The first incident in this new reign, so suddenly inaugurated, was a startling one. Stefano Colonna was the father of all the band—he of whom Petrarch speaks with such enthusiasm: "Dio immortale! what majesty in his aspect, what a voice, what a look, what nobility in his air, what vigour of soul and body at that age of his! I seemed to stand before Julius Cæsar or Africanus, if not that he was older than either. Wonderful to say, this man never grows old, while Rome is older and older every day." He was absent from Rome, as has been said, on the occasion of the wonderful overthrow of all previous rule, and establishment of the Buono Stato; but as soon as he heard what had happened, he hastened back, with but few followers, never doubting that he would soon make an end of that mountebank revolution. Early in the following morning he received from Cola a copy of the edict made on the Capitol and an order to leave Rome at once. Stefano took the paper and tore it in a thousand pieces. "If this fool makes me angry," he said, "I will fling him from the windows of the Capitol." When this was reported to Cola, he caused the bell of the Capitol to be sounded a stuormo, and the people rushed from all quarters to the call. Everything went rapidly at this moment of fate, and even the brave Colonna seems to have changed his mind in the twinkling of an eye. The aspect of affairs was so threatening that Stefano took the better part of valour and rode off at once with a single attendant, stopping only at San Lorenzo to eat, and pushing on to Palestrina, which was his chief seat and possession. Cola took instant advantage of this occurrence: with the sanction of the excited people, he sent a similar order to that which Stefano had received, to all the other barons, ordering them to leave the city. Strange to say the order of the popular leader was at once obeyed. Perhaps no one ventured to stand after the head of the Roman chivalry had fled. These gallant cavaliers yielded to the Pazzo, the madman, with whom the head of the Colonnas had expected to make such short work, without striking a blow, in a panic sudden and complete. Next day all the bridges were given up and officials of the people set over them. "One was served in one way, another in another—these were banished and those had their heads cut off without mercy. The wicked were all judged cruelly." Afterwards another Parlamento was held on the Capitol, and all that had been done approved and confirmed—and the people with one voice declared Cola, and with him the Pope's Vicar, who had a share in all these wonderful proceedings, Tribunes of the People and Liberators.
There would seem after this alarmed dispersion of the nobles to have been some attempt on their part to regain the upper hand, which failed as they could not agree among themselves: upon which they received another call from Cola to appear in the Capitol and swear to uphold the Buono Stato. One by one the alarmed nobles came in. The first was Stefanello Colonna, the son of the old man, the first of his children after the two ecclesiastics, and heir of his influence and lands. Then came Ranello degli Orsini, then Janni Colonna, he who had invited Cola to dinner and laughed loud and long with his comrades over the buffoonery of the orator. What Cola said was no longer a merry jest. Then came Giordano of the same name, then Messer Stefano himself, the fine old man, the magnanimous—bewildered by his own unexpected submission yet perhaps touched with some sense of the justice there was in it, swearing upon the Evangels to be faithful to the Commune, and to busy himself with his own share of the work: how to clear the roads, and turn away the robbers, to protect the orphans and the poor. The nobles gazed around them at the gathering crowd; they were daunted by all they saw, and one by one they took the oaths. One of the last was Francesco Savelli, who was the proper lord of Cola di Rienzo, his master—yet took the oath of allegiance to him, his own retainer. It was such a wonder as had never been seen. But everything was wonderful—the determination of the people, the Pope's Vicar by the side of that mad Tribune, the authority in Cola's eyes, and in his eloquent voice.
