LXX. CHAP. vented by the Cæsars of Germany. In the musical games of antiquity, a prize was bestowed on the victor:9 the belief that Virgil and Horace had been crowned in the Capitol inflamed the emulation of a Latin bard; and the laurel" was endeared to the lover by a verbal resemblance with the name of his mistress. The value of either object was enhanced by the difficulties of the pursuit; and if the virtue or prudence of Laura was inexorable,12 he enjoyed, and might boast of enjoying, the nymph of poetry. His vanity was not of the most delicate kind, since he applauds the success of his own labours; his name was popular; his friends were active; the open or secret opposition of envy and prejudice, was surmounted by the dexterity of patient merit. In the thirtysixth year of his age, he was solicited to accept the object of his wishes: and on the same day, in the solitude of Vaucluse, he received a similar and solemn invitation from the senate of Rome and the university of Paris. The learning. of a theological school, and the ignorance of a lawless city, were alike unqualified to bestow the ideal though immortal wreath which genius may obtain from the free applause of the public and of posterity: but the candidate dismissed this troublesome reflection, and, after some moments of compla cency and suspense, preferred the summons of the metropolis of the world. 9 Isocrates (in Panegyrico, tom. i. p. 116, 117. edit. Battie, Cantab. 1729) claims for his native Athens the glory of first instituting and recommending the αγώνας και τα αλλα μεγίςα μη μόνον ταχές και ρώμης, αλλά και λογων και γιωμες. The example of the Panathenæa was initated at Delphi; but the Olympic games were ignorant of a musical crown, till it was extorted by the vain tyranny of Nero (Sueton. in Nerone, c. 23; Philostrat. apud Casaubon ad locum; Dion Cass us, or Xiphilin, 1. lxiii. p. 1032. 1041. Potter's Greek Antiquities, vol. i. p. 445. 450). 10 The Capitoline games (certamen quinquenale, musicum, equestre, gymnicum), were instituted by Domitian (Sueton. c. 4.) in the year of Christ 86 (Censorin de De Natali, c. 18. p. 100. edit. Havercamp), and were not abolished in the fourth century (Ausonius de Professoribus Burdegal. V). If the crown were given to superior merit, the exclusion of Statius (Capitolia nostra inficiata lyra, Silv. 1. iii. v. 31.) may do honour to the games of the Capitol ; but the Latin poets who lived before Domitian were crowned only in the public opinion. 11 Petrarch and the senators of Rome were ignorant that the laurel was not the Capiteline, but the Delphic, crown (Plin. Hist. Natur. xv. 39. Hist. Critique de la Republique des Lettres, tom. i. p. 150...220). The yictors in the Capitol were crowned with a garland of oak leaves (Martial, Í. iv. epigram 54). 12 The pious grandson of Laura has laboured, and not without success, to vindicate her immaculate chastity against the censures of the grave and the sneers of the profane (tom. ii. notes, p. 76.. 82). 1341, April 8. The ceremony of his coronation's was performed in the CHAP. Capitol, by his friend and patron the supreme magistrate of LXX. the republic. Twelve patrician youths were arrayed in scarHis poetic let; six representatives of the most illustrious families, in coronation at Rome, green robes, with garlands of flowers, accompanied the proA. D. cession; in the midst of the princes and nobles, the senator, count of Anguillara, a kinsman of the Colonna, assumed his throne: and at the voice of an herald Petrarch arose. After discoursing on a text of Virgil, and thrice repeating his vows for the prosperity of Rome, he knelt before the throne and received from the senator a laurel crown, with a more precious declaration, "This is the reward of merit." The people shouted, "Long life to the Capitol and the poet!" A sonnet in praise of Rome was accepted as the effusion of genius and gratitude; and after the whole procession had visited the Vatican, the profane wreath was suspended before the shrine of St. Peter. In the act of diploma 14 which was presented to Petrarch, the title and prerogatives of poetlaureat are revived in the Capitol, after the lapse of thirteen hundred years; and he receives the perpetual privilege of wearing, at his choice, a crown of laurel, ivy, or myrtle, of assuming the poetic habit, and of teaching, disputing, interpreting, and composing in all places whatsoever, and on all subjects of literature. The grant was ratified by the authority of the senate and people; and the character of citizen was the recompense of his affection for the Roman name. They did him honour, but they did him justice. In the familiar society of Cicero and Livy, he had imbibed the ideas of an ancient patriot; and his ardent fancy kindled every idea to a sentiment, and every sentiment to a passion. The aspect of the seven hills and their majestic ruins, confirmed these lively impressions; and he loved a country by whose liberal spirit he had been crowned and adopted. The poverty and debasement of Rome excited the indignation and pity of her grateful son: he dissembled the faults of his fellowcitizens; applauded with partial fondness the last of their 13 The whole process of Petrarch's coronation is accurately described by the abbé de Sade (tom. i. p. 425...435. tom. ii. p. 1...6. notes, p. 1...13.) from his own writings, and the Roman Diary of Ludovico Monaldeschi, without mixing in this authentic narrative the more recent fables of Sannuccio Delbene. 