DECLINE AND FALL.
After so strange and so complete a victory over one party, had the
Tribune pushed his advantage, and gone against the other with all the
prestige of his triumph, he would in all probability have ended the
resistance of the nobles altogether. But he did not do this. He had no
desire for any more fighting. It is supposed, with insufficient reason
we think, that personally he was a coward. What is more likely is that
so sensitive and nervous a man (to use the jargon of our own times)
must have suffered, as any fine temperament would have done, from that
scene at the gate of San Lorenzo, and poor young Janni Colonna lying
in his blood; and that when he declared "he would draw his sword no
more," he did so with a sincere disgust for all such brutal methods.
His own ways of convincing people were by argument and elocution, and
pictures on the walls, which, if they did not convince, did nobody any
harm. The next scene, however, which he prepared for his audience does
not look much like the horror for which we have given him credit. He
had informed his followers before he first set out against the nobles
that he was taking his son with him--something in the tone with which
the presence of a Prince Imperial might be proclaimed to an army; and
we now find the young Lorenzo placed still more in the foreground. The
day after that dreadful victory Cola called together the militia of
the city by the most touching argument. "Come with me," he said, "and
afterwards you shall have your pay." They turned out accordingly to
accompany him, wondering, but not knowing what he had in his mind.
"The trumpets sounded at the place where the fight
(_sconfitto_) had taken place. No one knew what was to be
done there. He went with his son to the very spot where
Stefano Colonna had died. There was still there a little
pool of water. Cola made his son dismount and threw over
him the water which was still tinged with the blood of
Stefano, and said to him: 'Be thou a Knight of Victory.'
All around wondered and were stupefied. Then he gave orders
that all the commanders should strike his son on the
shoulder with their swords. This done he returned to the
Capitol, and said: 'Go your ways. We have done a common
work. All our sires were Romans, the country expects that
we should fight for her.' When this was said the minds of
the people were much exercised, and some would never bear
arms again. Then the Tribune began to be greatly hated, and
people began to talk among themselves of his arrogance
which was not small."
This grotesque and horrible ceremony seems to have done Cola more harm
than all that had gone before. The leader of a revolution should have
no sons. The excellent instinct of providing for his family after him,
and making himself a stepping stone for his children, though
proceeding from "what is best within the soul," has spoiled many a
history. Cola di Rienzi was a most conspicuous and might have been a
great man: but Rienzo di Cola, which would have been his son's natural
name, was nobody, and is never heard of after this terrible baptism of
blood, so abhorrent to every natural and generous impulse. Did the
gazers in the streets see the specks of red on young Lorenzo's dress
as he rode along through the city from the Tiburtine gate, and through
the Forum to the Capitol, where all the train was dismissed so
summarily? As the Cavallerotti, the better part of the gathering,
turned their horses and rode away offended, no doubt the news ran
through quarter after quarter with them. The blood of Stefanello, the
heir of great Colonna! And thoughts of the old man desolate, and of
young Janni so brave and gay, would come into many a mind. They might
be tyrants, but they were familiar Roman faces, known to all, and with
some reason to be proud, if proud they were; not like this upstart,
who called honest men away from their own concerns to do honour to his
low-born son, and sent them packing about their business afterwards
without so much as a dinner to celebrate the new knight!
This was all in November, the 20th and 21st: and it was on the 20th of
May that Cola had received his election upon the Capitol and been
proclaimed master of the destinies of the universe, by inference, as
master of Rome. Six months, no more, crammed full of gorgeous pageants
and exciting events. Then, notwithstanding the extraordinary character
of his revolution, he had been believed in, and encouraged by all
around. He had received the sanction of the Pope, the friendly
congratulations of the great Italian towns, and above all the
applause, enthusiastic and overflowing, of Petrarch the greatest of
living poets. By degrees all these sympathies and applauses had fallen
from him. Florence and the other great cities had withdrawn their
friendship, the Pope had cancelled his commission, the Pope's Vicar
had left the Tribune's side. The more his vanity and self-admiration
grew, the more his friends had fallen from him. That very day--the
day after the defeat of the Colonna, before the news could have
reached any one at a distance, Petrarch on his way to Italy, partly
brought back thither by anxiety about his friend, received from
another friend a copy of one of the arrogant and extraordinary letters
which Cola was sending about the world, and read and re-read it and
was stupefied. "What answer can be made to it? I know not," he cries.
"I see that fate pursues the country, and on whatever side I turn, I
find subjects of grief and trouble. If Rome is ruined what hope
remains for Italy? and if Italy is degraded what will become of me?
What can I offer but tears?" A few days later, arrived at Genoa, the
poet wrote to Rienzi himself in reproof and sorrow:
[Illustration: AQUA FELICE.
_To face page_ 462.]
