ROMAN PRINCELY FAMILIES
To be a patrician of Rome is to possess one of the proudest of titles, and from the senator of the ancient city to the prince of to-day the aristocracy of Rome has been one of its most vital and characteristic institutions.
Though the Roman cardinal as a prince of the Church has always been admitted, whatever his origin, within the pale, the Roman nobility with the rarest exceptions has never swelled its ranks with newcomers owing their tides to acquired wealth or successful public life, but, conservative and exclusive, preserves the traditions of the past and forms a society unlike any other in Europe.
The greater number of the princely families whose names are familiar to every sojourner in Rome date their connection with the city from the fifteenth century and onwards, when the popes ceased to be chosen from among the Romans, and a new aristocracy grew up, the creation of successive pontiffs, who, themselves reigning but not hereditary sovereigns, wished to raise their relatives to a rank second only to their own.
Others trace their descent from some mediæval chieftain, or are feudal in origin, and these alone are indigenous to the city and its surroundings, and their history is indissolubly woven into the records of Rome's past. For many dark centuries, during a barbarous period of bloodshed crime and cruelty, the history of Rome was what her great nobles made it; and they in their turn rose to fame and power or sank into oblivion, leaving no traces or but the scantiest records of their fate. The great mediæval family of Conti, Counts of Segni, whose race gave four popes to Rome, among them the great Innocent III., have disappeared from history, leaving as a magnificent monument to their greatness the huge tower which bears their name.
In the twelfth century, the Sabine Savelli and the Jewish Pierleoni were great and prominent. Streets and piazzas called after them in the region near the crowded little Piazza Montanara testify to their importance. The Savelli dwelt in a castle in the Via di Monserrato. It was afterwards turned into a prison, the Corte Savella, and here for a time the unhappy Beatrice Cenci and her accomplices were confined. Both Savelli and Pierleoni successively occupied a stronghold erected within the ancient walls of the theatre of Marcellus, and a fortified palace which stood against it, now Orsini property. One of the Savelli popes, Honorius IV., built himself a castle on the Aventine, and at one period the whole of the hill was entrenched and fortified, the ancient temple of Libertas on its summit being transformed into a citadel. These immense buildings have crumbled away, and the sole monuments that remain to record the past greatness of this family are the tombs of Pope Honorius, of his father and mother, and of other Savellis in their chapel in the church of Ara Coeli on the Capitol.
The Pierleoni, a rich and prolific race, descendants of a learned Jew convert of the time of Pope Leo IX., filled important posts and made alliances with the great houses of Rome, and in 1130 a member of this Jewish family was elected and reigned several years in the Vatican as the antipope Anacletus—an event unparalleled in history. After the thirteenth century this name also slips out of historical records and is heard of no more.
The ancient consular race of the Frangipani have left to Rome some fine monuments in the church of San Marcello in the Corso, and the name is still borne by a Marquess in Udine, but they are no longer numbered amongst the princely houses. They earned their appellation of bread-breakers from having distributed bread in a great famine, but in the middle ages their name spelt terror rather than benevolence. They were a power not lightly to be reckoned with. Great allies of the papal party, they more than once gave sanctuary to fugitive popes in their strong Turris Cartularia, the ruins of which can still be seen near the church of S. Gregory. In the thirteenth century this tower fell into the hands of the Imperialists, and was utterly destroyed with all the archives which had been stored there for safety. It formed an outpost in a chain of fortifications with which the Frangipani and their allies the Corsi enclosed a large portion of the city. Their main stronghold was built amongst the ruins of the Palatine, with flanking towers on the Colosseum and on the triumphal arches of Constantine, Titus, and Janus. From this dominating position they could take the field or rush upon their foes in the city at the head of hundreds of armed retainers. Another mediæval family, the Anguillara, has been merged in the Orsini, leaving a solitary tower in Trastevere to commemorate a once great and powerful race.
