Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes

The next morning the Senator of Rome held high Court in the Capitol. From Florence, from Padua, from Pisa, even from Milan, (the dominion of the Visconti,) from Genoa, from Napl...

Girt with his soldiery, secure in his feudal hold, enchanted with the beauty of the earth, sky, and sea around, and passionately adoring his Adeline, Montreal for awhile forgot...

The situation of a Patrician who honestly loves the people is, in those evil times, when power oppresses and freedom struggles,--when the two divisions of men are wrestling agai...

Avoiding the broken streams of the dispersed crowd, Adrian Colonna strode rapidly down one of the narrow streets leading to his palace, which was situated at no inconsiderable d...

The thread of my story transports us back to Rome. It was in a small chamber, in a ruinous mansion by the base of Mount Aventine, that a young boy sate, one evening, with a woma...

It was nearly noon as Adrian entered the gates of the palace of Stephen Colonna. The palaces of the nobles were not then as we see them now, receptacles for the immortal canvas...

It was later that day than usual, when Rienzi returned from his tribunal to the apartments of the palace. As he traversed the reception hall, his countenance was much flushed; h...

As soon as Annibaldi, with the greater part of the retinue, was gone, Adrian, divesting himself of his heavy greaves, entered alone the pavilion of the Knight of St. John. Montr...

The acuter reader has already learned, without the absolute intervention of the author as narrator, the incidents occurring to Rienzi in the interval between his acquittal at Av...

The Bishop of Orvietto lingered last, to confer with Rienzi, who awaited him in the recesses of the Lateran. Raimond had the penetration not to be seduced into believing that th...

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.

Alone, by a table covered with various papers, sat a man in the prime of life. The chamber was low and long; many antique and disfigured bas-reliefs and torsos were placed aroun...

For three days, the fatal three days, did Adrian remain bereft of strength and sense. But he was not smitten by the scourge which his devoted and generous nurse had anticipated....

It was a bright, oppressive, sultry morning, when a solitary horseman was seen winding that unequalled road, from whose height, amidst figtrees, vines, and olives, the traveller...

It was a most lovely day, in the very glow and meridian of an Italian summer, when a small band of horsemen were seen winding a hill which commanded one of the fairest landscape...

With the following twilight, Rome was summoned to the commencement of the most magnificent spectacle the Imperial City had witnessed since the fall of the Caesars. It had been a...

“I have dreamed a dream,” cried Rienzi, leaping from his bed. “The lion-hearted Boniface, foe and victim of the Colonna, hath appeared to me, and promised victory. (“In questa n...

On an evening in April, 1347, and in one of those wide spaces in which Modern and Ancient Rome seemed blent together--equally desolate and equally in ruins--a miscellaneous and...

The brief words of the Tribune to Stephen Colonna, though they sharpened the rage of the proud old noble, were such as he did not on reflection deem it prudent to disobey. Accor...

Since that fearful hour in which Adrian Colonna had gazed upon the lifeless form of his adored Irene, the young Roman had undergone the usual vicissitudes of a wandering and adv...

The indignation of Rienzi may readily be conceived, on the return of his herald mutilated and dishonoured. His temper, so naturally stern, was rendered yet more hard by the reme...

Arriving at Rome, the company of the Colonna found the gates barred, and the walls manned. Stephen bade advance his trumpeters, with one of his captains, imperiously to demand a...

“I tell you, Lucia, I do not love those stuffs; they do not become me. Saw you ever so poor a dye?--this purple, indeed! that crimson! Why did you let the man leave them? Let hi...

There is this difference between the Drama of Shakspeare, and that of almost every other master of the same art; that in the first, the catastrophe is rarely produced by one sin...

Adrian found that the Becchino had taken care that famine should not forestall the plague; the banquet of the dead was removed, and fresh viands and wines of all kinds,--for the...

The night slowly advanced, and in the highest chamber of that dark and rugged tower which fronted the windows of the Cesarini’s palace sate a solitary prisoner. A single lamp bu...