"Often, I confess it, I have had occasion upon thy account
to repeat with immense joy what Cicero puts in the mouth of
Scipio Africanus:--'What is this great and delightful sound
that comes to my ears?' And certainly nothing could be
better applied to the splendour of thy name and to the
frequent and joyful account of thy doings: and it was
indeed good to my heart to speak to thee in that
exhortation, full of thy praise and of encouragements to
continue, which I sent thee. _Deh!_ do nothing, I conjure
thee, to make me now ask, whence is this great and fatal
rumour which strikes my ear so painfully? Take care, I
beseech thee, not thyself to soil thine own splendid fame.
No man in the world except thyself can shake the
foundations of the edifice thou hast constructed; but that
which thou hast founded thou canst ruin: for to destroy his
own proper work no man is so able as the architect. You
know the road by which you have risen to glory: if you turn
back you shall soon find yourself in the lowest place; and
going down is naturally the quicker.... I was hastening to
you and with all my heart: but I turn upon the way. Other
than what you were, I would not see you. Adieu, Rome, to
thee also adieu, if that is true which I have heard. Rather
than come to thee I would go to the Indies, to the end of
the world.... Oh, how ill the beginning agrees with the
end! Oh, miserable ears of mine that, accustomed to the
sound of glory, do not know how to bear such announcements
of shame! But may not these be lies and my words false? Oh
that it might be so! How glad should I be to confess my
error!... If thou art indeed so little careful of thy fame,
think at least of mine. You well know by what tremendous
tempest I am threatened, how many are the crowd of
faultfinders ready to ruin me. While there is still time
put your mind to it, be vigilant, look well to what you do,
guide yourself continually by good counsel, consider with
yourself, not deceiving yourself, what you are, what you
were, from whence you have come, and to what point, without
detriment to the public weal, you can attain: how to
attire yourself, what name to assume, what hopes to awaken,
and of what doctrine to make open confession; understanding
always that not Lord, but solely Minister, you are of the
Republic."
The share which Petrarch thus takes to himself in Cola's fortunes may
seem exaggerated; but it must be remembered that the Colonna were his
chief patrons and friends, that it was under their protecting shadow
that he had risen to fame, and that his warm friendship for Rienzi had
already deeply affected the terms of his relationship with them. That
relationship had come to a positive breach so far as his most powerful
protector, the Cardinal Giovanni, was concerned, a breach of feeling
on one side as well as of protection on the other. His letter to the
Cardinal after this catastrophe, condoling with him upon the death of
his brothers, is one of the coldest of compositions, very unlike the
warm and eager affection of old, and consisting chiefly of elaborate
apologies for not having written. The poet had completely committed
himself in respect to the Tribune; he had hailed his advent in the
most enthusiastic terms, he had proclaimed him the hope of Italy, he
had staked his own reputation upon his friend's disinterestedness and
patriotism; therefore this downfall with all its humiliating
circumstances, the vanities and self-intoxication which had brought it
about, were intolerable to Petrarch: his own credit as well as Cola's
was concerned. He had been so rash as to answer for the Tribune in all
quarters, to pledge his own judgment, his power of understanding men,
almost his honour, on Cola's behalf; and to be proved so wrong, so
little capable of estimating justly the man whom he believed himself
to know so well, was bitterness unspeakable to him.
The interest of his tragic disappointment and sorrow is at the same
time enhanced by the fact, that the other party to this dreadful
quarrel had been the constant objects of the poet's eulogies and
enthusiasm. It is to Petrarch that we owe most of our knowledge of
the Colonna family at this remarkable period of a long history which
is filled with the oft-repeated incidents of an endless struggle for
power, either with the rebellious Romans themselves, or with the other
little less great family of the Orsini who, unfortunately for
themselves, had no Petrarch to bring them fully into the light of day.
The many allusions in Petrarch's letters, his reminiscences of the
ample and gracious household, all so friendly, and caressing, all of
one mind as to his own poetical qualities, and anxious to heap honours
upon him, light up for us the face of the much complicated story, and
give interest to many an elaborate poetical or philosophical
disquisition. Especially the figure of the father, the old Stefano
with his seven sons and the innumerable tribe of nephews and cousins,
not to say grandsons, still more cherished, who surrounded him--rises
clear, magnanimous, out of the disturbed and stormy landscape. His
brief appearances in the chronicle which we have quoted, with a keen
brief speech here and there, imperative, in strong accents of common
sense as well as of power, add a touch of energetic life to the many
anecdotes and descriptions of a more elaborate kind. And the poet
would seem never to have failed in his admiration for the old
Magnanimo. At an earlier period he had described in several letters to
the son Giovanni, the Cardinal, the reception given to him at Rome,
and conversations, some of them very remarkable. One scene above all,
of which Petrarch reminds Stefano himself in his bereavement, gives us
a most touching picture of the noble old man.
