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LXX.

CHAP. expose with those of the vilest malefactors, were secretly interred by the holy virgins of their name and family *. The people sympathised in their grief, repented of their own fury, and detested the indecent joy of Rienzi, who visited 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 absolution from a pool of water, which was yet polluted with patrician blood t.

Fall and flight of the Tribune Rienzi,

A. D.

1347.

Dec. 15.

In

A short delay would have saved the Colonna, the delay of a single month, which elapsed between the triumph and exile of Rienzi. the pride of victory, he 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

*The convent of St Silvester was founded, endowed, and protected by 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 alliance of the noble families of Rome, (Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. i. p. 110. tom. ii. p. 40t.).

+ Petrarch wrote a stiff and pedantic letter of consolation, (Fam. 1. vii. 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 Dieux de n'etre pas Romain.

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

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of Perugia, thirty-nine members voted against his CHA P. 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 service of the church; but as the fate of the Colonna was before their eyes, they abandoned to a private adventurer 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

A a 2

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

+ Matteo Villani describes the origin, character, and death of this Count of Minorbino, a man de natura inconstanté 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.

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CHAP. quarter of the Colonna; and found the enterprise as easy as it had seemned 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

Revolutions of Rome, A. D.

13471354.

lace of the republic.

government and

pa

Without drawing his sword, Count Pepin restored the aristocracy and the church; three senators were chosen, and the legate, assuming the first rank, accepted his two colleagues from the rival families of Colonna 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 vi sion 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 authority 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

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avarice had exhausted the patience of the Romans, CHAP. 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 estate *.

tures of

After an exile of seven years, the first deliverer Advenwas again restored to his country. In the disguise Rienzi. of a monk or a pilgrim, he escaped from the castle of St Angelo, implored the friendship of the Kings 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

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

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CHAP. 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, and obeyed, as his own choice, the irresistible summons 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 saviour of Rome was delivered by her Emperor into A prisoner the hands of her bishop. Rienzi was transported slowly, but in safe custody, from Prague to Avig non; his entrance into the city was that of a malefactor; in his prison he was chained 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;

at Avig

1.on,
A. D.
1351.

the

These visios, of which the friends and enenries of Rienzi seem alike ignorant, are surely magnified by the zeal of Pollistore, 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 trea yon, without offending the Reman people.

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