It was upon that same evening, and while the earlier stars yet shone over the city, that Walter de Montreal, returning, alone, to the convent then associated with the church of...

The rapid and busy march of state events has led us long away from the sister of the Tribune and the betrothed of Adrian. And the sweet thoughts and gentle day-dreams of that fa...

But the eyes which, above all others, thirsted for a glimpse of the released captive were forbidden that delight. Alone in her chamber, Nina awaited the result of the trial. She...

Some few days after the date of the last chapter, Rienzi received news from Rome, which seemed to produce in him a joyous and elated excitement. His troops still lay before Pale...

Giles, (or Egidio, (Egidio is the proper Italian equivalent to the French name Gilles,--but the Cardinal is generally called, by the writers of that day, Gilio d’Albornoz.)) Car...

Montreal was sitting at the head of a table, surrounded by men, some military, some civil, whom he called his councillors, and with whom he apparently debated all his projects....

It was as a thunderbolt in a serene day--the reverse of the Tribune in the zenith of his power, in the abasement of his foe; when, with but a handful of brave Romans, determined...

“In intoxication,” says the proverb, “men betray their real characters.” There is a no less honest and truth-revealing intoxication in prosperity, than in wine. The varnish of p...

The kindly skill of Nina induced Irene to believe that it was but the tender consideration of her brother to change a scene embittered by her own thoughts, and in which the noto...

Enamoured of the beauty, and almost equally so of the lofty spirit, of the Signora Cesarini, as was the warlike Cardinal of Spain, love with him was not so master a passion as t...

The next day at early noon the Cavalier, whom our last chapter presented to the reader, was seen mounted on a strong Norman horse, winding his way slowly along a green and pleas...

Years had passed away, and the death of the Roman boy, amidst more noble and less excusable slaughter, was soon forgotten,--forgotten almost by the parents of the slain, in the...

In silence the Captain of the Grand Company was borne to the prison of the Capitol. In the same building lodged the rivals for the government of Rome; the one occupied the priso...

It was yet noon when Adrian beheld before him the lofty mountains that shelter Palestrina, the Praeneste of the ancient world. Back to a period before Romulus existed, in the ea...

The Festival of that day was far the most sumptuous hitherto known. The hint of Cecco del Vecchio, which so well depicted the character of his fellow-citizens, as yet it exists,...

Fretting his proud heart, as a steed frets on the bit, old Colonna regained his palace. To him, innocent of the proposed crime of his kin and compeers, the whole scene of the ni...

The danger that threatened Rienzi by the arrival of Montreal was indeed formidable. The Knight of St. John, having marched his army into Lombardy, had placed it at the disposal...

While thus animated was the scene around the Capitol, within one of the apartments of the palace sat the agent and prime cause of that excitement. In the company of his quiet sc...

All Rome was astir!--from St. Angelo to the Capitol, windows, balconies, roofs, were crowded with animated thousands. Only here and there, in the sullen quarters of the Colonna,...

Walter de Montreal was buried in the church of St. Maria dell’ Araceli. But the “evil that he did lived after him!” Although the vulgar had, until his apprehension, murmured aga...

When Walter de Montreal and his mercenaries quitted Corneto, they made the best of their way to Rome; arriving there, long before the Barons, they met with a similar reception a...

While this the state of the camp of the besiegers, Luca di Savelli and Stefanello Colonna were closeted with a stranger, who had privately entered Palestrina on the night before...

The bell of the great Lateran church sounded shrill and loud, as the mighty multitude, greater even than that of the preceding night, swept on. The appointed officers made way w...

As the Cyprian gazed on the image in which he had embodied a youth of dreams, what time the living hues flushed slowly beneath the marble,--so gazed the young and passionate Adr...

In the fiercest heat of the day, and on foot, Adrian returned to Florence. As he approached the city, all that festive and gallant scene he had quitted seemed to him like a drea...

“Thou wrongest me,” said Rienzi, warmly, to Adrian, as they sat alone, towards the close of a long conference; “I do not play the part of a mere demagogue; I wish not to stir th...

