289 use of books; and in the assiduous study of Livy and the Bible he sought the cause and the consolation of his misfortunes. senator of 1354 The succeeding pontificate of Innocent the Sixth opened a Rienzi, new prospect of his deliverance and restoration; and the court Rome, A.D. of Avignon was persuaded that the successful 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 Albornoz,61 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, and his eloquence and authority (August 1] revived the laws of the good estate. But this momentary sunshine was soon clouded by his own vices and those of the people : in the Capitol, he might often regret the prison of Avignon; and, after a second administration of four months, Rienzi was massacred in a tumult which had been fomented by the Roman barons. In the society of the Germans and Bohemians, he is said to have contracted the habits of intemperance and cruelty; adversity had chilled his enthusiasm, without fortifying his reason or virtue; and that youthful hope, that lively assurance, which is the pledge of success, was now succeeded by the cold impotence of distrust and despair. The tribune had reigned with absolute dominion, by the choice and in the hearts of the Romans; the senator was the servile minister of a foreign court; and, while he was suspected by the people, he was abandoned by the prince. The legate Albornoz, who seemed desirous of his ruin, inflexibly refused all supplies of men and money; a faithful subject could no longer presume to touch the revenues of the apostolic chamber; and the first idea of a tax was the signal of clamour and sedition. Even his justice was tainted with the guilt or reproach of selfish cruelty; the most virtuous citizen of Rome was sacrificed to his jealousy; and in the execution of a public robber, 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). 61 Egidius 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. VOL. VII.-19 of Mon August 29] [Execution from whose purse he had been assisted, the magistrate too much reale, forgot, or too much remembered, the obligations of the debtor.62 A civil war exhausted his treasures, and the patience of the city; the Colonna maintained their hostile station at Palestrina; and his mercenaries soon despised a leader whose ignorance and fear were envious of all subordinate merit. In the death as in the life of Rienzi, the hero and the coward were strangely mingled. When the Capitol was invested by a furious multitude, when he was basely deserted by his civil and military servants, the intrepid senator, waving the banner of liberty, presented himself on the balcony, addressed his eloquence to the various passions of the Romans, and laboured to persuade them that in the same cause himself and the republic must either stand or fall. His oration was interrupted by a volley of imprecations and stones; and, after an arrow had transpierced his hand, he sunk into abject despair, and fled weeping to the inner chambers, from whence he was let down by a sheet before the windows of the prison. Destitute of aid or hope, he was besieged till the evening: the doors of the Capitol were destroyed with axes and fire; and, while the senator attempted to escape in a plebeian habit, he was discovered and dragged to the platform of the palace, the fatal scene of his judgments and executions. A whole hour, without voice or motion, he stood amidst the multitude, half naked and half dead; their rage was hushed into curiosity and wonder; the last feelings of reverence and compassion yet struggled in his favour; and they might have prevailed, if a bold assassin had not plunged a dagger in his breast. He fell senseless with the first stroke; the impotent revenge of his enemies inflicted a thousand wounds; and the senator's body was His death, abandoned to the dogs, to the Jews, and to the flames. Posterity Sept. (Oct.) Will compare the virtues and the failings of this extraordinary man; but in a long period of anarchy and servitude the name of Rienzi has often been celebrated as the deliverer of his country and the last of the Roman patriots.6 A.D. 1354. 8 63 62 From Matteo Villani and Fortifiocca, the P. du Cerceau (p. 344-394) has extracted the life and death of the Chevalier Montreal, the life of a robber, and the death of an hero. At the head of a free company, the first that desolated Italy, he became rich and formidable; he had money in all the banks, 60,000 ducats in Padua alone. 