THE COLOSSEUM IN A STORM
But of all the feudal princes of Rome none played so conspicuous a part as the Orsini and Colonna, and this not alone in the history of their own city, for their names were famous throughout Europe for many centuries. These two great families were hereditary enemies and belonged to rival factions. The Colonna were Ghibellines, Imperialists, the Orsini Guelphs, supporters of the papacy, and when they were not fighting in support of their political parties they were engaged in private feuds on their own account. While in other cities of Italy feudal tyranny was gradually giving way before the more enlightened government of independent republics, Rome was too weak to struggle against her oppressors. Deserted and neglected for nearly a century by her lawful sovereigns the popes, at best ruled by a vacillating and disorderly government, the city lay at the mercy of her great barons who scorned all law and authority and asserted and maintained their complete personal independence at the point of the sword, while they swelled the ranks of their retainers with bandits and cut-throats to whom they gave sanctuary in return for military service. Great and prosperous Rome had become a small forsaken town within a desolate waste, surrounded by a girdle of ancient walls far too large for the city it protected. Amphitheatres, mausoleums of Roman Emperors, temples, theatres, were converted into strongholds. Such of the churches as were not fortified were crumbling into ruin, and everywhere bristled loop-holed towers from which the nobles could defy one another, and which commanded the entrances to dark filthy and winding streets. At frequent intervals the despondent apathy of the citizens would be rudely disturbed by a call to arms, and to the sound of hoarse battle-cries, the clashing of weapons upon steel corslet and helmet, and the waving of banners with the rival Ghibelline and Guelph devices of eagle and keys, bands of Orsini and Colonna would rush fighting through the narrow streets and across the waste spaces of the city, would fall back and advance to fight again until, with the darkness, they would retire behind their barred gateways, leaving their dead as so much carrion in the streets.
These two families divided the greater part of Rome between them. The Orsini held the field of Mars and the Vatican district from their fortress in the ruins of the theatre of Pompey and their castle on Monte Giordano. This is now Palazzo Gabrielli, and it retains its portcullis and much of its mediæval appearance. Tor di Nona and Tor Sanguigna were flanking towers to the Orsini stronghold. The Quirinal hill was occupied by the Colonna, their great castle standing almost on the same ground as their present palazzo, and they had an outlying fortress in the mausoleum of Augustus near the river.
Occasionally a truce was patched up between the two families that they might unite against a common enemy, and for a period they agreed that two senators, one from each family, should be appointed to govern Rome in the pope's absence. But these peaceful intervals were short lived. On the slightest provocation, barricades would be run up, new entrenchments dug, and civil war would break out afresh.
Again and again in their conflict with the Church the Colonna were worsted in the struggle, their estates confiscated, and themselves, root and branch, beggared and exiled; but there was a strength and vitality about the race that no adversity could subdue. Pope Boniface VIII., whose displeasure they had incurred, oppressed them for a while. Six Colonna brothers were exiled, and their ancestral town of Palestrina was razed to the ground by the Caetani, Boniface's relatives and adherents, and a plough was driven over the site to typify its permanent devastation. But a few years later the reckless Sciarra Colonna broke into the Pope's castle at Anagni, and made him prisoner with bitter taunts and reproaches. Later, Sciarra played a conspicuous part in the coronation of Lewis the Bavarian, and in gratitude for his services the Emperor allowed the single column of the family coat of arms to be surmounted by a golden crown.
Greatest amongst the six brothers of this period was Stephen, Petrarch's friend, an able man and good soldier who met prosperity and adversity, poverty banishment and danger, throughout a long troubled life, with the same calm resolution and intrepid courage. This Stephen survived the last of his line—his two sons Stephen and Peter with two grandsons being massacred after an unsuccessful skirmish against Rienzo.
After Boniface's death, the Colonna came into their own again and received one hundred thousand gold florins in compensation for their losses, but Palestrina, which was later rebuilt, suffered again the same fate and was torn down by order of Eugenius IV. within one hundred and fifty years.
In the reign of Sixtus IV. Rome was again distracted by faction feuds. The Pope, aided by the ever-ready Orsini, pursued the Colonna with relentless hatred. Protonotary Lorenzo Colonna fell through treachery into the hands of his enemy, and his friend Savelli was captured and murdered on the spot for refusing to rejoice with the captors. Lorenzo was tortured and beheaded, and the Orsini sacked and burnt all the Colonna property in the town.
Other distinguished members of this distinguished family of a later epoch were Vittoria Colonna, the poet-friend of Michael Angelo, and Marc' Antonio, who commanded the papal fleet at Lepanto, and who was given a triumphal entry into Rome after his victory.
Nothing is known of the origin of this famous race though it is believed to have come originally from the banks of the Rhine. It first appears in history in 1104, when the Lords of Colonna and Zagarolo characteristically incurred the displeasure of Pope Paschal II. They also owned part of Tusculum and were probably related to the Counts of that place. Later, Palestrina became their principal stronghold and they possessed Marino, Grotta Ferrata, Genazzano, and Paliano in the Sabines, the last giving them their princely title. The family produced many distinguished churchmen, but only one pope, Martin V. Many daughters of the house took the veil, and in the year 1318 as many as twelve had entered the convent of S. Silvestro in Capite, which had been founded by the cardinal members of the family.
