RIENZI IN EXILE; HIS RENEWED OPPORTUNITY; HIS DEATH
Cardinal Aribaldo had always been in fear of Cola; he suspected that the pope would change and desire the tribune’s return, and having been wounded on the road he had no hesitation in attributing the deed to the fugitive, who was leading a wandering life full of dangers. Cola travelled in the Abruzzi, and there met with the friars who retained faith in the poverty of Christ; and here Brother Angelo prophesied a great future for him.
Porta Tiburtina, Rome
In the meanwhile Ludwig the Bavarian died (the 11th of October, 1347) and there remained only Charles IV from whom Cola began to expect the fulfilment of his aspirations.[d] Petrarch had written a long letter to the emperor in 1350 inviting him to interest himself in Italy. “Let not solicitude for transalpine affairs, nor the love of your native soil detain you; but whenever you look upon Germany think of Italy. There you were born, here you were nurtured; there you enjoy a kingdom, here both a kingdom and an empire; and as I believe I may, with the consent of all nations and peoples, safely add, while the members of the empire are everywhere, here you will find the head itself.” Shortly after he had received this strange communication from Petrarch, the emperor was confronted with Rienzi himself at Prague. He listened to his proposals and then calmly handed him over to the pope at Avignon. Petrarch writing to Nelli about him in 1352 says: “Cola di Rienzi has recently come, or rather been brought a prisoner to the papal curia. He who was once the tribune of the city of Rome, inspiring terror far and wide, is now the most miserable of men.” Had it not been for Petrarch’s influence with the pope and the complexion of politics at the moment, Rienzi no doubt would have been killed. As it was, he was kept in prison while Clement lived.[a]
[1351-1353 A.D.]
In the meanwhile the people in Rome had given full authority to Giovanni Cerrone (1351), to whom the pope had shown himself favourable, and had appointed him senator and captain. But he fell very soon. The prefect Giovanni da Vico, also under the ban of excommunication, did not wish to submit to him and had re-occupied Viterbo, Toscanella, and other territories of the patrimony, and then Corneto and Orvieto. Cerrone could not subdue him, and with the same want of success he so alienated everybody from him that he had to quit the city, which relapsed into the usual anarchy. On the 6th of December, 1352, Clement VI died, leaving the pontifical seat settled in Avignon, as he had obtained the city from Queen Joanna of Naples for 8,000 florins.
His successor, Etienne d’Albert or Aubert, a Frenchman like his predecessors, took the name of Innocent VI. He was a just, austere, and severe man, a man of science and practical views. He began to reform the curia of Avignon, and sought to find a remedy for the present prostration of the pontificate by reconstructing the ecclesiastical state and dividing it among petty and great vicars, tyrants, and lords.
The condition of the lands of the church has been often touched upon, but it must now be examined more closely. The family of the prefect Da Vico ruled over Viterbo, Orvieto, Toscanella, Corneto, Cività Vecchia, Terni, Vertralla, etc. The lordships of the Malatesta of Rimini extended over Fano, Pesaro, Sinigaglia, Ascoli, Osima, Ancora, etc.; the Montefeltri ruled in Urbino and Cagli, the Varani in Camerino, the Da Montemilone in Tolentino, the Gabrieli in Gubbio, the Trinci in Foligno, the Da Mogliani in Fermo, the Alidosi in Imola, and the Manfredi in Faenza. The dominion of the Ordelaffi embraced Forlì, Forlimpopoli, Cesena, etc.; that of the Da Polentas, Ravenna, Cervia, etc. We omit the minor lordships.
Now Bologna was under the Visconti. Although the Da Varani, Di Camerini, the Alidosi of Imola, and the Estes from time to time renewed their declarations of fidelity and dependence, receiving under the title of vicars the lands they possessed, the tenure was of an uncertain character. Naturally such lordships were not always of the same extent, but they were increased and reduced according to the various political conditions and causes of war.