There must, however, have been a strong sense of the theatrical in the man. As he had at first appealed to the people by visible allegories, by pictures and similitudes, he kept up their interest now by continual spectacles. He studied his dress, as we have already seen, on all occasions, always aiming at something which would strike the eye. His robe of office was "of a fiery colour as if it had been scarlet." "His face and his aspect were terrible." He showed mercy to no criminal, but exercised freely his privilege of life and death without respect of persons. A monk of San Anastasio, who was a person of infamous conduct, was beheaded like any other offender; and a still greater, Martino di Porto, head of one of the great houses, met the same fate. Sometimes, his biographers allow, Cola was cruel. He would seem to have been a man of nervous courage "not without fear"; very keenly alive to the risk he was running and not incapable, as was afterwards proved, of a sudden panic, as quickly roused as his flash of excessive valour. In one mood he was pushed by the passion of the absolute to rash proceedings, sudden vengeance, which suited well enough with the instincts of his followers; in another his courage was apt to sink and his composure to fail at the first frown of fortune. The beginning of his career is like that of a man inspired—what he determined on was carried out as if by magic. He seemed to have only to ordain and it was accomplished. Within a very short time the courts of law, the markets, the public life in Rome were all transformed. The barons, unwilling as they were, must have done their appointed work, for the roads all at once became safe, and the disused processes of lawful life were resumed. "The woods rejoiced, for there were no longer robbers in them. The oxen began to plough. The pilgrims began again to make their circuits to the Sanctuaries, the merchants to come and go, to pursue their business. Fear and terror fell on the tyrants, and all good people, as freed from bondage, were full of joy." The bravos, the highwaymen, all the ill-doers who had kept the city and its environs in terror fled in their turn, finding no protectors, nor any shelter that could save them from the prompt and ready sword of justice. Refinements even of theoretical benevolence were in Cola's courts of law. There were Peacemakers to hear the pleas of men injured by their neighbours and bring them, if possible, into accord. Here is one very curious scene: the law of compensations, by which an injury done should be repaid in kind, being in full force.
"It happened that one man had blinded the eye of another; the prosecutors came and their case was tried on the steps of the Capitol. The culprit was kneeling there, weeping, and praying God to forgive him when the injured person came forward. The malefactor then raised his face that his eye might be blinded, if so it was ordained. But the other was moved with pity, and would not touch his eye, but forgave him the injury."
No doubt the ancient doctrine of an eye for an eye, has in all times been thus tempered with mercy.
It would appear that Cola now lived in the Capitol as his palace; and he gradually began to surround himself with all the insignia of rank. This was part of his plan from the beginning, for, as has been said, he lost no opportunity of an effective appearance, either from a natural inclination that way, or from a wise appreciation of the tastes of the crowd, which he had such perfect acquaintance with. But there was nothing histrionic in the immediate results of his new reign. That he should have styled himself in all his public documents, letters and laws, "Nicholas, severe and clement, Tribune of peace, freedom, and justice, illustrious Liberator of the holy Roman Republic," may have too much resembled the braggadocio which is so displeasing to our colder temperaments; but Cola was no Englishman, neither was he of the nineteenth century: and there was something large and harmonious, a swing of words such as the Italian loves, a combination of the Brutus and the Christian, in the conjunction of these qualities which recommends itself to the imaginative ear. But however his scarlet robes and his inflated self-description may be objected to, nothing could mar the greatness of the moral revolution he effected in a city restored to peace and all the innocent habits of life, and a country tranquillised and made safe, where men came and went unmolested. Six years before, as we have noted, Petrarch, the hero of the moment, was stopped by robbers just outside the walls of Rome, and had to fly back to the city to get an armed escort before he could pursue his way. "The shepherd armed," he says, "watches his sheep, afraid of robbers more than of wolves; the ploughman wears a shirt of mail and goads his oxen with a lance. There is no safety, no peace, no humanity among the inhabitants, but only war, hate, and the work of devils."
Such was the condition of affairs when Cola came to power. In a month or two after that sudden overturn his messengers, unarmed, clothed, some say, in white with the scarcella at their girdle embroidered with the arms of Rome, and bearing for all defence a white wand, travelled freely by all the roads from Rome, unmolested, received everywhere with joy. "I have carried this wand," says one of them, "over all the country and through the forests. Thousands have knelt before it and kissed it with tears of joy for the safety of the roads and the banishment of the robbers." The effect is still as picturesque as eye of artist could desire; the white figures with their wands of peace traversing everywhere those long levels of the Campagna, where every knot of brushwood, all the coverts of the macchia and every fortification by the way, had swarmed with robber bands—unharmed, unafraid, like angels of safety in the perturbed country. But it was none the less real, an immense and extraordinary revolution. The Buono Stato was proclaimed on the day of Pentecost, Whit Sunday, May 20th, 1347: and in the month of June following, Cola was able to inform the world—that is to say, all Italy and the Pope and the Emperor—that the roads were safe and everything going well. Clement VI. received this report at Avignon and replied to it, giving his sanction to what had been done, "seeing that the new constitution had been established without violence or bloodshed," and confirming the authority of Cola and of his bishop and co-tribune, in letters dated the 27th of June.
