This theory, however, was now for a time to affect the whole story of the city, and put a spasmodic life into her worn-out veins. It was the only thing which could have made such a story as that of Rienzi possible, and it was strongly upheld by Petrarch and other eager and philosophic observers. The Bavarian Louis was, however, the first who frankly sought the confirmation of his election from the hands of the Roman people. One cannot, however, but find certain features of a farce in this solemn ceremony.
The coronation processions which pa.s.sed through the streets from Sta.
Maria Maggiore, according to Sismondi, to St. Peter"s, were splendid, the barons and counsellors, or _buon-homini_ of Rome leading the _cortege_, and clothed in cloth of gold. "Behind the monarch marched four thousand men whom he had brought with him; all the streets which he traversed were hung with rich tapestries." He was accompanied by a lawyer eminent in his profession, to watch over the perfect legality of every point in the ceremonial. The well-known Castruccio Castracani, who had followed him to Rome, was appointed by the Emperor to be his deputy as Senator, and to watch over the city; and in this capacity he took his place in the procession in a tunic of crimson silk, embroidered with the words in gold on the breast, "He is what G.o.d wills"; on the back, "He will be what G.o.d pleases." There was no Pope, it need not be said, to consecrate the new Emperor. The Pope was in Avignon, and his bitter enemy. There was not even a Bishop of Ostia to present the great monarch before St. Peter and the powers of heaven. Nevertheless the Church was not left out, though it was placed in a secondary position. Some kind of ceremony was gone through by the Bishop of Venice, or rather of Castello, the old name of that restless diocese, and the Bishop of Alecia, both of them deposed and under excommunication at the moment: but it was Sciarra Colonna who put the crown on Louis"s head. The whole ceremonial was secular, almost pagan in its meaning, if meaning at all further than a general throwing of dust in the eyes of the world it could be said to have. But there is a fict.i.tious gravity in the proceedings which seems almost to infer a sense of the prodigious folly of the a.s.sumption that these quite incompetent persons were qualified to confer, without any warrant for their deed, the greatest honour in Christendom upon the Bavarian. John XXII. was not a very n.o.ble Pope, but his sanction was a very different matter from that of Sciarra Colonna. No doubt however the people of Rome--Lo Popolo, the blind mob so pulled about by its leaders, and made to a.s.sume one ridiculous att.i.tude after another at their fancy--was flattered by the idea that it was from itself, as the imperial city, that the Emperor took the confirmation of his election and his crown.
Immediately afterwards a still more unjustifiable act was performed by the Emperor thus settled in his imperial seat. a.s.sisted by his excommunicated bishops and his rebellious laymen, Louis held, Muratori tells us, in the Piazza of St. Peter a _gran parlamento_, calling upon any one who would take upon him the defence of Jacques de Cahors, calling himself Pope John XXII., to appear and answer the accusations against him.
"No one replied: and then there rose up the Syndic of that part of the Roman clergy who loved gold better than religion, and begged Louis to take proceedings against the said Jacques de Cahors. Various articles were then produced accusing the Pope of heresy and treason, and of having raised the cross (_i.e._ sent a crusade, probably the expedition of the Prince of the Morea in the chronicle) against the Romans. For which reasons the Bavarian declared Pope John to be deposed from the pontificate and to be guilty of heresy and treason, with various penalties which I leave without mention. On the 23rd of April, with the consent of the Roman people, a law was published that every Pope in the future ought to hold his court in Rome, and not to be absent more than three months in the year on pain of being deposed from the Papacy. Finally on the twelfth day of May, in the Piazza of San Pietro, Louis with his crown on his head, proposed to the mult.i.tude that they should elect a new Pope. Pietro de Corvara, a native of the Abbruzzi, of the order of the Friars Minor, a great hypocrite, was proposed: and the people, the greater part of whom hated Pope John because he was permanently on the other side of the Alps (_de la dai monti_), accepted the nomination. He a.s.sumed the name of Nicolas V. Before his consecration there was a promotion of seven false cardinals: and on the 22nd of May he was consecrated bishop by one of these, and afterwards received the Papal crown from the hands of the said Louis, who caused himself to be once more crowned Emperor by this his idol.
"The brutality of Louis the Bavarian in arrogating to himself (adds Muratori) the authority of deposing a Pope lawfully elected, who had never fallen into heresy as was pretended: and to elect another, contrary to the rites and canons of the Catholic Church, sickened all who had any conscience or light of reason, and pleased only the heretics and schismatics, both religious and secular, who filled the court of the Bavarian, and by whose counsels he was ruled. Monstrosity and impiety could not be better declared and detested. And this was the step which completed the ruin of his interests in Italy."
