RIENZI,
The Last of the Roman Tribunes
by
Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart.
Then turn we to her latest Tribune’s name,
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame--
The friend of Petrarch--hope of Italy--
Rienzi, last of Romans! While the tree
Of Freedom’s wither’d trunk puts forth a leaf,
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be--
The Forum’s champion, and the People’s chief--
Her new-born Numa thou!
Childe Harold, cant. iv. stanza 114.
Amidst the indulgence of enthusiasm and eloquence, Petrarch,
Italy, and Europe, were astonished by a revolution, which
realized for a moment his most splendid visions.--Gibbon,
chap. 1xx.
Dedication of Rienzi.
To Alessandro Manzoni, as to the Genius of the Place,
Are Dedicated These Fruits, gathered on The Soil of Italian Fiction.
London, Dec. 1, 1835.
Dedication,
Prefixed to the First Collected Edition of the Author’s Works in 1840.
My Dear Mother,
In inscribing with your beloved and honoured name this Collection of my
Works, I could wish that the fruits of my manhood were worthier of the
tender and anxious pains bestowed upon my education in youth.
Left yet young, and with no ordinary accomplishments and gifts, the sole
guardian of your sons, to them you devoted the best years of your useful
and spotless life; and any success it be their fate to attain in the
paths they have severally chosen, would have its principal sweetness
in the thought that such success was the reward of one whose hand aided
every struggle, and whose heart sympathized in every care.
From your graceful and accomplished taste, I early learned that
affection for literature which has exercised so large an influence
over the pursuits of my life; and you who were my first guide, were my
earliest critic. Do you remember the summer days, which seemed to me
so short, when you repeated to me those old ballads with which Percy
revived the decaying spirit of our national muse, or the smooth couplets
of Pope, or those gentle and polished verses with the composition of
which you had beguiled your own earlier leisure? It was those easy
lessons, far more than the harsher rudiments learned subsequently
in schools, that taught me to admire and to imitate; and in them I
recognise the germ of the flowers, however perishable they be, that I
now bind up and lay upon a shrine hallowed by a thousand memories of
unspeakable affection. Happy, while I borrowed from your taste, could I
have found it not more difficult to imitate your virtues--your spirit of
active and extended benevolence, your cheerful piety, your considerate
justice, your kindly charity--and all the qualities that brighten a
nature more free from the thought of self, than any it has been my lot
to meet with. Never more than at this moment did I wish that my writings
were possessed of a merit which might outlive my time, so that at least
these lines might remain a record of the excellence of the Mother, and
the gratitude of the Son.
E.L.B. London: January 6, 1840.
Preface
to
The First Edition of Rienzi.
I began this tale two years ago at Rome. On removing to Naples, I
threw it aside for “The Last Days of Pompeii,” which required more
than “Rienzi” the advantage of residence within reach of the scenes
described. The fate of the Roman Tribune continued, however, to haunt
and impress me, and, some time after “Pompeii” was published, I renewed
my earlier undertaking. I regarded the completion of these volumes,
indeed, as a kind of duty;--for having had occasion to read the original
authorities from which modern historians have drawn their accounts of
the life of Rienzi, I was led to believe that a very remarkable man had
been superficially judged, and a very important period crudely examined.
(See Appendix, Nos. I and II.) And this belief was sufficiently strong
to induce me at first to meditate a more serious work upon the life and
times of Rienzi. (I have adopted the termination of Rienzi instead of
Rienzo, as being more familiar to the general reader.--But the latter
is perhaps the more accurate reading, since the name was a popular
corruption from Lorenzo.) Various reasons concurred against this
project--and I renounced the biography to commence the fiction. I have
still, however, adhered, with a greater fidelity than is customary
in Romance, to all the leading events of the public life of the Roman
Tribune; and the Reader will perhaps find in these pages a more full
and detailed account of the rise and fall of Rienzi, than in any English
work of which I am aware. I have, it is true, taken a view of his
character different in some respects from that of Gibbon or Sismondi.
