws of
the pope and the emperor, but all, according to Petrarch, was done in the
name of Rome, amid whose present miseries vivified by history and ancient
literature there arose before his eyes, drunk with enthusiasm, the
temples and courts of august Rome. The nobility, not being impressed with
his dreams, worked against him, and he was now in fear of treachery. He
invited Stefano Colonna, the elder, and other of the chief barons of the
Colonnas, the Orsini, and the Savelli, to a banquet and then kept them
prisoners. He wished to have them all killed, and had the room adorned
with white and red decorations as a sign of blood. Their approaching
death was announced to them, but then his courage failed him for the
execution of the sentence. Granting the prayers of several citizens he
pardoned them, believed in the sincerity of their promises, liberated
them, and covered them with honours. In all practical matters Rienzi’s
weakness and lack of judgment were clearly shown.
But naturally discontent arose among the Roman people, and a fire
and flame were kindled which could not be extinguished (the 15th of
September). The liberated barons rushed to their castles, fortified
Marino, and openly prepared for war, skirmishing even as far as the gates
of Rome. Cola was thus forced to besiege Marino. In the meanwhile the
causes of division with the pope increased. Clement VI was filled with
suspicion against Cola, seeing that he arbitrarily ruled the territories
of Sabina, which were under the pontifical sway. He sent to Rome the
cardinal Bertrando di Deux (the pontifical legate in Italy until 1346),
who subsequently co-operated in the ruin of the tribune. He came to Rome
in October and Cola arrogantly appeared before him clad in the imperial
dalmatic, to the sound of trumpets, the sceptre in his hand and crown
upon his head, terrible and fantastic to look at.
DISASTER SUCCEEDS VICTORY
Clement had written to this legate saying that Cola had exceeded the
limits of his authority, breaking the pontifical and imperial decrees
and favouring Louis of Hungary against Joanna of Naples whom the pope
held to be innocent of the accusation of complicity in the murder of
her husband Andrea. He gave orders for Cola to revoke the very fatuous
laws he had made and ordered him to be contented with the government of
Rome. But Cola was unwilling to receive such admonitions, which prevented
the fulfilment of his designs. The Colonnas in the meanwhile arrived
from Palestrina, and favoured by the discontent commencing in Rome they
entered upon the perilous venture of storming Rome at the gate of San
Lorenzo. Among the chief barons were Stefano Colonna, the younger, and
Giovanni his son, who died fighting. Cola felt certain of the prefect Da
Vico,--who, however, secretly favoured the Colonnas, the Orsini, and the
Savelli,--and had tried to imbue the others with his enthusiasm, saying
that St. Boniface, _i.e._, Boniface VIII, had appeared to him and assured
him of victory over the Colonnas. They in fact were conquered (the 20th
of November). Many of the most illustrious barons died in that fierce
battle, which was the grave of the old Roman nobility. The tribune,
being no warrior, could not boast of a real victory, but he nevertheless
celebrated his triumph, and like the ancients, he had arms hung up in the
temples, and he laid his steel sceptre and his crown of olive leaves at
the feet of the Virgin in Santa Maria in Ara Cœli, boasting before the
people of having done with his sword what neither pope nor emperor had
been able to do.
The next day he made his son Lorenzo a cavalier (knight) at the scene
of victory, sprinkling him with water from the ditch in which Stefano
Colonna had fallen, and bathing him with blood and water, he said to him:
“Thou shalt be a cavalier of victory”; and thus in vain and barbarous
ceremonies he lost precious time in which he could easily have surprised
Marino. The people murmured at seeing Rienzi sprinkle his son with the
blood of the Colonnas, for he seemed like an Asiatic tyrant, who forgot
the execution of justice in his love of eating and drinking.
[Illustration: MOUNT AVENTINE, ROME]
Cola began to be suspicious of the populace, and fearing their fury
he was in no hurry to assemble them for parliament. He had to cease
governing Sabina, although in the name of the church he continued to
issue laws and tracts. He approached the legate, but he did not recover
the good will of the people, who now regarded him as a tyrant (December,
1347).
Together with a pontifical vicar, he assembled the parliament of the
people, proposing a tax on salt, but in this the citizens did not
concur, and soon afterwards a council was formed of twenty-nine sages.