As Adrian turned from the palace of his guardian, and bent his way in the direction of the Forum, he came somewhat unexpectedly upon Raimond, bishop of Orvietto, who, mounted up...

Before the market-place, and at the foot of the Capitol, an immense crowd was assembled. Each man sought to push before his neighbour; each struggled to gain access to one parti...

At midnight, when the rest of the city seemed hushed in rest, lights were streaming from the windows of the Church of St. Angelo. Breaking from its echoing aisles, the long and...

While Rienzi was preparing, in concert, perhaps, with the ambassadors of the brave Tuscan States, whose pride of country and love of liberty were well fitted to comprehend, and...

The Council was broken up--Rienzi hastened to his own apartments. Meeting Villani by the way, he pressed the youth’s hand affectionately. “You have saved Rome and me from great...

Cheerfully broke the winter sun over the streets of Rome, as the army of the Barons swept along them. The Cardinal Legate at the head; the old Colonna (no longer haughty and ere...

It was on the following evening that a considerable crowd had gathered in the streets of Avignon. It was the second day of the examination of Rienzi, and with every moment was e...

By the borders of one of the fairest lakes of Northern Italy stood the favourite mansion of Adrian di Castello, to which in his softer and less patriotic moments his imagination...

The next morning, when Rienzi descended to the room where his captains awaited him, his quick eye perceived that a cloud still lowered upon the brow of Messere Brettone. Arimbal...

It was the morning of the 19th of May, the air was brisk and clear, and the sun, which had just risen, shone cheerily upon the glittering casques and spears of a gallant process...

If, in adopting the legendary love tale of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare had changed the scene in which it is cast for a more northern clime, we may doubt whether the art of Sha...

These formidable conspiracies quelled, the Barons nearly subdued, and three parts of the Papal territory reunited to Rome, Rienzi now deemed he might safely execute one of his f...

On the fourth day of the siege, and after beating back to those almost impregnable walls the soldiery of the Barons, headed by the Prince of the Orsini, the Senator returned to...

“Your commands are obeyed. Rienzi will receive an examination on his faith. It is well that he should be prepared. It may suit your purpose, as to which I am so faintly enlighte...

“Fair page,” said the Spaniard, gaily, “thy name, thou tellest me, is Villani?--Angelo Villani--why I know thy kinsman, methinks. Vouchsafe, young master, to enter this chamber,...

While such were the events at Rome, a servitor of Stephen Colonna was already on his way to Corneto. The astonishment with which the old Baron received the intelligence may be e...

“_Fu da sua gioventudine nutricato di latte di eloquenza; buono grammatico, megliore rettorico, autorista buono...Oh, come spesso diceva, ‘Dove sono questi buoni Romani? Dov’e l...

“Montreal nourrissoit de plus vastes projets...il donnoit a sa campagnie un gouvernement regulier...Par cette discipline il faisoit regner l’abondance dans son camp; les gens de...

“Erano gli anni della fruttifera Incarnazione del Figliuolo di Dio al numero pervenuti di mille trecento quarant’otto, quando nell’ egregia citta di Fiorenza oltre ad ogni altra...

“Allora la sua venuta fu a Roma sentita; Romani si apparecchiavano a riceverlo con letizia...furo fatti archi trionfali,” &c. &c.--“Vita di Cola di Rienzi”, lib. ii. c. 17.

“Every kind of lewdness, every form of evil; no justice, no restraint. Remedy there was none; perdition fell on all. Then Cola di Rienzi,” &c.--“Life of Cola di Rienzi”.

“Ben furo avventurosi i cavalieri Ch’ erano a quella eta, che nei vallone, Nelle scure spelonche e boschi fieri, Tane di serpi, d’orsi e di leoni, Trovavan quel che nei palazzi...

“Fu rinchiuso in una torre grossa e larga; avea libri assai, suo Tito Livio, sue storie di Roma, la Bibbia.” &c.--“Vita di Cola di Rienzi”, lib. ii. c. 13.