Gibbon's The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
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Chapter LXX: Final Settlement Of The Ecclesiastical State. -- Part IV.
The royal prerogative of coining money, which had been exercised near
three hundred years by the senate, was first resumed by Martin the
Fifth, ^77 and his image and superscription introduce the series of the
papal medals. Of his two immediate successors, Eugenius the Fourth was
the last pope expelled by the tumults of the Roman people, ^78 and
Nicholas the Fifth, the last who was importuned by the presence of a
Roman emperor. ^79 I. The conflict of Eugenius with the fathers of
Basil, and the weight or apprehension of a new excise, emboldened and
provoked the Romans to usurp the temporal government of the city. They
rose in arms, elected seven governors of the republic, and a constable
of the Capitol; imprisoned the pope's nephew; besieged his person in the
palace; and shot volleys of arrows into his bark as he escaped down the
Tyber in the habit of a monk. But he still possessed in the castle of
St. Angelo a faithful garrison and a train of artillery: their batteries
incessantly thundered on the city, and a bullet more dexterously pointed
broke down the barricade of the bridge, and scattered with a single shot
the heroes of the republic. Their constancy was exhausted by a rebellion
of five months. Under the tyranny of the Ghibeline nobles, the wisest
patriots regretted the dominion of the church; and their repentance was
unanimous and effectual. The troops of St. Peter again occupied the
Capitol; the magistrates departed to their homes; the most guilty were
executed or exiled; and the legate, at the head of two thousand foot and
four thousand horse, was saluted as the father of the city. The synods
of Ferrara and Florence, the fear or resentment of Eugenius, prolonged
his absence: he was received by a submissive people; but the pontiff
understood from the acclamations of his triumphal entry, that to secure
their loyalty and his own repose, he must grant without delay the
abolition of the odious excise. II. Rome was restored, adorned, and
enlightened, by the peaceful reign of Nicholas the Fifth. In the midst
of these laudable occupations, the pope was alarmed by the approach of
Frederic the Third of Austria; though his fears could not be justified
by the character or the power of the Imperial candidate. After drawing
his military force to the metropolis, and imposing the best security of
oaths ^80 and treaties, Nicholas received with a smiling countenance the
faithful advocate and vassal of the church. So tame were the times, so
feeble was the Austrian, that the pomp of his coronation was
accomplished with order and harmony: but the superfluous honor was so
disgraceful to an independent nation, that his successors have excused
themselves from the toilsome pilgrimage to the Vatican; and rest their
Imperial title on the choice of the electors of Germany.
[Footnote 77: See the xxviith Dissertation of the Antiquities of
Muratori, and the 1st Instruction of the Science des Medailles of the
Père Joubert and the Baron de la Bastie. The Metallic History of Martin
-
and his successors has been composed by two monks, Moulinet, a
- Frenchman, and Bonanni, an Italian
- but I understand, that the first
part of the series is restored from more recent coins.]
[Footnote 78: Besides the Lives of Eugenius IV., (Rerum Italic. tom.
-
P. i. p. 869, and tom. xxv. p. 256,) the Diaries of Paul Petroni
and Stephen Infessura are the best original evidence for the revolt of
the Romans against Eugenius IV. The former, who lived at the time and on
the spot, speaks the language of a citizen, equally afraid of priestly
and popular tyranny.]
[Footnote 79: The coronation of Frederic III. is described by Lenfant,
(Concile de Basle, tom. ii. p. 276--288,) from Æneas Sylvius, a
spectator and actor in that splendid scene.]
[Footnote 80: The oath of fidelity imposed on the emperor by the pope is
recorded and sanctified in the Clementines, (l. ii. tit. ix.;) and Æneas
Sylvius, who objects to this new demand, could not foresee, that in a
few years he should ascend the throne, and imbibe the maxims, of
Boniface VIII.]