But scarcely were they assembled than he accused two of the members of
treachery; a tumult arose, and Cola, alarmed, and to reassemble the sole
public council and to excuse himself of any excess, said that he wished
to hold the court in the name of the pope and according to the orders
that the cardinal brought him in his name. But he postponed publishing
them (the 10th of December), and thus from hesitancy to hesitancy, from
vanity to vanity, he worked his own ruin.
The people were no longer with him, he was no longer the tribune of a
few months previous--full of confidence and enthusiasm. He did not know
how to keep the vicar on his side; and he withdrew to the legate at
Montefiascone, who was commencing operations against the tribune, as he
sided with the Colonnas and Savelli.
Letters arrived from the pope, accusing Cola of having summoned to his
court the Bavarian and the Bohemian, and for having incited the Italian
cities to assemble to elect the emperor, which he had asserted to be a
matter independent of the church and the city of Rome; in fact he had
incited the people to abandon him. Although Cola then abandoned (at least
in appearance) all his pretensions, it was too late.
Petrarch had left Valchiusa to come to Rome to visit the tribune and
the city, no longer in the hands of the barons, no longer decimated by
massacres, but ruled by a vigorous hand of ancient Roman descent. When he
arrived at Genoa, he heard on the way bad reports of Cola’s government.
He then wrote to him to reprove his decadence, and quoting Cicero and
Terence, he strove to inspire him with Roman steadfastness. “The foot
must be well planted,” he said to him, “so as to be firm and not to
present a ridiculous spectacle to the enemies.”
But these oratorical exhortations were fruitless--resistance had become
impossible; the legate, the people, were all against him; and those who
a few months before had hailed him as the restorer of the Roman Republic
now grumbled at him as the “iniquitous one who wished to tyrannise by
force.”
John Pipino of Altarmara who was put in prison by Robert had been set
free by Andrew in 1343. When Andrew was killed he left the kingdom and
went to Hungary, where he incited King Louis to go down to Italy to
vindicate the death of his brother, whilst he went to Rome to await
him. The tribune had banished him from Rome for the robberies he had
committed near Terracina, but favoured by the enemies of Cola, he was
able to fortify himself in the district of the Holy Apostles, under the
protection of the Colonnas.
Cola liberated the prefect Da Vico; but he was mistaken in thinking to
acquire a powerful friend, for he had already voted against the tribune;
his orders were not followed. The tribune was now quite cast down and
disheartened at seeing that the country which had glowed with the ardour
of a whole populace was now destitute of one in his favour; and he fell
to weeping and sighing.
The people meanwhile came to the Campidoglio, but full of a bad spirit
and actuated by his enemies. Cola appeared before them and told them how
much he had done in his tribunate; he justified his conduct, and said
that if his fellow-citizens were not satisfied with him it was the fault
of their jealousy, and that he would renounce power in the seventh month
from that in which he had assumed it. But the eloquent language which had
once affected Clement VI, and intoxicated the people with enthusiasm, was
now received coldly, and not a voice rose in his defence.
Weeping, Cola came out on horseback, and to the sound of trumpets and
with imperial accompaniments he passed through the city almost in triumph
and shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo. When the tribune
descended from his grandeur, he bewailed the others who were associated
with him and he lamented over the unhappy people. The barons did not
dare to set foot in Rome for three days, and they finally returned, with
the legate, who disapproved of most of the deeds of the tribune, and
condemned him as a heretic. The count Pipino was executed eight days
afterwards in the Abruzzi, and a mitre was put upon his head with the
inscription that he was mockingly called the “liberator of the people of
Rome.”
Cola on the arrival of the king of Hungary fled to the Naples district
from the dangers which menaced him.
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF CASTOR AT ROME]
ANARCHY AND JUBILEE IN ROME
[Sidenote: [1347-1350 A.D.]]
Rome now returned to her old state of anarchy. The senators Bertoldo
Orsini and Luca Savelli failed in maintaining a more orderly government
than the senators preceding them. Stefano Colonna, the elder, died about
this time (1348-1350); Werner von Urslingen, the fierce captain of the
Great Company, had returned about a year before to this side of the
Alps after having laid Romagna waste, and in November, 1347, he, with
fifteen hundred armed soldiers, followed Louis of Hungary in Italy to the
conquest of Naples. The confusion with which he filled the kingdom led to
the victory of the Hungarians; then Urslingen was licensed, and it being
easy to find them he gathered mercenaries under him, and marching towards
Rome took and destroyed Anagni; but he did not get any further.