But it is a view, in all its main features, which I believe (and think I
could prove) myself to be warranted in taking, not less by the facts of
History than the laws of Fiction. In the meanwhile, as I have given the
facts from which I have drawn my interpretation of the principal agent,
the reader has sufficient data for his own judgment. In the picture of
the Roman Populace, as in that of the Roman Nobles of the fourteenth
century, I follow literally the descriptions left to us;--they are not
flattering, but they are faithful, likenesses.
Preserving generally the real chronology of Rienzi’s life, the plot of
this work extends over a space of some years, and embraces the variety
of characters necessary to a true delineation of events. The story,
therefore, cannot have precisely that order of interest found in
fictions strictly and genuinely dramatic, in which (to my judgment at
least) the time ought to be as limited as possible, and the characters
as few;--no new character of importance to the catastrophe being
admissible towards the end of the work. If I may use the word Epic in
its most modest and unassuming acceptation, this Fiction, in short,
though indulging in dramatic situations, belongs, as a whole, rather to
the Epic than the Dramatic school.
I cannot conclude without rendering the tribute of my praise and homage
to the versatile and gifted Author of the beautiful Tragedy of Rienzi.
Considering that our hero be the same--considering that we had the same
materials from which to choose our several stories--I trust I shall
be found to have little, if at all, trespassed upon ground previously
occupied. With the single exception of a love-intrigue between a
relative of Rienzi and one of the antagonist party, which makes the
plot of Miss Mitford’s Tragedy, and is little more than an episode in my
Romance, having slight effect on the conduct and none on the fate of the
hero, I am not aware of any resemblance between the two works; and even
this coincidence I could easily have removed, had I deemed it the least
advisable:--but it would be almost discreditable if I had nothing that
resembled a performance possessing so much it were an honour to imitate.
In fact, the prodigal materials of the story--the rich and exuberant
complexities of Rienzi’s character--joined to the advantage possessed by
the Novelist of embracing all that the Dramatist must reject (Thus the
slender space permitted to the Dramatist does not allow Miss Mitford to
be very faithful to facts; to distinguish between Rienzi’s earlier and
his later period of power; or to detail the true, but somewhat intricate
causes of his rise, his splendour, and his fall.)--are sufficient to
prevent Dramatist and Novelist from interfering with each other.
London, December 1, 1835.
Preface to the Present Edition, 1848.
From the time of its first appearance, “Rienzi” has had the good fortune
to rank high amongst my most popular works--though its interest is
rather drawn from a faithful narration of historical facts, than from
the inventions of fancy. And the success of this experiment confirms me
in my belief, that the true mode of employing history in the service
of romance, is to study diligently the materials as history; conform to
such views of the facts as the Author would adopt, if he related them
in the dry character of historian; and obtain that warmer interest which
fiction bestows, by tracing the causes of the facts in the characters
and emotions of the personages of the time. The events of his work are
thus already shaped to his hand--the characters already created--what
remains for him, is the inner, not outer, history of man--the chronicle
of the human heart; and it is by this that he introduces a new harmony
between character and event, and adds the completer solution of what is
actual and true, by those speculations of what is natural and probable,
which are out of the province of history, but belong especially to the
philosophy of romance. And--if it be permitted the tale-teller to come
reverently for instruction in his art to the mightiest teacher of all,
who, whether in the page or on the scene, would give to airy fancies the
breath and the form of life,--such, we may observe, is the lesson the
humblest craftsman in historical romance may glean from the Historical
Plays of Shakespeare. Necessarily, Shakespeare consulted history
according to the imperfect lights, and from the popular authorities, of
his age; and I do not say, therefore, that as an historian we can rely
upon Shakespeare as correct. But to that in which he believed he rigidly
adhered; nor did he seek, as lesser artists (such as Victor Hugo and his
disciples) seek now, to turn perforce the Historical into the Poetical,
but leaving history as he found it, to call forth from its arid prose
the flower of the latent poem. Nay, even in the more imaginative plays
which he has founded upon novels and legends popular in his time, it is
curious and instructive to see how little he has altered the original
ground-work--taking for granted the main materials of the story, and
reserving all his matchless resources of wisdom and invention, to
illustrate from mental analysis, the creations whose outline he was
content to borrow. He receives, as a literal fact not to be altered,
the somewhat incredible assertion of the novelist, that the pure and
delicate and highborn Venetian loves the swarthy Moor--and that Romeo
fresh from his “woes for Rosaline,” becomes suddenly enamoured of
Juliet: He found the Improbable, and employed his art to make it
truthful.
