CHAP. ed without an object; and the most valuable treasure of the LXIX. church was sequestered above eight years from public circulation. A new channel was opened by the diligence of Boniface the eighth, who reconciled the vices of ambition and avarice; and the pope had sufficient learning to recollect and revive the secular games, which were celebrated in Rome at the conclusion of every century. To sound without danger the depth of popular credulity, a sermon was seasonably pronounced, a report was artfully scattered, some aged witnesses were produced; and on the first of January of the year thirteen hundred, the church of St. Peter was crowded with the faithful, who demanded the customary indulgence of the holy time. The pontiff, who watched and irritated their devout impatience, was soon persuaded by ancient testimony of the justice of their claim: and he proclaimed a plenary absolution to all Catholics who, in the course of that year, and at every similar period, should respectfully visit the apostolic churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. The welcome sound was propagated through Christendom; and at first from the nearest provinces of Italy, and at length from the remote kingdoms of Hungary and Britain, the highways were thronged with a swarm of pilgrims who sought to expiate their sins in a journey, however costly or laborious, which was exempt from the perils of military service. All exceptions of rank or sex, of age or infirmity, were forgotten in the common transport; and in the streets and churches many persons were trampled to death by the eagerness of devotion. The calculation of their numbers could not be easy nor accurate; and they have probably been magnified by a dexterous clergy; well apprised of the contagion of example: yet we are assured by a judicious historian, who assisted at the ceremony, that Rome was never replenished with less than two hundred thousand strangers; and another spectator has fixed at two millions the total concourse of the year. A trifling oblation from each individual would' accumulate a royal treasure; and two priests stood night and day, with rakes in their hands, to collect without counting, the heaps of gold and silver that were poured on the altar of St. Paul." 86 See John Villani (1. viii. c. 36.) in the twelfth, and the Chronicon Astense, in the eleventh volume (p. 191, 192.) of Muratori's Collection. Papa innumerabilem pecuniam ab eisdem accepit, nam duo clerici, cum rastris, &c. LXIX. lec, A. D. 1350. It was fortunately a season of peace and plenty; and if fo- CHAP, rage was scarce, if inns and lodgings were extravagantly dear, an inexhaustible supply of bread and wine, of meat and fish, was provided by the policy of Boniface and the venal hospitality of the Romans. From a city without trade or industry, all casual riches will speedily evaporate: but the avarice and envy of the next generation solicited Clement the sixth37 to anticipate the distant period of the century. The gracious pontiff complied with their wishes; afforded Rome this poor consolation for his loss; and justified the change by the name and practice of the Mosaic Jubilee.88 His summons was The second jubiobeyed: and the number, zeal, and liberality, of the pilgrims did not yield to the primitive festival. But they encountered the triple scourge of war, pestilence, and famine: many wives and virgins were violated in the castles of Italy; and many strangers were pillaged or murdered by the savage Romans, no longer moderated by the presence of their bishop." To the impatience of the popes we may ascribe the successive reduction to fifty, thirty-three, and twenty-five years; although the second of these terms is commensurate with the life of Christ. The profusion of indulgences, the revolt of the Protestants, and the decline of superstition, have much diminished the value of the jubilee: yet even the nineteenth and last festival was a year of pleasure and profit to the Romans; and a philosophic smile will not disturb the triumph of the priest or the happiness of the people.90 or barons of Rome. In the beginning of the eleventh century, Italy was ex- The nobles posed to the feudal tyranny, alike oppressive to the sovereign and the people, The rights of human nature, were vindicated by her numerous republics, who soon extended 87 The two bulls of Boniface VIII. and Clement VI. are inserted in the Corpus Juris Canonici (Extravagant. Commun. 1. v. tit. ix. c. 1, 2). 88 The sabbatic years and jubilees of the Mosaic law (Car. Sigon. de Republicâ Hebræorum, Opp. tom. iv. I. iii. c. 14, 15. p. 151, 152), the suspension of all care and labour, the periodical release of lands, debts, servitude, &c. may seem a noble idea, but the execution would be impracticable in a profane vẻpublic; and I should be glad to learn that this ruinous festival was observed by the Jewish people. 89 See the Chronicle of Matteo Villani (1. i. c. 56.) in the fourteenth volume of Muratori, and the Memoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 75...89. 90 The subject is exhausted by M. Chais, a French minister at the Hague, in his Lettres Historiques et Dogmatiques, sur les Jubiles et les Indulgences; la Haye, 1751,3 vols. in 12mo.; an elaborate and pleasing work, had not the author preferred the character of a polemic to that of a philosopher. LXIX. CHAP. their liberty and dominion from the city to the adjacent country. The sword of the nobles was broken; their slaves were enfranchised; their castles were demolished; they assumed the habits of society and obedience; their ambition was confined to municipal honours, and in the proudest aristocracy of Venice or Genoa, each patrician was subject to the laws.91 But the feeble and disorderly government of Rome was unequal to the task of curbing her rebellious sons, who scorned the authority of the magistrate within and without the walls. It was no longer a civil contention between the nobles and plebeians for the government of the state; the barons asserted in arms their personal independence; their palaces and castles were fortified against a siege; and their private quarrels were maintained by the numbers of their vassals and retainers. In origin and affection, they were aliens to their country:92 and a genuine Roman, could such have been produced, might have renounced these haughty strangers, who disdained the appellation of citizens, and proudly styled themselves the princes, of Rome.93 After a dark series of revolutions, all records of pedigree were lost; the distinction of surnames was abolished; the blood of the nations was mingled in a thousand channels; and the Goths and Lombards, the Greeks and Franks, the Germans and Normans, had obtained the fairest possessions by royal bounty or the prerogative of valour. These examples might be readily presumed: but the elevation of an Hebrew race to the rank of senators and consuls, is an event without parallel in the long captivity of these miserable exiles.94 In the time of Leo the ninth, a wealthy and learned Jew was 91 Muratori (Dissert. xlvii.) alleges the Annals of Florence, Padua, Genoa, &c. the analogy of the rest, the evidence of Otho of Frisingen (de Gest. Fred. I. 1. ii. c. 13.) and the submission of the marquis of Este. 92 As early as the year 824. the emperor Lothaire I. found it expedient to interrogate the Roman people, to learn from each individual, by what national law he chose to be governed (Muratori, Dissert. xxii). 