14 The original act is printed among the Pieces Justificatives in the Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 50...53. LXX. CHAP. heroes and matrons; and in the remembrance of the past, in the hope of the future, was pleased to forget the miseries of the present time. Rome was still the lawful mistress of the world: the pope and the emperor, her bishop and general, had abdicated their station by an inglorious retreat to the Rhône and the Danube; but if she could resume her virtue, the republic might again vindicate her liberty and dominion. Amidst the indulgence of enthusiasm and eloquence,'s Petrarch, Italy, and Europe, were astonished by a revolution which realized for a moment his most splendid visions. The rise and fall of the tribune Rienzi will occupy the fol lowing pages:16 the subject is interesting, the materials are rich, and the glance of a patriot-bard 17 will sometimes vivify the copious, but simple, narrative of the Florentine,1o and more especially of the Roman,19 historian. Birth, cha In a quarter of the city which was inhabited only by meracter and chanics and Jews, the marriage of an innkeeper and a washerpatriotic designs of woman produced the future deliverer of Rome.20 From such Rienzi. 15 To find the proofs of his enthusiasm for Rome, I need only request that the reader would open, by chance, either Petrarch, or his French biographer. The latter has described the poet's first visit to Rome (tom. i. p. 323...335). But in the place of much idle rhetoric and morality, Petrarch might have amused the present and future age with an original account of the city and his coronation. 16 It has been treated by the pen of a Jesuit, the P. du Cerceau, whose posthumous work (Conjuration de Nicholas Gabrini, dit de Rienzi Tyran de Rome, en 1347) was published at Paris 1748, in 12mo. I am indebted to him for some facts and documents in John Hocsemius, canon of Liege, a contemporary historian (Fabricius, Bibliot. Lat. med. Avi, tom. iii. p. 273. tom. iv. p. 85). 17 The abbé de Sade, who so freely expatiates on the history of the fourteenth century, might treat, as his proper subject, a revolution in which the heart of Petrarch was so deeply engaged (Memoires, tom. ii. p. 50, 51. 320... 417. notes, p. 70...76. tom. iii. p. 221...243. 366...375). Not an idea or a fact in the writings of Petrarch has probably escaped him. 18 Giovanni Villani, I. xii. c. 89. 104. in Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, tom. xiii. p. 969, 970. 981...983). 19 In his third volume of Italian Antiquities (p. 249...548), Muratori has inserted the Fragmenta Historiæ Romanæ ab Anno 1327 usque ad Annum 1354, in the original dialect of Rome or Naples in the fourteenth century, and a Latin version for the benefit of strangers. It contains the most particular and authentic life of Cola (Nicholas) di Rienzi; which had been printed at Bracciano 1627, in 4to, under the name of Tomaso Fortifiocca, who is only mentioned in this work as having been punished by the tribune for forgery. Human nature is scarcely capable of such sublime or stupid impartiality; but whosoever is the author of these Fragments, he wrote on the spot and at the time, and paints, without design or art, the manners of Rome and the character of the tribune. 20 The first and splendid period of Rienzi, his tribunitian government, is contained in the xviiith chapter of the Fragments (p. 399...479), which, in the new division, forms the iid book of the history in xxxviii smaller chapters or sections. parents Nicholas Rienzi Gabrini could inherit neither dig- CHAP. nity nor fortune; and the gift of a liberal education, which LXX. they painfully bestowed, was the cause of his glory and untimely end. The study of history and eloquence, the writings of Cicero, Seneca, Livy, Cæsar, and Valerius Maximus, elevated above his equals and contemporaries the genius of the young plebeian: he perused with indefatigable diligence the manuscripts and marbles of antiquity; loved to dispense his knowledge in familiar language; and was often provoked to exclaim, "Where are now