Nor was the change within the city less great. The dues levied by their previous holders on every bridge, on all merchandise and every passer-by, were either turned into a modest octroi, or abolished altogether; every man's goods were safe in his house; the women were free to go about their various occupations, the wife safe in the solitude of her home, in her husband's absence at his work, the girls at their sewing—in itself a revolution past counting. Rome began to breathe again and realise that her evil times were over, and that the Buono Stato meant comfort as well as justice. The new Tribune made glorious sights, too, for all bystanders in these June days. He rode to Church, for example, in state on the feast of Santo Janni di Jugnio, St. John the Baptist, the great Midsummer festa, a splendid sight to behold.
"The first to come was a militia of armed men on horseback, well dressed and adorned, to make way before the Præfect. Then followed the officials, judges, notaries, peacemakers, syndics, and others; followed by the four marshals with their mounted escort. Then came Janni d'Allo carrying the cup of silver gilt in which was the offering, after the fashion of the Senators: who was followed by more soldiers on horseback and the trumpeters, sounding their silver trumpets, the silver mouths making an honest and magnificent sound. Then came the public criers. All these passed in silence. After came one man alone, bearing a naked sword in sign of justice. Baccio, the son of Jubileo, was he. Then followed a man scattering money on each side all along the way, according to the custom of the Emperors: Liello Magliari was his name—he was accompanied by two persons carrying a sack of money. After this came the Tribune, alone. He rode on a great charger, dressed in silk, that is velvet, half green and half yellow, furred with minever. In his right hand he carried a wand of steel, polished and shining, surmounted by an apple of silver gilt, and above the apple a cross of gold in which was a fragment of the Holy Cross. On one side of this were letters in enamel, 'Deus,' and on the other 'Spiritus Sanctus.' Immediately after him came Cecco di Alasso, carrying a banner after the mode of kings. The standard was white with a sun of gold set round with silver stars on a field of blue: and it was surmounted by a white dove, bearing in its beak a crown of olive. On the right and left came fifty vassals of Vetorchiano on foot with clubs in their hands, like bears clothed and armed. Then followed a crowd of people unarmed, the rich and the powerful, counsellors, and many honest people. With such triumph and glory came he to the bridge of San Pietro, where every one saluted, the gates were thrown wide, and the road left spacious and free. When he had reached the steps of San Pietro all the clergy came forth to meet him in their vestments and ornaments. With white robes, with crosses and with great order, they came chanting Veni Creator Spiritus, and so received him with much joy."
This is how Cola rode from the Capitol to St. Peter's, traversing almost the whole of the existing city: his offering borne before him after the manner of the Senators: money scattered among the people after the manner of the Emperors: his banner carried as before kings: united every great rank in one. Panem et circenses were all the old Roman populace had cared for. He gave them peace and safety and beautiful processions and allegories to their hearts' content. There were not signs wanting for those who divined them afterwards, that with all this triumph and glory the Tribune began a little to lose his self-restraint. He began to make feasts and great entertainments at the Capitol. The palaces of the forfeited nobles were emptied of their beautiful tapestries, and hangings, and furniture, to make the long disused rooms there splendid; and the nobles were fined a hundred florins each for repairs to this half-royal, half-ruinous abode, making it glorious once more.
