:

LXX.

death of

the Colon

adherents; and the barons attempted with four thou- CHAP. sand foot and sixteen hundred horse, to enter Rome by force or surprise. The city was prepared for their reception the alarm-bell rung all night: the gates were strictly guarded, or insolently open; and after some hesitation they sounded a retreat. The two first divisions had passed along the walls, but the prospect of a free entrance tempted the headstrong valour of the nobles in the rear; and after a successful skirmish, they were overthrown and massacred without quarter by the crowds of the Roman people. Stephen Colonna the younger, Defeat and the noble spirit to whom Petrarch ascribed the restoration of Italy, was preceded or accompanied in death by na, his son John, a gallant youth, by his brother Peter, who Nov. 20. might regret the ease and honours of the church, by a nephew of legitimate birth, and by two bastards of the Colonna race; and the number of seven, the seven crowns, as Rienzi styled them, of the Holy Ghost, was completed by the agony of the deplorable parent, of the veteran chief, who had survived the hope and fortune of his house. The vision and prophecies of St. Martin and pope Boniface had been used by the tribune to animate his troops: he displayed, at least in the pursuit, the spirit of an hero; but he forgot the maxims of the ancient Romans, who abhorred the triumphs of civil war. The conqueror ascended the Capitol; deposited his crown and sceptre on the altar; and boasted with some truth, that he had cut off an ear, which neither pope nor emperor had been able to amputate". His base and implacable revenge denied the honours of burial; and the bodies of the Colonna, which he threatened to expose with those of the vilest malefactors, were secretly interred by the holy virgins of their name and family. The

43 Rienzi, in the above-mentioned letter, ascribes to St. Martin the tribune, Boniface VIII. the enemy of Colonna, himself, and the Roman people, the glory of the day, which Villani likewise (l. 12. c. 104 ) describes as a regular battle. The disorderly skirmish, the flight of the Romans, and the cowardice of Rienzi, are painted in the simple and minute narrative of Fortifiocca, or the anonymous citizen (l. ii. c. 34-37).

44 In describing the fall of the Colonna, I speak only of the family of Stephen the elder, who is often confounded by the P. du Cerceau, with his son. That family was extinguished, but the house has been perpetuated in the collateral branches, of which I have not a very accurate knowledge. Circumspice (says Petrarch) familiæ tuæ statum, Colummensium domos: solito pauciores habeat columnas. Quid ad rem? modo fundamentum stabile, solidumque permaneat.

45 The convent of St. Sylvester was founded, endowed, and protected by

CHAP. people sympathised in their grief, repented of their own LXX. fury, and detested the indecent joy of Rienzi, who vi

Fall and flight of

A.D. 1347,

Dec. 15.

sited the spot where these illustrious victims had fallen. It was on that fatal spot, that he conferred on his son the honour of knighthood: and the ceremony was accomplished by a slight blow from each of the horsemen of the guard, and by a ridiculous and inhuman ablution from a pool of water, which was yet polluted with patrician blood46.

A short delay would have saved the Colonna, the dethe tri- lay of a single month, which elapsed between the tribune Ri- umph and exile of Rienzi. In the pride of victory, he enzi, forfeited what yet remained of his civil virtues, without acquiring the fame of military prowess. A free and vigorous opposition was formed in the city; and when the tribune proposed in the public council to impose a new tax, and to regulate the government of Perugia, thirtynine members voted against his measures; repelled the injurious charge of treachery and corruption; and urged him to prove, by their forcible exclusion, that, if the populace adhered to his cause, it was already disclaimed by the most respectable citizens. The pope and the sacred college had never been dazzled by his specious professions; they were justly offended by the insolence of his conduct; a cardinal legate was sent to Italy, and after some fruitless treaty, and two personal interviews, he fulminated a bull of excommunication, in which the tribune is degraded from his office, and branded with the guilt of rebellion, sacrilege, and heresy. The surviving barons of Rome were now humbled to a sense of allegiance; their interest and revenge engaged them in

the Colonna cardinals, for the daughters of the family who embraced a monastic life, and who, in the year 1318, were twelve in number. The others were allowed to marry with their kinsmen in the fourth degree, and the dispensation was justified by the small number and close alliances of the noble families of Rome (Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. i. p. 110. tom. li. p. 401).