The apparition of this German court in Rome, with its curious ceremonials following one upon another: the coronation in St. Peter"s, so soon to be annulled by its repet.i.tion at the hands of the puppet Pope whom Louis had himself created, in the vain hope that a crown bestowed by hands nominally consecrated would be more real than that given by those of Sciarra Colonna--makes the most wonderful episode in the turbulent story. In the same way Henry IV. was crowned again and again--first in his tent, afterwards by his false Pope in St. Peter"s, while Gregory VII. looked grimly on from St. Angelo, a besieged and helpless refugee, yet in the secret consciousness of all parties--the Emperor"s supporters as well as his own--the only real fountain of honour, the sole man living from whom that crown could be received with full sanction of law and right. Perhaps when all is said, and we have fully acknowledged the failure of all the greater claims of the Papacy, we read its importance in these scenes more than in the loftiest pretensions of Gregory or of Innocent. Il Bavaro felt to the bottom of his heart that he was no Emperor without the touch of those consecrated hands. A fine bravado of triumphant citizens delighting to imagine that Rome could still confer all honours as the mother city of the world, was well enough for the populace, though even for them the excommunicated bishops had to be brought in to lend a show of authenticity to the unjustifiable proceedings; but the uneasy Teuton himself could not be contented even by this, and it is to be supposed felt that even an anti-pope was better than nothing. It is tempting to inquire how Sciarra Colonna felt when the crown he had put on with such pride and triumph was placed again by the Neapolitan monk, false Pope among false cardinals, _articles d"occasion_, as the French say--on the head of the Bavarian. One cannot but feel that it must have been a humiliation for Colonna and for the city at this summit of vainglory and temporary power.
The rest of the story of Sciarra and his emperor is quickly told, so far as Rome is concerned. Louis of Bavaria left the city in August of the same year. He had entered Rome in January amid the acclamations of the populace: he left it seven months later amid the hisses and abusive cries of the same people, carrying with him his anti-pope and probably Sciarra, who at all events took flight, his day being over, and died shortly after. Next day Stefano della Colonna, the true head of the house, arrived in Rome with Bartoldo Orsini, and took possession in the name of Pope John, no doubt with equal applause from the crowd which so short a time before had witnessed breathless his deposition, and accepted the false Nicolas in his place. Such was popular government in those days. The legate so valiantly defeated by Sciarra, and driven out of the gates according to the chronicle, returned in state with eight hundred knights at his back.
We do not attempt to follow the history further than in those scenes which show how Rome lived, struggled, followed the impulse of its masters, and was flung from one side to the other at their pleasure, during this period of its history. The wonderful episode in that history which was about to open is better understood by the light of the events which roused Lo Popolo into wild excitement at one moment, and plunged them into disgust and discouragement the next.
The following scene, however, has nothing to do with tumults of arms.
It is a mere vignette from the much ill.u.s.trated story of the city. It relates the visit of what we should now call a Revivalist to Rome, a missionary friar, one of those startling preachers who abounded in the Middle Ages, and roused, as almost always in the history of human nature, tempests of short-lived penitence and reformation, with but little general effect even on the religious story of the time. Fra Venturino was a Dominican monk of Bergamo, who had already when he came to Rome the fame of a great preacher, and was attended by a mult.i.tude of his penitents, dressed in white with the sacred monogram I.H.S. on the red and white caps or hoods which they wore on their heads, and a dove with an olive branch on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. They came chiefly from the north of Italy and were, according to the chronicle, honest and pious persons of good and gentle manners. They were well received in Florence, where many great families took them in, gave them good food, good beds, washed their feet, and showed them much charity. Then, with a still larger contingent of Florentines following his steps, the preacher came on to Rome.
"It was said in Rome that he was coming to convert the Romans. When he arrived he was received in San Sisto. There he preached to his own people, of whom there were many orderly and good. In the evening they sang Lauds. They had a standard of silk which was afterwards given to La Minerva (Sta. Maria sopra Minerva). At the present day it may still be seen there in the Chapel of Messer Latino. It was of green silk, long and large. Upon it was painted the figure of Sta. Maria, with angels on each side, playing upon viols; and St. Dominic and St. Peter Martyr and other prophets. Afterwards he preached in the Capitol, and all Rome went to hear him. The Romans were very attentive to hear him, quiet, and following carefully if he went wrong in his bad Latin. Then he preached and said that they ought to take off their shoes, for the place on which they stood was holy ground. And he said that Rome was a place of much holiness from the bodies of the saints who lay there, but that the Romans were wicked people: at which the Romans laughed. Then he asked a favour and a gift from the Romans.
