Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes

“Be it known,” said he, slowly and deliberately, “in virtue of that authority, power, and jurisdiction, which the Roman people, in general parliament, have assigned to us, and which the Sovereign Pontiff hath confirmed, that we, not ungrateful of the gift and grace of the Holy Spirit—whose soldier we now are—nor of the favour of the Roman people, declare, that Rome, capital of the world, and base of the Christian church; and that every City, State, and People of Italy, are henceforth free. By that freedom, and in the same consecrated authority, we proclaim, that the election, jurisdiction, and monarchy of the Roman empire appertain to Rome and Rome’s people, and the whole of Italy. We cite, then, and summon personally, the illustrious princes, Louis Duke of Bavaria, and Charles king of Bohemia, who would style themselves Emperors of Italy, to appear before us, or the other magistrates of Rome, to plead and to prove their claim between this day and the Day of Pentecost. We cite also, and within the same term, the Duke of Saxony, the Prince of Brandenburg, and whosoever else, potentate, prince, or prelate, asserts the right of Elector to the imperial throne—a right that, we find it chronicled from ancient and immemorial time, appertaineth only to the Roman people—and this in vindication of our civil liberties, without derogation of the spiritual power of the Church, the Pontiff, and the Sacred College. Herald, proclaim the citation, at the greater and more formal length, as written and intrusted to your hands, without the Lateran.”

(“Il tutto senza derogare all’ autorita della Chiesa, del Papa e del Sacro Collegio.” So concludes this extraordinary citation, this bold and wonderful assertion of the classic independence of Italy, in the most feudal time of the fourteenth century. The anonymous biographer of Rienzi declares that the Tribune cited also the Pope and the Cardinals to reside in Rome. De Sade powerfully and incontrovertibly refutes this addition to the daring or the extravagance of Rienzi. Gibbon, however, who has rendered the rest of the citation in terms more abrupt and discourteous than he was warranted by any authority, copies  the biographer’s blunder, and sneers at De Sade, as using     arguments “rather of decency than of weight.” Without  wearying the reader with all the arguments of the learned  Abbe, it may be sufficient to give the first two.

1st. All the other contemporaneous historians that have  treated of this event, G. Villani, Hocsemius, the Vatican MSS. and other chroniclers, relating the citation of the Emperor and Electors, say nothing of that of the Pope and Cardinals; and the Pope (Clement VI.), in his subsequent accusations of Rienzi, while very bitter against his citation of the Emperor, is wholly silent on what would have  been to the Pontiff the much greater offence of citing  himself and the Cardinals.)

2. The literal act of this citation, as published formally in the Lateran, is extant in Hocsemius, (whence is borrowed, though not at all its length, the speech in the text of our present tale;) and in this document the Pope and his  Cardinals are not named in the summons.

Gibbon’s whole account of Rienzi is superficial and unfair. To the cold and sneering scepticism, which so often deforms  the gigantic work of that great writer, allowing nothing for that sincere and urgent enthusiasm which, whether of liberty or religion, is the most common parent of daring action, the  great Roman seems but an ambitious and fantastic madman. In Gibbon’s hands what would Cromwell have been? what Vane?  what Hampden? The pedant, Julian, with his dirty person and  pompous affectation, was Gibbon’s ideal of a great man.)

As Rienzi concluded this bold proclamation of the liberties of Italy, the Tuscan ambassadors, and those of some other of the free states, murmured low approbation. The ambassadors of those States that affected the party of the Emperor looked at each other in silent amaze and consternation. The Roman Barons remained with mute lips and downcast eyes; only over the aged face of Stephen Colonna settled a smile, half of scorn, half of exultation. But the great mass of the citizens were caught by words that opened so grand a prospect as the emancipation of all Italy: and their reverence of the Tribune’s power and fortune was almost that due to a supernatural being; so that they did not pause to calculate the means which were to correspond with the boast.

While his eye roved over the crowd, the gorgeous assemblage near him, the devoted throng beyond;—as on his ear boomed the murmur of thousands and ten thousands, in the space without, from before the Palace of Constantine (Palace now his own!) sworn to devote life and fortune to his cause; in the flush of prosperity that yet had known no check; in the zenith of power, as yet unconscious of reverse, the heart of the Tribune swelled proudly: visions of mighty fame and limitless dominion,—fame and dominion, once his beloved Rome’s and by him to be restored, rushed before his intoxicated gaze; and in the delirious and passionate aspirations of the moment, he turned his sword alternately to the three quarters of the then known globe, and said, in an abstracted voice, as a man in a dream, “In the right of the Roman people this too is mine!” (“Questo e mio.”)