That “Rienzi” should have attracted peculiar attention in Italy, is of
course to be attributed to the choice of the subject rather than to the
skill of the Author. It has been translated into the Italian language by
eminent writers; and the authorities for the new view of Rienzi’s times
and character which the Author deemed himself warranted to take, have
been compared with his text by careful critics and illustrious scholars,
in those states in which the work has been permitted to circulate. (In
the Papal States, I believe, it was neither, prudently nor effectually,
proscribed.) I may say, I trust without unworthy pride, that the result
has confirmed the accuracy of delineations which English readers relying
only on the brilliant but disparaging account in Gibbon deemed too
favourable; and has tended to restore the great Tribune to his long
forgotten claims to the love and reverence of the Italian land. Nor, if
I may trust to the assurances that have reached me from many now engaged
in the aim of political regeneration, has the effect of that revival of
the honours due to a national hero, leading to the ennobling study
of great examples, been wholly without its influence upon the rising
generation of Italian youth, and thereby upon those stirring events
which have recently drawn the eyes of Europe to the men and the lands
beyond the Alps.
In preparing for the Press this edition of a work illustrative of the
exertions of a Roman, in advance of his time, for the political freedom
of his country, and of those struggles between contending principles,
of which Italy was the most stirring field in the Middle Ages, it is not
out of place or season to add a few sober words, whether as a student of
the Italian Past, or as an observer, with some experience of the social
elements of Italy as it now exists, upon the state of affairs in that
country.
It is nothing new to see the Papal Church in the capacity of a popular
reformer, and in contra-position to the despotic potentates of the
several states, as well as to the German Emperor, who nominally inherits
the sceptre of the Caesars. Such was its common character under its more
illustrious Pontiffs; and the old Republics of Italy grew up under the
shadow of the Papal throne, harbouring ever two factions--the one for
the Emperor, the one for the Pope--the latter the more naturally
allied to Italian independence. On the modern stage, we almost see the
repetition of many an ancient drama. But the past should teach us to
doubt the continuous and stedfast progress of any single line of policy
under a principality so constituted as that of the Papal Church--a
principality in which no race can be perpetuated, in which no objects
can be permanent; in which the successor is chosen by a select
ecclesiastical synod, under a variety of foreign as well as of national
influences; in which the chief usually ascends the throne at an age
that ill adapts his mind to the idea of human progress, and the active
direction of mundane affairs;--a principality in which the peculiar
sanctity that wraps the person of the Sovereign exonerates him from
the healthful liabilities of a power purely temporal, and directly
accountable to Man. A reforming Pope is a lucky accident, and dull
indeed must be the brain which believes in the possibility of a long
succession of reforming Popes, or which can regard as other than
precarious and unstable the discordant combination of a constitutional
government with an infallible head.
It is as true as it is trite that political freedom is not the growth of
a day--it is not a flower without a stalk, and it must gradually develop
itself from amidst the unfolding leaves of kindred institutions.