Fra Venturino said, "Sirs, you are going to have one of your holidays which costs much money. It is not either for G.o.d or the saints: therefore you celebrate this idolatry for the service of the Demon. Give the money to me. I will spend it for G.o.d to men in need, who cannot provide for themselves." Then the Romans began to mock at him, and to say that he was mad: thus they said and that they would stay no longer: and rising up went away leaving him alone.
Afterwards he preached in San Giovanni, but the Romans would not hear him, and would have driven him away. He then became angry and cursed them, and said that he had never seen people so perverse. He appeared no more, but departed secretly and went to Avignon, where the Pope forbade him to preach."
We may conclude these sc.r.a.ps of familiar contemporary information with a companion picture which does not give a rea.s.suring view of the state of the Church in Rome. It is the story of a priest elected to a great place and dignity who sought the confirmation of his election from the Pope at Avignon.
"A monk of St. Paolo in Rome, Fra Monozello by name, who at the death of the Abbot had been elected to fill his place, appeared before Pope Benedict. This monk was a man who delighted in society, running about everywhere, seeing the dawn come in, playing the lute, a great musician and singer. He spent his life in a whirl, at the court, at all the weddings, and parties to the vineyards. So at least said the Romans. How sad it must have been for Pope Benedict to hear that a monk of his did nothing but sing and dance. When this man was chosen for Abbot, he appeared before the sanct.i.ty of the Pope and said, "Holy Father, I have been elected to San Paolo in Rome." The Pope, who knew the condition of all who came to him, said, "Can you sing?"
The Abbot-elect replied, "I can sing." The Pope, "I mean songs" (_la cantilena_). The Abbot-elect answered, "I know concerted songs" (_il canzone sacro_). The Pope asked again, "Can you play instruments" (_sonare_)? He answered, "I can." The Pope, "I ask can you play (_tonare_) the organ and the lute?" The other answered, "Too well." Then the Pope changed his tone and said, "Do you think it is a suitable thing for the Abbot of the venerable monastery of San Paolo to be a buffoon? Go about your business.""
Thus it would appear that, careless as they might be and full of other thoughts, the Popes in Avignon still kept a watchful eye upon the Church at Rome. These are but anecdotes with which the historian of Rienzi prepares his tragic story. They throw a little familiar light, the lanthorn of a bystander, upon the town, so great yet so petty, always clinging to the pretensions of a greatness which it could not forget, but wholly unworthy of that place in the world which its remote fathers of antiquity had won, and incapable even when a momentary power fell into its hands of using it, or of perceiving in the midst of its greedy rush at temporary advantage what its true interests were--insubordinate, reckless, unthinking, ready to rush to arms when the great bell rang from the Capitol _a stuormo_, without pausing to ask which side they were on, with the Guelfs one day and the Ghibellines the next, shouting for the Emperor, yet terror-stricken at the name of the Pope--obeying with surly reluctance their masters the barons, but as ready as a handful of tow to take flame, and always rebellious whatever might be the occasion. This is how the Roman Popolo of the fourteenth century appear through the eyes of the spectators of its strange ways. Fierce to fight, but completely without object except a local one for their fighting, ready to rebel but always disgusted when made to obey, entertaining a wonderful idea of their own claims by right of their cla.s.sic descent and connection with the great names of antiquity, while on the other hand they allowed the n.o.blest relics of those times to crumble into irremediable ruin.
The other Rome, the patrician side, with all its glitter and splendour of the picturesque, is on the surface a much finer picture. The romance of the time lay altogether with the n.o.ble houses which had grown up in mediaeval Rome, sometimes seizing a dubious t.i.tle from an ancient Roman potentate, but most often springing from some stronghold in the adjacent country or the mountains, races which had developed and grown upon highway robbery and the oppression of those weaker than themselves, yet always with a surface of chivalry which deceived the world. The family which was greatest and strongest is fortunately the one we know most about. The house of Colonna had the good luck to discover in his youth and extend a warm, if condescending, friendship to the poet Petrarch, who was on his side the most fortunate poet who has lived in modern ages among men. He was in the midst of everything that went on, to use our familiar phraseology, in his day: he was the friend and correspondent of every notable person from the Pope and the Emperor downward: only a poor ecclesiastic, but the best known and most celebrated man of his time. The very first of all his contemporaries to appreciate and divine what was in him was Giacomo Colonna, one of the sons of old Stefano, whom we have already seen in Rome. He was Bishop of Lombez in Gascony, and his elder brother Giovanni was a Cardinal. They were in the way of every preferment and advantage, as became the sons of so powerful a house, but no promotion they attained has done so much for them with posterity as their friendship with this smooth-faced young priest of Vaucluse, to whom they were the kindest patrons and most faithful friends.