"One day at sunset you and I alone were walking by that
spacious way which leads from your house to the Capitol,
when we paused at that point where it is crossed by the
other road by which on one hand you ascend to the Arch of
Camillus, and on the other go down to the Tiber: we paused
there without interruption from any and talked together of
the condition of your house and family, which, often
assailed by the enmity of strangers, was at that time moved
by grievous internal commotions:--when the discourse fell
upon one of your sons with whom, more by the work of
scandal-mongers than by paternal resentment, you were
angry, and by your goodness it was given to me, what many
others had not been able to obtain, to persuade you to
receive him again to your good grace. After you had
lamented his faults to me, changing your aspect all at once
you said (I remember not only the substance of your
discourse but the very words). 'This son of mine, thy
friend, whom, thanks to thee, I will now receive again with
paternal affection, has vomited forth words concerning my
old age, of which it is best to be silent; but since I
cannot refuse you, let us put a stone over the past and let
a full amnesty, as people say, be conceded. From my lips I
promise thee, not another word shall be heard.
"'One thing I will tell you, that you may make perpetual
remembrance of it. It is made a reproach to my old age that
I am mixed up with warlike factions more than is becoming,
and more than there is any occasion, and that thus I will
leave to my sons an inheritance of peril and hate. But as
God is true, I desire you to believe that for love of peace
alone I allow myself to be drawn into war. Whether it be
the effect of my extreme old age which chills and enfeebles
the spirit in this already stony bosom, or whether it
proceeds from my long observation of human affairs, it is
certain that more than others I am greedy of repose and
peace. But fixed and immovable as is my resolution never to
shrink from trouble though I may prefer a settled and
tranquil life, I find it better, since fate compels me, to
go down to the sepulchre fighting, than to submit, old as I
am, to servitude. And for what you say of my heirs I have
but one thing to reply. Listen well, and fix my words in
your mind. God grant that I may leave my inheritance to my
sons. But all in opposition to my desires are the decrees
of fate (the words were said with tears): contrary to the
order of nature it is I who shall be the heir of all my
sons.' And thus saying, your eyes swollen with tears, you
turned away."
At the corner where the Corso is crossed by the street which borders
the Forum of Trajan, let whoso will pause amid the bustle of modern
traffic and think for a moment of those two figures standing together
talking, "without interruption from any one," in the middle of that
open space, while the long level rays of the sunset streamed upon them
from beyond the Flaminian gate. Was there some great popular meeting
at the Capitol which had cleared the streets, the hum of voices rising
on the height, but all quiet here at this dangerous, glorious hour,
when fever is abroad and the women and children are all indoors? "I
made light of it, I confess," says Petrarch, though he acknowledges
that he told the story of this dreadful presentiment to the Cardinal,
who, sighing, exclaimed, "Would to God that my father's prediction may
not come true!" But old Stefano with his weight of years upon him, and
his front like Jove, turned away sighing, stroking his venerable
beard, unmoved by the poet's reassurances, with that terrible
conviction in his heart. They were all young and he old: daring,
careless young men, laughing at that same Cola of the little
_albergo_, the son of the wine-shop, who said he was to be an emperor.
But the shadow on the grandsire's heart was one of those which events
cast before them. Young Janni was to go among the first, the brave boy
who ought to have been heir of all. To him, too, his grandfather, the
great Stefano, the head of the full house, was to be heir.
The terrible event of the Porta di San Lorenzo shows in still darker
colours when we look at it closer. Stefano, the son of Stefano, and
Janni his son, are the two most conspicuous names: but there were
more. Camillo, _figlio naturale, morto il 20 November 1347,
all'assalto di Porta San Lorenzo_; Pietro, _figlio naturale, rimase
occiso a Porta San Lorenzo_. Giovanni of Agapito, Pietro of Agapito,
nephews of old Stefano, _morti nell'assalto di Porta San Lorenzo_.
Seven in all were the scions of Colonna who ended their life that
horrible November morning in the mud and rain; or more dreadful still
under the morning sun which broke out so suddenly, showing those white
dreadful forms all stripped and abandoned, upon the fatal way. It was
little wonder if between the house of Colonna and the upstart Cola no
peace should ever be possible after a lost battle so fatal and so
humiliating to the race.
Perhaps after the first moment of terrible joy and relief to find
himself uninjured, and his enemies so deeply punished, compunction
seized the sensitive mind of Cola: or perhaps he was alarmed by the
displeasure of the Pope, his abandonment by all his friends, and the
solemn adjuration of Petrarch. It is certain that after this he
dropped many of his pretensions, subdued the fantastic arrogance of
his titles and superscription, gave up his claim to elect emperors and
preside over the fortunes of the world, and began to devote himself
with humility to the government of the city which had fallen into
something of its old disorderliness within the walls; while outside
there was again, as of old, no security at all. The rebel barons had
resumed their turbulent sway, the robbers reappeared in all their old
coverts; and once again every road to Rome was as unsafe as that on
which the traveller of old fell among thieves. Cola, Knight and
Lieutenant of our Lord the Pope, now headed his proclamations, instead
of Nicolas, severe and clement. His crown of silver and sceptre of
steel, fantastic emblems, were hung up before the shrine of Our Lady
in the Ara Coeli, and everything about him was toned down into
gravity. By this means he kept up a semblance of peace, and replaced
the Buono Stato in its visionary shrine. But Cola had gone too far,
and lost the confidence of the people too completely to rise again.
