he only dismissed his military suite; afterward he separated from his
faithful servant in the hope that separately they might more easily
baffle their pursuers. Next he had to turn his horse adrift, as the poor
animal was incapable of continuing his journey. Thus he made his way
alone and on foot toward the frontiers of his native land. After a while,
looking down from the top of a piece of elevated ground, he perceived a
large body of Turks, from whom he hid himself in a neighboring lake. He
thus escaped this danger, but only to encounter another. At a turn of
the road he came so suddenly upon a party of Turkish plunderers as to be
unable to escape from them, and thus became their prisoner. But the Turks
did not recognize him, and, leaving him in the hands of two of their
number, the rest went on in search of more prey. His two guards soon came
to blows with one another about a heavy gold cross which they had found
on the person of their captive, and, while they were thus quarrelling,
Hunyady suddenly wrenched a sword out of the hand of one of the two Turks
and cut off his head, upon which the other took to flight, and Hunyady
was again free.
In the mean time, however, George, the Prince of Servia, who took part
with the aristocratic malcontents, and who, although a Christian, out of
pure hatred to Hunyady had gone over to the side of the Turks, had given
strict orders that all Hungarian stragglers were to be apprehended and
brought before him. In this way Hunyady fell into the hands of some
Servian peasants, who delivered him to their Prince. Nor did he regain
his liberty without the payment of a heavy ransom, leaving his son
Ladislaus as hostage in his stead.
He thus returned home amid a thousand perils, and with the painful
experience that Europe left him to his own resources to fight as best he
could against the ever-advancing Turks. The dependencies of the Hungarian
crown, Servia and Wallachia--on whose recovery he had spent so much
blood and treasure--instead of supporting him, as might be expected of
Christian countries, threw themselves in a suicidal manner into the arms
of the Turks. They hoped by their ready submission to find favor in the
eyes of the irresistible conquerors, by whom, however, they were a little
later devoured.
After these events Hunyady continued to act as governor or regent of
Hungary for five years more, by which time the young Ladislaus, son of
King Albert, attained his majority. In 1453 Hunyady finally laid down his
dignity as governor, and gave over the power into the hands of the young
King, Ladislaus V, whom Hunyady had first to liberate by force of arms
from his uncle, Frederick of Austria, before he could set him on the
throne of Hungary. The young King, of German origin, had hardly become
emancipated from his guardian when he fell under the influence of his
other uncle, Ulric Czillei. This Czillei was a great nobleman of Styria,
but was withal possessed of large estates in Hungary. As a foreigner and
as a relative of King Sigismund, he had long viewed with an evil eye
Hunyady's elevation. On one occasion Hunyady had to inflict punishment
on him. He consequently now did everything he could to induce the young
King, his nephew, to hate the great captain as he himself did. He sought
to infuse jealousy into his mind and to lead him to believe that Hunyady
aimed at the crown. His slanders found the readier credence in the
mind of the youthful sovereign as he was completely stupefied by an
uninterrupted course of debauchery. At last the King was brought to agree
to a plan for ensnaring the great man who so often jeoparded his life and
his substance in the defence of his country and religion. They summoned
him in the King's name to Vienna, where Ladislaus, as an Austrian prince,
was then staying, with the intention of waylaying and murdering him. But
Hunyady got wind of the whole plot, and when he arrived at the place of
ambush it was at the head of two thousand picked Hungarian warriors. Thus
it was Czillei who fell into the snare. "Wretched creature!" exclaimed
Hunyady; "thou hast fallen into the pit thou diggedst for me; were it not
that I regard the dignity of the King and my own humanity, thou shouldst
suffer a punishment proportioned to thy crime. As it is, I let thee off
this time, but come no more into my sight, or thou shalt pay for it with
thy life."
Such magnanimity, however, did not disarm the hostility of those who
surrounded the King. On the pretence of treason against the King, Hunyady
was deprived of all his offices and all his estates. The document is
still to be seen in the Hungarian state archives, in which the King, led
astray by the jealousies that prevailed among his councillors, represents
every virtue of the hero as a crime, and condemns him to exile.
