Rienzi, the last of the Roman tribunes

I . » I f

V .

> t

RIENZI

The Last: of the Roman Tribunes

BY

EDWARD, BULWER-LYTTON :^tte

(lord lytton)

“Then turn we to her latest Tribune’s name,

From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,

Redeemer of dark centuries of shame.

The friend of Petrarch, — hope of Italy, —

Rienzi, last of Romans! While the tree Of Freedom’s withered trunk puts forth a leaf.

Even for thy tomb a garland let it be ;

The Forum’s champion, and the people’s chief, —

Her new-born Numa thou! ”

Amidst the indulgence of enthusiasm and elegance, Petrarch, Italy, and Europe were astonished by a revolution, which realized for a moment his most splendid visions.

Gibbon, chap. Ixx.

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1893,

By Little, Brown, and Comrany.

University Press :

John Wilson and Son, Ca3ibridge, U S. A.

t t c i < i t c

C i '

i C f » 1 <

C t I ^

Preface To The Edition Of 1835

I BEGAN this tale two years ago at Rome. On removing to Naples, I threw it aside for " The Last Days of Pompeii,” which required, more than “Rienzi,” the advantage of residence within reach of the scenes described. The fate of the Roman Tribune continued, however, to haunt and impress me, and, some time after " Pompeii ” was published, I renewed my earlier undertaking. I regarded the completion of these volumes, indeed, as a kind of duty; for having had occasion to read the original authorities from which modern historians have drawn their accounts of the life of Rienzi, I was led to believe that a very remarkable man had been superficially judged, and a very important period crudely examined.^ And this belief was sufficiently strong to induce me at first to meditate a more serious work upon the life and times of Rienzi.^ Various reasons concurred against this project; and I renounced the biography to commence the fiction. I have still, however, adhered, with a greater fidelity than is customary in romance, to all the leading events of the

1 See Appendix, Nos. I. and II.

2 I have adopted the termination of ** Kienzi instead of “Rienzo,” as being more familiar to the general reader; but the latter is perhaps the more accurate reading, since the name was a popular corruption from Lorenzo.

VI

Preface To The Edition Of 1835

public life of the Roman Tribune ; and the reader will perhaps find in these pages a more full and detailed account of the rise and fall of Rienzi than in any English work of which I am aware. I have, it is true, taken a view of his character different in some respects from that of- Gibbon or Sismondi. But it is a view, in all its main features, which I believe (and think I could prove) myself to be warranted in taking, not less by the facts of history than the laws of fiction. In the mean while, as I have given the facts from which I have drawn my interpretation of the principal agent, the reader has sufficient data for his own judgment. In the picture of the Roman Populace, as in that of the Roman Nobles of the fourteenth century, I follow literally the descriptions left to us: they are not flattering, but they are faithful, likenesses.

Preserving generally the real chronology of Rienzi ’s life, the plot of this work extends over a space of some years, and embraces the variety of characters necessary to a true delineation of events. The story, therefore, cannot have precisely that order of interest found in fictions strictly and genuinely dramatic^ in which (to my judgment at least) the time ought to be as limited as possible, and the characters as few; no new character of importance to the catastrophe being admissible towards the end of the work. If I may use the word “ epic ’’ in its most modest and unassuming acceptation, this fiction, in short, though indulging in dramatic situations, belongs, as a whole, rather to the epic than the dramatic school.

I cannot conclude without rendering the tribute of my praise and homage to the versatile and gifted author of the beautiful Tragedy of Rienzi. Considering that our hero be the same, — considering that we had the

Preface To The Edition Of 1836

Vll same materials from which to choose our several stories, — I trust I shall he found to have little, if at all, trespassed upon ground previously occupied. With ,the single exception of a love-intrigue between a relative of Rienzi and one of the antagonist party, which makes the plot of Miss Mitford’s Tragedy, and is little more than an episode in my Eomance, having slight effect on the conduct and none on the fate of the hero, I am not aware of any resemblance between the two works; and even this coincidence I could easily have removed, had I deemed it the least advisable : huk it would be almost discreditable if I had nothing that resembled a performance possessing so much it were an honor to imitate.

In fact, the prodigal materials of the story — the rich and exuberant complexities of Rienzi^s character, joined to the advantage possessed by the novelist of embracing all that the dramatist must reject ^ — are sufficient to prevent dramatist and novelist from interfering with each other.

London, December 1 , 1835 .

1 Thus the slender space permitted to the dramatist does not allow Miss Mitford to be very faithful to facts, — to distinguish between Rienzi’s earlier and his later period of power, or to detail the true but somewhat intricate causes of his rise, his splendor, and his fall.