His very humility would no doubt be against him, showing the weakness
which a man unsupported on any side should perhaps have been bold
enough to defy, hardihood being now his only chance in face of so many
assailants. Pope Clement thundered against him from Avignon; the
nobles lay in Palestrina and Marino, and many a smaller fortress
besides, irreconcilable, watching every opportunity of assailing him.
The country was once more devastated all round Rome, provisions short,
corn dear, and funds failing as well as authority and respect. And
Cola's heart had failed him along with his prosperity. He had bad
dreams; he himself tells the story of this moral downfall with a
forlorn attempt to show that it was not, after all, his visible
enemies, or the power of men, which had cast him down.
"After my triumph over the Colonna," he writes, "just when
my dominion seemed strongest, my stoutness of heart was
taken from me, and I was seized by visionary terrors. Night
after night awakened by visions and dreams I cried out,
'The Capitol is falling,' or 'The enemy comes!' For some
time an owl alighted every night on the summit of the
Capitol, and though chased away by my servants always came
back again. For twelve nights this took my sleep and all
quiet of mind from me. It was thus that dreams and
nightbirds tormented one who had not been afraid of the
fury of the Roman nobles, nor terrified by armies of armed
men."
The brag was a forlorn one, but it was all of which the fallen Tribune
was now capable. Cola received back the Vicar of the Pope, who
probably was not without some affection for his old triumphant
colleague, with gladness and humility, and seated that representative
of ecclesiastical authority beside himself in his chair of judgment,
before which he no longer summoned the princes and great ones of the
earth. The end came in an unexpected way, of which the writer of the
_Vita_ gives the popular account: it is a little different from that
of the graver history but only in details. A certain Pepino, Count
Palatine of Altamura, a fugitive from Naples, whose object in Rome was
to enlist soldiers for the service of Louis of Hungary, then eager to
avenge the murder of his brother Andrew, the husband of Queen Joan of
Naples--had taken up his abode in the city. He was in league with
several of the nobles, and ready to lend a hand in any available way
against the Tribune. Fearing to be brought before the tribunal of
Cola, and to be obliged to explain the object of his residence in
Rome, he shut himself up in his palace and made an effort to raise the
city against its head.
"Messer the Conte Paladino at this time threw a bar
(barricade) across the street, under the Arch of Salvator
(to defend his quarters apparently). A night and a day the
bells of St. Angelo in Pescheria rang a _stuormo_, but no
one attempted to break down the bar. The Tribune sent a
party of horsemen against the bar, and an officer named
Scarpetta, wounded by a lance, fell dead in the skirmish.
When the Tribune heard that Scarpetta was dead and that the
people were not affected by the sound of the tocsin,
although the bell of St. Angelo continued to ring, he
sighed deeply: chilled by alarm he wept: he knew not what
to do. His heart was beaten down and brought low. He had
not the courage of a child. Scarcely could he speak. He
believed that ambushes were laid for him in the city, which
was not true, for there was as yet no open rebellion: no
one, as yet, had risen against the Tribune. But their zeal
had become cold: and he believed that he would be killed.
What can be said more? He knew he had not the courage to
die in the service of the people as he had promised.
Weeping and sighing, he addressed as many as were there,
saying that he had done well, but that from envy the people
were not content with him. 'Now in the seventh month am I
driven from my dominion.' Having said these words weeping,
he mounted his horse and sounded the silver trumpets, and
bearing the imperial insignia, accompanied by armed men, he
came down as in a triumph, and went to the Castle of St.
Angelo, and there shut himself in. His wife, disguised in
the habit of a monk, came from the Palazzo de Lalli. When
the Tribune descended from his greatness the others also
wept who were with him, and the miserable people wept. His
chamber was found to be full of many beautiful things, and
so many letters were found there that you would not believe
it. The barons heard of this downfall, but three days
passed before they returned to Rome because of their fear.
Even when they had come back fear was in their hearts. They
made a picture of the Tribune on the wall of the Capitol,
as if he were riding, but with his head down and his feet
above. They also painted Cecco Manneo, who was his Notary
and Chancellor, and Conte, his nephew, who held the castle
of Civita Vecchia. Then the Cardinal Legate entered into
Rome, and proceeded against him and distributed the greater
part of his goods, and proclaimed him to be a heretic."