Low though the voice, the wild boast was heard by all around as distinctly as if borne to them in thunder. And vain it were to describe the various sensations it excited; the extravagance would have moved the derision of his foes, the grief of his friends, but for the manner of the speaker, which, solemn and commanding, hushed for the moment even reason and hatred themselves in awe; afterwards remembered and repeated, void of the spell they had borrowed from the utterer, the words met the cold condemnation of the well-judging; but at that moment all things seemed possible to the hero of the people. He spoke as one inspired—they trembled and believed; and, as rapt from the spectacle, he stood a moment silent, his arm still extended—his dark dilating eye fixed upon space—his lip parted—his proud head towering and erect above the herd,—his own enthusiasm kindled that of the more humble and distant spectators; and there was a deep murmur begun by one, echoed by the rest, “The Lord is with Italy and Rienzi!”

The Tribune turned, he saw the Pope’s Vicar astonished, bewildered, rising to speak. His sense and foresight returned to him at once, and, resolved to drown the dangerous disavowal of the Papal authority for this hardihood, which was ready to burst from Raimond’s lips, he motioned quickly to the musicians, and the solemn and ringing chant of the sacred ceremony prevented the Bishop of Orvietto all occasion of self-exoneration or reply.

The moment the ceremony was over, Rienzi touched the Bishop, and whispered, “We will explain this to your liking. You feast with us at the Lateran.—Your arm.” Nor did he leave the good Bishop’s arm, nor trust him to other companionship, until to the stormy sound of horn and trumpet, drum and cymbal, and amidst such a concourse as might have hailed, on the same spot, the legendary baptism of Constantine, the Tribune and his nobles entered the great gates of the Lateran, then the Palace of the World.

Thus ended that remarkable ceremony and that proud challenge of the Northern Powers, in behalf of the Italian liberties, which, had it been afterwards successful, would have been deemed a sublime daring; which, unsuccessful, has been construed by the vulgar into a frantic insolence; but which, calmly considering all the circumstances that urged on the Tribune, and all the power that surrounded him, was not, perhaps, altogether so imprudent as it seemed. And, even accepting that imprudence in the extremest sense,—by the more penetrating judge of the higher order of character, it will probably be considered as the magnificent folly of a bold nature, excited at once by position and prosperity, by religious credulities, by patriotic aspirings, by scholastic visions too suddenly transferred from revery to action, beyond that wise and earthward policy which sharpens the weapon ere it casts the gauntlet.

Chapter 4.VII. The Festival

The Festival of that day was far the most sumptuous hitherto known. The hint of Cecco del Vecchio, which so well depicted the character of his fellow-citizens, as yet it exists, though not to such excess, in their love of holyday pomp and gorgeous show, was not lost upon Rienzi. One instance of the universal banqueting (intended, indeed, rather for the people than the higher ranks) may illustrate the more than royal profusion that prevailed. From morn till eve, streams of wine flowed like a fountain from the nostrils of the Horse of the great Equestrian Statue of Constantine. The mighty halls of the Lateran palace, open to all ranks, were prodigally spread; and the games, sports, and buffooneries of the time, were in ample requisition. Apart, the Tribunessa, as Nina was rather unclassically entitled, entertained the dames of Rome; while the Tribune had so effectually silenced or conciliated Raimond, that the good Bishop shared his peculiar table—the only one admitted to that honour. As the eye ranged each saloon and hall—it beheld the space lined with all the nobility and knighthood—the wealth and strength—the learning and the beauty—of the Italian metropolis; mingled with ambassadors and noble strangers, even from beyond the Alps; (The simple and credulous briographer of Rienzi declares his fame to have reached the ears of the Soldan of Babylon.)—envoys not only of the free states that had welcomed the rise of the Tribune, but of the highborn and haughty tyrants who had first derided his arrogance, and now cringed to his power. There, were not only the ambassadors of Florence, of Sienna, of Arezzo (which last subjected its government to the Tribune,) of Todi, of Spoleto, and of countless other lesser towns and states, but of the dark and terrible Visconti, prince of Milan; of Obizzo of Ferrara, and the tyrant rulers of Verona and Bologna; even the proud and sagacious Malatesta, lord of Rimini, whose arm afterwards broke for awhile the power of Montreal, at the head of his Great Company, had deputed his representative in his most honoured noble. John di Vico, the worst and most malignant despot of his day, who had sternly defied the arms of the Tribune, now subdued and humbled, was there in person; and the ambassadors of Hungary and of Naples mingled with those of Bavaria and Bohemia, whose sovereigns that day had been cited to the Roman Judgment Court. The nodding of plumes, the glitter of jewels and cloth of gold, the rustling of silks and jingle of golden spurs, the waving of banners from the roof, the sounds of minstrelsy from the galleries above, all presented a picture of such power and state—a court and chivalry of such show—as the greatest of the feudal kings might have beheld with a sparkling eye and a swelling heart. But at that moment the cause and lord of all that splendour, recovered from his late exhilaration, sat moody and abstracted, remembering with a thoughtful brow the adventure of the past night, and sensible that amongst his gaudiest revellers lurked his intended murtherers. Amidst the swell of the minstrelsy and the pomp of the crowd, he felt that treason scowled beside him; and the image of the skeleton obtruding, as of old, its grim thought of death upon the feast, darkened the ruby of the wine, and chilled the glitter of the scene.