63 The exile, second government, and death of Rienzi are minutely related by the anonymous Roman who appears neither his friend nor his enemy (1. iii. c. 11-25). Petrarch, who loved the tribune, was indifferent to the fate of the senator. invites and the em Charles IV. January tion, April Day] The first and most generous wish of Petrarch was the restora- Petrarch tion of a free republic; but, after the exile and death of his upbraids plebeian hero, he turned his eyes from the tribune to the king peror of the Romans. The Capitol was yet stained with the blood of A.D. 1855, Rienzi, when Charles the Fourth descended from the Alps to May obtain the Italian and Imperial crowns. In his passage through Milan he received the visit, and repaid the flattery, of the poetlaureat; accepted a medal of Augustus; and promised, without [Coronaa smile, to imitate the founder of the Roman monarchy. A false 5. Easter application of the names and maxims of antiquity was the source of the hopes and disappointments of Petrarch; yet he could not overlook the difference of times and characters: the immeasurable distance between the first Cæsars and a Bohemian prince, who by the favour of the clergy had been elected the titular head of the German aristocracy. Instead of restoring to Rome her glory and her provinces, he had bound himself, by a secret treaty with the pope, to evacuate the city on the day of his coronation; and his shameful retreat was pursued by the reproaches of the patriot bard.64 the popes to fix their at Rome After the loss of liberty and empire, his third and more humble нe solicits wish was to reconcile the shepherd with his flock; to recall the of Avignon Roman bishop to his ancient and peculiar diocese. In the fer- residence vour of youth, with the authority of age, Petrarch addressed his exhortations to five successive popes, and his eloquence was always inspired by the enthusiasm of sentiment and the freedom of language.65 The son of a citizen of Florence invariably preferred the country of his birth to that of his education; and Italy, in his eyes, was the queen and garden of the world. Amidst her domestic factions, she was doubtless superior to France both in art and science, in wealth and politeness; but the difference could scarcely support the epithet of barbarous, which he promiscuously bestows on the countries beyond the Alps. Avignon, the mystic Babylon, the sink of vice and corruption, was the object of his hatred and contempt; but he 64 The hopes and the disappointment of Petrarch are agreeably described in his own words by the French biographer (Mémoires, tom. iii. p. 575-413); but the deep though secret wound was the coronation or Zanubi, the poet-laureat, by Charles IV. 65 See, in his accurate and amusing biographer, the application of Petrarch and Rome to Benedict XII. in the year 1334 (Mémoires, tom. i. p. 261-265), to Clement VI. in 1342 (tom. ii. p. 45-47), and to Urban V. in 1366 (tom. iii. p. 677-691); his praise (p. 711-715) and excuse (p. 771) of the last of these pontiffs. His angry controversy on the respective merits of France and Italy may be found (Opp. p. 1068-1085). 66 forgets that her scandalous vices were not the growth of the soil, and that in every residence they would adhere to the power and luxury of the papal court. He confesses that the successor of St. Peter is the bishop of the universal church; yet it was not on the banks of the Rhône, but of the Tiber, that the apostle had fixed his everlasting throne; and, while every city in the Christian world was blessed with a bishop, the metropolis alone was desolate and forlorn. Since the removal of the Holy See, the sacred buildings of the Lateran and the Vatican, their altars and their saints, were left in a state of poverty and decay; and Rome was often painted under the image of a disconsolate matron, as if the wandering husband could be reclaimed by the homely portrait of the age and infirmities of his weeping spouse." But the cloud which hung over the seven hills would be dispelled by the presence of their lawful sovereign: eternal fame, the prosperity of Rome, and the peace of Italy would be the recompense of the pope who should dare to embrace this generous resolution. Of the five whom Petrarch exhorted, the three first, John the Twenty-second, Benedict the Twelfth, and Clement the Sixth, were importuned or amused by the boldness of the orator; but the memorable change which had been attempted