93 Petrarch attacks these foreigners, the tyrants of Rome, in a declamation or epistle, full of bold truths and absurd pedantry, in which he applies the maxims, and even prejudices, of the old republic to the state of the xivth century (Memoires, tom. iii. p. 157...169). 94 The origin and adventures of this Jewish family are noticed by Pagi (Critica, tom. iv. p. 435. A. D. 1124, No. 3, 4,) who draws his information from the Chronographus Maurigniacensis, and Arnulphus Sagiensis de Schismate (in Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. iii. P. i. p. 423...432). The fact must in some degree be true; yet I could wish that it had been coolly related, before it was turned into a reproach against the antipope. Family of converted to Christianity; and honoured at his baptism with CHAP. the name of his godfather, the reigning pope. The zeal and LXIX. courage of Peter the son of Leo were signalised in the cause of Gregory the seventh, who entrusted his faithful adherent Leo the with the government of Adrian's mole, the tower of CresJew. centius, or, as it is now called, the castle of St. Angelo. Both the father and the son were the parents of a numerous progeny; their riches, the fruits of usury, were shared with the noblest families of the city; and so extensive was their alliance, that the grandson of the proselyte was exalted by the weight of his kindred to the throne of St Peter. A majority of the clergy and people supported his cause; he reigned several years in the Vatican, and it is only the eloquence of St. Bernard, and the final triumph of Innocent the second, that has branded Anacletus with the epithet of antipope. After his defeat and death, the posterity of Leo is no longer conspicuous; and none will be found of the modern nobles ambitious of descending from a Jewish stock. It is not my design to enumerate the Roman families, which have failed at different periods, or those which are continued in different degrees of splendor to the present time.95 The old consular line of the Frangipani discover their name in the generous act of breaking or dividing bread in a time of famine; and such benevolence is more truly glorious than to have enclosed, with their allies the Corsi, a spacious quarter of the city in the chains of their fortifications: the Savelli, as it should seem a Sabine race, have maintained their original dignity; the obsolete surname of Capizucchi is inscribed on the coins of the first senators; the Conti preserve the honour, without the state, of the counts of Signia; and the Annibaldi must have been very ignorant, or very modest, if they had not descended from the Carthaginian hero.96 95 Muratori has given two dissertations (xli. and xlii.) to the names, surnames, and families of Italy. Some nobles, who glory in their domestic fables, may be offended with his firm and temperate criticism; yet surely some ounces of pure gold are of more value than many pounds of base metal. 96 The cardinal of St. George, in his poetical, or rather metrical, history of the election and coronation of Boniface VIII. (Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. iii. P. i. p. 641, &c.) describes the state and families of Rome at the coronation of Boniface VIII.(A. D. 1295): Interea titulis redimiti sanguine et armis Intuleran: CHAP. The Colouna. But among, perhaps above, the peers and princes of the city, I distinguish the rival houses of COLONNA and URSINI, whose private story is an essential part of the annals of modern Rome. I. The name and arms of Colonna97 have been the theme of much doubtful etymology; nor have the orators and antiquarians overlooked either Trajan's pillar, or the columns of Herculus, or the pillar of Christ's flagellation, or the luminous column that guided the Israelites in the desart. Their first historical appearance in the year eleven hundred and four, attests the power and antiquity, while it explains the simple meaning, of the name. By the usurpation of Cavæ, the Colonna provoked the arms of Paschal the second; but they lawfully held in the Campagna of Rome, the hereditary fiefs of Zagarola and Colonna; and the latter of these towns was probably adorned with some lofty pillar, the relic of a villa or temple." They likewise possessed one moiety of the neighbouring city of Tusculum; a strong presumption of their descent from the counts of Tusculum, who in the tenth century were the tyrants of the apostolic see. According to their own and the public opinion, the primitive and remote source was derived from the banks of the Rhine ;99 and the Intulerant se medios festumque colebant (1. ii. c. 5. 100. p. 647, 648). The ancient statutes of Rome (1. iii. c. 59. p. 174, 175.) distinguish eleven fa. milies of barons, who are obliged to swear in concilio communi, before the senator, that they would not harbour or protect any malefactors, outlaws, &c.... a feeble security! 97 It is pity that the Colonna themselves have not favoured the world with a complete and critical history of their illustrious house. I adhere to Muratori (Dissert. xlii. tom. iii. p. 647, 648). 98 Pandulph. Pisan. in Vit Paschal II. in Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. iii. P. i. p. 335. The family has still great possessions in the Campagna of Rome; but they have alienated to the Rospigliosi this original fief of Colonna (Eschinard, p. 258, 259). 99 Te longinqua dedit tellus et pascua Rheni, says Petrarch; and, in 1417, a duke of Guelders and Juliers acknowledges (Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Constance, tom.ii. p. 539.) his descent from the ancestors of Martin V. (Otho Colonna): but the royal author of the Memoirs of Brandenburg observes, that the sceptre in his arms has been confounded with the column. To maintain the Roman origin of the Colonna, it was ingeniously supposed (Diario di Monaldeschi, in the Script. Ital. tom. xii. p. 533), that a cousin of the emperor Nero escaped from the city, and founded Mentz in Germany. |