• f i n '

i

From the time of its first appearance, “ Kienzi ” has had the good fortune to rank high amongst my most popular works, — though its interest is rather drawn from a faithful narration of historical facts than from the inventions of fancy. And the success of this experiment confirms me in my belief that the true mode of employing history in the service of romance is to study diligently the materials as history; conform to such views of the facts as the author would adopt if he related them in the dry character of historian; and obtain that warmer interest which fiction bestows, by tracing the causes of the facts in the characters and emotions of the personages of the time. The events of his work are thus already shaped to his hand, the characters already created: what remains for him is the inner, not outer, history of man, — the chronicle of the human heart; and it is by this that he introduces a new harmony between character and event, and adds the completer solution of what is actual and true, by those speculations of what is natural and probable, which are out of the province of history, but belong especially to the philosophy of romance. And if it be permitted the tale-teller to come reverently for instruction in his art to the mightiest teacher of all, who, whether in the page or on the scene, would give to airy fancies the

VOL. I. — b

X breath and the form of life, such, we may observe, is the lesson the humblest craftsman in historical romance may glean from the Historical Plays of Shakspeare. Necessarily, Shakspeare consulted history according to the imperfect lights, and from the popular authorities, of his age; and I do not say, therefore, that as an historian we can rely upon Shakspeare as correct. But to that in which he believed he rigidly adhered; nor did he seek, as lesser artists (such as Victor Hugo and his disciples) seek now to turn perforce the historical into the poetical, but, leaving history as he found it, to call forth from its arid prose the flower of the latent poem. Nay, even in the more imaginative plays which he has founded upon novels and legends popular in his time, it is curious and instructive to see how little he has altered the original groundwork, — taking for granted the main materials of the story, and reserving all his matchless resources of wisdom and invention to illustrate from mental analysis the creations whose outline he was content to borrow. He receives, as a literal fact not to be altered, the somewhat incredible assertion of the novelist, that the pure and delicate and high-born Venetian loves the swarthy Moor, and that Borneo, fresh from his “ woes for Bosaline,” becomes suddenly enamored of Juliet: he found the Improbable, and employed his art to make it truthful.

That “ Bienzi ” should have attracted peculiar attention in Italy is of course to be attributed to the choice of the subject rather than to the skill of the author. It has been translated into the Italian language by eminent writers; and the authorities for the new view of Bienzi’s times and character which the author deemed himself warranted to take, have been compared with his text by careful critics and illustrious scholars, in those states

XI in which the work has been permitted to circulate.^ I may say, I trust without unworthy pride, that the result has confirmed the accuracy of delineations which English readers, relying only on the brilliant but disparaging account in Gibbon, deemed too favorable; and has tended to restore the great Tribune to his longforgotten claims to the love and reverence of the Italian land. Nor, if I may trust to the assurances that have reached me from many now engaged in the aim of political regeneration, has the effect of that revival of the honors due to a national hero, leading to the ennobling study of great examples, been wholly without its influence upon the rising generation of Italian youth, and thereby upon those stirring events which have recently drawn the eyes of Europe to the men and the lands beyond the Alps.

In preparing for the press this edition of a work illustrative of the exertions of a Roman, in advance of his time, for the political freedom of his country, and of those struggles between contending principles of which Italy was the most stirring field in the Middle Ages, it is not out of place or season to add a few sober words, whether as a student of the Italian past or as an observer, with some experience of the social elements of Italy as it now exists, upon the state of affairs in that country.

It is nothing new to see the Papal Church in the capacity of a popular reformer, and in contra-position to the despotic potentates of the several states, as well as to the German Emperor, who nominally inherits the sceptre of the Caesars. Such was its common character under its more illustrious pontiffs; and the old Repub- 1 In the Papal States, I believe, it was neither prudently nor effectually proscribed.

Xll lies of Italy grew up under the shadow of the papal throne, harboring ever two factions, — the one for the Emperor, the other for the Pope, — the latter the more naturally allied to Italian independence. On the modern stage we almost see the repetition of many an ancient drama. But the past should teach us to doubt the continuous and steadfast progress of any single line of policy under a principality so constituted as that of the Papal Church, — a principality in which no race can be perpetuated, in which no objects can be permanent; in which the successor is chosen by a select ecclesiastical synod, under a variety of foreign as well as of national influences, in which the chief usually ascends the throne at an age that ill adapts his mind to the idea of human progress and the active direction of mundane afiairs, — a principality in which the peculiar sanctity that wraps the person of the Sovereign exonerates him from the healthful liabilities of a power purely temporal, and directly accountable to Man. A reforming pope is a lucky accident ; and dull indeed must be the brain which believes in the possibility of a long succession of reforming popes, or which can regard as other than precarious and unstable the discordant combination of a constitutional government with an infallible head.