The Black Plague [described in our previous chapter], brought from the
Levant in a Genoese galley in 1347, broke out in that year in some places
of Tuscany, Romagna, and Provence. It ceased at the advent of winter, and
broke out again with devastating force at the approach of spring, and
ran riot over the whole of Italy, in 1348, excepting Milan and Piedmont.
John Villani fell a victim to this terrible disease. Three-fifths of
the population died in Florence, and two-thirds in Bologna. In Rome, on
the contrary, it seems to have been less prevalent; at least we have
no authentic records of the evil attending this city, now squalid and
desolate. At the end of the following year the arrival of the pilgrims
for the jubilee at Rome commenced. Germans and Hungarians came in great
numbers. The arrival of the pilgrims was attended with no disorder. They
were at first attacked by beggars when they reached the district of
Rome, and some were killed; but subsequently the Romans had the roads
protected. Countless were the Christians that went by thousands to the
Holy City. The roads leading to the churches of St. Peter, St. John the
Lateran, and St. Paul, and the highways outside the walls, were all
crowded with people. Louis of Hungary came to Rome after having returned
to his kingdom. Petrarch also came, but he neither found his old friends
the Colonnas there, nor his new friend Cola, and he was grieved to see
the Lateran half in ruins, the Vatican in disorder, and the church of the
Apostles in ruins.
What feelings must have filled the heart of the poet on revisiting the
Campidoglio and the district of the Apostles and the Colonna palace--in
all Rome there was nothing to remind him of the happy days of his
coronation! “Ah! it is not only we who are getting old that change, for
the things about us deteriorate,” he said some years later.
[Sidenote: [1350-1351 A.D.]]
Aribaldo, a Tuscan bishop, was legate in Rome during the jubilee; he died
on the 17th of August, 1350. The pope some time previously had deputed
him to continue the proceedings commenced by Cardinal Bertrand against
Cola.
The jubilee over, Rome relapsed into anarchy soon after it had elected
the thirteen good men; and Clement VI, whilst showing himself favourable
to the new administration, nominated four cardinals to examine into
matters, and he confided to them the main part of the government of Rome.
To them Petrarch addressed a letter full of the ideas he had expressed
in his epistle to Cola, and, incensed against the malevolent Roman
barons, he spoke of the _plebe Romana_ who in old times elected their
magistrates; and without touching on the tribunate he added that the two
senators of his time, the only advance on the conscript (_conscritti_)
fathers, represented the two consuls of ancient times.
He did not descend to especial admonitions upon the mode of governing,
but only maintained the necessity of restoring ancient liberty and
freeing the house of the apostles from the tyrants who had laid it waste.
RIENZI IN EXILE; HIS RENEWED OPPORTUNITY; HIS DEATH
Cardinal Aribaldo had always been in fear of Cola; he suspected that
the pope would change and desire the tribune’s return, and having been
wounded on the road he had no hesitation in attributing the deed to
the fugitive, who was leading a wandering life full of dangers. Cola
travelled in the Abruzzi, and there met with the friars who retained
faith in the poverty of Christ; and here Brother Angelo prophesied a
great future for him.
[Illustration: PORTA TIBURTINA, ROME]
In the meanwhile Ludwig the Bavarian died (the 11th of October, 1347)
and there remained only Charles IV from whom Cola began to expect the
fulfilment of his aspirations.[d] Petrarch had written a long letter to
the emperor in 1350 inviting him to interest himself in Italy. “Let not
solicitude for transalpine affairs, nor the love of your native soil
detain you; but whenever you look upon Germany think of Italy. There
you were born, here you were nurtured; there you enjoy a kingdom, here
both a kingdom and an empire; and as I believe I may, with the consent
of all nations and peoples, safely add, while the members of the empire
are everywhere, here you will find the head itself.” Shortly after he
had received this strange communication from Petrarch, the emperor was
confronted with Rienzi himself at Prague. He listened to his proposals
and then calmly handed him over to the pope at Avignon. Petrarch writing
to Nelli about him in 1352 says: “Cola di Rienzi has recently come, or
rather been brought a prisoner to the papal curia. He who was once the
tribune of the city of Rome, inspiring terror far and wide, is now the
most miserable of men.” Had it not been for Petrarch’s influence with the
pope and the complexion of politics at the moment, Rienzi no doubt would
have been killed. As it was, he was kept in prison while Clement lived.[a]
[Sidenote: [1351-1353 A.D.]]
