36 ([return])
[ Strange as it may seem, this festival was not without a precedent. In the year 1327, two barons, a Colonna and an Ursini, the usual balance, were created knights by the Roman people: their bath was of rose-water, their beds were decked with royal magnificence, and they were served at St. Maria of Araceli in the Capitol, by the twenty-eight buoni huomini. They afterwards received from Robert, king of Naples, the sword of chivalry, (Hist. Rom. l. i. c. 2, p. 259.)]
37 ([return])
[ All parties believed in the leprosy and bath of Constantine (Petrarch. Epist. Famil. vi. 2,) and Rienzi justified his own conduct by observing to the court of Avignon, that a vase which had been used by a Pagan could not be profaned by a pious Christian. Yet this crime is specified in the bull of excommunication, (Hocsemius, apud du Cerçeau, p. 189, 190.)]
38 ([return])
[ This verbal summons of Pope Clement VI., which rests on the authority of the Roman historian and a Vatican MS., is disputed by the biographer of Petrarch, (tom. ii. not. p. 70—76), with arguments rather of decency than of weight. The court of Avignon might not choose to agitate this delicate question.]
39 ([return])
[ The summons of the two rival emperors, a monument of freedom and folly, is extant in Hocsemius, (Cerçeau, p. 163—166.)]
40 ([return])
[ It is singular, that the Roman historian should have overlooked this sevenfold coronation, which is sufficiently proved by internal evidence, and the testimony of Hocsemius, and even of Rienzi, (Cercean p. 167—170, 229.)]