It was while the feast was loudest that Rienzi’s page was seen gliding through the banquet, and whispering several of the nobles; each bowed low, but changed colour as he received the message.

“My Lord Savelli,” said Orsini, himself trembling, “bear yourself more bravely. This must be meant in honour, not revenge. I suppose your summons corresponds with mine.”

“He—he—asks—asks—me to supper at the Capitol; a fri-endly meeting—(pest on his friendship!)—after the noise of the day.”

“The words addressed also to me!” said Orsini, turning to one of the Frangipani.

Those who received the summons soon broke from the feast, and collected in a group, eagerly conferring. Some were for flight, but flight was confession; their number, rank, long and consecrated impunity, reassured them, and they resolved to obey. The old Colonna, the sole innocent Baron of the invited guests, was also the only one who refused the invitation. “Tush!” said he, peevishly; “here is feasting enough for one day! Tell the Tribune that ere he sups I hope to be asleep. Grey hairs cannot encounter all this fever of festivity.”

As Rienzi rose to depart, which he did early, for the banquet took place while yet morning, Raimond, eager to escape and confer with some of his spiritual friends, as to the report he should make to the Pontiff, was beginning his expressions of farewell, when the merciless Tribune said to him gravely—

“My Lord, we want you on urgent business at the Capitol. A prisoner—a trial—perhaps (he added with his portentous and prophetic frown) an execution waits us! Come.”

“Verily, Tribune,” stammered the good Bishop, “this is a strange time for execution!”

“Last night was a time yet more strange.—Come.”

There was something in the way in which the final word was pronounced, that Raimond could not resist. He sighed, muttered, twitched his robes, and followed the Tribune. As he passed through the halls, the company rose on all sides. Rienzi repaid their salutations with smiles and whispers of frank courtesy and winning address. Young as he yet was, and of a handsome and noble presence, that took every advantage from splendid attire, and yet more from an appearance of intellectual command in his brow and eye, which the less cultivated signors of that dark age necessarily wanted—he glittered through the court as one worthy to form, and fitted to preside over, it; and his supposed descent from the Teuton Emperor, which, since his greatness, was universally bruited and believed abroad, seemed undeniably visible to the foreign lords in the majesty of his mien and the easy blandness of his address.

“My Lord Prefect,” said he to a dark and sullen personage in black velvet, the powerful and arrogant John di Vico, prefect of Rome, “we are rejoiced to find so noble a guest at Rome: we must repay the courtesy by surprising you in your own palace ere long;—nor will you, Signor (as he turned to the envoy from Tivoli,) refuse us a shelter amidst your groves and waterfalls ere the vintage be gathered. Methinks Rome, united with sweet Tivoli, grows reconciled to the Muses. Your suit is carried, Master Venoni: the council recognises its justice; but I reserved the news for this holyday—you do not blame me, I trust.” This was whispered, with a half-affectionate frankness, to a worthy citizen, who, finding himself amidst so many of the great, would have shrunk from the notice of the Tribune; but it was the policy of Rienzi to pay an especial and marked attention to those engaged in commercial pursuits. As, after tarrying a moment or two with the merchant, he passed on, the tall person of the old Colonna caught his eye—

“Signor,” said he, with a profound inclination of his head, but with a slight emphasis of tone, “you will not fail us this evening.”