The man appointed by Innocent VI to undertake the difficult task of raising a state on such insecure and insufficient soil was a Spaniard. Don Gil Albornoz was born at Cuenca of illustrious family. Alfonso XI of Aragon procured him the archbishopric of Toledo; he fought the Moors who had invaded Andalusia and directed the siege of Algeciras; but when Peter the Cruel succeeded to the throne he fled from Spain to Avignon, where Clement VI promoted him to be cardinal (1350). This man, cultured, zealous, and with the habits of a knight and of a resolute character, was the friend and adviser of Innocent VI, who finding in him the man fitted to punish the tyrants, sent him as legate to Italy. He wished him to be accompanied by Cola di Rienzi, whom in accordance with the wish of the Romans he liberated from prison, being persuaded, as the pope said when announcing the liberation to the people of Rome, that if he had done evil, he had also done good (September, 1353). Thus Innocent VI combined the strongest and most courageous cardinal of the century with the man of fancies, the skilled politician, the only person who could excite the feeling of the Romans, and to these two men he entrusted the restoration of pontifical authority in Italy.
So Cola di Rienzi, who was the Roman of authority in 1347, being now persuaded of the real state of affairs, had to lower himself to take part in the party struggle; and as he had made himself a Ghibelline at the court of Charles IV at Prague so far as to boast of being the bastard of Henry VII, so he now adhered to the idea of Guelf in the prison of Avignon. The prison of Avignon had not been too hard for him, for although he had been shut up in a tower he had been given a certain amount of liberty, and he had been able to follow his wish of studying the Bible, and the famous histories of Titus Livius, and several other books.
[1353-1354 A.D.]
In Rome, at the beginning of 1353, Bertoldo Orsini and Stefano Colonna were senators, and amid the turbulent vortex of factions they had succeeded in occupying the lordship after the flight of Cerrone. The two senators were not loved, and before long they were hated by the people, who, harassed with want of provisions, rose up in fury on the 15th of February, 1353. Colonna fled to his palace, but Orsini put on his armour and descended the stairway to mount his horse in view of the people. Then braving the populace he advanced until his strength failed him and he was buried under a storm of stones.
The people then took a second tribune, Francesco Baroncelli, a friend of Cola’s, who governed according to his powers, but not with vigour. He was not recognised by the pope, who had different views on the government of the city. The Baroncelli were descended from a civil family, and he was the orator sent to Florence by Cola to announce his elevation to the tribune at the beginning of his reign.
Albornoz and Cola then left Avignon together to put down the tyrants and reorganise Rome. The cardinal Egidio (Gil), as he was called, was in Lombardy in the summer of 1353. Hordes of Tuscans increased the numbers of Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Germans in his following. He went down to Montefiascone which he made the centre of his doings in Romagna. Cola being in the service of the cardinal in the war was against the prefect Da Vico, who retook Viterbo, and other places in the patrimony, and being reinforced he had turned the anarchy of Rome to his own advantage. The resistance was obstinate and it only terminated after a long struggle on the 5th of June, when the prefect surrendered. Whilst Viterbo was fighting, and the tyrants Bernardo Polenta, lord of Ravenna and Cervia, Galeotto Malatesta of Rimini, Francesco Ordelaffi of Forlì were being expelled from Romagna, the Roman people looked once more for salvation from Cola, forgetting his bad government and the little peace he had procured them.
The feeling for Cola revived from the time he was incarcerated in the Avignon prison; and now that he was near Rome with the legate, it increased still more, although it was not the spontaneous, universal acclamation of 1347. Suspected by the Baroncelli of having communication with the prefect, the public aversion towards him increased, until at the end of 1353 rebellion broke out and the poor tribune was expelled and nearly killed.
The Romans devoted themselves to the legate and assisted him in the siege of Viterbo. The war and the negotiations proceeded prosperously for the church. Roman Tuscany, Umbria, and Sabina gradually gave in, and the way was being cleared for Cola to return to the government of Rome. But he had not the necessary money to provide an army of mercenaries, with which to maintain his dominion. The money he had in Perugia was from the two young brothers Moriale (Monreal). Fra Moriale was a gentleman of Provence by birth. The terrible freebooter from 1345 took part in the majority of the Italian wars, fought with Louis of Hungary in the Neapolitan enterprise, and in the neighbourhood of Rome both for and against the prefect Da Vico. Subsequently tired of serving, he formed (1352) a company of his own of fifteen hundred helmeted men and two thousand foot-soldiers, and marched against Malatesta da Rimini, against whom he had fought in the wars of Naples. The successful enterprises increased the company, into which he introduced regulations like those of a regular standing army independent of every state. Pisa, Siena, Arezzo, Florence, and other cities of Tuscany and Romagna had dearly paid the price of immunity from his terrible devastations.