In 1490 a Colonna was appointed for the first time to be constable of the kingdom of Naples, and it was popularly believed in Rome that the Pope excommunicated the King of Naples every vigil of S. Peter (28th June) because he had failed to proffer the tribute of his investiture. The formula ran: "I curse and bless you," and as the curse was uttered the Colonna palace trembled. This palace stands on the slopes of the Quirinal; it is entered from the Piazza dei SS. Apostoli, but the gardens cover the slopes of the hill as far as the Via del Quirinale, bridges connecting palace and gardens crossing the Via della Pilotta at frequent intervals. It was built by Martin V. for his personal use, and contains a fine picture gallery and magnificent suite of state rooms. After nearly eight centuries of life this family is still among the greatest and most distinguished in Rome. One prince of the name is now Syndic of the city, another shares the peaceful office of Prince Assistant at the Pontifical throne with the descendant of his ancient enemies, Filippo Orsini.
ARCH OF TITUS FROM THE ARCH OF CONSTANTINE
The arch which records the plenitude and the arch which records the decadence of Roman power. See [page 162, interleaf], pages [38], [234], and pictures [12] and [66].
The career of the Orsini race has been no less eventful, but this family has now died out in many of its branches. In a metrical account of the coronation of Boniface VIII., written by Cardinal St. George and quoted by Gibbon, the Orsini are said to come from Spoleto. Other writers believe them to have been of French origin, but at an early date they became identified with the history of Rome, and in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries two members of the family became popes, Celestin III. in 1191, and Nicholas III. in 1277. The last Orsini pope was the Benedictine monk Benedict XIII. (1724).
In the sixteenth century the Orsini fell under the Pope's displeasure, the head of the family was banished and his estates were confiscated. This individual, Giordano Orsini Duke of Bracciano, became enamoured of Vittoria Accoramboni, wife of Francesco Peretti, Sixtus V.'s nephew. Vittoria was beautiful fascinating and unscrupulous, and Giordano, no less unscrupulous, did not hesitate to rid himself of the obstacles to his desires. His own wife he strangled in his castle at Bracciano, and Francesco was set upon and murdered in the streets of Rome by his orders and with the connivance of Vittoria and her brother. Orsini and Vittoria were married, but their union was of short duration. Sixtus V. had been meanwhile elected to the papacy, and he lost no time in disgracing and banishing Giordano whose end in exile is shrouded in mystery. Vittoria was shortly afterwards surprised and brutally killed by her husband's relatives for the sake of the Orsini inheritance.
The Orsini estates were at Bracciano, Anguillara, and Galera, but the Bracciano property with the ducal title that went with it now belongs to the Odescalchi. In Rome the Orsini still own and inhabit their great palace near the portico of Octavia. It was designed by Baldassare Peruzzi and was built within the ruins of the theatre of Marcellus, the high ground upon which it stands being merely a heap of fallen débris. It is approached through a gateway flanked by stone bears, the emblem of the Orsini race.
Another mediæval family, the Gaetani or Caetani, Dukes of Sermoneta and Princes of Caserta and Teano, is of Neapolitan origin. One of its members became pope as Gelasius II. in 1118 and the first of the name was military prefect under Manfred, King of Sicily, but the close union of this family with Rome only dates from the reign of the Gaetani pope, Boniface VIII. It was at this period also that the tomb of Cecilia Metella on the Appian Way was disguised with turrets and battlements to serve the Gaetani as an outlying stronghold against their enemies.
Of all the princely names which figure in the records of mediæval Rome, none can claim a more venerable antiquity than the Annibaldi, the Massimo, and the Cenci. The first, of the race of the great Hannibal, are no longer extant. The Massimi, who derive their name from the ancient family of Maximus, are Dukes of Rignano, Princes of Roviano, and heirs to many other titles; they are still amongst the greatest of Rome. The present prince lives in the family palace in the Corso Vittorio Emanuele familiar to every tourist from its curved façade and rows of columns, and still keeps up much of the princely state and ceremony of a past age. The Cenci have become extinct in the male line and the name is carried on by a distant branch as Cenci-Bolognetti.