It is as true as it is trite that political freedom is not the growth of a day, — it is not a flower without a stalk, and it must gradually develop itself from amidst the unfolding leaves of kindred institutions.

In one respect the Austrian domination, fairly considered, has been beneficial to the states over which it has been directly exercised, and may be even said to have unconsciously schooled them to the capacity for freedom. In those states the personal rights which

PEEFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848. xiii

depend on impartial and incorrupt administration of the law are infinitely more secure than in most of the courts of Italy. Bribery, which shamefully predominates in the judicature of certain principalities, is as unknown in the juridical courts of Austrian Italy as in England. The Emperor himself is often involved in legal disputes with a subject, and justice is as free and as firm for the humblest suitor as if his antagonist were his equal. Austria, indeed, but holds together the motley and inharmonious menibers of its vast domain on either side the Alps by a general character of paternal mildness and forbearance in all that great circle of good government which lies without the one principle of constitutional liberty. It asks but of its subjects to submit to be well governed, without agitating the question “ how and by what means that government is carried on.” For every man, except the politician, the innovator, Austria is no harsh stepmother. But it is obviously clear that the better in other respects the administration of a state, it does but foster the more the desire for that political security which is only found in constitutional freedom: the reverence paid to personal rights but begets the passion for political; and under a mild despotism are already half matured the germs of a popular constitution. But it is still a grave question whether Italy is ripe for self-government, and whether, were it possible that the Austrian domination could be shaken off, the very passion so excited, the very bloodshed so poured forth, would not ultimately place the larger portion of Italy under auspices less favorable to the sure growth of freedom than those which silently brighten under the sway of the German Csesar.

The two kingdoms, at the opposite extremes of Italy, to which circumstance and nature seem to assign the

XIV main ascendancy, are Naples and Sardinia. Looking fco the former, it is impossible to discover on the face of the earth a country more adapted for commercial prosperity. Nature formed it as the garden of Europe and the mart of the Mediterranean. Its soil and climate could unite the products of the East with those of the Western hemisphere. The rich Island of Sicily should be the great corn granary of the modern nations as it was of the ancient; the figs, the olives, the oranges, of both the Sicilies, under skilful cultivation, should equal the produce of Spain and the Orient, and the harbors of the kingdom (the keys to three quarters of the globe) should be crowded with the sails and busy with the life of commerce. But in the character of its population Naples has been invariably in the rear of Italian progress; it caught but partial inspiration from the free Kepublics, or even the wise Tyrannies, of the Middle Ages; the theatre of frequent revolutions without fruit; and all rational enthusiasm created by that insurrection which has lately bestowed on Naples the boon of a representative system, cannot but be tempered by the conviction that of all the states in Italy, this is the one which least warrants the belief of permanence to political freedom, or of capacity to retain with vigor what may be seized by passion.^

1 If the Electoral Chambers iu the new Neapolitan Constitution give a fair share of members to the Island of Sicily, it will be rich in the inevitable elements of discord, and nothing save a wisdom and moderation which cannot soberly be anticipated, can prevent tlie ultimate separation of the island from the dominion of Naples. Nature has set the ocean between the two countries ; but difference in character, and degree and quality of civilization, national jealousies, historical memories, have trebled the space of the seas that roll between them. More easy to unite under one free Parliament Spain with Flanders, or re-annex to England its old domains of

XV

Far otherwise is it with Sardinia. Many years since, the writer of these pages ventured to predict that the time must come when Sardinia would lead the van of Italian civilization, and take proud place amongst the greater nations of Europe. In the great portion of this population there is visible the new blood of a young race! It is not, as with other Italian states, a worn-out stock; you do not see there a people fallen, proud of the past, and lazy amidst ruins, hut a people rising, practical, industrious, active; there, in a word, is an eager youth to be formed to mature development, not a decrepit age to be restored to bloom and muscle. Progress is the great characteristic of the Sardinian state. Leave it for five years; visit it again, and you behold improvement. When you enter the kingdom and find, by the very skirts of its admirable roads, a raised footpath for the passengers and travellers from town to town, you become suddenly aware that you are in a land where close attention to the humbler classes is within the duties of a government. As you pass on from the more purely Italian part of the population, — from the Genoese country into that of Piedmont, — the difference between a new people and an old, on which I have dwelt, becomes visible in the improved cultivation of the soil, the better habitations of the laborer, the neater aspect of the towns, the greater activity in the thoroughfares. To the extraordinary virtues of the King, as King,

Aquitaine and Normandy, than to unite in one council-chamber truly popular, the passions, interests, and prejudices of Sicily and Naples. Time will show. And now, in May, 1849, Time has already shown the impracticability of the first scheme proposed for cordial union between Naples and Sicily, and has rendered it utterly impossible, by mutual recollections of hatred, bequeathed by a civil war of singular barbarism, that Naples should permanently retain Sicily by any other hold than the brute force of conquest.