Thus suddenly Cola fell, as he had risen. His heart had failed him
without reason or necessity, for the city had not shown any open signs
of rebellion, and there seems to have been no reason why he should
have fled to St. Angelo. The people, though they did not respond to
his call to arms, took no more notice of the tocsin of his opponent or
of his cry of Death to the Tribune. Rome lay silent pondering many
things, caring little how the tide turned, perhaps, with the instinct
of Lo Popolo everywhere, thinking that a change might be a good thing:
but it was no overt act on the part of the populace which drove its
idol away. The act was entirely his own--his heart had failed him. In
these days we should say his nerves had broken down. The phraseology
is different, but the things were the same. His downfall, however, was
not perhaps quite so sudden in reality as it appears in the
chronicle. It would seem that he endeavoured to escape to Civita
Vecchia where his nephew was governor, but was not received there, and
had to come back to Rome, and hide his head once more for a short time
in St. Angelo. But it is certain that before the end of January, 1438,
he had finally disappeared, a shamed and nameless man, his titles
abolished, his property divided among his enemies. Never was a
downfall more sudden or more complete.
Stefano Colonna and his friends re-entered Rome with little appearance
of triumph. The remembrance of the Porta San Lorenzo was too recent
for rejoicings, and it must be put to the credit of the old chief,
bereaved and sorrowful, that no reprisals were made, that a general
amnesty was proclaimed, and the peace of the city preserved. Cola's
family, at least for the time, remained peaceably at Rome, and met
with no harm. We hear nothing of the unfortunate young Knight of
Victory who had been sprinkled with the blood of the Colonnas. The
Tribune went down like a stone, and for the moment, of him who had
filled men's mouths and minds with so many strange tidings, there was
no more to tell.
Cola's absence from Rome lasted for seven years; of which time there
is no mention whatever in the _Vita_, which concerns itself
exclusively with things that happened in Rome; but his steps can be
very clearly traced. We never again find our enthusiast, he who first
ascended the Capitol in a passion of disinterested zeal and
patriotism, approved by every honest visionary and every suffering
citizen, a man chosen of God to deliver the city. That his motives
were ever ill motives, or that he had begun to seek his own prosperity
alone, it would be hard to say: but he appears to us henceforward in a
changed aspect as the eager conspirator, the commonplace plotter and
schemer, hungry for glory and plunder, and using every means, by hook
or by crook, to recover what he has lost, which is a far more
familiar figure than the ideal Reformer, the disinterested
revolutionary. We meet with that vulgar hero a hundred times in the
stormy record of Italian politics, a man without scruples, sticking at
nothing. But Rienzi was of a different nature: he was at once a less
and a greater sinner. It would be unjustifiable to say that he ever
gave up the thought of the Buono Stato, or ceased to desire the
welfare of Rome. But in the long interval of his disappearance from
the scene, he not only plotted like the other, but used that higher
motive, and the mystic elements that were in the air, and the tendency
towards all that was occult, and much that was noble in the
aspirations of the visionaries of his time, to further the one object,
his return to power, to the Capitol, and to the dominion of Rome. A
conspirator is the commonplace of Italian story, at every period: and
the pretender, catching at every straw to get back to his unsteady
throne, besieging every potentate that can help him, pleading every
inducement from the highest to the lowest--self-interest,
philanthropy, the service of God, the most generous and the meanest
sentiments--is also a very well known figure; but it is rare to find a
man truly affected by the most mystic teachings of religion, yet
pressing them also into his service, and making use of what he
conceives to be the impulses of the Holy Spirit for the furtherance of
his private ends, without, nevertheless, so far as can be asserted,
becoming a hypocrite or insincere in the faith which he professes.
This was the strange development to which the Tribune came. After some
vain attempts to awaken in the Roman territory friends who could help
him, his heart broken by the fickleness and desertion of the Popolo in
which he had trusted, he took refuge in the wild mountain country of
the Apennines, where there existed a rude and strange religious party,
aiming in the midst of the most austere devotion at a total overturn
of society, and that return of a primeval age of innocence and bliss
which is so seductive to the mystical mind. In the caves and dens of
the earth and in the mountain villages and little convents, there
dwelt a severe sect of the Franciscans, men whose love of Poverty,
their founder's bride and choice, was almost stronger than their love
of that founder himself. The Fraticelli were only heretics by dint of
holding their Rule more strictly than the other religious of their
order, and by indulging in ecstatic visions of a renovated state and a
purified people--visions less personal though not less sincere or
pious, than those which inflicted upon Francis himself the semblance
of the wounds of the Redeemer, in that passion of pity and love which
possessed his heart. The exile among them, who had himself been
aroused out of the obscurity of ordinary life by a corresponding
dream, found himself stimulated and inspired over again by the
teaching of these visionaries. One of them, it is said, found him out
in the refuge where he thought himself absolutely unknown, and,
addressing him by name, told him that he had still a great career
before him, and that it should be his to restore to Rome the double
reign of universal dominion, to establish the Pope and the Empire in
the imperial city, and reconcile for ever those two joint rulers
appointed of God.