In the meanwhile the people in Rome had given full authority to Giovanni
Cerrone (1351), to whom the pope had shown himself favourable, and had
appointed him senator and captain. But he fell very soon. The prefect
Giovanni da Vico, also under the ban of excommunication, did not wish
to submit to him and had re-occupied Viterbo, Toscanella, and other
territories of the patrimony, and then Corneto and Orvieto. Cerrone
could not subdue him, and with the same want of success he so alienated
everybody from him that he had to quit the city, which relapsed into the
usual anarchy. On the 6th of December, 1352, Clement VI died, leaving
the pontifical seat settled in Avignon, as he had obtained the city from
Queen Joanna of Naples for 8,000 florins.
His successor, Etienne d’Albert or Aubert, a Frenchman like his
predecessors, took the name of Innocent VI. He was a just, austere, and
severe man, a man of science and practical views. He began to reform the
curia of Avignon, and sought to find a remedy for the present prostration
of the pontificate by reconstructing the ecclesiastical state and
dividing it among petty and great vicars, tyrants, and lords.
The condition of the lands of the church has been often touched upon, but
it must now be examined more closely. The family of the prefect Da Vico
ruled over Viterbo, Orvieto, Toscanella, Corneto, Cività Vecchia, Terni,
Vertralla, etc. The lordships of the Malatesta of Rimini extended over
Fano, Pesaro, Sinigaglia, Ascoli, Osima, Ancora, etc.; the Montefeltri
ruled in Urbino and Cagli, the Varani in Camerino, the Da Montemilone in
Tolentino, the Gabrieli in Gubbio, the Trinci in Foligno, the Da Mogliani
in Fermo, the Alidosi in Imola, and the Manfredi in Faenza. The dominion
of the Ordelaffi embraced Forlì, Forlimpopoli, Cesena, etc.; that of the
Da Polentas, Ravenna, Cervia, etc. We omit the minor lordships.
Now Bologna was under the Visconti. Although the Da Varani, Di Camerini,
the Alidosi of Imola, and the Estes from time to time renewed their
declarations of fidelity and dependence, receiving under the title
of vicars the lands they possessed, the tenure was of an uncertain
character. Naturally such lordships were not always of the same extent,
but they were increased and reduced according to the various political
conditions and causes of war.
The man appointed by Innocent VI to undertake the difficult task of
raising a state on such insecure and insufficient soil was a Spaniard.
Don Gil Albornoz was born at Cuenca of illustrious family. Alfonso XI
of Aragon procured him the archbishopric of Toledo; he fought the Moors
who had invaded Andalusia and directed the siege of Algeciras; but when
Peter the Cruel succeeded to the throne he fled from Spain to Avignon,
where Clement VI promoted him to be cardinal (1350). This man, cultured,
zealous, and with the habits of a knight and of a resolute character, was
the friend and adviser of Innocent VI, who finding in him the man fitted
to punish the tyrants, sent him as legate to Italy. He wished him to be
accompanied by Cola di Rienzi, whom in accordance with the wish of the
Romans he liberated from prison, being persuaded, as the pope said when
announcing the liberation to the people of Rome, that if he had done
evil, he had also done good (September, 1353). Thus Innocent VI combined
the strongest and most courageous cardinal of the century with the man
of fancies, the skilled politician, the only person who could excite the
feeling of the Romans, and to these two men he entrusted the restoration
of pontifical authority in Italy.
So Cola di Rienzi, who was the Roman of authority in 1347, being now
persuaded of the real state of affairs, had to lower himself to take
part in the party struggle; and as he had made himself a Ghibelline
at the court of Charles IV at Prague so far as to boast of being the
bastard of Henry VII, so he now adhered to the idea of Guelf in the
prison of Avignon. The prison of Avignon had not been too hard for him,
for although he had been shut up in a tower he had been given a certain
amount of liberty, and he had been able to follow his wish of studying
the Bible, and the famous histories of Titus Livius, and several other
books.
[Sidenote: [1353-1354 A.D.]]