But in the meantime everything went well. One of the Colonnas, Pietro of Agapito[6]—who ought to have been Senator for the year—was taken and sent to prison, whether for that offence merely or some other we are not told; while the rest of the house, with old Stefano at their head, kept a stormy quiet at Palestrina, saying nothing as yet. Answers to Cola's letters came from all the states around, in congratulation and friendship, the Pope himself, as we have seen, at the head of all. "All Italy was roused," says Petrarch. "The terror of the Roman name extended even to countries far away. I was then in France and I know what was expressed in the words and on the faces of the most important personages there. Now that the needle has ceased to prick, they may deny it; but then all were full of alarm, so great still was the name of Rome. No one could tell how soon a movement so remarkable, taking place in the first city of the world, might penetrate into other places." The Soldan of Babylon himself, that great potentate, hearing that a man of great justice had arisen in Rome, called aloud upon Mahomet and Saint Elimason (whoever that might be) to help Jerusalem, meaning Saracinia, our chronicler tells us. Thus the sensation produced by Cola's revolution ran through the world: and if after a while his mind lost something of its balance, it is scarcely to be wondered at when we read the long and flattering letters, some of which have been preserved, which Petrarch talks of writing to him "every day": and in which he is proclaimed greater than Romulus, whose city was small and surrounded with stakes only, while that of Cola was great and defended by invincible walls: and than Brutus who withstood one tyrant only, while Cola overthrew many: and than Camillus, who repaired ruins still smoking and recent, while Cola restored those which were ancient and inveterate almost beyond hope. For one wonderful moment both friends and foes seem to have believed that Rome had at one step recovered the empire of the world.
Cola had thus triumphed everywhere by peaceful methods, but he had yet to prove what he could do in arms; and the opportunity soon occurred. The only one of the nobles who had not yielded at least a pretence of submission was Giovanni di Vico, of the family of the Gaetani, who had held the office of Præfect of Rome, and was Lord of Viterbo. Against him the Tribune sent an expedition under one of the Orsini, which defeated and crushed the rebel, who, on hearing that Cola himself was coming to join his forces, gave himself up and was brought into Rome to make his submission: so that in this way also the triumph of the popular leader was complete. All the surrounding castles fell into his hands, Civita Vecchia on one hand and Viterbo on the other; and he employed a captain of one family against the rebels of another with such skill and force that all were kept within control.
Up to the end of July this state of affairs continued unbroken; success on every side, and apparently a new hope for Italy, possibly deliverance for the world. The Tribune seemed safe as any monarch on his seat, and still bore himself with something of the simplicity and steadfastness of his beginning. But this began to modify by degrees. Especially after his easy victory over Giovanni di Vico, he seems to have treated the nobles whom he had crushed under his heel with contemptuous incivility, which is the less wonderful when we see how Petrarch, courtly as he was, speaks of the same class, acknowledging even his beloved Colonnas to be unworthy of the Roman name. The Tribune sat in his chair of state, while the barons were required to stand in his presence, with their arms folded on their breasts and their heads uncovered. His wife, who was beautiful and young, was escorted by a guard of honour wherever she went and attended by the noblest ladies of Rome. The old palace of the Campidoglio was gay with feasts; its dilapidated walls were adorned with the rich hangings taken from the confiscated houses of the potenti. And then the Tribune's poor relations began to be separated from the crowd, to ride about on fine horses and dwell in fine houses. And the sights and spectacles provided for the people, as well as the steps taken by Cola himself to enhance his dignity and to occupy the attention of everybody around, began to assume a fantastic character. An uneasy vainglory, a desire to be always executing some feat or developing some new pretension, a restless strain after the histrionic and dramatic began to show themselves in him—as if he felt that his tenure somehow demanded a continued supply of such amusements for the people, who rushed to gaze and admire whatever he did, and filled the air with vivas: yet began secretly in their hearts, as Lo Popolo always does, to comment upon the extravagance of the Tribune, and the elevation over their heads of Janni the barber, for instance, who now rode about so grandly with a train of attendants, as if, instead of being popolo like themselves, he were one of the potenti whom his nephew Cola had cast down from their seats.