It is curious to find that what is to some extent the existing state
of affairs--the junction in one place of the two monarchs of the
earth--should have been the dream and hope of religious visionaries in
the middle of the fourteenth century. The Emperor to them was but a
glorified King of Italy, with a vague and unknown world behind him;
and they believed that the Millennium would come, when that supreme
sovereign on the Capitol and the Holy Father from the seat of St.
Peter should sway the world at their will. The same class, in the same
order now--so much as confiscation after confiscation permits that
order to exist--would fight to its last gasp against the forced
conjunction, which its fathers before it thus thought of as the thing
most to be prayed for, and schemed for, in the whole world.
When others beside the Fraticelli discovered Rienzi's hiding-place,
and he found himself, or imagined himself, in some danger, he went to
Prague to seek shelter with the Emperor Charles IV., and a remarkable
correspondence took place between that potentate on one side and the
Archbishop of Prague, his counsellor, and Rienzi on the other, in
which the exile promised many splendours to the monarch, and offered
himself as his guide to Rome, and to lend him the weight of his
influence there with the people over whom Rienzi believed that he
would yet himself preside with greater power than ever. That Charles
himself should reply to these letters, and reason the matter out with
this forlorn wanderer, shows of itself what a power was in his words
and in the fervour of his purpose. But it is ill talking between a
great monarch and a penniless exile, and Charles seems to have felt no
scruple in handing him over, after full exposition of his views, to
the archbishop as a heretic. That prelate transferred him to the Pope,
to be dealt with as a man already excommunicated under the ban of the
Church, and now once more promulgating strange doctrines, ought to be;
and thus his freedom, and his wandering, and the comparative safety of
his life came to an end, and a second stage of strange development
began.
The fortunes of Rienzi were at a very low ebb when he reached Avignon
and fell into the hands of his enemies, of those whom he had assailed
and those whom he had disappointed, at that court where there was no
one to say a good word for him, and where all that was best in him was
even more greatly against him than that which was worst. In the
dungeons of Avignon, in the stronghold of the Pope who had so much
cause to regret having once sanctioned and patronised the Tribune, his
cause had every appearance of being lost for ever. It was fortunate
for him that there was no longer a Cardinal Colonna at that court; but
there was, at the same time, no champion to take up his cause. Things
indeed went so badly with him, that he was actually condemned to death
as a heretic, himself allowing that he was guilty and worthy of death
in some moment of profound depression, or perhaps with the hope of
touching the hearts of his persecutors by humility as great as had
been the pretensions of his brief and exciting reign. For poor Cola
after all, if the affair at Porta San Lorenzo is left out--and that
was no fault of his--had done nothing worthy of death. He had been
carried away by the passion and madness of an almost impossible
success; but he had scarcely ever been rebellious to the Church, and
his vagaries of doctrine were rather due to the mingling together of
the classical with the religious, and the inflation of certain not
otherwise unorthodox ideas, than any real rebellion; but he carried
his prevailing sentiment and character into everything, being lower
than any in the depths of his downfall as he had been higher than any
on the heights of his visionary pride and short-lived triumph.
He was saved from this sentence in a manner as fantastical as himself.
It may be believed that it was never intended to be carried out, and
that, especially after his acknowledgment of the justice of his
sentence, means would have been found of preserving him from its
execution; very likely, indeed, the curious means which were found,
originated in some charitable whisper that a plausible pretence of a
reason for letting him off would not be disagreeable to the Pope. He
was saved by the suggestion that he was a poet! We have the story in
full detail from Petrarch himself, who is not without a perception of
its absurdity, and begins his letter by an indignant description of
the foolish and pretended zeal for poetry of which this was so strange
an example. "Poetry," he says, "divine gift and vouchsafed by heaven
to so few, I see it, friend, if not prostituted, at least made into a
vulgar thing.
"I feel my heart rise against this, and you, if I know you
well, will not tolerate such an abuse for any
consideration. Neither at Athens, nor at Rome, even in the
lifetime of Horace, was there so much talk of poets and
poetry as at the present day upon the banks of the
Rhone--although there never was either time or place in
which men understood it less. But now I will check your
rising bile by laughter and show how a jest can come in the
midst of melancholy.
"There has lately come to this court--or rather has not
come but has been brought--a prisoner, Niccola di Lorenzo,
once the formidable Tribune of Rome, now of all the men the
most unhappy--and what is more, not perhaps worthy of the
compassion which the misery of his present state calls
forth. He might have ended his days gloriously upon the
Capitol, but brought himself down instead, to the great
shame of the Republic and of the Roman name, into the
condition of a prisoner, first in Bohemia and now here.