XVI

PEEFACE TO THE EDITION OF 184a justice is scarcely done, whether in England or abroad.

^ Certainly, despite his recent concessions, Charles Albert is not and cannot be at heart much of a constitutional reformer; and his strong religious tendencies, which, perhaps unjustly, have procured him in philosophical quarters the character of a bigot, may link him more than his political with the cause of the Father of his Church. But he is nobly and pre-eminently national, careful of the prosperity and jealous of the honor of his own state, while conscientiously desirous of the independence of Italy. His attention to business is indefatigable. Nothing escapes his vigilance. Over all departments of the kingdom is the eye of a man ever anxious to improve. Already the silk manufactures of Sardinia almost rival those of Lyons : in their own departments the tradesmen of Turin exhibit an artistic elegance and elaborate finish, scarcely exceeded in the wares of London and Paris. The King’s internal regulations are admirable; his laws administered with the most impartial justice; his forts and defences are in that order without which, at least on the Continent, no land is safe; his army is the most perfect in Italy. His wise genius extends itself, to the elegant as to the useful arts, — an encouragement that shames England, and even France, is bestowed upon the School for Painters, which has become one of the ornaments of his illustrious reign. The character of the main part of the population, and the geographical position of his country, assist the monarch, and must force on himself or his successors in the career of improvement so signally begun. In the character of the people, the vigor of the Northman ennobles the ardor and fancy of the West. In the position of the country, the public mind is brought into constant communication with the new

PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1848. xvii

ideas in the free lands of Europe. Civilization sets in direct currents towards the streets and marts of Turin. Whatever the result of the present crisis in Italy, no power and no chance which statesmen can predict can preclude Sardinia from ultimately heading all that is best in Italy. The King may improve his present position, or peculiar prejudices, inseparable perhaps from the heritage of absolute monarchy, and which the raw and rude councils of an Electoral Chamber, newly called into life, must often irritate and alarm, may check his own progress towards the master throne of the Ausonian land. But the people themselves, sooner or later, will do the work of the King. And in now looking round Italy for a race worthy of Eienzi, and able to accomplish his proud dreams, I see but one for which the time is ripe or ripening, and I place the hopes of Italy in the men of Piedmont and Sardinia.

London, February 14, 1848.

N. B. In the short time that has elapsed since the above remarks were penned, events have occurred which justify the doubts expressed in these pages, — though by the more sanguine friends of Freedom those doubts were then scouted, — namely, as “ to whether Italy was ripe for self-government,” “whether it were possible that the Austrian domination could be shaken off,” and “ whether any steadfast line of policy, favorable to reform, could be expected from the Papal Church.” Nothing, however, has occurred to weaken my conviction that Piedmont will ultimately become the leading state of Italy. I do not withdraw the praise I have bestowed on the unfortunate Charles Albert ; he has committed some grave errors, and has been betrayed by those who should most zealously have supported him. But he has lost a crown in defence of that national independence, the ardor for which constituted, as I have implied, his predominant characteristic, and has left in the hearts of his countrymen but one sentiment of gratitude and veneration. Honor to the King who falls in defence of his Fatherland ! — May, 1849.

V

. y

P

--rf

♦ .1 • v

Book I

THE TIME. THE PLACE, AND THE MEN.

From his youth he was nourished with the milk of eloquence ; a good grammarian, a better rhetorician, well versed in the writings of authors. . . . Oh, how often would he say, “ Where are those good Romans ? Where is their supreme justice ? Shall I ever behold such times as those in which they flourished? ” He was a handsome man. ... It happened that a brother of his was slain and no retribution was made for his death ; he could not help him ; long did he ponder how to avenge his brother’s blood ; long did he ~ ponder how to direct the ill-guided state of Rome. — Life of Cola di Rienzi.

VOL. L — 1 t

V t

* .

I

I

1 ^ »

s f i

I

-N

I i

■s

•t

I

' t t

- I

I s

*

RIENZI,

THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES.

BOOK I. —CHAPTER I.

The Brothers.

The celebrated name which forms the title to this work will sufficiently apprise the reader that it is in the earlier half of the fourteenth century that my story opens.