One of the first great acts which denotes this trembling of sound reason in the Tribune's soul was the fantastic ceremony by which he made himself a knight, to the wonder of all Rome. It was not, all the historians tell us, a strange or unheard-of thing that the City should create cavalieri of its own. Florence had done it, and Rome also had done it—in the case of Stefano Colonna and some others very shortly before—but with at least the pretence of an honour conferred by the people on citizens selected by their fellow-citizens. Nothing of the kind was possible with Cola di Rienzi, and no illusion was attempted on the subject. He was supreme in all things, and it pleased him to take this dignity to himself. No doubt there was an ambitious purpose hidden under the external ceremony, which from the outside looked so much like a dramatic interlude to amuse the people, and a satisfaction of vanity on his own part. Both these things no doubt had their share, but they were not all. He made extraordinary preparations for the success and éclat, of what was in reality a coup d'état of the most extraordinary kind. First of all he fortified himself by the verdict of all the learned lawyers in Rome, to whom he submitted the question whether the Roman people had the right to resume into their own hands, and exercise, the authority which had been used by tyrants in the name of the city—a question to which there could be but one answer, by acclamation. These rights had always been claimed as absolute and supreme by whatsoever leaders the people of Rome had permitted to speak for them, or whom, more truly, they had followed like sheep. Twenty years before, as we have seen, they had been by way of conferring the crown of the Empire upon Louis of Bavaria. It was a pretension usually crushed in its birth as even Il Bavaro did by receiving the same crown a second time from his anti-Pope; but it was one which had been obstinately held, especially in the disorderly ranks of Lo Popolo, and by visionaries of all kinds. The Popes had taken that control out of the hands of Rome and claimed it for the Church with such success as we have attempted to trace; but that in one form or another the reigning city of the world had always a right to this supremacy was held by all. In both cases it had been in a great degree a visionary and unreal claim, never practically accepted by the world, and the cause of endless futile struggles to overcome might with (hypothetical) right.
Cola however, as we have seen, had as high a conception of those claims of Rome as Gregory had, or Innocent. He believed that in its own right the old Imperial race—which was as little Imperial by this time, as little assured in descent and as devoid of all royal qualities as any tribe of barbarians—retained still the sway over the world which had been enforced by the Imperial legions under the greatest generals in the world. The enthusiasts for this theory have been able to shut their eyes to all the laws of nature and government, and with the strangest superstition have clung to the ghost of what was real only by stress of superior power and force, when all force had departed out of the hands which were but as painted shadows of the past. It is strange to conceive by what possible reasoning a conflicting host of mediæval barons of the most mixed blood, this from the Rhine, that from the south of Italy, as Petrarch describes on more than one occasion, of no true patrician stock: and the remains of a constantly subject and enslaved people, never of any account except in moments of revolution—could be made to occupy the place in the world which Imperial Rome, the only conqueror, the sole autocrat of the world, had held. The Popes had another and more feasible claim. They were the heads of a spiritual Empire, standing by right of their office between God and the world, with a right (as they believed) to arbitrate and to ordain, as representatives of heaven; a perfectly legitimate right, if allowed by those subject to it, or proved by sufficient evidence. Cola, with a curious twist of intelligence and meaning, attempted to combine both claims. He was the messenger of the Holy Ghost as well as the Tribune of the City. Only by the immediate action of God, as he held, could such a sudden and complete revolution as that which had put the power into his hands have been accomplished: therefore he was appointed by God. But he was also the representative of the people, entrusted by Rome with complete power. The spheres of these two sublime influences were confused. Sometimes he acted as inspired by one, sometimes asserted himself as the impersonation of the other. Knight of the Holy Ghost, he was invested with the white robes of supernatural purity and right—Tribune of Rome, he held the mandate of the people and wielded the power which was its birthright. This was the dazzling, bewildering position and supremacy which he was now to claim before the world.
He had invited all the States of Italy to send deputations of their citizens to Rome, and the invitation had been largely accepted. From Florence, Sienna, Perugia, and many other lesser cities, the representatives of the people came to swell his train. The kings of France and England made answer by letter in tones of amity; from Germany Louis of Bavaria hailed the Tribune in friendly terms, requesting his intercession with the Pope. The Venetians, and "Messer Luchino il granne tyranno de Milano" also sent letters; and ambassadors came from Sicily and from Hungary, both claiming the help of Rome. Everything was joy and triumph in the city. It was the 1st of August—a great festival, the day of the Feriae Augusti—Feragosto, according to the Roman patois—among the populace which no longer knew what that meant; but Cola, who was better instructed, had chosen it because of its significance. He rode to the Lateran in the afternoon in great splendour. It was in the Church's calendar the vigil of San Pietro in Vincoli, the anniversary of the chains of the Apostle, which the Empress Eudoxia had brought with great solemnity to Rome. "All Rome," says the chronicler, "men and women rushed to St. John Lateran, taking places under the portico to see the festa, and crowding the streets to behold this triumph.