Petrarch was but twenty-two, a student at Bologna when young Colonna, a boy himself, took, as we say, a fancy for him, "not knowing who I was or whence I came, and only by my dress perceiving that what he was I also was, a scholar." It was in his old age that Petrarch gave to another friend a description of this early patron, younger apparently than himself, who opened to him the doors of that higher social life which were not always open to a poet, even in those days when the patronage of the great was everything. "I think there never was a man in the world greater than he or more gracious, more kind, more able, more wise, more good, more moderate in good fortune, more constant and strong against adversity," he writes in the calm of his age, some forty years after the beginning of this friendship and long after the death of Giacomo Colonna. When the young bishop first went to his diocese Petrarch accompanied him. "Oh flying time, oh hurrying life!"
he cries. "Forty-four years have pa.s.sed since then, but never have I spent so happy a summer." On his return from this visit the bishop made his friend acquainted with his brother Giovanni, the Cardinal, a man "good and innocent more than Cardinals are wont to be." "And the same may be said," Petrarch adds, "of the other brothers, and of the magnanimous Stefano, their father, of whom, as Crispus says of Carthage, it is better to be silent than to say little." This is a description too good, perhaps, to be true of an entire family, especially of Roman n.o.bles and ecclesiastics in the middle of the fourteenth century, between the disorderly and oppressed city of Rome, and the corrupt court of Avignon: but at least it shows the other point of view, the different aspect which the same man bears in different eyes: though Petrarch"s enthusiasm for his matchless friends is perhaps as much too exalted as the denunciations of the populace and the popular orator are excessive on the other side.
It was under this distinguished patronage that Petrarch received the great honour of his life, the laurel crown of the Altissimo Poeta, and furnished another splendid scene to the many which had taken place in Rome in the midst of all her troubles and distractions. The offer of this honour came to him at the same time from Paris and Rome, and it was to Cardinal Giovanni that he referred the question which he should accept: and he was surrounded by the Colonnas when he appeared at the Capitol to receive his crown. The Senator of the year was Orso, Conte d"Anquillara, who was the son-in-law of old Stefano Colonna, the husband of his daughter Agnes. The ceremony took place on Easter Sunday in the year 1341, the last day of Anquillara"s office, and so settled by him in order that he might himself have the privilege of placing the laurel on the poet"s head. Petrarch gives an account of the ceremony to his other patron King Robert of Naples, attributing this honour to the approbation and friendship of that monarch--which perhaps is a thing necessary when any personage so great as a king interests himself in the glory of a poet. "Rome and the deserted palace of the Capitol were adorned with unusual delight," he says: "a small thing in itself one might say, but conspicuous by its novelty, and by the applause and pleasure of the Roman people, the custom of bestowing the laurel having not only been laid aside for many ages, but even forgotten, while the republic turned its thoughts to very different things--until now under thy auspices it was renewed in my person." "On the Capitol of Rome," the poet wrote to another correspondent, "with a great concourse of people and immense joy, that which the king in Naples had decreed for me was executed. Orso Count d"Anquillara, Senator, a person of the highest intelligence, decorated me with the laurel: all went better than could have been believed or hoped," he adds, notwithstanding the absence of the King and of various great persons named--though among these Petrarch, with a policy and knowledge of the world which never failed him, does not name to his Neapolitan friends Cardinal Giovanni and Bishop Giacomo, the dearest of his companions, and his first and most faithful patrons, neither of whom were able to be present. Their family, however, evidently took the lead on this great occasion. Their brother Stefano p.r.o.nounced an oration in honour of the laureate: he was crowned by their brother-in-law: and the great celebration culminated in a banquet in the Colonna palace, at which, no doubt, the father of all presided, with Colonnas young and old filling every corner. For they were a most abundant family--sons and grandsons, Stefanos and Jannis without end, young ones of all the united families, enough to fill almost a whole quarter of Rome themselves and their retainers.