A citizen has remarked, with pride and pleasure, that the king of the
Romans, after passing with a slight salute the cardinals and prelates
who met him at the gate, distinguished the dress and person of the
senator of Rome; and in this last farewell, the pageants of the empire
and the republic were clasped in a friendly embrace. ^81 According to
the laws of Rome, ^82 her first magistrate was required to be a doctor
of laws, an alien, of a place at least forty miles from the city; with
whose inhabitants he must not be connected in the third canonical degree
of blood or alliance. The election was annual: a severe scrutiny was
instituted into the conduct of the departing senator; nor could he be
recalled to the same office till after the expiration of two years. A
liberal salary of three thousand florins was assigned for his expense
and reward; and his public appearance represented the majesty of the
republic. His robes were of gold brocade or crimson velvet, or in the
summer season of a lighter silk: he bore in his hand an ivory sceptre;
the sound of trumpets announced his approach; and his solemn steps were
preceded at least by four lictors or attendants, whose red wands were
enveloped with bands or streamers of the golden color or livery of the
city. His oath in the Capitol proclaims his right and duty to observe
and assert the laws, to control the proud, to protect the poor, and to
exercise justice and mercy within the extent of his jurisdiction. In
these useful functions he was assisted by three learned strangers; the
two collaterals, and the judge of criminal appeals: their frequent
trials of robberies, rapes, and murders, are attested by the laws; and
the weakness of these laws connives at the licentiousness of private
feuds and armed associations for mutual defence. But the senator was
confined to the administration of justice: the Capitol, the treasury,
and the government of the city and its territory, were intrusted to the
three conservators, who were changed four times in each year: the
militia of the thirteen regions assembled under the banners of their
respective chiefs, or caporioni; and the first of these was
distinguished by the name and dignity of the prior. The popular
legislature consisted of the secret and the common councils of the
Romans. The former was composed of the magistrates and their immediate
predecessors, with some fiscal and legal officers, and three classes of
thirteen, twenty-six, and forty, counsellors: amounting in the whole to
about one hundred and twenty persons. In the common council all male
citizens had a right to vote; and the value of their privilege was
enhanced by the care with which any foreigners were prevented from
usurping the title and character of Romans. The tumult of a democracy
was checked by wise and jealous precautions: except the magistrates,
none could propose a question; none were permitted to speak, except from
an open pulpit or tribunal; all disorderly acclamations were suppressed;
the sense of the majority was decided by a secret ballot; and their
decrees were promulgated in the venerable name of the Roman senate and
people. It would not be easy to assign a period in which this theory of
government has been reduced to accurate and constant practice, since the
establishment of order has been gradually connected with the decay of
liberty. But in the year one thousand five hundred and eighty the
ancient statutes were collected, methodized in three books, and adapted
to present use, under the pontificate, and with the approbation, of
Gregory the Thirteenth: ^83 this civil and criminal code is the modern
law of the city; and, if the popular assemblies have been abolished, a
foreign senator, with the three conservators, still resides in the
palace of the Capitol. ^84 The policy of the Cæsars has been repeated by
the popes; and the bishop of Rome affected to maintain the form of a
republic, while he reigned with the absolute powers of a temporal, as
well as a spiritual, monarch.
[Footnote 81: Lo senatore di Roma, vestito di brocarto con quella
beretta, e con quelle maniche, et ornamenti di pelle, co' quali va alle
feste di Testaccio e Nagone, might escape the eye of Æneas Sylvius, but
he is viewed with admiration and complacency by the Roman citizen,
(Diario di Stephano Infessura, p. 1133.)]
[Footnote 82: See, in the statutes of Rome, the senator and three
judges, (l. i. c. 3--14,) the conservators, (l. i. c. 15, 16, 17, l.
-
c. 4,) the caporioni (l. i. c. 18, l. iii. c. 8,) the secret
council, (l. iii. c. 2,) the common council, (l. iii. c. 3.) The title
of feuds, defiances, acts of violence, &c., is spread through many a
chapter (c. 14--40) of the second book.]
[Footnote 83: Statuta alm Urbis Rom Auctoritate S. D. N. Gregorii XIII
Pont. Max. a Senatu Populoque Rom. reformata et edita. Rom, 1580, in
folio. The obsolete, repugnant statutes of antiquity were confounded in
five books, and Lucas Pætus, a lawyer and antiquarian, was appointed to
act as the modern Tribonian. Yet I regret the old code, with the rugged
crust of freedom and barbarism.]