Fortunately Czillei himself soon fell into disfavor; the Germans
themselves overthrew him; and the King, now better informed, replaced
Hunyady in the post of captain-general of the kingdom.
Hunyady, who meanwhile had been living retired in one of his castles, now
complied with the King's wish without difficulty or hesitation, and again
assumed the highest military command. Instead of seeking how to revenge
himself after the manner of ordinary men, he only thought of the great
enemy of his country, the Turk. And indeed, as it was, threatening clouds
hung over the horizon in the southeast.
A new sultan had come to the throne, Mahomet II, one of the greatest
sovereigns of the house of Othman. He began his reign with the occupation
of Constantinople, 1453, and thus destroyed the last refuge of the
Byzantine empire. At the news of this event all Europe burst into a
chorus of lamentation. The whole importance of the Eastern question at
once presented itself before the nations of Christendom. It was at once
understood that the new conqueror would not remain idle within the
crumbling walls of Constantinople.
And, indeed, in no long time was published the proud _mot d'ordre_, "As
there is but one God in heaven, so there shall be but one master upon
earth."
Hunyady looked toward Constantinople with heavy heart. He foresaw the
outburst of the storm which would in the first place fall upon his own
country, threatening it with utter ruin. Hunyady, so it seemed, was again
left alone in the defence of Christendom.
The approaching danger was delayed for a few years, but in 1456 Mahomet,
having finally established himself in Constantinople, set out with the
intention of striking a fatal blow against Hungary. On the borders of
that country, on the bank of the Danube, on what was, properly speaking,
Servian territory, stood the fortress of Belgrad. When the danger from
the Turks became imminent, the kings of Hungary purchased the place from
the despots of Servia, giving them in exchange several extensive estates
in Hungary, and had at great expense turned it into a vast fortress, at
that time supposed to be impregnable.
Mahomet determined to take the place, and to this end made the most
extensive preparations. He led to the walls of Belgrad an army of not
less than one hundred and fifty thousand men. The approach of this
immense host so terrified the young King that he left Hungary and took
refuge in Vienna along with his uncle and counsellor, Czillei.
Hunyady alone remained at his post, resolute like a lion attacked. The
energy of the old leader--he was now nearly sixty-eight--was only steeled
by the greatness of the danger; his forethought and his mental resources
were but increased. As he saw that it would be impossible to do anything
with a small army, he sent his friend, John Capistran, an Italian
Franciscan, a man animated by a burning zeal akin to his own, to preach a
crusade against the enemies of Christendom through the towns and villages
of the Great Hungarian Plain. This the friar did to such effect that in a
few weeks he had collected sixty thousand men, ready to fight in defence
of the cross. This army of crusaders--the last in the history of the
nations--had for its gathering cry the bells of the churches; for its
arms, scythes and axes; Christ for its leader, and John Hunyady and John
Capistran for his lieutenants.
The two greatest leaders in war of that day contended for the possession
of Belgrad. The same army now surrounded that fortress which a few years
before had stormed Constantinople, reputed impregnable. The same hero
defended it who had so often in the course of a single decade defeated
the Turkish foe in an offensive war, and who now, regardless of danger,
with a small but faithful band of followers, was prepared to do all that
courage, resolution, and prudence might effect.
Many hundred large cannon began to break down the stone ramparts; many
hundred boats forming a river flotilla covered the Danube, so as to cut
off all communication between the fortress and Hungary. During this time
Hunyady's son Ladislaus and his brother-in-law Michael Szilagyi were in
command in the fortress. Hunyady's first daring plan was to force his way
through the blockading flotilla, and enter Belgrad before the eyes of
the whole Turkish army, taking with him his own soldiers and Capistran's
crusaders. The plan completely succeeded. With his own flotilla of
boats he broke through that of the Turks and made his entrance into the
fortress in triumph. After this the struggle was continued with equal
resolution and ability on both sides; such advantage as the Christians
derived from the protection afforded by the fortifications being fully
compensated by the enormous superiority in numbers both of men and cannon
on the part of the Turks.