Unfortunately, many more than I now like to think of are
the praises and encouragements which I myself have written
to him. Lover of virtue as I am, I could not do less than
exalt and admire the generous undertaking of the strong
man: and thankful on account of Italy, hoping to see the
Empire of Rome arise again and secure the peace of the
whole world, my heart was inundated by such joy, on account
of so many fine events, that to contain myself was
impossible; and it seemed to me that I almost took part in
his glory by giving encouragement and comfort to his
enterprise: by which as both his messengers and his letters
showed, he was himself set on fire--and always more and
more willingly I set myself to increase this stimulus with
every argument I could think of, and to feed the flame of
that ardent spirit, well knowing that every generous heart
kindles at the fire of praise and glory. For this reason
with an applause which to some seemed extravagant but to me
very just, I exalted his every act, encouraging him to
complete the magnanimous task which he had begun. The
letters which I then wrote went through many hands: and
since I am no prophet and still less was he ever a prophet
I am not ashamed of what I wrote: for certainly what he did
in those days and promised to do, not in my opinion alone
but to the praise and admiration of the whole world, were
very worthy, and I would not abolish the memory of these
letters of mine from my memory solely because he prefers an
ignoble life to a glorious death. But it is useless to
discuss a thing which is impossible; and however much I
might desire to destroy them I could not do it. As soon as
they come into the hands of the public, the writer has no
more power over them. Let us return to our story.
"This man then, who had filled the wicked with terror, the
good with expectation, and with joyful hope the universe,
has come before this Court humiliated and abject; and he
whom the people of Rome and all the cities of Italy
exalted, was seen passing through our streets between two
soldiers, affording a miserable spectacle to the rabble
eager to see face to face one whose name they had heard to
sound so high. He came from the King of Rome (a title of
the Emperor) to the Roman Pontiff, oh marvellous commerce!
As soon as he had arrived the Pope committed to three
princes of the Church the charge of examining into his
cause, and judging of what punishment he was guilty who had
attempted to free the State."
The letter is too long to quote entire, and Petrarch, though
maintaining the cause of his former friend, is perhaps too anxious to
make it clear that, had Rienzi given due attention to his own letters,
this great reverse would never have happened to him; yet it is on the
whole a noble plea for the Tribune. "In this man," the poet declares,
"I had placed the last hope of Italian liberty, and, having long known
and loved him from the moment when he put his hand to this great work,
he seemed to me worthy of all veneration and honour. Whatever might be
the end of the work I cannot cease to hold as magnificent its
beginning:" and he regrets with great indignation that it was this
beginning which was chiefly brought against him, and that his
description of himself as Nicolas, severe and clement, had more weight
with his judges than his good government or the happy change that took
place in Rome during his sway. We must hasten, however, to the irony
of the Tribune's deliverance.
"In this miserable state (after so much that is sorrowful,
here at last is something to laugh at), I learn from the
letters of my friends that there is still a hope of saving
him, and that because of a notion which has been spread
abroad among the vulgar, that he is a famous poet.... What
can we think of this? Truly I, more than I can say in
words, comfort myself and rejoice in the thought that the
Muses are so much honoured--and what is still more
marvellous, among those who never knew anything about
them--as to save from a fatal sentence a man who is
shielded by their name. What greater sign of reverence
could be given than that the name of Poetry should thus
save from death a man who rightly or wrongly is abhorred by
his judges, who has been convicted of the crime laid to his
charge and has confessed it, and by the unanimous sentence
of the tribunal has been found worthy of death? I rejoice,
I repeat, I congratulate him and the Muses with him: that
he should have such patrons, and they so unlooked-for an
honour--nor would I to a man so unhappy, reduced to such
an extreme of danger and of doubt, grudge the protecting
name of poet. But if you would know what I think, I will
say that Niccola di Lorenzo is a man of the greatest
eloquence, most persuasive and ready of speech, a writer
lucid and harmonious and of an elegant style. I do not
remember any poet whom he has not read; but this no more
makes him a poet than a man would be a weaver who clothed
himself with garments woven by another hand. To merit the
name of poet it is not enough to have made verses. But this
man has never that I know written a single line."
There is not a word of all this in the _Vita_. To the chronicler,
Rienzi, from the moment when he turned his face again towards Rome,
was never in any danger. As he came from Germany to Avignon all the
people in the villages came out to greet him, and would have rescued
him but for his continual explanation that he went to the Pope of his
own will; nor does his biographer seem to be aware that the Tribune
ran any risk of his life. He did escape, however, by a hair's breadth
only, and, as Petrarch had perfect knowledge of what was going on, no
doubt in the very way described by the poet. But he was not delivered
from prison until Cardinal Albornoz set out for Rome with the Pope's
orders to pacify and quiet the turbulent city. Many and great had been
its troubles in those seven years. It had fallen back into the old
hands--an Orsini and a Colonna, a Colonna and an Orsini. There had
been a temporary lull in the year of the Jubilee (1350), when all the
world flocked to Rome to obtain the Indulgence, and to have their sins
washed away in the full stream of Papal forgiveness. It is said that
Rienzi himself made his way stealthily back to share in that
Indulgence, but without making himself known: and the interest of the
citizens was so much involved in peace, and it was so essential to
keep a certain rule of order and self-restraint on account of the many
guests who brought money to the city, that there was a temporary lull
of its troubles. The town was no more than a great inn from Easter to
Christmas, and wealth, which has always a soothing and quieting
influence, poured into the pockets of the citizens, fully occupied
as they were by the care of their guests, and by the continual
ceremonials and sacred functions of those busy days. The Jubilee
brought not only masses of pious pilgrims from every part of the
world, but innumerable lawsuits--cases of conscience and of secular
disputes--to be settled by the busy Cardinal who sat instead of the
Pope, hearing daily what every applicant might have to say. There had
been a new temporary bridge built in order to provide for the pressure
of the crowd, and avoid that block of the old bridge of St. Angelo
which Dante describes in the _Inferno_, when the mass of pilgrims
coming and going broke down one of the arches. Other large if hasty
labours of preparation were also in hand. The Capitol had to be
repaired, and old churches furbished up, and every scrap of drapery
and tapestry which was to be had employed to make the city fine. So
that for one year at least there had been no thought but to put the
best possible face on things, to quench internal disorders for the
moment, and make all kinds of temporary arrangements for comfort and
accommodation, as is often done in a family when important visitors
force a salutary self-denial upon all; so that there were a hundred
inducements to preserve a front of good behaviour and fit decorum
before the world.