[Footnote 84: In my time (1765) and in M. Grosley's, (Observations sur
l'Italie torn. ii. p. 361,) the senator of Rome was M. Bielke, a noble
Swede and a proselyte to the Catholic faith. The pope's right to appoint
the senator and the conservator is implied, rather than affirmed, in the
statutes.]
It is an obvious truth, that the times must be suited to extraordinary
characters, and that the genius of Cromwell or Retz might now expire in
obscurity. The political enthusiasm of Rienzi had exalted him to a
throne; the same enthusiasm, in the next century, conducted his imitator
to the gallows. The birth of Stephen Porcaro was noble, his reputation
spotless: his tongue was armed with eloquence, his mind was enlightened
with learning; and he aspired, beyond the aim of vulgar ambition, to
free his country and immortalize his name. The dominion of priests is
most odious to a liberal spirit: every scruple was removed by the recent
knowledge of the fable and forgery of Constantine's donation; Petrarch
was now the oracle of the Italians; and as often as Porcaro revolved the
ode which describes the patriot and hero of Rome, he applied to himself
the visions of the prophetic bard. His first trial of the popular
feelings was at the funeral of Eugenius the Fourth: in an elaborate
speech he called the Romans to liberty and arms; and they listened with
apparent pleasure, till Porcaro was interrupted and answered by a grave
advocate, who pleaded for the church and state. By every law the
seditious orator was guilty of treason; but the benevolence of the new
pontiff, who viewed his character with pity and esteem, attempted by an
honorable office to convert the patriot into a friend. The inflexible
Roman returned from Anagni with an increase of reputation and zeal; and,
on the first opportunity, the games of the place Navona, he tried to
inflame the casual dispute of some boys and mechanics into a general
rising of the people. Yet the humane Nicholas was still averse to accept
the forfeit of his life; and the traitor was removed from the scene of
temptation to Bologna, with a liberal allowance for his support, and the
easy obligation of presenting himself each day before the governor of
the city. But Porcaro had learned from the younger Brutus, that with
tyrants no faith or gratitude should be observed: the exile declaimed
against the arbitrary sentence; a party and a conspiracy were gradually
formed: his nephew, a daring youth, assembled a band of volunteers; and
on the appointed evening a feast was prepared at his house for the
friends of the republic. Their leader, who had escaped from Bologna,
appeared among them in a robe of purple and gold: his voice, his
countenance, his gestures, bespoke the man who had devoted his life or
death to the glorious cause. In a studied oration, he expiated on the
motives and the means of their enterprise; the name and liberties of
Rome; the sloth and pride of their ecclesiastical tyrants; the active or
passive consent of their fellow-citizens; three hundred soldiers, and
four hundred exiles, long exercised in arms or in wrongs; the license of
revenge to edge their swords, and a million of ducats to reward their
victory. It would be easy, (he said,) on the next day, the festival of
the Epiphany, to seize the pope and his cardinals, before the doors, or
at the altar, of St. Peter's; to lead them in chains under the walls of
St. Angelo; to extort by the threat of their instant death a surrender
of the castle; to ascend the vacant Capitol; to ring the alarm bell; and
to restore in a popular assembly the ancient republic of Rome. While he
triumphed, he was already betrayed. The senator, with a strong guard,
invested the house: the nephew of Porcaro cut his way through the crowd;
but the unfortunate Stephen was drawn from a chest, lamenting that his
enemies had anticipated by three hours the execution of his design.
After such manifest and repeated guilt, even the mercy of Nicholas was
silent. Porcaro, and nine of his accomplices, were hanged without the
benefit of the sacraments; and, amidst the fears and invectives of the
papal court, the Romans pitied, and almost applauded, these martyrs of
their country. ^85 But their applause was mute, their pity ineffectual,
their liberty forever extinct; and, if they have since risen in a
vacancy of the throne or a scarcity of bread, such accidental tumults
may be found in the bosom of the most abject servitude.
[Footnote 85: Besides the curious, though concise, narrative of
Machiavel, (Istoria Florentina, l. vi. Opere, tom. i. p. 210, 211, edit.
Londra, 1747, in 4to.) the Porcarian conspiracy is related in the Diary
of Stephen Infessura, (Rer. Ital. tom. iii. P. ii. p. 1134, 1135,) and
in a separate tract by Leo Baptista Alberti, (Rer. Ital. tom. xxv. p.
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