"Their houses extended from the square of San Marcello to the Santi Apostoli," says Papencordt, the modern biographer of Rienzi. The ancient Mausoleum of Augustus, which has been put to so many uses, which was a theatre not very long ago, and is now, we believe a museum, was once the headquarters and stronghold of the house.
This ceremonial of the crowning of the poet was conducted with immense joy of the people, endless applause, a great concourse, and every splendour that was possible. So was the reception of Il Bavaro a few years before; so were the other strange scenes about to come. The populace was always ready to form a great concourse, to shout and applaud, notwithstanding its own often miserable condition, exposed to every outrage, and finding justice nowhere. But the reverse of the medal was not so attractive. Petrarch himself, departing from Rome with still the intoxicating applause of the city ringing in his ears, was scarcely outside the walls before he and his party fell into the hands of armed robbers. It would be too long to tell, he says, how he got free; but he was driven back to Rome, whence he set out again next day, "surrounded by a good escort of armed men." The _ladroni armati_ who stopped the way might, for all one knows, wear the badge of the Colonnas somewhere under their armour, or at least find refuge in some of their strongholds. Such were the manners of the time, and such was specially the condition of Rome. It gave the crown of fame to the poet, but could not secure him a safe pa.s.sage for a mile outside its gates. It still put forth pretensions, as on this, so in more important cases, to exercise an authority over all the nations, by which right it had pleased the city to give Louis of Bavaria the imperial crown; but no citizen was safe unless he could protect himself with his sword, and justice and the redress of wrong were things unknown.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE PINCIO.]
CHAPTER II.
THE DELIVERER.
It was in this age of disorder and anarchy that a child was born, of the humblest parentage, on the bank of the Tiber, in an out-of-the-way suburb, who was destined to become the hero of one of the strangest episodes of modern history. His father kept a little tavern to which the Roman burghers, pushing their walk a little beyond the walls, would naturally resort; his mother, a laundress and water-carrier--one of those women who, with the port of a cla.s.sical princess, balance on their heads in perfect poise and certainty the great copper vases which are still used for that purpose. It was the gossip of the time that Maddalena, the wife of Lorenzo, had not been without adventures in her youth. No less a person than Henry VII. had found shelter, it was said, in her little public-house when her husband was absent. He was in the dress of a pilgrim, but no doubt bore the mien of a gallant gentleman and dazzled the eyes of the young landlady, who had no one to protect her. When her son was a man it pleased him to suppose that from this meeting resulted the strange mixture of democratic enthusiasm and love of pomp and power which was in his own nature. It was not much to be proud of, and yet he was proud of it. For all the world he was the son of the poor innkeeper, but within himself he felt the blood of an Emperor in his veins. Maddalena died young, and when her son began to weave the visions which helped to shape his life, was no longer there to clear her own reputation or to confirm him in his dream.
These poor people had not so much as a surname to distinguish them.
The boy Niccola was Cola di Rienzo, Nicolas the son of Laurence, as he is called in the Latin chronicles, according to that simplest of all rules of nomenclature which has originated so many modern names. "He was from his youth nourished on the milk of eloquence; a good grammarian, a better rhetorician, a fine writer," says his biographer.
"Heavens, what a rapid reader he was! He made great use of Livy, Seneca, Tully, and Valerius Maximus, and delighted much to tell forth the magnificence of Julius Caesar. All day long he studied the sculptured marbles that lie around Rome. There was no one like him for reading the ancient inscriptions. All the ancient writings he put in choice Italian; the marbles he interpreted. How often did he cry out, "Where are these good Romans? where is their high justice? might I but have been born in their time?" He was a handsome man, and he adopted the profession of a notary."
We are not told how or where Cola attained this knowledge. His father was a va.s.sal of the Colonna, and it is possible that some of the barons coming and going may have been struck by the brilliant, eager countenance of the innkeeper"s son, and helped him to the not extravagant amount of learning thus recorded. His own character, and the energy and ambition so strangely mingled with imagination and the visionary temperament of a poet, would seem to have at once separated him from the humble world in which he was born. It is said by some that his youth was spent out of Rome, and that he only returned when about twenty, at the death of his father--a legend which would lend some show of evidence to the suggestion of his doubtful birth: but his biographer says nothing of this. It is also said that it was the death of his brother, killed in some scuffle between the ever-contending parties of Colonna and Orsini, which gave his mind the first impulse towards the revolution which he accomplished in so remarkable a way.