In Rome, at the beginning of 1353, Bertoldo Orsini and Stefano Colonna
were senators, and amid the turbulent vortex of factions they had
succeeded in occupying the lordship after the flight of Cerrone. The two
senators were not loved, and before long they were hated by the people,
who, harassed with want of provisions, rose up in fury on the 15th of
February, 1353. Colonna fled to his palace, but Orsini put on his armour
and descended the stairway to mount his horse in view of the people. Then
braving the populace he advanced until his strength failed him and he was
buried under a storm of stones.
The people then took a second tribune, Francesco Baroncelli, a friend of
Cola’s, who governed according to his powers, but not with vigour. He was
not recognised by the pope, who had different views on the government
of the city. The Baroncelli were descended from a civil family, and he
was the orator sent to Florence by Cola to announce his elevation to the
tribune at the beginning of his reign.
Albornoz and Cola then left Avignon together to put down the tyrants and
reorganise Rome. The cardinal Egidio (Gil), as he was called, was in
Lombardy in the summer of 1353. Hordes of Tuscans increased the numbers
of Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Germans in his following. He went down to
Montefiascone which he made the centre of his doings in Romagna. Cola
being in the service of the cardinal in the war was against the prefect
Da Vico, who retook Viterbo, and other places in the patrimony, and being
reinforced he had turned the anarchy of Rome to his own advantage. The
resistance was obstinate and it only terminated after a long struggle
on the 5th of June, when the prefect surrendered. Whilst Viterbo was
fighting, and the tyrants Bernardo Polenta, lord of Ravenna and Cervia,
Galeotto Malatesta of Rimini, Francesco Ordelaffi of Forlì were being
expelled from Romagna, the Roman people looked once more for salvation
from Cola, forgetting his bad government and the little peace he had
procured them.
The feeling for Cola revived from the time he was incarcerated in the
Avignon prison; and now that he was near Rome with the legate, it
increased still more, although it was not the spontaneous, universal
acclamation of 1347. Suspected by the Baroncelli of having communication
with the prefect, the public aversion towards him increased, until at the
end of 1353 rebellion broke out and the poor tribune was expelled and
nearly killed.
The Romans devoted themselves to the legate and assisted him in the siege
of Viterbo. The war and the negotiations proceeded prosperously for the
church. Roman Tuscany, Umbria, and Sabina gradually gave in, and the way
was being cleared for Cola to return to the government of Rome. But he
had not the necessary money to provide an army of mercenaries, with which
to maintain his dominion. The money he had in Perugia was from the two
young brothers Moriale (Monreal). Fra Moriale was a gentleman of Provence
by birth. The terrible freebooter from 1345 took part in the majority
of the Italian wars, fought with Louis of Hungary in the Neapolitan
enterprise, and in the neighbourhood of Rome both for and against the
prefect Da Vico. Subsequently tired of serving, he formed (1352) a
company of his own of fifteen hundred helmeted men and two thousand
foot-soldiers, and marched against Malatesta da Rimini, against whom he
had fought in the wars of Naples. The successful enterprises increased
the company, into which he introduced regulations like those of a
regular standing army independent of every state. Pisa, Siena, Arezzo,
Florence, and other cities of Tuscany and Romagna had dearly paid the
price of immunity from his terrible devastations.
In the July of 1354 he sent his company under the rightful vicar, Count
Lando, to fight for the league against the Visconti. Being a citizen of
Perugia, he there amassed the treasures extorted by terror or gained by
sacking the populations of all Italy. His brothers Arimbaldo, doctor of
law, and Brettone, cavaliere di Narbona, lived there; and they with their
brother’s permission gave Cola 4,000 florins to collect some followers
and to make other necessary provisions.
Fra Moriale, wiser than the brothers, did not believe in the success of
the enterprise. “My reason contradicts it,” said he; but he let the money
be given whilst preparing “magnificent things” with his mercenaries.
Cola was made senator of Rome by the legate, and having enlisted sixty
companies, with a few Perugian and Tuscan soldiery, he, on the 1st of
August, 1354, made a solemn entry into Rome by the Castello gate, under
triumphal arches and decorations of gold and silver. The people, joyous
and shouting, accompanied him to the Campidoglio, where Cola made an
eloquent speech, calling himself senator of Rome in the name of the
pope. He formed his government; he made the two brothers of Fra Moriale
captains of the militia; he announced his promotion to Florence, and
he received the embassies from the neighbouring places. Cola was not
the person he was of old to the Roman people, who were shocked at his
intemperate way of living. He had become stout, and he consumed his time
in eating and drinking. His former courage in restraining the barons had
not been forgotten, and he received obedience from them.