This family is first heard of in the person of Marcus Cencius, Prefect of Pisa in the year 457 of Rome; and in 914 Johannes Cencius was elected Pope as John X. In 1692 the Cenci were created Princes of Vicovaro, a little mountain town in the Sabines, and in 1723 they acquired the title and estates of Bolognetti by the marriage of Virginius with an heiress of that name. With her came into the family the dower-house, the graceful Palazzo Bolognetti-Cenci still standing in the Piazza Pantaleone. The Bolognetti palace in the Piazza di Venezia was sold to Prince Torlonia, and has just been destroyed to make way for the colossal monument to Victor Emmanuel which is to preside over Rome from the Capitol hill. The old Cenci palace, a few years ago empty and deserted, but now government property, stands in what was once the Jews' quarter of Rome, a forbidding pile eloquent of its owner's tragic history. The family chapel close to it, San Tommaso a' Cenci, dates from 1113 and was built by a Cenci who was Bishop of Sabina at that time.
As these old families, "pure Romans of Rome," have died out, their place has been taken by the aristocracy of papal origin, and though as a rule natives of northern provinces, these newcomers have become Roman in sympathies and have inherited the privileges and traditions of the Roman patrician. Not only did each new pope bring his own relatives to Rome in his train and grant them titles, but he also gathered round him followers from his own province among whom he distributed the great papal offices. Sometimes the period of greatness thus bestowed was short-lived, in other cases a permanent aristocracy was created and the papal offices became hereditary. Thus the Ruspoli from father to son are Masters of the Sacred Hospice; the Colonna are Assistant Princes; the Serlupi are Marshals of the Pope's Horse; the Sforza have the hereditary right to appoint the standard-bearer of the Roman people; the Chigi are Marshals of Conclave, replacing the Savelli in this office who had held it for nearly five centuries.
Some of these families were nobles in their own province. The Boncompagni were a noble family of Bologna. Coming to Rome with Gregory XIII. in 1572, they were created Dukes of Sora and later Princes of Piombino and of Venosa.
MEDIÆVAL HOUSE AT TIVOLI
The Ludovisi were nobles of Pisa, the Borghese patricians of Siena. This great family came to Rome with Paul V. in the early seventeenth century, and was granted princely rank with the title of Sulmona. In the middle of the eighteenth century, Marc' Antonio Borghese married a Salviati heiress and at that period was owner of the beautiful Villa Borghese with its museum and priceless collection of statues, of the great palace by the Tiber, of the villas Mondragone and Aldobrandini at Frascati, and of thirty-six estates in the campagna, building and endowing at the same period the rich Borghese chapel in S. Maria Maggiore. At a later date, Camillo Borghese married Pauline Bonaparte and was appointed governor of Piedmont by Napoleon I. Of late years this family has been almost ruined by reckless building speculations, and the greater portion of their magnificent possessions has been sold and alienated. The Aldobrandini and Salviati are both off-shoots from this family.
The Barberini and Corsini are Florentines, and came to Rome with Urban VIII. and Clement XII. The Barberini villa at Castel Gandolfo and the palace in Rome are familiar to all visitors. The grounds of the Corsini villa on the Janiculum have been recently converted into a public drive; the Corsini palace in Trastevere on the river bank is famous for its library and picture galleries. Opposite to it is the Farnesina palace built in the sixteenth century by the rich banker Agostino Chigi. Here it was that he gave a famous banquet and, desiring to make a display of his enormous wealth, bade his lackeys throw the silver dishes into the river at the end of each course under the eyes of his astonished guests who did not guess that nets had been cunningly laid to catch them as they sank.
The Albani kinsmen of Clement XI. came from Urbino; the Rospigliosi from Pistoja with Clement IX.; the Odescalchi from Como with Innocent XI.; the Doria Pamphili from Genoa.
This papal aristocracy occupied a unique position. Relatives of popes, who were at the same time reigning princes, they assumed royal rank and lived with a magnificence and luxury unsurpassed in Europe. In addition to the titles of Roman nobility bestowed upon them with a lavish hand, many of them became grandees of Spain and their names were inscribed in the "golden book" of the Capitol.
They bought country estates and suburban villas and built great palaces in the town. These stately Renaissance buildings, some of them larger than many royal dwellings, are grouped at the base of the Capitol and along the Corso, the most important and at one period the only great street in Rome. The Palazzo di Venezia, the home of the Venetian Paul II., the Altieri, the Grazioli, and the Bonaparte palaces, the latter originally the property of the Rinuccini, stand, a stately group, on the Piazza di Venezia and the Via del Plebiscito. The series is continued along the Piazza dei SS. Apostoli with the Colonna, the Balestra, the Odescalchi, and the Ruffo palaces.