In the July of 1354 he sent his company under the rightful vicar, Count Lando, to fight for the league against the Visconti. Being a citizen of Perugia, he there amassed the treasures extorted by terror or gained by sacking the populations of all Italy. His brothers Arimbaldo, doctor of law, and Brettone, cavaliere di Narbona, lived there; and they with their brother’s permission gave Cola 4,000 florins to collect some followers and to make other necessary provisions.
Fra Moriale, wiser than the brothers, did not believe in the success of the enterprise. “My reason contradicts it,” said he; but he let the money be given whilst preparing “magnificent things” with his mercenaries.
Cola was made senator of Rome by the legate, and having enlisted sixty companies, with a few Perugian and Tuscan soldiery, he, on the 1st of August, 1354, made a solemn entry into Rome by the Castello gate, under triumphal arches and decorations of gold and silver. The people, joyous and shouting, accompanied him to the Campidoglio, where Cola made an eloquent speech, calling himself senator of Rome in the name of the pope. He formed his government; he made the two brothers of Fra Moriale captains of the militia; he announced his promotion to Florence, and he received the embassies from the neighbouring places. Cola was not the person he was of old to the Roman people, who were shocked at his intemperate way of living. He had become stout, and he consumed his time in eating and drinking. His former courage in restraining the barons had not been forgotten, and he received obedience from them.
An Italian Knight, Fourteenth Century
Stefano Colonna, who had been senator in 1351, shut himself up in Palestrina, the Orsini shut themselves up in Marino, and from these fortified spots they laid waste the territory near Rome. Cola proceeded against Palestrina, as he was in need of the money with which to pay the German mercenaries, but he wished to find means of oppressing Stefano, the “poisonous serpent, the broken reed.” And he tried once more to bring ruin on the house of Colonna, “the cursed house whose pride had brought the city of Rome to poverty, whilst other places lived in wealth.”
So spoke Cola, and with a thousand Roman cavalry and soldiery, with the people of Tivoli and Velletri, and reinforcements from the neighbouring places, he laid siege to the famous Rock of the Colonnas. But the siege had not long commenced and the raising of the earthworks was not finished before disputes arose between the Velletrani and Tiburtini; but worse than that was the arrival of Fra Moriale—for now that his brothers were with Cola, he was able to come to Rome, from whence he had been formerly banished. He came to defend the rights of his brothers, who could not get the new senator to repay the money lent to him—perhaps, moreover, he was moved by the terrible idea of taking possession of Rome, and sacking it for his mercenaries, and then making it the centre for great power. His fierce soldiers were already saying that “some fine city would be their spoil.” What spoil could be better than Rome!
It seems that the Colonnas, reduced to a desperate condition, treated with Moriale for the fall of the tribune. The latter, suspecting that Moriale was planning his death, returned suddenly to town, and left the siege of Palestrina without arranging for his return to it. In Rome he sent for Moriale, and he appeared before Cola, who took him and had him imprisoned in the Campidoglio, together with his brothers. At first Fra Moriale thought he could purchase his liberty. Being brought forward tied, and examined, he confessed he was the head of the Great Company. Then when sent back to prison, he knew there was no hope for him. In the morning, accompanied by his brothers, he was brought out of prison, and beheaded on the 29th of August, 1354.
The Romans of those days, only judging from the number and the greatness of his enterprises relative to the theatre in which they were enacted, compared him to Cæsar; but Innocent VI, with more reason, likened him to Holofernes and Attila. The destruction of the great terror of Italy was considered a great credit to Cola, as he would have caused as much harm in the future as he had in the past; but it must be remembered that Cola was most anxious to take possession of the riches of the brigand. “It seems,” says Matteo Villani,[f] “that he stained his fame with ingratitude and avarice”; and Fra Moriale himself, at the moment of his death, turned to the people and said, “I die for your poverty and my wealth.”