[Illustration: AN ITALIAN KNIGHT, FOURTEENTH CENTURY]
Stefano Colonna, who had been senator in 1351, shut himself up in
Palestrina, the Orsini shut themselves up in Marino, and from these
fortified spots they laid waste the territory near Rome. Cola proceeded
against Palestrina, as he was in need of the money with which to pay the
German mercenaries, but he wished to find means of oppressing Stefano,
the “poisonous serpent, the broken reed.” And he tried once more to bring
ruin on the house of Colonna, “the cursed house whose pride had brought
the city of Rome to poverty, whilst other places lived in wealth.”
So spoke Cola, and with a thousand Roman cavalry and soldiery, with the
people of Tivoli and Velletri, and reinforcements from the neighbouring
places, he laid siege to the famous Rock of the Colonnas. But the siege
had not long commenced and the raising of the earthworks was not finished
before disputes arose between the Velletrani and Tiburtini; but worse
than that was the arrival of Fra Moriale--for now that his brothers were
with Cola, he was able to come to Rome, from whence he had been formerly
banished. He came to defend the rights of his brothers, who could not get
the new senator to repay the money lent to him--perhaps, moreover, he was
moved by the terrible idea of taking possession of Rome, and sacking it
for his mercenaries, and then making it the centre for great power. His
fierce soldiers were already saying that “some fine city would be their
spoil.” What spoil could be better than Rome!
It seems that the Colonnas, reduced to a desperate condition, treated
with Moriale for the fall of the tribune. The latter, suspecting that
Moriale was planning his death, returned suddenly to town, and left the
siege of Palestrina without arranging for his return to it. In Rome he
sent for Moriale, and he appeared before Cola, who took him and had him
imprisoned in the Campidoglio, together with his brothers. At first Fra
Moriale thought he could purchase his liberty. Being brought forward
tied, and examined, he confessed he was the head of the Great Company.
Then when sent back to prison, he knew there was no hope for him. In the
morning, accompanied by his brothers, he was brought out of prison, and
beheaded on the 29th of August, 1354.
The Romans of those days, only judging from the number and the greatness
of his enterprises relative to the theatre in which they were enacted,
compared him to Cæsar; but Innocent VI, with more reason, likened him
to Holofernes and Attila. The destruction of the great terror of Italy
was considered a great credit to Cola, as he would have caused as much
harm in the future as he had in the past; but it must be remembered that
Cola was most anxious to take possession of the riches of the brigand.
“It seems,” says Matteo Villani,[f] “that he stained his fame with
ingratitude and avarice”; and Fra Moriale himself, at the moment of his
death, turned to the people and said, “I die for your poverty and my
wealth.”
Muratori[k] gives the following unpleasant word-portrait of Rienzi at
this period: “Formerly he was sober, temperate, abstemious; he had now
become an inordinate drunkard; he was always eating confectionery and
drinking. It was a terrible thing to be forced to see him. They said
that in person he was of old quite meagre; he had become enormously fat;
he had a belly like a tun; jovial like an Asiatic abbot. He was full of
shining flesh (carbuncles?) like a peacock-red, and with a long beard;
his face was always changing; his eyes would suddenly kindle like fire;
his understanding, too, kindled in fitful flashes like fire.”
After the death of Moriale, Cola pursued the war against the Colonnas
with ardour. He entrusted it to Riccardo degli Anibaldi, a doughty
warrior. He gave orders from the Campidoglio to his officers, and it
seems that he devoted attention and diligence to his soldiers. Cola also
once more gave a proof of constancy and ardour. The want of money for
the war forced him to increase or to again impose the taxes on wine and
salt. The Romans bore it silently until it seemed that he even taxed
the common foods. The pope conjured him to govern justly, and confirmed
him as senator. But causes of complaint now arose; and it appeared that
Cola’s weak nature broke under its own weight. He would first weep, and
then laugh; he incurred everybody’s suspicion, and he patronised one and
another without rhyme or reason, and would release people for money.