Greatest among those in the Corso is the Palazzo Doria Pamphili. Here also are the Ruspoli, Fiano, Chigi, Sciarra, Salviati, Ferraioli, and Theodoli palaces, and before its demolition to enlarge the Piazza Colonna, the Piombino. The Costaguti in the Piazza Tartaruga, the Antici-Mattei, the Longhi and the Gaetani palaces, the latter in the Via delle Botteghe Oscure, "the street of dark shops," are grouped at the foot of a further slope of the Capitol. More to the west, stand the huge Farnese palace the present seat of the French embassy and the Cancelleria built by Cardinal Riario nephew of Sixtus IV. and still papal property. The Simonetti and Falconieri palaces are built upon the banks of the Tiber close by, and face Via Giulia.
Latest of all the great papal families to settle in Rome were the Braschi, Pius VI.'s kinsmen, and they built a palace in the Piazza Navona. Not far off are the Patrizi and Giustiniani palaces near the French church of San Luigi in the street of the same name. The Giustiniani are Earls of Newburgh in the peerage of Scotland through the marriage in 1757 of the heiress of the title and estates to the Prince Giustiniani of that date.
Great was the opulence and magnificence of the Roman princes. When they issued forth into the city they were attended by mounted grooms with staves while running footmen cleared a way before them. An army of servants waited upon their needs, their stables were filled with horses, and their coaches were wonderful equipages of gilding glass and painting, costing thousands of francs. Powdered flunkeys in silk stockings stood behind on the foot board, three on a prince's coach, two on a cardinal's. One of these men carried an umbrella and a cushion. For if during his drive the prince chanced to meet his Holiness the Pope or a religious procession in which the Host was carried, he would instantly stop his coach, and alighting would kneel upon the ground, the cushion being placed by his servants under his knees and the umbrella held over his bared head to protect it from the sun.
Many of the Roman nobles had private theatres in their houses; they were great collectors of books, bronzes, tapestries, and mosaics, and the Roman private galleries of pictures and statues are unsurpassed. The Borghese alone possessed four Raphaels as well as their famous collection of statues. At the same time they were generous to the city of their adoption. They threw open their beautiful parks and villas to the people, they admitted the public to their galleries museums and libraries, and they endowed hospitals asylums and orphanages. The Roman ladies had always patronised and promoted works of charity. Nevertheless the later custom, which persists to this day, of personally visiting the poor and the hospitals began with Gwendoline Talbot, the daughter of the last Catholic Earl of Shrewsbury, who as the wife of Prince Borghese was the first of the Roman ladies to walk alone at all hours, intent on her errands of mercy. The wit which made her present a gold coin to a man who on one occasion followed her, was the talk of the city. Her name is still a household word in Roman mouths, and her tragic death when only twenty-four years old, leaving four little children, one only of whom, the present Princess Piombino, survived the infection which killed their mother, moved an entire population.
ILEX AVENUE AND FOUNTAIN (Fontana scura), VILLA BORGHESE
Many of the Roman palaces are as big as barracks. The Palazzo Pamphili-Doria can accommodate a thousand persons; but this was none too large for a patriarchal style of living which in a modified form survives to the present day. Much space was taken up by the great libraries, museums, picture galleries and reception and state banqueting halls. A small army of officials were housed within the walls—steward, bailiff, major-domo, secretaries, accountants, all the underlings necessary to the management of great and distant estates. A wing would be set entirely apart for the Prince Cardinal, a cadet of the house; the domestic chaplain would require a set of rooms; he would say the daily mass in the private chapel of the palace but would not dine with the family. The sons of the house would require tutors, the daughters governesses and companions.
The great double gates of every Roman palace which are securely locked and barred at night, lead into a central court. Round it are open colonnades, sometimes in two stories, and in the centre a fountain splashes amidst ferns and palms. A porter presides over the palace gates, magnificent in a cocked hat knee breeches and long coat trimmed with coloured braid into which are worked the heraldic devices of the family. His rod of office is a long staff twisted with cord and crowned with an immense silver knob. This personage is the descendant of the janitor who in ancient Rome watched the house door day and night and whose fidelity was ensured when necessary by chaining him to his post.