In one respect, the Austrian domination, fairly considered, has been
beneficial to the States over which it has been directly exercised, and
may be even said to have unconsciously schooled them to the capacity for
freedom. In those States the personal rights which depend on impartial
and incorrupt administration of the law, are infinitely more secure than
in most of the Courts of Italy. Bribery, which shamefully predominates
in the judicature of certain Principalities, is as unknown in the
juridical courts of Austrian Italy as in England. The Emperor himself is
often involved in legal disputes with a subject, and justice is as
free and as firm for the humblest suitor, as if his antagonist were his
equal. Austria, indeed, but holds together the motley and inharmonious
members of its vast domain on either side the Alps, by a general
character of paternal mildness and forbearance in all that great
circle of good government which lies without the one principle of
constitutional liberty. It asks but of its subjects to submit to be well
governed--without agitating the question “how and by what means that
government is carried on.” For every man, except the politician, the
innovator, Austria is no harsh stepmother. But it is obviously clear
that the better in other respects the administration of a state it does
but foster the more the desire for that political security, which is
only found in constitutional freedom: the reverence paid to personal
rights, but begets the passion for political; and under a mild despotism
are already half matured the germs of a popular constitution. But it is
still a grave question whether Italy is ripe for self-government--and
whether, were it possible that the Austrian domination could be shaken
off--the very passions so excited, the very bloodshed so poured forth,
would not ultimately place the larger portion of Italy under auspices
less favourable to the sure growth of freedom, than those which silently
brighten under the sway of the German Caesar.
The two kingdoms, at the opposite extremes of Italy, to which
circumstance and nature seem to assign the main ascendancy, are Naples
and Sardinia. Looking to the former, it is impossible to discover on
the face of the earth a country more adapted for commercial prosperity.
Nature formed it as the garden of Europe, and the mart of the
Mediterranean. Its soil and climate could unite the products of the East
with those of the Western hemisphere. The rich island of Sicily should
be the great corn granary of the modern nations as it was of the
ancient; the figs, the olives, the oranges, of both the Sicilies, under
skilful cultivation, should equal the produce of Spain and the Orient,
and the harbours of the kingdom (the keys to three-quarters of the
globe) should be crowded with the sails and busy with the life of
commerce. But, in the character of its population, Naples has been
invariably in the rear of Italian progress; it caught but partial
inspiration from the free Republics, or even the wise Tyrannies, of the
Middle Ages; the theatre of frequent revolutions without fruit; and
all rational enthusiasm created by that insurrection, which has lately
bestowed on Naples the boon of a representative system, cannot but be
tempered by the conviction that of all the States in Italy, this is the
one which least warrants the belief of permanence to political freedom,
or of capacity to retain with vigour what may be seized by passion. (If
the Electoral Chamber in the new Neapolitan Constitution, give a
fair share of members to the Island of Sicily, it will be rich in
the inevitable elements of discord, and nothing save a wisdom and
moderation, which cannot soberly be anticipated, can prevent the
ultimate separation of the island from the dominion of Naples. Nature
has set the ocean between the two countries--but differences in
character, and degree and quality of civilisation--national jealousies,
historical memories, have trebled the space of the seas that roll
between them.--More easy to unite under one free Parliament, Spain
with Flanders; or re-annex to England its old domains of Aquitaine
and Normandy--than to unite in one Council Chamber truly popular, the
passions, interests, and prejudices of Sicily and Naples.--Time will
show.)
Far otherwise is it, with Sardinia. Many years since, the writer of
these pages ventured to predict that the time must come when Sardinia
would lead the van of Italian civilisation, and take proud place amongst
the greater nations of Europe. In the great portion of this population
there is visible the new blood of a young race; it is not, as with other
Italian States, a worn-out stock; you do not see there a people
fallen, proud of the past, and lazy amidst ruins, but a people rising,
practical, industrious, active; there, in a word, is an eager youth to
be formed to mature development, not a decrepit age to be restored to
bloom and muscle. Progress is the great characteristic of the Sardinian
state. Leave it for five years; visit it again, and you behold
improvement. When you enter the kingdom and find, by the very skirts of
its admirable roads, a raised footpath for the passengers and travellers
from town to town, you become suddenly aware that you are in a land
where close attention to the humbler classes is within the duties of
a government. As you pass on from the more purely Italian part of
the population,--from the Genoese country into that of Piedmont,--the
difference between a new people and an old, on which I have dwelt,
becomes visible in the improved cultivation of the soil, the better
habitations of the labourer, the neater aspect of the towns, the greater
activity in the thoroughfares. To the extraordinary virtues of the
King, as King, justice is scarcely done, whether in England or abroad.