46 Petrarch wrote a stiff and pedantic letter of consolation (Fam. 1, vil. epist. 13. p. 682, 683). The friend was lost in the patriot. Nulla toto orbe principum familia carior; carior tamen respublica, carior Roma, carior Italia.

Je rends graces aux Dieu de n'etre pas Romain.

47 This council and opposition is obscurely mentioned by Pollistore, a contemporary writer, who has preserved some curious and original facts (Rer. Italicarum, tom. xxv. c. 31. p. 798-804).

48 The briefs and bulls of Clement VI. against Rienzi, are translated by the P. du Cerceau (p. 196. 232.) from the Ecclesiastical Annals of Rodericus Raynaldus (A. D. 1347, No. 15. 17. 21, &c.) who found them in the archives of the Vatican.

LXX.

the service of the church; but as the fate of the Colonna CHAP. was before their eyes, they abandoned to a private ad venturer the peril and glory of the revolution. John Pepin, count of Minorbino" in the kingdom of Naples, had been condemned for his crimes, or his riches, to perpetual imprisonment; and Petrarch, by soliciting his release, indirectly contributed to the ruin of his friend. At the head of one hundred and fifty soldiers, the count of Minorbino introduced himself into Rome; barricaded the quarter of the Colonna; and found the enterprise as easy as it had seemed impossible. From the first alarm, the bell of the Capitol incessantly tolled; but, instead of repairing to the well known sound, the people was silent and inactive; and the pusillanimous Rienzi, deploring their ingratitude with sighs and tears, abdicated the government and palace of the republic.

tions of

Without drawing his sword, count Pepin restored Revoluthe aristocracy and the church; three senators were Rome, chosen, and the legate assuming the first rank, accepted A. D. 1347 his two colleagues from the rival families of Colonna-1354. and Ursini. The acts of the tribune were abolished, his head was proscribed; yet such was the terror of his name, that the barons hesitated three days before they would trust themselves in the city, and Rienzi was left above a month in the castle of St. Angelo, from whence. he peaceably withdrew, after labouring, without effect, to revive the affection and courage of the Romans. The vision of freedom and empire had vanished: their fallen spirit would have acquiesced in servitude, had it been smoothed by tranquillity and order: and it was scarcely observed, that the new senators derived their autho rity from the Apostolic See, that four cardinals were appointed to reform with dictatorial power the state of the republic. Rome was again agitated by the bloody feuds of the barons, who detested each other, and despised the commons; their hostile fortresses, both in town and country, again rose, and were again demolished; and the peaceful citizens, a flock of sheep, were devoured, says the Florentine historian, by these rapacious wolves. But when their pride and avarice had exhausted the

49 Matteo Villani describes the origin, character, and death of this count of Minorbino, a man da natura inconstante e senza sede, whose grandfather, a crafty notary, was enriched and ennobled by the spoils of the Saracens of. Nocera (1. vii. c. 102, 103.) See his imprisonment, and the efforts of Petrarch, tom. ii. p. 149-151,

LXX.

CHAP. patience of the Romans, a confraternity of the virgin Mary protected or avenged the republic: the bell of the Capitol was again tolled, the nobles in arms trembled in the presence of an unarmed multitude; and of the two senators, Colonna escaped from the window of the palace, and Ursini was stoned at the foot of the altar. The dangerous office of tribune was successively occupied by two plebeians, Cerroni and Baroncelli. The mildness of Cerroni was unequal to the times; and after a faint struggle, he retired with a fair reputation and a decent fortune to the comforts of rural life. Devoid of eloquence or genius, Baroncelli was distinguished by a resolute spirit: he spoke the language of a patriot, and trod in the footsteps of tyrants; his suspicion was a sentence of death, and his own death was the reward of his cruelties. Amidst the public misfortunes, the faults of Rienzi were forgotten; and the Romans sighed for the peace and prosperity of the good estates.