On the 4th of October he notified the legate at Montefiascone of his
great danger and that he had received no help. The blow fell suddenly on
the morning of the 8th of October. The Colonnas and Savelli were to the
fore. The people pressed to the palace crying, “Long live the people!
death to the traitor Cola di Rienzi! death to the traitor who has made
the tax, death!”
The tribune, unconscious of his danger, made no defence, nor sounded a
bell. “I also,” he said, “am with the people; the pontifical confirmation
has arrived; I have only to publish it to the council.” He was not afraid
until he saw he was abandoned by all, and that the uproar increased. He
wished to harangue the people from the window, but it was impossible, for
they threw stones and sticks at him, crying still louder, “Death to the
traitor!” Confusion filled the palace; he was doubtful of Brettone, the
brother of Fra Moriale, who was a prisoner. He vacillated, he put on his
helmet and took it off again, uncertain whether to meet death with the
dignity of the ancient Romans or to take refuge in flight--he finally
decided on the latter course.
The Romans were now firing the doors, when the tribune divested himself
of all his arms, laid aside the insignia of dignity, cut off his beard,
dyed his face black, and put on the door-keeper’s mantle and enveloped
his head with a bed-cover. Thus disguised he descended the stairway to
the outside door, and changing his voice, he mingled with the insurgents,
himself crying “Down with the traitor!” He was outside the palace when
he was recognised by his gold armlets, and conducted to the Place of the
Lion in the Campidoglio where the sentences were given. Here he stood for
the space of an hour, a wretched spectacle for the people who stood in
silence and seemed frightened at what they had done and uncertain whether
to pardon or sacrifice him. Cola stood firm and calm awaiting death,
and the people seemed in no hurry to bathe their hands in the blood of
him whom a few months previously they had accompanied in triumph to the
Campidoglio, crowning him with olive leaves, and uttering shouts of joy.
What memories must have filled the mind of the unhappy tribune!
Cecco del Vecchio gave him a blow in the stomach. The sight of blood
changed compassion to fury. A notary wounded him with his sword. He was
soon covered with wounds. He did not say a word, he did not utter a cry.
He was taken to St. Mark’s, and he was tied by the feet to a pillar. His
head was mangled and tufts of his hair strewed the way; he was riddled
with wounds in every part of his body. There he remained two days, whilst
rogues cast stones at him. On the third day Guigurth and Sciarretta
Colonna had him taken over to the field of Augustus, where he was burned
upon a pile of dry thistles. Such was the end of Cola di Rienzi, who made
himself august tribune of Rome, and constituted himself the champion of
the Romans.[d] “In the death, as in the life of Rienzi,” says Gibbon,[g]
“the hero and the coward were strangely mingled.” Posterity will compare
the virtues and failings of this extraordinary man; but in a long period
of anarchy and servitude the name of Rienzi has often been celebrated as
the deliverer of his country, and the last of the Roman patriots.
FOOTNOTES
[15] “_Il tutto senza derogare all’autorità della Chiesa, del Tapa e del
Sacro Collegio._” So concludes this extraordinary citation, this bold and
wonderful assertion of the classic independence of Italy, in the most
feudal time of the fourteenth century. The anonymous biographer of Rienzi
declares that the tribune cited also the pope and the cardinals to reside
in Rome. De Sade powerfully and incontrovertibly refutes this addition
to the daring or the extravagance of Rienzi. Gibbon, however, who has
rendered the rest of the citation in terms more abrupt and discourteous
than he was warranted by any authority, copies the biographer’s blunder,
and sneers at De Sade, as using arguments “rather of decency than of
weight.” Without wearying the reader with all the arguments of the
learned abbé, it may be sufficient to give the first two:
(1) All the other contemporaneous historians that have treated of
this event, G. Villani, Hocsemius, the Vatican manuscripts and other
chroniclers, relating the citation of the emperor and electors, say
nothing of that of the pope and cardinals; and the pope (Clement VI),
in his subsequent accusations of Rienzi, while very bitter against his
citation of the emperor, is wholly silent on what would have been to the
pontiff the much greater offence of citing himself and the cardinals.
(2) The literal act of this citation, as published formally in the
Lateran, is extant in Hocsemius (whence is borrowed, though not at all
its length, the speech in the text of our present tale), and in this
document the pope and his cardinals are not named in the summons.
[Illustration]