Certainly, despite his recent concessions, Charles Albert is not and
cannot be at heart, much of a constitutional reformer; and his strong
religious tendencies, which, perhaps unjustly, have procured him in
philosophical quarters the character of a bigot, may link him more than
his political, with the cause of the Father of his Church. But he is
nobly and preeminently national, careful of the prosperity and jealous
of the honour of his own state, while conscientiously desirous of the
independence of Italy. His attention to business, is indefatigable.
Nothing escapes his vigilance. Over all departments of the kingdom is
the eye of a man ever anxious to improve. Already the silk manufactures
of Sardinia almost rival those of Lyons: in their own departments the
tradesmen of Turin exhibit an artistic elegance and elaborate finish,
scarcely exceeded in the wares of London and Paris. The King’s internal
regulations are admirable; his laws, administered with the most
impartial justice--his forts and defences are in that order, without
which, at least on the Continent, no land is safe--his army is the most
perfect in Italy. His wise genius extends itself to the elegant as to
the useful arts--an encouragement that shames England, and even France,
is bestowed upon the School for Painters, which has become one of the
ornaments of his illustrious reign. The character of the main part of
the population, and the geographical position of his country, assist the
monarch and must force on himself, or his successors, in the career
of improvement so signally begun. In the character of the people, the
vigour of the Northman ennobles the ardour and fancy of the West. In
the position of the country, the public mind is brought into constant
communication with the new ideas in the free lands of Europe.
Civilisation sets in direct currents towards the streets and marts of
Turin. Whatever the result of the present crisis in Italy, no power
and no chance which statesmen can predict, can preclude Sardinia from
ultimately heading all that is best in Italy. The King may improve his
present position, or peculiar prejudices, inseparable perhaps from the
heritage of absolute monarchy, and which the raw and rude councils of
an Electoral Chamber, newly called into life, must often irritate and
alarm, may check his own progress towards the master throne of the
Ausonian land. But the people themselves, sooner or later, will do the
work of the King. And in now looking round Italy for a race worthy of
Rienzi, and able to accomplish his proud dreams, I see but one for which
the time is ripe or ripening, and I place the hopes of Italy in the men
of Piedmont and Sardinia.
London, February 14, 1848.
RIENZI, The Last of the Tribunes.
BOOK I. -- THE TIME, THE PLACE, AND THE MEN.
“_Fu da sua gioventudine nutricato di latte di eloquenza; buono
grammatico, megliore rettorico, autorista buono...Oh, come spesso
diceva, ‘Dove sono questi buoni Romani? Dov’e loro somma giustizia?
Poterommi trovare in tempo che questi fioriscano?’ Era bell
‘omo...Accadde che uno suo frate fu ucciso, e non ne fu fatta vendetta
di sua morte: non lo poteo aiutare; pensa lungo mano vendicare ‘l
sangue di suo frate; pensa lunga mano dirizzare la cittate di Roma male
guidata_.”--“Vita di Cola di Rienzi” Ed. 1828. Forli.
“From his youth he was nourished with the milk of eloquence; a good
grammarian, a better rhetorician, well versed in the writings of
authors...Oh, how often would he say, ‘Where are those good Romans?
Where is their supreme justice? Shall I ever behold such times as those
in which they flourished?’ He was a handsome man...It happened that a
brother of his was slain, and no retribution was made for his death:
he could not help him; long did he ponder how to avenge his brother’s
blood; long did he ponder how to direct the ill guided state of
Rome.”--“Life of Cola di Rienzi.”