Adventures of Rienzi.

After an exile of seven years, the first deliverer was again restored to his country. In the disguise of a monk or a pilgrim, he escaped from the castle of St. Angelo, implored the friendship of the king of Hungary and Naples, tempted the ambition of every bold adventurer, mingled at Rome with the pilgrims of the jubilee, lay concealed among the hermits of the Apennine, and wandered through the cities of Italy, Germany, and Bohemia. His person was invisible, his name was yet formidable; and the anxiety of the court of Avignon supposes, and even magnifies, his personal merit. The emperor Charles the fourth gave audience to a stranger, who frankly revealed himself as the tribune of the republic; and astonished an assembly of ambassadors and princes, by the eloquence of a patriot and the visions of a prophet, the downfal of tyranny and the kingdom of the Holy Ghost". Whatever had been his hopes, Rienzi found himself a captive; but he supported a character of independence and dignity,

50 The troubles of Rome, from the departure to the return of Rienzi, are related by Matteo Villani (1. ii, c. 47. l. iii. c. 33. 57. 78) and Thomas Fortifiocca (1. ii. c. 1-4.) I have slightly passed over these secondary characters, who imitated the original tribune.

51 These visions, of which the friends and enemies of Rienzi seem alike ignorant, are surely magnified by the zeal of Pollstore, a Dominican inquisitor (Rer. Ital. tom. xxv. c. 36. p. 819.) Had the tribune taught, that Christ was succeeded by the Holy Ghost, that the tyranny of the pope would be abolished, he might have been convicted of heresy and treason, without offending the Roman people.

LXX.

non,

and obeyed, as his own choice, the irresistible summons CHAP. of the supreme pontiff. The zeal of Petrarch, which had been cooled by the unworthy conduct, was rekindled by the sufferings and the presence, of his friend; and he boldly complains of the times, in which the savionr of Rome was delivered by her emperor into the hands of her bishop. Rienzi was transported slowly, but in safe A prisoner custody, from Prague to Avignon: his entrance into the at Avigcity was that of a malefactor; in his prison he was chain- A.D. 1351. ed by the leg; and four cardinals were named to inquire into the crimes of heresy and rebellion. But his trial and condemnation would have involved some questions, which it was more prudent to leave under the veil of mystery: the temporal supremacy of the popes; the duty of residence; the civil and ecclesiastical privileges of the clergy and people of Rome. The reigning pontiff well deserved the appellation of Clement: the strange vicissitudes and magnanimous spirit of the captive excited his pity and esteem; and Petrarch believes that he respected in the hero the name and sacred character of a poets. Rienzi was indulged with an easy confinement and the use of books; and in the assiduous study of Livy and the bible, he sought the cause and the consolation of his misfortunes.

Rienzi, se.

nator of

The succeeding pontificate of Innocent the sixth opened a new prospect of his deliverance and restoration; Rome, and the court of Avignon was persuaded, that the suc- A. D. 1354. cessful rebel could alone appease and reform the anarchy of the metropolis. After a solemn profession of fidelity, the Roman tribune was sent into Italy, with the title of senator; but the death of Baroncelli appeared to supersede the use of his mission; and the legate, cardinal Albornoz53, a consummate statesman, allowed him with reluctance, and without aid, to undertake the perilous experiment. His first reception was equal to his wishes the day of his entrance was a public festival;

52 The astonishment, the envy almost, of Petrarch is a proof, if not of the truth of this incredible fact, at least of his own veracity. The abbé de Sade (Memoires, tom. iii. p. 242.) quotes the vith epistle of the xiiith book of Petrarch, but it is of the royal MS. which he consulted, and not of the ordinary Basil edition (p. 920)

53 Ægidius, or Giles Albornoz, a noble Spaniard, archbishop of Toledo, and cardinal legate in Italy (A. D. 1353–1367), restored, by his arms and counsels, the temporal dominion of the popes. His life has been separately written by Sepulveda; but Dryden could not reasonably suppose, that his name, or that of Wolsey, had reached the ears of the Mufti in Don Sebastian.