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CHAPTER XI.

THE RIENZI REVOLUTION.

In the following year (1347) an event occurred which was destined to change still more violently the course of Petrarch's secluded life. The state of the city of Rome was, as he had seen some years before, deplorable. Abandoned by the Papal Court, neglected by the imperial power, and tyrannised over by the great baronial houses, the people were reduced to the lowest condition of misery; life and property were unprotected; and the great name of the Roman people seemed sunk in ignominy. A sudden flash of democratic energy illuminated this scene of gloom and depression. Cola di Rienzi, who had returned from Avignon, with the office of Papal Notary, succeeded in rousing the people to a momentary greatness. He invoked the memory of their ancestors. He showed them on the monuments and inscriptions of the city a thousand traces of their old fame and power. r.He bade them stand up for the "good estate of Rome." The people followed their new leader with enthusiasm, as in our day they followed the Cicerovacchio of the time. They drove out the nobles; they hanged some of them for their crimes. An attempt was

RIENZI TRIBUNE OF ROME.

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made to re-enter the city by force, in which Stephen Colonna, and three other Colonnas, the sons of Petrarch's old friend and patron, were killed. Rienzi declared himself Tribune of Rome, without however disclaiming the authority of the Pope. Several of the Italian princes of Italy hastened to acknowledge him as the restorer of the Roman State. The new government was said to have established peace and order. But it was a short-lived vision. Within a few months Rienzi's own arrogance and oppression destroyed the ephemeral fabric of his power, and before the close of the year he was a fugitive and a prisoner.

No man was more enthusiastically excited by the temporary success of Rienzi than Francis Petrarch. In his eyes the Tribune was a generous and gifted being— the Messiah of a new Rome. Regardless of the ties which bound him to the Colonnas, though the popular revolution was obviously directed mainly against the aristocratic houses in Rome, and did in fact cost the lives of four members of the Colonna family-regardless of the more questionable authority of the Pope-Petrarch looked only to the greatness and glory of Rome. first act was to address to the Roman people and their illustrious chief a hortatory address, expressed with great learning and eloquence (if they understood his allusions); and he continued to aid Rienzi with constant encouragement and advice. He even started again for Italy to hail the new-born freedom of his Roman fellow-citizens; but on reaching Genoa, he learned that the revolutionary drama had collapsed, and that his dream must end.

His

It would be tedious in this place to dwell on these details, though it has happened to the present and the

last generation to witness similar instances of poetical sympathy in popular movements, followed sometimes by similar disappointments. But Petrarch left one record of the Rienzi revolution which can never die. The ode he addressed to the great liberator is regarded by the Italians as one of the finest creations of their national poetry; and they pardon the faithlessness which alienated Petrarch from the Colonnas, and the disappointment which "turned his lyrical strain to a satire" before the ink was dry, in consideration of the great Canzone beginning "Spirto gentil." We shall borrow Macgregor's translation, which is one of the best in our language, though it falls far short of the strength and grace of the original.

TO RIENZI, BESEECHING HIM TO RESTORE TO ROME
HER ANCIENT LIBERTY.

"Spirit heroic! who with fire divine

Kindlest those limbs, awhile which pilgrim hold
On earth a Chieftain, gracious, wise, and bold;
Since, rightly, now the rod of state is thine
Rome and her wandering children to confine,
And yet reclaim her to the old good way:
To thee I speak, for elsewhere not a ray
Of virtue can I find, extinct below,
Nor one who feels of evil deeds the shame.
Why Italy still waits, and what her aim
I know not, callous to her proper woe,
Indolent, aged, slow,

Still will she sleep? Is none to rouse her found?
Oh that my wakening hands were through her tresses wound!

So grievous is the spell, the trance so deep,
Loud though we call, my hope is faint that e'er
She yet will waken from her heavy sleep :

THE CANZONET OF RIENZI.

But not, methinks, without some better end
Was this our Rome intrusted to thy care,
Who surest may revive and best defend.
Fearlessly then upon that reverend head,
'Mid her dishevelled locks, thy fingers spread,
And lift at length the sluggard from the dust:
I, day and night, who her prostration mourn,
For this, in thee, have fixed my certain trust,
That, if her sons yet turn,

And their eyes ever to true honour raise,
The glory is reserved for thy illustrious days!

Her ancient walls, which still with fear and love
The world admires, whene'er it calls to mind
The days of Eld, and turns to look behind;
Her hoar and caverned monuments above
The dust of men, whose fame, until the world
In dissolution sink, can never fail;

Her all, that in one ruin now lies hurled,
Hopes to have healed by thee its every ail.
O faithful Brutus! noble Scipios dead!
To you what triumph, where ye now are blest,
If of our worthy choice the fame have spread:
And how his laurelled crest,

Will old Fabricius rear, with joy elate,

That his own Rome again shall beauteous be and great!

And, if for things of earth its care Heaven show,
The souls who dwell above in joy and peace,
And their mere mortal frames have left below,
Implore thee this long civil strife may cease,
Which kills all confidence, nips every good,
Which bars the way to many a roof, where men
Once holy, hospitable lived, the den

Of fearless rapine now and frequent blood,
Whose doors to virtue only are denied.

While beneath plundered Saints, in outraged fanes
Plots Faction, and Revenge the altar stains;

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And, contrast sad and wide,

The very bells which sweetly wont to fling

Summons to prayer and praise now Battle's tocsin ring!

Pale weeping women, and a friendless crowd
Of tender years, infirm and desolate Age,
Which hates itself and its superfluous days,
With each blest order to religion vowed,
Whom works of love through lives of want engage,
To thee for help their hands and voices raise;
While our poor panic-stricken land displays
The thousand wounds which now so mar her frame,
That e'en from foes compassion they command;
Or more if Christendom thy care may claim,
Lo! God's own house on fire, while not a hand
Moves to subdue the flame:

Heal thou these wounds, this feverish tumult end, And on the holy work Heaven's blessing shall descend! Often against our marble Column high

Wolf, Lion, Bear, proud Eagle and base Snake
Even to their own debasement insult shower;
Lifts against these and theirs her mournful cry
The noble Dame who calls thee here to break
Away the evil weeds which will not flower.
A thousand years and more! and gallant men
There fixed her seat in beauty and in power;
The breed of patriot hearts has failed since then!
And, in their stead, upstart and haughty now,
A race, which ne'er to her in reverence bends,
Her husband, father thou!

Like care from thee and counsel she attends,
As o'er his other works the Sire of all extends.

'Tis seldom e'en that with our fairest schemes
Some adverse fortune will not mix, and mar
With instant ill ambition's noblest dreams;
But thou, once ta'en thy path, so walk that I
May pardon her past faults, great as they are,

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