It was on a summer evening that two youths might be seen walking beside the banks of the Tiber, not far from that part of its winding course which sweeps by the base of Mount Aventine. The path they had selected was remote and tranquil. It was only at a distance that were seen the scattered and squalid houses that bordered the river, from amidst which rose, dark and frequent, the high roof and enormous towers which marked the fortified mansion of some Roman baron. On one side of the river, behind the cottages of the fishermen, soared Mount Janiculum, dark with massive foliage, from which gleamed at frequent intervals the gray walls of many a castellated palace, and the spires and columns of a hundred churches; on the other side the deserted Aventine rose abrupt and steep, covered

EIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES.

with thick brushwood; while on the height, from concealed but numerous convents, rolled, not unmusically along the quiet landscape and the rippling waves, the sound of the holy hell.

Of the young men introduced in this scene , the elder, who might have somewhat passed his twentieth year, was of a tall and even commanding stature ; and there was that in his presence remarkable and almost noble, despite the homeliness of his garb, which consisted of the long, loose gown and the plain tunic, both of darkgray serge, which distinguished at that time the dress of the humbler scholars who frequented the monasteries for such rude knowledge as then yielded a scanty return for intense toil. His countenance was handsome, and would have been rather gay than thoughtful in its expression, hut for that vague and abstracted dreaminess of eye which so usually denotes a propensity to reverie and contemplation, and betrays that the past or the future is more congenial to the mind than the enjoyment and action of the present hour.

The younger, who was yet a boy, had nothing striking in his appearance or countenance, unless an expression of great sweetness and gentleness could be so called ; and there was something almost feminine in the tender deference with which he appeared to listen to his companion. His dress was that usually worn by the humbler classes, though somewhat neater, perhaps, and newer; and the fond vanity of a mother might be detected in the care with which the long and silky ringlets had been smoothed and parted as they escaped from his cap and flowed midway down his shoulders.

As they thus sauntered on, beside the whispering reeds of the river, each with his arm round the form of his comrade, there was a grace in the bearing, in the

RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES.

youth, and in the evident affection of the brothers — for such their connection — which elevated the lowliness of their apparent condition.

“Dear brother,” said the elder, “ I cannot express to thee how I enjoy these evening hours. To you alone I feel as if I were not a mere visionary and idler when I talk of the uncertain future, and build up my palaces of the air. Our parents listen to me as if I were uttering fine things out of a hook ; and my dear mother — Heaven bless her! — wipes her eyes, and says, ‘ Hark, what a scholar he is ! ’ As for the monks, if I ever dare look from my Livy and cry, ‘ Thus should Home be again!’ they stare and gape and frown, as though I had broached an heresy. But you, sweet brother, though you share not my studies, sympathize so kindly with all their results — you seem so to approve my wild schemes and to encourage my ambitious hopes — that sometimes I forget our birth, our fortunes, and think and dare as if no blood save that of the Teuton emperor flowed through our veins.”

“Methinks, dear Cola,” said the younger brother, “that Nature played us an unfair trick, — to you she transmitted the royal soul derived from our father’s parentage, and to me only the quiet and lowly spirit of my mother’s humble lineage.”

“Nay,” answered Cola, quickly, “you would then have the brighter share , — for I should have but the Barbarian origin, and you the Koman. Time was, when to be a simple Eoman was to be nobler than a northern king. Well, well, we may live to see great changes! ”

“I shall live to see thee a great man, and that will content me,” said the younger, smiling affectionately. “ A great scholar all confess you to be already ; onr

RIENZI, THE LAST OF THE TRIBUNES.

mother predicts your fortunes every time she hears of your welcome visits to the Colonna. ”

“ The Colonna! said Cola, with a bitter smile ; “ the Colonna, — the pedants! They affect, dull souls, the knowledge of the past, play the patron, and misquote Latin over their cups! They are pleased to welcome me at their board, because the Roman doctors call me learned, and because Kature gave me a wild wit, which to them is pleasanter than the stale jests of a hired buffoon. Yes, they would advance my fortunes, — but how 1 By some place in the public offices, which would fill a dishonored coffer, by wringing yet more sternly the hard-earned coins from our famishing citizens! If there be a vile thing in the world, it is a plebeian advanced by patricians, not for the purpose of righting his own order, but for playing the pander to the worst interest of theirs. He who is of the people but makes himself a traitor to his birth if he furnishes the excuse for these tyrant hypocrites to lift up their hands and cry, ‘ See what liberty exists in Rome when we, the patricians, thus elevate a plebeian ! ^ Did they ever elevate a plebeian if he sympathized with plebeians? No, brother; should I be lifted above our condition, I will be raised by the arms of my countrymen, and not upon their necks.”