[Illustration: THE TARPEIAN ROCK.
_To face page_ 480.]
After the Jubilee however, things fell back once more into the old
confusion: once more there was robbery and violence on every road to
Rome; once more an Orsini and a Colonna balanced and struggled with
each other as Senators, with no time to attend to anything but their
personal interests, and no thought for the welfare of the people. In
1352, however, things had come to such a pass that a violent remedy
had to be tried again, and the Romans once more took matters in their
own hands and elected an official of their own, a certain Cerroni, in
the place of the unworthy Senators. He however held the position a
very short time, and being in his turn deserted by the people, gave
up the thankless task. That year there was a riot in which the Orsini
Senator was stoned to death at the foot of the stairs which lead to
the Capitol, while his colleague Colonna, another Stefano, escaped by
the other side. Then once more the expedient of a popular election was
attempted and a certain Francesco Baroncelli was elected who styled
himself the second Tribune of the people. The Pope had also attempted
to do what he could, once by a committee of four Cardinals, constantly
by Legates sent to guide and protect the ever-troubled city. The
hopelessness of these repeated efforts was proved over and over again.
Villani the historian writes with dismay that "the changes which took
place in the ancient mother and mistress of the universe did not
deserve to be recorded because of their frivolity and baseness."
Baroncelli too fell after a short time, and it seemed that no
government, and no reformation, could last.
In the meantime Pope Clement VI. died at Avignon, and Innocent VI.
reigned in his stead. At the beginning of this new reign a new attempt
to pacificate Rome, and to restore it to order and peace, was made. As
it was the general feeling that a stranger was the safest ruler in the
midst of the network of private and family interests in which the city
was bound, the new Pope with a sincere desire to ameliorate the
situation sent the Spanish Cardinal Albornoz to the rescue of Rome.
All this was in the year 1353 when Rienzi, his death sentence remitted
because of the illusion that he was a poet, lay in prison in Avignon.
His story was well known: and it was well known too, that the people
of Rome, after having deserted him, were eager to have him back, and
had to all appearance repented very bitterly their behaviour to him.
The Pope adopted the strong and daring expedient of taking the old
demagogue from his prison and giving him a place in the Legate's
council. There was no intention of replacing him in his former
position, but he was eager to accept the secondary place, and to give
the benefit of his advice and guidance to the Legate. All appearance
of his old ambition seemed indeed to have died out of him. He went
simply in the train of Albornoz to Montefiascone,[9] which had long
been the headquarters of the Papal representative, and from whence the
Legate conducted a campaign against the towns of the "Patrimony," each
of whom, like the mother city, occasionally secured a gleam of
uncertain independence, or else--which was oftener the case--fell into
the clutches of some one of the band of nobles who had so long held
Rome in fee. It is very likely that Rienzi had no ambitious motive,
nor thought of a new revolution when he set out. He took part like the
rest of the Cardinal's following in several of the expeditions,
especially against his old enemy Giovanni di Vico, still as masterful
and as dangerous as ever, but attempted nothing more.
FOOTNOTE:
[9] An amusing story used to be told in Rome concerning this place,
which no doubt sprang from the legend of that old ecclesiastical
inhabitation. It was that a bishop, travelling across the country (it
is always a bishop who is the _bon vivant_ of Italian story), sent a
messenger before him with instructions to write on the wall of every
town his opinion of the wine of the place, that his master might judge
whether he should alight there or not. If it was good _Est_ was to be
the word. When the courier came to Montefiascone he was so delighted
with the vintage there that he emblazoned the gate with a triple
legend of _Est_, _Est_, _Est_. The bishop arrived, alighted; and never
left Montefiascone more. The wine in its native flasks is still
distinguished by this inscription.
[Illustration: THE BORGHESE GARDENS.]