"He pondered long," says his biographer, "of revenging the blood of his brother; and long he pondered over the ill-governed city of Rome, and how to set it right." But there is no definite record of his early life until it suddenly flashes into light in the public service of the city, and on an occasion of the greatest importance as well for himself as for Rome.
This first public employment which discloses him at once to us was a mission from the thirteen _Buoni homini_, sometimes called _Caporoni_, the heads of the different districts of the city, to Pope Clement VI.
at Avignon, on the occasion of one of those temporary overturns of government which occurred from time to time, always of the briefest duration, but carrying on the traditions of the power of the people from age to age. He was apparently what we should call the spokesman of the deputation sent to explain the matter to the Pope, and to secure, if possible, some attention on the part of the Curia to the condition of the abandoned city.
"His eloquence was so great that Pope Clement was much attracted towards him: the Pope much admired the fine style of Cola, and desired to see him every day. Upon which Cola spoke very freely and said that the Barons of Rome were highway robbers, that they were consenting to murder, robbery, adultery, and every evil. He said that the city lay desolate, and the Pope began to entertain a very bad opinion of the Barons."
"But," adds the chronicler, "by means of Messer Giovanni of the Colonna, Cardinal, great misfortunes happened to him, and he was reduced to such poverty and sickness that he might as well have been sent to the hospital. He lay like a snake in the sun. But he who had cast him down, the very same person raised him up again. Messer Giovanni brought him again before the Pope and had him restored to favour. And having thus been restored to grace he was made notary of the Cammora in Rome, so that he returned with great joy to the city."
This succinct narrative will perhaps be a little more clear if slightly expanded: the chief object of the Roman envoy was to disclose the crimes of the "barons," whose true character Cola thus described to the Pope, on the part of the leaders of a sudden revolt, a sort of prophetical antic.i.p.ation of his own, which had seized the power out of the hands of the two Senators and conferred it upon thirteen _Buoni homini_, heads of the people, who took the charge in the name of the Pope and professed, as was usual in its absence, an almost extravagant devotion to the Papal authority. The emba.s.sy was specially charged with the prayers and entreaties of the people that the Pope would return and resume the government of the city: and also that he would proclaim another jubilee--the great festival, accompanied by every kind of indulgence and pious promise to the pilgrims, attracted by it from all the ends of the earth to Rome--which had been first inst.i.tuted by Pope Boniface VIII. in 1300 with the intention of being repeated once every century only. But a century is a long time; and the jubilee was most profitable, bringing much money and many gifts both to the State and the Church. The citizens were therefore very anxious to secure its repet.i.tion in 1350, and its future celebration every fifty years. The Pope graciously accorded the jubilee to the prayers of the Romans, and accepted their homage and desire for his return, promising vaguely that he would do so in the jubilee year if not before. So that whatever afterwards happened to the secretary or spokesman, the object of the mission was attained.
Elated by this fulfilment of their wishes, and evidently at the moment of his highest favour with the Pope, Cola sent a letter announcing this success to the authorities in Rome, which is the first word we hear from his own mouth. It is dated from Avignon, in the year 1343.
He was then about thirty, in the full ardour of young manhood, full of visionary hopes and schemes for the restoration of the glories of Rome. The style of the letter, which was so much admired in those days, is too florid and ornate for the taste of a severer period, notwithstanding that his composition received the applause of Petrarch, and was much admired by all his contemporaries. He begins by describing himself as the "consul of orphans, widows and the poor, and the humble messenger of the people."
"Let your mountains tremble with happiness, let your hills clothe themselves with joy, and peace and gladness fill the valleys. Let the city arise from her long course of misfortunes, let her re-ascend the throne of her ancient magnificence, let her throw aside the weeds of widowhood and clothe herself with the garments of a bride. For the heavens have been opened to us and from the glory of the Heavenly Father has issued the light of Jesus Christ, from which shines forth that of the Holy Spirit. Now that the Lord has done this miracle, brethren beloved, see that you clear out of your city the thorns and the roots of vice, to receive with the perfume of new virtue the Bridegroom who is coming. We exhort you with burning tears, with tears of joy, to put aside the sword, to extinguish the flames of battle, to receive these divine gifts with a heart full of purity and grat.i.tude, to glorify with songs and thanksgiving the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also to give humble thanks to His Vicar, and to raise to that supreme Pontiff, in the Capitol or in the amphitheatre, a statue adorned with purple and gold that the joyous and glorious recollection may endure for ever. Who indeed has adorned his country with such glory among the Ciceros, the Caesars, Metullus, or Fabius, who are celebrated as liberators in our old annals and whose statues we adorn with precious stones because of their virtues? These men have obtained pa.s.sing triumphs by war, by the calamities of the world, by the shedding of blood: but he, by our prayers and for the life, the salvation and the joy of all, has won in our eyes and in those of posterity an immortal triumph."