by Urban the Fifth was finally accomplished by Gregory the Eleventh. The execution of their design was opposed by weighty and almost insuperable obstacles. A king of France, who has deserved the epithet of Wise, was unwilling to release them from a local dependence: the cardinals, for the most part his subjects, were attached to the language, manners, and climate of Avignon; to their stately palaces; above all, to the wines of Return of Burgundy." In their eyes, Italy was foreign or hostile; and A.D. 1367, they reluctantly embarked at Marseilles, as if they had been A.D. 1370, sold or banished into the land of the Saracens. Urban the Fifth resided three years in the Vatican with safety and honour; his sanctity was protected by a guard of two thousand horse; and the king of Cyprus, the queen of Naples, and the emperors Urban V. October 16 April 17 66 Squalida sed quoniam facies, neglectaque cultu Roma vocor. (Carm. 1. ii. p. 77). He spins this allegory beyond all measure or patience. The epistles to Urban V. in prose are more simple and persuasive (Senilium, l. vii. p. 811-827; 1. ix. epist. i. p. 844-854). 67 [Vinum Bennense, "Beaune ".] turn of A.D. 1377, of the East and West devoutly saluted their common father in the chair of St. Peter. But the joy of Petrarch and the Italians was soon turned into grief and indignation. Some reasons of public or private moment, his own impatience or the prayers of the cardinals, recalled Urban to France; and the approaching election was saved from the tyrannic patriotism of the Romans. The powers of Heaven were interested in their cause: Bridget of Sweden, a saint and pilgrim, disapproved the return, and foretold the death, of Urban the Fifth; the migration of Gregory Final rethe Eleventh was encouraged by St. Catherine of Sienna, the Greg. XI. spouse of Christ and ambassadress of the Florentines; and the Jan. 17 popes themselves, the great masters of human credulity, appear to have listened to these visionary females.68 Yet those celestial admonitions were supported by some arguments of temporal policy. The residence of Avignon had been invaded by a hostile violence at the head of thirty thousand robbers, an hero had extorted ransom and absolution from the vicar of Christ and the sacred college; and the maxim of the French warriors, to spare the people and plunder the church, was a new heresy of the most dangerous import. While the pope was driven from Avignon, he was strenuously invited to Rome. The senate and people acknowledged him as their lawful sovereign, and laid at 68 I have not leisure to expatiate on the legends of St. Bridget or St. Catherine, the last of which might furnish some amusing stories. Their effect on the mind of Gregory XI. is attested by the last solemn words of the dying pope, who admonished the assistants, ut caverent ab hominibus, sive viris, sive mulieribus, sub specie religionis loquentibus visiones sui capitis, quia per tales ipse seductus, &c. (Baluz. Not. ad Vit. Pap. Avenionensium, tom. i. p. 1223). [St. Bridget was the wife of a great Swedish noble, Ulf Gudmarson. Her life by Bartholdus de Roma is published in the Acta Sanctorum, 8th October, iv. p. 495 sqq. Her revelations have been frequently edited, most recently (Revel. Selecta) by A. Heuser, 1851. There is also an English translation: " Certayne revelacyons of St. Brigitte," by Th. Godfrey (London, no date). The most important monograph is by a Swede, F. Hammerich, and has been done into German by A. Michelsen: St. Brigitta die nördische Prophetin und Ordensstifterin, 1872. There is also a Danish monograph by A. Brinkmann (1893); and a French by the Comtesse de Flavigny : Sainte Brigitte de Suede, 1892.-There is an immense literature on Catherine of Siena. Chavin de Malan's Histoire de Sainte Catherine de Sienne, 2 vols., 1846, and Augusta T. Drane's History of St. Catherine of Siena with her companions (with a translation of her treatise on Consummate Perfection), 2 vols., 1887 (3rd ed., 1899), may be mentioned. The letters of the saint have been edited by N. Tommaseo in 4 vols., 1860.] 69 This predatory expedition is related by Froissart (Chronique, tom. i. p. 230), and in the life of du Guesclin (Collection Générale des Mémoires Historiques, tom. iv. c. 16, p. 107-113). As early as the year 1361, the court of Avignon had been molested by similar freebooters, who afterwards passed the Alps (Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 563-569). |