"Then came many cavaliers of all nations, barons and people, and Foresi with breastplates of bells, clothed in samite, and with banners; they made great festivity, and there were games and rejoicings, jugglers and buffoons without end. There sounded the trumpets, here the bagpipes, and the cannon was fired. Then, accompanied with music, came the wife of Cola on foot with her mother, and attended by many ladies. Behind the ladies came young men finely dressed, carrying the bridle of a horse gilt and ornamented. There were silver trumpets without number, and you could see the trumpeters blow. Afterwards came a multitude of horsemen, the first of whom were from Perugia and Corneto. Twice they threw off their silver robes.[7] Then came the Tribune with the Pope's Vicar by his side. Before the Tribune was seen one who carried a naked sword, another carried a banner over his head. In his own hand he bore a steel wand. Many and many nobles were with him. He was clothed in a long white robe, worked with gold thread. Between day and night he came out into the Chapel of Pope Benedict to the loggia and spoke to the people, saying, 'You know that this night I am to be made knight. When you come back you shall hear things which will be pleasing to God in heaven and to men on earth.' He spoke in such a way that in so great a multitude there was nothing but gladness, neither horror nor arms. Two men quarrelled and drew their swords, but were soon persuaded to return them to their scabbards.... When all had gone away the clergy celebrated a solemn service, and the Tribune entered into the Baptistery and bathed himself in the shell[8] of the Emperor Constantine which was of precious porphyry. Marvellous is this to say; and much was it talked of among the people. Then he slept upon a venerable bed, lying in that place called San Giovanni in Fonte within the circuit of the columns. There he passed the night, which was a great wonder. The bed and bedding were new, and as the Tribune got up from it some part of it fell to the ground in the silence of the night. In the morning he clothed himself in scarlet; the sword was girt upon him by Messer Vico degli Scotti, and the gold spurs of a knight. All Rome, and every knight among them, had come back to San Giovanni, also all the barons and strangers, to behold Messer Cola di Rienzi as a knight."
The chronicle goes on to tell us after this, how Cola went forth upon the loggia of Pope Benedict's Chapel, while a solemn mass was being performed, and addressed the people.
"And with a great voice he cited, first, 'Messer Papa Chimente' to return to his See in Rome, and afterwards cited the College of the Cardinals. Then he cited the Bavarian. Then he cited the electors of the Empire in Germany saying, 'I would see what right they have to elect,' for it was written that after a certain time had elapsed the election fell to the Romans. When this citation was made, immediately there appeared letters and couriers to carry them, who were sent at once on their way. Then he took the sword and drew it from its scabbard, and waved it to the three quarters of the world saying, 'This is mine; and this is mine; and this is mine.' The Vicar of the Pope was present, who stood like a dumb man and an idiot stupefied by this new thing. He had his notary with him, who protested and said that these things were not done by his consent, and that he had neither any knowledge of them, nor sanction from the Pope. And he prayed the notary to draw out his protest publicly. While the notary made this protest crying out with a loud voice, Messer Cola commanded the trumpets and all the other instruments to play, that the voice of the notary might not be heard, the greater noise swallowing up the lesser."
These were the news which Cola had promised to let the crowd know when they returned—news pleasing to God and to men. But there were no doubt many searchings of heart in the great crowd that filled the square of the Lateran, straining to hear his voice, as he claimed the dominion of the world, and called upon Pope and Emperor to appear before him. No wonder if the Pope's Vicar was "stupefied" and would take no part in these strange proceedings. It was probably the Notary of the Commune and not Cola himself who published the citations, and the authority for them, set forth at length, which were enough to blanch the cheeks of any Vicar of the Pope.
"In the sanctuary, that is the Baptistery, of the holy prince Constantine of glorious memory, we have received the bath of chivalry; under the conduct of the Holy Spirit, whose unworthy servant and soldier we are, and for the glory of the Holy Church our mother, and our lord the Pope, and also for the happiness and advantage of the holy city of Rome, of holy Italy and of all Christendom, we, knight of the Holy Spirit, and as such clothed in white, Nicolas, severe and cleme