these Ro"mans? their virtue, their, justice, their power? why was "I not born in those happy times?"21 When the republic addressed to the throne of Avignon an embassy of the three orders, the spirit and eloquence of Rienzi recommended him to a place among the thirteen deputies of the commons. The orator had the honour of haranguing pope Clement the sixth, and the satisfaction of conversing with Petrarch, a congenial mind: but his aspiring hopes were chilled by disgrace and poverty; and the patriot was reduced to a single garment and the charity of the hospital. From this misery he was relieved by the sense of merit or the smile of favour; and the employment of apostolic notary afforded him a daily stipend of five gold florins, a more honourable and extensive connection, and the right of contrasting, both in words and actions, his own integrity with the vices of the state. The eloquence of Rienzi was prompt and persuasive: the multitude is always prone to envy and censure: he was stimulated by the loss of a brother and the impunity of the assassins nor was it possible to excuse or exaggerate the public calamities. The blessings of peace and justice, for which civil society has been instituted, were banished from Rome: the jealous citizens, who might have endured every personal or pecuniary injury, were most deeply wounded in the dis 21 The reader may be pleased with a specimen of the original idiom: Fò da soa juventutine nutricato di latte de eloquentia, bono grammatico, megliore rettuorico, autorista bravo. Deh como et quanto era veloce leitore! moito usava Tito Livio, Seneca, et Tullio, et Balerio Massimo, moito li dilettava le magnificentie di Julio Cesare raccontare. Tutta la die se speculava negl' intagli di marmo lequali iaccio intorno Roma. Non era altri che esso, che sapesse lejere li antichi patafi. Tutte scritture antiche vulgarizzava; quesse fiure di marmo justamente interpretava. Oh come spesso diceva, " Dove succo quelli "buoni Romani? dove ene loro somma justitia? poleramme trovare in tempo "che quessi fiuriano!" LXX. CHAP. honour of their wives and daughters:22 they were equally oppressed by the arrogance of the nobles and the corruption of the magistrates; and the abuse of arms or of laws was the only circumstance that distinguished the lions, from the dogs and serpents, of the Capitol. These allegorical emblems were variously repeated in the pictures which Rienzi exhibited in the streets and churches; and while the spectators gazed with curious wonder, the bold and ready orator unfolded the meaning, applied the satire, inflamed their passions, and announced a distant hope of comfort and deliverance. The privileges of Rome, her eternal sovereignty over her princes and provinces, was the theme of his public and private discourse; and a monument of servitude became in his hands a title and incentive of liberty. The decree of the senate, which granted the most ample prerogatives to the emperor Vespasian, had been inscribed on a copper-plate still extant in the choir of the church of St. John Lateran.23 A numerous assembly of nobles and plebeians was invited to this political lecture, and a convenient theatre was erect-. ed for their reception. The notary appeared, in a magnificent and mysterious habit, explained the inscription by a version and commentary,24 and descanted with eloquence and zeal on the ancient glories of the senate and people, from whom all legal authority was derived. The supine ignorance of the nobles was incapable of discerning the se-rious tendency of such representations: they might sometimes chastise with words and blows the plebeian reformer; but he was often suffered in the Colonna palace to amuse the company with his threats and predictions; and the modern Brutus" was concealed under the mask of folly and 22 Petrarch compares the jealousy of the Romans, with the easy temper of the husbands of Avignon (Memoires, tom. i. p. 330). 23 The fragments of the Lex Regia may be found in the Inscriptions of Gruter, tom. i. p. 242. and at the end of the Tacitus of Ernesti, with some learned notes of the editor, tom. ii. 24 I cannot overlook a stupendous and laughable blunder of Rienzi. The Lex Regia empowers Vespasian to enlarge the Pomarium, a word familiar to every antiquary. It was not so to the tribune; he confounds it with pomarium an orchard, translates lo Jardino de Roma cioene Italia, and is copied by the less excusable ignorance of the Latin translator (p. 406.) and the French historian (p. 33). Even the learning of Muratori has slumbered over the pas sage. 25 Priori (Bruto) tamen similior, juvenis uterque, longe ingenio quam cujus simulationem induerat, ut sub hoc obtentû liberator ille P. R. aperiretur tempore suo.... Ille regibus, hic tyrannis contemptus (Opp. p. 536). |