Without example in the history of the storming of fortresses was the
stratagem practised by Hunyady when he permitted the picked troops of the
enemy, the janizaries, to penetrate within the fortification, and there
destroyed them in the place they thought they had taken. Ten thousand
janizaries had already swarmed into the town, and were preparing to
attack the bridges and gates of the citadel, when Hunyady ordered lighted
fagots, soaked in pitch and sulphur and other combustibles, to be flung
from the ramparts into the midst of the crowded ranks of the janizaries.
The fire seized on their loose garments, and in a short time the whole
body was a sea of fire. Everyone sought to fly. Then it was that Hunyady
sallied out with his picked band, while Capistran, with a tall cross in
his hand and the cry of "Jesus" on his lips, followed with his crowd of
fanatics, the cannon of the fortress played upon the Turkish camp, the
Sultan himself was wounded and swept along by the stream of fugitives.
Forty thousand Turks were left dead upon the field, four thousand were
taken prisoners, and three thousand cannon were captured.
According to the opinion of Hunyady himself, the Turks had never suffered
such a severe defeat. Its value as far as the Hungarians were concerned
was heightened by the fact that the ambitious Sultan was personally
humiliated. There was now great joy in Europe. At the news of the
brilliant victory the _Te Deum_ was sung in all the more important cities
throughout Europe, and the Pope wished to compliment Hunyady with a
crown.
A crown of another character awaited him--that of his Redeemer, in whose
name he lived, fought, and fell. The exhalations from the vast number of
unburied or imperfectly buried bodies, festering in the heat of summer,
gave rise to an epidemic in the Christian camp, and to this the great
leader fell a victim. Hunyady died August 11, 1456, in the sixty-eighth
year of his age. He died amid the intoxication of his greatest victory,
idolized by his followers, having once more preserved his country from
imminent ruin. Could he have desired a more glorious death?
He went to his last rest with the consciousness that he had fulfilled his
mission, having designed great things and having accomplished them. And
the result of his lifelong efforts survived him. His great enemy, the
Turk, for the next half-century could only harass the frontier of his
native land; and his country, a few years after his death, placed on the
royal throne his son Matthias.
[Footnote 1: By permission of Selmar Hess.]
REBUILDING OF ROME BY NICHOLAS V, THE "BUILDER-POPE"
A.D. 1447-1455
MRS. MARGARET OLIPHANT
Of those pontiffs who are called the pride of modern Rome--through whom
the city "rose most gloriously from her ashes"--Nicholas V (Tommaso
Parentucelli) was the first. He was born at Sarzana, in the republic of
Genoa, about 1398, was ordained priest at the age of twenty-five, became
Archbishop of Bologna, and in 1447 was elevated to the papal chair. His
election was largely due to the influential part he had taken at the
councils of Basel, 1431-1449, and Ferrara-Florence, 1438-1445. In 1449,
by prevailing upon the Antipope, Felix V, to abdicate, he restored the
peace of the Church. He endeavored, but in vain, to arouse Europe to its
duty of succoring the Greek empire.
Although the coming Reformation was already casting its shadow before,
Nicholas stood calm in face of the inevitable event, devoting himself to
the spiritual welfare of the Church and to the interests of learning and
the arts. But he is chiefly remembered as the first pope to conceive a
systematic plan for the reconstruction and permanent restoration of Rome.
He died before that purpose could be executed in accordance with his
great designs; but others, entering into his labors, carried his work to
a fuller accomplishment.
It was to the centre of ecclesiastical Rome, the shrine of the apostles,
the chief church of Christendom and its adjacent buildings, that the care
of the Builder-pope was first directed. The Leonine City of Borgo, as
it is more familiarly called, is that portion of Rome which lies on the
right side of the Tiber, and which extends from the castle of St. Angelo
to the boundary of the Vatican gardens--enclosing the Church of St.
Peter, the Vatican palace with all its wealth, and the great Hospital of
Santo Spirito, surrounded and intersected by many little streets, and
joining to the other portions of the city by the bridge of St. Angelo.