Muratori[k] gives the following unpleasant word-portrait of Rienzi at this period: “Formerly he was sober, temperate, abstemious; he had now become an inordinate drunkard; he was always eating confectionery and drinking. It was a terrible thing to be forced to see him. They said that in person he was of old quite meagre; he had become enormously fat; he had a belly like a tun; jovial like an Asiatic abbot. He was full of shining flesh (carbuncles?) like a peacock-red, and with a long beard; his face was always changing; his eyes would suddenly kindle like fire; his understanding, too, kindled in fitful flashes like fire.”
After the death of Moriale, Cola pursued the war against the Colonnas with ardour. He entrusted it to Riccardo degli Anibaldi, a doughty warrior. He gave orders from the Campidoglio to his officers, and it seems that he devoted attention and diligence to his soldiers. Cola also once more gave a proof of constancy and ardour. The want of money for the war forced him to increase or to again impose the taxes on wine and salt. The Romans bore it silently until it seemed that he even taxed the common foods. The pope conjured him to govern justly, and confirmed him as senator. But causes of complaint now arose; and it appeared that Cola’s weak nature broke under its own weight. He would first weep, and then laugh; he incurred everybody’s suspicion, and he patronised one and another without rhyme or reason, and would release people for money.
On the 4th of October he notified the legate at Montefiascone of his great danger and that he had received no help. The blow fell suddenly on the morning of the 8th of October. The Colonnas and Savelli were to the fore. The people pressed to the palace crying, “Long live the people! death to the traitor Cola di Rienzi! death to the traitor who has made the tax, death!”
The tribune, unconscious of his danger, made no defence, nor sounded a bell. “I also,” he said, “am with the people; the pontifical confirmation has arrived; I have only to publish it to the council.” He was not afraid until he saw he was abandoned by all, and that the uproar increased. He wished to harangue the people from the window, but it was impossible, for they threw stones and sticks at him, crying still louder, “Death to the traitor!” Confusion filled the palace; he was doubtful of Brettone, the brother of Fra Moriale, who was a prisoner. He vacillated, he put on his helmet and took it off again, uncertain whether to meet death with the dignity of the ancient Romans or to take refuge in flight—he finally decided on the latter course.
The Romans were now firing the doors, when the tribune divested himself of all his arms, laid aside the insignia of dignity, cut off his beard, dyed his face black, and put on the door-keeper’s mantle and enveloped his head with a bed-cover. Thus disguised he descended the stairway to the outside door, and changing his voice, he mingled with the insurgents, himself crying “Down with the traitor!” He was outside the palace when he was recognised by his gold armlets, and conducted to the Place of the Lion in the Campidoglio where the sentences were given. Here he stood for the space of an hour, a wretched spectacle for the people who stood in silence and seemed frightened at what they had done and uncertain whether to pardon or sacrifice him. Cola stood firm and calm awaiting death, and the people seemed in no hurry to bathe their hands in the blood of him whom a few months previously they had accompanied in triumph to the Campidoglio, crowning him with olive leaves, and uttering shouts of joy.
What memories must have filled the mind of the unhappy tribune!
Cecco del Vecchio gave him a blow in the stomach. The sight of blood changed compassion to fury. A notary wounded him with his sword. He was soon covered with wounds. He did not say a word, he did not utter a cry. He was taken to St. Mark’s, and he was tied by the feet to a pillar. His head was mangled and tufts of his hair strewed the way; he was riddled with wounds in every part of his body. There he remained two days, whilst rogues cast stones at him. On the third day Guigurth and Sciarretta Colonna had him taken over to the field of Augustus, where he was burned upon a pile of dry thistles. Such was the end of Cola di Rienzi, who made himself august tribune of Rome, and constituted himself the champion of the Romans.[d] “In the death, as in the life of Rienzi,” says Gibbon,[g] “the hero and the coward were strangely mingled.” Posterity will compare the virtues and 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.