[Ill.u.s.tration: THEATRE OF MARCELLUS.
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It is like enough that these extravagant phrases expressed an exultation which was sufficiently genuine and sincere, for while he was absent the city of Rome desired and longed for its Pope, although when present it might do everything in its power to shake off his yoke. And Cola the amba.s.sador, in whose mind as yet his own great scheme had not taken shape, might well believe that the gracious Pope who flattered him by such attention, who admitted him so freely to his august presence, and to whom he was as one who playeth very sweetly upon an instrument, was the man of all men to bring back again from anarchy and tumult the imperial city. He had even given up, it would seem, his enthusiasm for the cla.s.sic heroes in this moment of hope from a more living and present source of help.
This elation however did not last. The Cardinal Giovanni Colonna, son of old Stefano, the head of that great house, of whose magnificent old age Petrarch speaks with so much enthusiasm, himself a man of many accomplishments, a scholar and patron of the arts--and to crown all, as has been said, the dear friend and patron of the poet--was one of the most important members of the court at Avignon, when the deputation from Rome, with that eloquent young plebeian as its interpreter, appeared before the Pope. We may imagine that its first great success, and the pleasure which the Pope took in the conversation of Cola, must have happened during some temporary absence of the Cardinal, whose interest in the affairs of his native city would be undoubted. And it was natural that he should be a little scornful of the amba.s.sadors of the people, and of the orator who was the son of Rienzo of the wine-shop, and very indignant at the account given by the advocate of lo Popolo, of the barons and their behaviour.
The Colonna were, in fact, the least tyrannical of the tyrants; they were the n.o.blest of all the Roman houses, and no doubt the public sentiment against the n.o.bles in general might sometimes do a more enlightened family wrong. Certainly it is hard to reconcile the pictures of this house as given by Petrarch with the cruel tyranny of which all the n.o.bles were accused. This no doubt was the reason why, after the triumph of that letter, the consent of the Pope to the prayer of the citizens, and his interest in Cola"s tale and descriptions, the young orator fell under the shadow of courtly displeasure, and after that intoxication of victory suffered all those pangs of neglect which so often end the temporary triumph of a success at court. The story is all vague, and we have no explanation why he should have lingered on in Avignon, unless perhaps with hopes of advancement founded on that evanescent favour, or perhaps in consequence of his illness. There is a forlorn touch in the description of the chronicler that "he lay like a snake in the sun,"
which is full of suggestion. The reader seems to see him hanging about the precincts of the court under the stately walls of the vast Papal palace, which now stands in gloomy greatness, absorbing all the light out of the landscape. It was new then, and glorious like a heavenly palace; and sick and sad, disappointed and discouraged, the young envoy, lately so dazzled by the sunshine of favour, would no doubt haunt the great doorway, seeking a sunny spot to keep himself warm, and waiting upon Providence. Probably the Cardinal, sweeping out and in, in his state, might perceive the young Roman fallen from his temporary triumph, and be touched by pity for the orator who after all had done no harm with his pleading; for was not Stefano Colonna again, in spite of all, Senator of Rome? Let us hope that the companion at his elbow, the poet who formed part of his household, and who probably had heard, too, and admired, like Pope Clement, the _parole ornate_ of the speaker, who, though so foolish as to a.s.sail with his eloquent tongue the n.o.bles of the land, need not after all be left to perish on that account--was the person who pointed out to his patron the poor fellow in his cloak, shivering in the mistral, that chill wind unknown in the midlands of Italy. It is certain that Petrarch here made Cola"s acquaintance, and that Cardinal Colonna, remorseful to see the misery he had caused, took trouble to have his young countryman restored to favour, and procured him the appointment of Notary of the city, with which Cola returned to Rome--"_fra i denti minacciava_,"
says his biographer, swearing between his teeth.
It was in 1344 that his promotion took place, and for some years after Cola performed the duties of his office _cortes.e.m.e.nte_, with courtesy, the highest praise an Italian of his time could give. In this occupation he had boundless opportunities of studying more closely the system of government which had resumed its full sway under the old familiar succession of Senators, generally a Colonna and an Orsini.