Behind the mass of picture-galleries, museums, and collections of all
kinds, which now fill up the endless halls and corridors of the papal
palace, comes a sweep of noble gardens full of shade and shelter from the
Roman sun, such a resort for the
"learnèd leisure
Which in trim gardens takes its pleasure"
as it would be difficult to surpass. In this fine extent of wood and
verdure the Pope's villa or casino, now the only summer palace which the
existing Pontiff chooses to permit himself, stands as in a domain, small
yet perfect. Almost everything within these walls has been built or
completely transformed since the days of Nicholas. But, then as now,
here was the heart and centre of Christendom, the supreme shrine of the
Catholic faith, the home of the spiritual ruler whose sway reaches over
the whole earth. When Nicholas began his reign, the old Church of St.
Peter was the church of the Western world, then, as now, classical
in form, a stately basilica without the picturesqueness and romantic
variety, and also, as we think, without the majesty and grandeur, of a
Gothic cathedral, yet more picturesque if less stupendous in size and
construction, than the present great edifice, so majestic in its own
grave and splendid way, with which, through all the agitations of the
recent centuries, the name of St. Peter has been identified. The earlier
church was full of riches and of great associations, to which the
wonderful St. Peter's we all know can lay claim only as its successor and
supplanter. With its flight of broad steps, its portico and colonnaded
façade crowned with a great tower, it dominated the square, open and
glowing in the sun, without the shelter of the great existing colonnades
or the sparkle of the fountains.
Behind was the little palace begun by Innocent III, to afford a shelter
for the popes in dangerous times, or on occasion to receive the foreign
guests whose object was to visit the shrine of the apostles. Almost
all the buildings then standing have been replaced by greater, yet the
position is the same, the shrine unchanged, though everything else then
existing has faded away, except some portion of the old wall which
enclosed this sacred place in a special sanctity and security, which was
not, however, always respected. The Borgo was the holiest portion of all
the sacred city. It was there that the blood of the martyrs had been
shed, and where from the earliest age of Christianity their memory and
tradition had been preserved. It was not necessary for us to enter into
the question whether St. Peter ever was in Rome, which many writers have
laboriously contested. So far as the record of the Acts of the Apostles
is concerned, there is no evidence at all for or against, but tradition
is all on the side of those who assert it. The position taken by Signor
Lanciani on this point seems to us a very sensible one. "I write about
the monuments of ancient Rome," he says, "from a strictly archaeological
point of view, avoiding questions which pertain, or are supposed to
pertain, to religious controversy.
"For the archaeologist the presence and execution of SS. Peter and Paul in
Rome are facts established beyond a shadow of doubt by purely monumental
evidence. There was a time when persons belonging to different creeds
made it almost a case of conscience to affirm or deny _a priori_ those
facts, according to their acceptance or rejection of the tradition of
any particular church. This state of feeling is a matter of the past, at
least for those who have followed the progress of recent discoveries and
of critical literature. There is no event of the Imperial age and of
Imperial Rome which is attested by so many noble structures, all of which
point to the same conclusion--the presence and execution of the apostles
in the capital of the Empire. When Constantine raised the monumental
basilicas over their tombs on the Via Cornelia and the Via Ostiensis;
when Eudoxia built the Church ad Vincula; when Damascus put a memorial
tablet in the Platonia and Catacombos; when the houses of Pudens and
Aquila and Prisca were turned into oratories; when the name of Nymphae
Sancti Petri was given to the springs in the catacombs of the Via
Nomentana; when the 29th of June was accepted as the anniversary of St.
Peter's execution; when sculptors, painters, medallists, goldsmiths,
workers in glass and enamel, and engravers of precious stones all began
to reproduce in Rome the likeness of the apostle at the beginning of the
second century, and continued to do so till the fall of the Empire--must
we consider them as laboring under a delusion, or conspiring in the
commission of a gigantic fraud? Why were such proceedings accepted
without protest from whatever city, whatever community--if there were
any other--which claimed to own the genuine tombs of SS. Peter and Paul?
These arguments gain more value from the fact that the evidence on the
other side is purely negative."