“Tribune—” began the Colonna.

“We receive no excuse,” interrupted the Tribune, hastily, and passed on.

He halted for a few moments before a small group of men plainly attired, who were watching him with intense interest; for they, too, were scholars, and in Rienzi’s rise they saw another evidence of that wonderful and sudden power which intellect had begun to assume over brute force. With these, as if abruptly mingled with congenial spirits, the Tribune relaxed all the gravity of his brow. Happier, perhaps, his living career—more unequivocal his posthumous renown—had his objects as his tastes been theirs!

“Ah, carissime!” said he to one, whose arm he drew within his own,—“and how proceeds thy interpretation of the old marbles?—half unravelled? I rejoice to hear it! Confer with me as of old, I pray thee. Tomorrow—no, nor the day after, but next week—we will have a tranquil evening. Dear poet, your ode transported me to the days of Horace; yet, methinks, we do wrong to reject the vernacular for the Latin. You shake your head? Well, Petrarch thinks with you: his great epic moves with the stride of a giant—so I hear from his friend and envoy,—and here he is. My Laeluis, is that not your name with Petrarch? How shall I express my delight at his comforting, his inspiring letter? Alas! he overrates not my intentions, but my power. Of this hereafter.”

A slight shade darkened the Tribune’s brow at these words: but moving on, a long line of nobles and princes on either side, he regained his self-possession, and the dignity he had dropped with his former equals. Thus he passed through the crowd, and gradually disappeared.

“He bears him bravely,” said one, as the revellers reseated themselves. “Noticed you the ‘we’—the style royal?”

“But it must be owned that he lords it well,” said the ambassador of the Visconti: “less pride would be cringing to his haughty court.”

“Why,” said a professor of Bologna, “why is the Tribune called proud? I see no pride in him.”

“Nor I,” said a wealthy jeweller.

While these, and yet more contradictory, comments followed the exit of the Tribune, he passed into the saloon, where Nina presided; and here his fair person and silver tongue (“Suavis colorataeque sententiae,” according to the description of Petrarch) won him a more general favour with the matrons than he experienced with their lords, and not a little contrasted the formal and nervous compliments of the good Bishop, who served him on such occasions with an excellent foil.

But as soon as these ceremonies were done, and Rienzi mounted his horse, his manner changed at once into a stern and ominous severity.

“Vicar,” said he, abruptly, to the Bishop, “we might well need your presence. Learn that at the Capitol now sits the Council in judgment upon an assassin. Last night, but for Heaven’s mercy, I should have fallen a victim to a hireling’s dagger, Knew you aught of this?”

And he turned so sharply on the Bishop, that the poor canonist nearly dropped from his horse in surprise and terror.

“I,—” said he.

Rienzi smiled—“No, good my Lord Bishop! I see you are of no murtherer’s mould. But to continue:—that I might not appear to act in mine own cause, I ordered the prisoner to be tried in my absence. In his trial (you marked the letter brought me at our banquet?)—”

“Ay, and you changed colour.”

“Well I might: in his trial, I say, he has confessed that nine of the loftiest lords of Rome were his instigators. They sup with me tonight!—Vicar, forwards!”

BOOK V. THE CRISIS

“Questo ha acceso ‘i fuoco e la fiamma laquale non la par     spotegnere.”—“Vita di Cola di Rienzi”, lib. i. cap. 29.

“He has kindled fire and flames which he will not be able to     extinguish.”—“Life of Cola di Rienzi”.

Chapter 5.I. The Judgment of the Tribune

The brief words of the Tribune to Stephen Colonna, though they sharpened the rage of the proud old noble, were such as he did not on reflection deem it prudent to disobey. Accordingly, at the appointed hour, he found himself in one of the halls of the Capitol, with a gallant party of his peers. Rienzi received them with more than his usual graciousness.

They sate down to the splendid board in secret uneasiness and alarm, as they saw that, with the exception of Stephen Colonna, none, save the conspirators, had been invited to the banquet. Rienzi, regardless of their silence and abstraction, was more than usually gay—the old Colonna more than usually sullen.

“We fear we have but ill pleased you, my Lord Colonna, by our summons. Once, methinks, we might more easily provoke you to a smile.”

“Situations are changed, Tribune, since you were my guest.”