A grand staircase leads to the first floor and this, the piano nobile, was and still is occupied in Roman houses by the head of the family whose rule is more or less absolute and tyrannical. The second floor is given up to the eldest son upon his marriage for his own use, and similarly the second son is given the one above, while beneath the roof accommodation is found for an immense retinue of servants and attendants. It is still the custom for the whole family, married sons and their families included, to dine together, and elaborate accounts are kept of the allowances given to each son, of the quota contributed by each to the general expenses, of the dowry of each daughter-in-law, as to whether she is enjoying the number of dishes of meat per meal and the number of horses and carriages stipulated for in her marriage settlement. In the case of an English wife, a carpet used to be among the stipulations.
Though the state coaches, the running footmen, much of the pomp and ceremony have disappeared, some curious relics remain of an order of things fast passing away. Every Roman prince has the right, should he wish it, to be received at the foot of the great staircase of any house he honours with his presence by two lackeys bearing lighted torches; and these should escort him to the threshold of his hostess's reception room. This ceremony is still observed for cardinals on state occasions.
Again every prince has the right to, and in fact still has, a throne room and throne in his palace. This is not for his own use, but for that of the Pope should he elect to pay him a visit. In the hall of a Roman palace a shield emblazoned with the family arms may be seen affixed to the wall. In a prince's house it will be surmounted by a canopy, beside it should stand the historic umbrella and cushion. Four marquesses and these only the marquesses Patrizi, Theodoli, Costaguti and Cavalieri enjoy the princes' right to the canopy above their shield and are hence called the marchesi di baldacchino.
A good deal of natural confusion exists in the mind of the foreigner with regard to the different ranks and the distribution of titles in the Italian peerage. These in fact follow no general rule but depend in each case upon the patent of creation. Princely titles conferred by the Holy Roman Empire affect every member of the family equally; titles conferred by the Pope, on the other hand, are as a rule restricted to the head of the family only. Thus in the Colonna family every member is a prince or princess; amongst the Ruspoli, a papal creation, only the head of the eldest branch is legally a prince. In these latter cases however it is usual to give the eldest son one of the other family titles upon his marriage, and the same with the second son. Such an act is in the father's option, but he is obliged to notify the assumption of the title to the civil authorities. In the same way a certain amount of latitude is allowed him as to the title he uses himself or grants to his sons. Prince Gaetani, for example, prefers to be known by the older title in his family, that of Duke of Sermoneta, bestowing that of Prince di Caserta upon his eldest son. The titles Don and Donna are only correct for the sons and daughters of princes and of the four marchesi di baldacchino, though they are often used for all the children of marquesses.
In the same way, the distribution of the other titles of Marquess, Count or Baron amongst the various members of the family depends upon the terms of the original patent. In some cases every member bears the title, in others the head of the family only. Collaterals of a house often take the style Giovanni dei Principi N—— , or dei Conti N—— as the case might be; "John of the Princes So-and-so," or "of the Counts So-and-so."
The distinction again between the patrician and the noble is one that is not understood by the foreigner. A patrician belongs by ancestral prescriptive right to the governing class of his province. The names of the patricians are balloted annually, and one of the number is chosen as Prior or Governor of the province. He is in fact and history of senatorial rank. Among the districts of Italy some have and some have not a patriciate. Spoleto possesses one, but Todi, next to it, has never had one.
In Rome the patrician families are called "Coscritti" in allusion to the Patres conscripti or senators of the city. Their number was limited and defined by a constitution of Benedict XIV. but later popes have added new names. There are now sixty patrician families.
"HOUSE OF COLA DI RIENZO," BY PONTE ROTTO
The architecture of this supposed dwelling of the last of the Roman Tribunes is a bizarre mixture of styles and epochs. It has been suggested that a series of initial letters which surmount a doggerel inscription are those of the many titles which Rienzo bestowed upon himself. The people know the house as that "of Pontius Pilate."
The nobles, on the other hand, often owed their titles not only to the Pope but to their respective Communes, which, until the one fount of honour was defined to be the sovereign, frequently bestowed titles on their citizens. This privilege was enjoyed by the abbots of Monte Cassino in the thirteenth century. The popes have always conferred titles of nobility, as did the Holy Roman Empire, whose heir in this matter the Pope claims to be. At present an Heraldic Commission is sitting in Rome to regulate the use of titles, many of which have been assumed for generations without any warrant. Henceforth every one will be called upon to prove his right to the title he bears, and it will be illegal for the Communes to describe any one who has not done so with "a handle to his name." Foreign titles, and among them papal titles, will in all cases have to be ratified and allowed by the sovereign of Italy.