This is one of those practical arguments which are always more
interesting than those which depend upon theories and opinions. However,
there are many books on both sides of the question which may be
consulted. We are content to follow Signor Lanciani. The special sanctity
and importance of Il Borgo originated in this belief. The shrine of the
apostle was its centre and glory. It was this that brought pilgrims from
the far corners of the earth before there was any masterpiece of art to
visit, or any of those priceless collections which now form the glory
of the Vatican. The spot of the apostles' execution was indicated "by
immemorial tradition" as between the two goals (_inter duas metas_) of
Nero's Circus, which spot Signor Lanciani tells us is exactly the site
of the obelisk now standing in the piazza of St. Peter. A little chapel,
called the Chapel of the Crucifixion, stood there in the early ages,
before any great basilica or splendid shrine was possible.
This sacred spot, and the church built to commemorate it, were naturally
the centre of all those religious traditions which separate Rome from
every other city. It was to preserve them from assault, "in order that
it should be less easy for the enemy to make depredations and burn the
Church of St. Peter, as they have heretofore done," that Leo IV, the
first pope whom we find engaged in any real work of construction, built a
wall round the mound of the Vatican, and Colle Vaticano--"little hill,"
not so high as the seven hills of Rome--where against the strong wall
of Nero's Circus Constantine had built his great basilica. At that
period--in the middle of the ninth century--there was nothing but the
church and shrine--no palace and no hospital. The existing houses were
given to the Corsi, a family which had been driven out of their island,
according to Platina, by the Saracens, who shortly before had made an
incursion up to the very walls of Rome, whither the peoples of the coast
(_luoghi maritimi del Mar Terreno_) from Naples northward had apparently
pursued the corsairs, and helped the Romans to beat them back. One other
humble building of some sort, "called Burgus Saxonum, Vicus Saxonum,
Schola Saxonum, and simply Saxia or Sassia," it is interesting to know,
existed close to the sacred centre of the place, a lodging built for
himself by Ina, King of Wessex, in 727. Thus the English have a national
association of their own with the central shrine of Christianity.
There was also a Schola Francorum in the Borgo. The pilgrims must have
built their huts and set up some sort of little oratory--favored, as
was the case even in Pope Nicholas' day, by the excellent quarry of
the Circus close at hand--as near as possible to the great shrine
and basilica which they had come so far to say their prayers in, and
attracted, too, no doubt, by the freedom of the lonely suburb between the
green hill and the flowing river. Leo IV built his wall round this little
city, and fortified it by towers. "In every part he put sculptors of
marble and wrote a prayer," says Platina. One of these gates led to St.
Pellegrino, another was close to the castle of St. Angelo, and was "the
gate by which one goes forth to the open country." The third led to the
School of the Saxons; and over each was a prayer inscribed. These three
prayers were all to the same effect--"that God would defend this new city
which the Pope had enclosed with walls and called by his own name, the
Leonine City, from all assaults of the enemy, either by fraud or by
force."
The greatest, however, of all the conceptions of Pope Nicholas, the very
centre of his great plan, was the library of the Vatican, which he began
to build and to which he left all the collections of his life. Vespasian
gives us a list of the principal among these five thousand volumes, the
things which he prized most, which the Pope bequeathed to the Church and
to Rome. These cherished rolls of parchment, many of them translations
made under his own eyes, were enclosed in elaborate bindings ornamented
with gold and silver. We are not, however, informed whether any of the
great treasures of the Vatican library came from his hands--the good
Vespasian taking more interest in the work of his scribes than in
codexes. He tells us of five hundred scudi given to Lorenzo Valle with a
pretty speech that the price was below his merits, but that eventually he
should have more liberal pay; of fifteen hundred scudi given to Guerroni
for a translation of the _Iliad_, and so forth. It is like a bookseller
of the present day vaunting his new editions to a collector in search of
the earliest known. But Pope Nicholas, like most other patrons of his
time, knew no Greek, nor probably ever expected that it would become a
usual subject of study, so that his translations were precious to him,
the chief way of making his treasures of any practical use.