“Why, scarcely so. I have risen, but you have not fallen. Ye walk the streets day and night in security and peace; your lives are safe from the robber, and your palaces no longer need bars and battlements to shield you from your fellow-citizens. I have risen, but we all have risen—from barbarous disorder into civilized life! My Lord Gianni Colonna, whom we have made Captain over Campagna, you will not refuse a cup to the Buono Stato;—nor think we mistrust your valour, when we say, that we rejoice Rome hath no enemies to attest your generalship.”

“Methinks,” quoth the old Colonna, bluntly, “we shall have enemies enough from Bohemia and Bavaria, ere the next harvest be green.”

“And, if so,” replied the Tribune, calmly, “foreign foes are better than civil strife.”

“Ay, if we have money in the treasury; which is but little likely, if we have many more such holydays.”

“You are ungracious, my Lord,” said the Tribune; “and, besides, you are more uncomplimentary to Rome than to ourselves. What citizen would not part with gold to buy fame and liberty?”

“I know very few in Rome that would,” answered the Baron. “But tell me, Tribune, you who are a notable casuist, which is the best for a state—that its governor should be over-thrifty or over-lavish?”

“I refer the question to my friend, Luca di Savelli,” replied Rienzi. “He is a grand philosopher, and I wot well could explain a much knottier riddle, which we will presently submit to his acumen.”

The Barons, who had been much embarrassed by the bold speech of the old Colonna, all turned their eyes to Savelli, who answered with more composure than was anticipated.

“The question admits a double reply. He who is born a ruler, and maintains a foreign army, governing by fear, should be penurious. He who is made ruler, who courts the people, and would reign by love, must win their affection by generosity, and dazzle their fancies by pomp. Such, I believe, is the usual maxim in Italy, which is rife in all experience of state wisdom.”

The Barons unanimously applauded the discreet reply of Savelli, excepting only the old Colonna.

“Yet pardon me, Tribune,” said Stephen, “if I depart from the courtier-like decision of our friend, and opine, though with all due respect, that even a friar’s coarse serge, (‘Vestimenta da Bizoco,’ was the phrase used by Colonna; a phrase borrowed from certain heretics (bizocchi) who affected extreme austerity; afterwards the word passed into a proverb.—See the comments of Zerfirino Re, in ‘Vita di Cola di Rienzi’.) the parade of humility, would better become thee, than this gaudy pomp, the parade of pride!” So saying, he touched the large loose sleeve fringed with gold, of the Tribune’s purple robe.

“Hush, father!” said Gianni, Colonna’s son, colouring at the unprovoked rudeness and dangerous candour of the veteran.

“Nay, it matters not,” said the Tribune, with affected indifference, though his lip quivered, and his eye shot fire; and then, after a pause, he resumed with an awful smile—“If the Colonna love the serge of the friar, he may see enough of it ere we part. And now, my Lord Savelli, for my question, which I pray you listen to; it demands all your wit. Is it best for a State’s Ruler to be over-forgiving, or over-just? Take breath to answer: you look faint—you grow pale—you tremble—you cover your face! Traitor and assassin, your conscience betrays you! My Lords, relieve your accomplice, and take up the answer.”

“Nay, if we are discovered,” said the Orsini, rising in despair, “we will not fall unavenged—die, tyrant!”

He rushed to the place where Rienzi stood—for the Tribune also rose,—and made a thrust at his breast with his dagger; the steel pierced the purple robe, yet glanced harmlessly away—and the Tribune regarded the disappointed murtherer with a scornful smile.

“Till yesternight, I never dreamt that under the robe of state I should need the secret corselet,” said he. “My Lords, you have taught me a dark lesson, and I thank ye.”

So saying, he clapped his hands, and suddenly the folding doors at the end of the hall flew open, and discovered the saloon of the Council hung with silk of a blood-red, relieved by rays of white,—the emblem of crime and death. At a long table sate the councillors in their robes; at the bar stood a ruffian form, which the banqueters too well recognised.

“Bid Rodolf of Saxony approach!” said the Tribune.

And led by two guards, the robber entered the hall.

“Wretch, you then betrayed us!” said one of the Frangipani.

“Rodolph of Saxony goes ever to the highest bidder,” returned the miscreant, with a horrid grin. “You gave me gold, and I would have slain your foe; your foe defeated me; he gives me life, and life is a greater boon than gold!”