[11] Given below, pp. [348] sqq
[12] The chief source for the life of Rienzo is the Vita di Cola di Rienzo by an unknown author (apud Muratori's Antiquitates, and in a modern edition, Florence, 1854). Gregorovius gives a charming account of Cola in the sixth volume of his Geschichte der Stadt Rom.
Petrarch's letters to Rienzo do not simply show an absorbing interest in the attempt of a national leader to restore the ancient prestige of Rome and to establish the unity of Italy; they seem to prove that there was a fundamental congruity, a spiritual affinity—Wahlverwandtschaft[1]—between the two men, which would have made them firm friends had they been brought together. One,[2] at least, of the eight letters of Petrarch to Rienzo which have been preserved is strikingly free from constraint, and would lead us to believe that the poet, on his part, was anxious that their relations should be those of cordial familiarity. The letter which follows gives us some notion of the widespread interest aroused by the Tribune's first acts.
To Cola di Rienzo, Tribune of the Roman People.[3]
I shall continue to write to you every day, not from any hope of a reply,—for, in view of your heavy and varied cares, I must admit that while I long for an answer I can hardly expect one,—but rather that you may be the first to learn what goes on in my mind respecting you, and especially that I may in this way assure you of my deep concern for your welfare. I clearly perceive, in the first place, that you are set on a high pinnacle, exposed to the gaze, the judgment, and the comments not only of the Italians but of the whole human race; not only of those who are now alive but of those who shall be born in all the centuries to come. I realise, too, that you have assumed a heavy but a splendid and honourable responsibility, and undertaken a task at once glorious and unique. Never will our own generation, never will posterity, as I believe, cease to think of you. The speech of other men is as idle and discordant as their fleeting whims, but your purpose, no whit less firm than the Capitoline rock upon which you dwell, is one not to be shaken by every breath.
I know not whether you are aware of one thing, or, if so, whether you have given it any thought. You must not imagine that your letters which have hitherto reached us have remained in the hands of those to whom they were addressed. They are promptly copied by everybody with such eagerness, and circulated about the papal corridors with such interest that one would suppose that they came from a celestial being, or a dweller at the antipodes, rather than from one of our own race. At the rumour of a letter from you the whole populace gathers. Never was an utterance of the Delphic Apollo interpreted in so many senses as your words. I cannot but extol your circumspection in maintaining a tone at once so temperate and so free from offence, and I pray most fervently that you will henceforth take greater and greater precautions in this respect. Your words reflect the noble spirit of the writer and the majesty of the Roman people, without derogating in any way from the reverence and honour due to the Roman pontiff. It beseems your wisdom and eloquence to be able so to associate things which appear, but are not in reality, contradictory, that each is given its due weight.[4] I have noted how astonished some have been that the conflict in your letters between modesty and assurance resulted in so equal a contest and so doubtful a victory, for neither cowardly fear nor swelling pride showed themselves in the arena. Men hesitate, I observe, whether to admire most your deeds or your words, since all admit that for your devotion to liberty they may well declare you a Brutus, and for your eloquence, a Cicero,—whom Catullus of Verona calls "most fluent."
Continue, then, as you have begun. Write not only as if everyone were to see your letters, but as if they were to be sent forth from all our shores, and transmitted to every land. You have laid the firmest of foundations, in peace, truth, justice, and liberty; build upon these; for what you raise thereon shall be established, and he who runs upon them shall be dashed to pieces. He who opposes truth shall prove himself a liar; he who opposes peace, a turbulent spirit; he who opposes justice is himself unjust, and he who opposes liberty, arrogant and shameless.
I approve of your custom of keeping copies of all the letters which you send to various parts of the globe, for these copies are useful in determining what you should say by what you have already said, and they enable you, when it is necessary, to compare the letters of others with your own. That you do this is proved to me by the manner in which you dated your letter. Your magnificent subscription, moreover, "in the first year of the Republic's freedom," smacks of the intent to begin our annals anew. The expression delights and comforts me. And since you are wholly engaged in action, and until you discover a genius equal to the affair, I tender you, unless God ...,[5] my little skill and this pen of mine, as Livy says, to uphold the memory of the people who rule the earth; nor will my Africa disdain to give place a little. Farewell.