"He saw and knew," says the chronicler, himself growing vehement in the excitement of the subject, "the robbery of those dogs of the Capitol, the cruelty and injustice of those in power. In all the commune he did not find one good citizen who would render help." It would seem, though there is here little aid of dates, that he did not act precipitately, but, probably with the hope of being able himself to do something to remedy matters, kept silence while his heart burned, as long as silence was possible. But the moment came when he could do so no longer, and the little scene at the meeting of the Cammora, the City Council, stands out as clearly before us as if it had been a munic.i.p.al a.s.sembly of the present day. We are not told what special question was before the meeting which proved the last straw of the burden of indignation and impatience which Cola at his table, writing with the silver pen which he thought more worthy than a goose quill for the dignity of his office, had to bear. (One wonders if he was the inventor, without knowing it, of that little instrument, the artificial pen of metal with which, chiefly, literature is manufactured in our days? But silver is too soft and ductile to have ever become popular, and though very suitable to pour forth those mellifluous sentences in which the young spokesman of the Romans wrote to his chiefs from Avignon, would scarcely answer for the sterner purposes of the council to inscribe punishments or calculate fines withal.) One day, however, sitting in his place, writing down the decrees for those fines and penalties, sudden wrath seized upon the young scribe who already had called himself the consul of widows and orphans, and of the poor.
"One day during a discussion on the subject of the taxes of Rome, he rose to his feet among all the Councillors and said, "You are not good citizens, you who suck the blood of the poor and will not give them any help." Then he admonished the officials and the Rectors that they ought rather to provide for the good government, _lo buono stato_, of their city of Rome. When the impetuous address of Cola di Rienzi was ended, one of the Colonna, who was called Andreozzo di Normanno, the Camarlengo, got up and struck him a ringing blow on the cheek: and another who was the Secretary of the Senate, Tomma de Fortifiocca, mocked him with an insulting sign. This was the end of their talking."
We hear of no more remonstrances in the council. It is said that Cola was not a brave man, though we have so many proofs of courage afterwards that it is difficult to believe him to have been lacking in this particular. At all events he went out from that selfish and mocking a.s.sembly with his cheek tingling from the blow, and his heart burning more and more, to ponder over other means of moving the community and helping Rome.
The next incident opens up to us a curious world of surmise, and suggests to the imagination much that is unknown, in the lower regions of art, a crowd of secondary performers in that arena, the unknown painters, the half-workmen, half-artists, who form a background wherever a school of art exists. Cola perhaps may have had relations with some of these half-developed artists, not sufficiently advanced to paint an altar-piece, the scholars or lesser brethren of some local _bottega_. There was little native art at any time in Rome. The ancient and but dimly recorded work of the Cosimati, the only Roman school, is lost in the mists, and was over and ended in the fourteenth century. But there must have been some humble survival of trained workmen capable at least of mural decorations if no more. Pondering long how to reach the public, Cola seems to have bethought himself of this humble instrument of art. As we do not hear before of any such method of instructing the people, we may be allowed to suppose it was his invention as well as the silver pen. His active brain was buzzing with new things in every way, both great and small, and this was the first device he hit upon. Even the poorest art must have been of use in the absence of books for the ill.u.s.tration of sacred story and the instruction of the ignorant, and it was at this kind of instantaneous effect that Cola aimed. He had the confidence of the visionary that the evil state of affairs needed only to be known to produce instant reformation. The grievance over and over again insisted upon by his biographer, and which was the burden of his outburst in the council, was that "no one would help"--_non si trovava uno buon Cittatino, che lo volesse adjutare_. Did they but know, the common people, how they were oppressed, and the n.o.bles what oppressors they were, it was surely certain that every one would help, and that all would go right, and the _buono stato_ be established once more.
Here is the strange way in which Cola for the first time publicly "admonished the rectors and the people to do well, by a similitude."
"A similitude," says his biographer, "which he caused to be painted on the palace of the Capitol in front of the market, on the wall above the Cammora (Council Chamber).
Here was painted an allegory in the following form--namely, a great sea with horrible waves, and much disturbed. In the midst of this sea was a ship, almost wrecked, without helm or sails. In this ship, in great peril, was a woman, a widow, clothed in black, bound with a girdle of sadness, her face disfigured, her hair floating wildly, as if she would have wept. She was kneeling, her hands crossed, beating her breast and ready to perish. The superscription over her was _This is Rome_. Round this ship were four other ships wrecked: their sails torn away, their oars broken, their rudders lost. In each one was a woman smothered and dead. The first was called Babylon; the second Carthage; the third Troy; the fourth Jerusalem.