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of reverence; the aspect of danger provoked him to avow his name and country; and when he was asked, "Where is now your "fortress?" he laid his hand on his heart, and answered, "Here.” He supported with the same virtue the return of prosperity; and, till the ruin of his declining age, the ancestors, the character, and the children of Stephen Colonna, exalted his dignity in the Roman republic, and at the court of Avignon. II. The Ursini and Ursini. migrated from Spoleto104; the sons of Ursus, as they are styled in the twelfth century, from some eminent person, who is only known as the father of their race. But they were soon distinguished among the nobles of Rome, by the number and bravery of their kinsmen, the strength of their towers, the honours of the senate and sacred college, and the elevation of two popes, Celestin the Third and Nicholas the Third, of their name and lineage. 105 Their riches may be accused as an early abuse of nepotism: the estates of St. Peter were alienated in their favour by the liberal Celestin 106; and Nicholas was ambitious for their sake to solicit the alliance of monarchs; to found new kingdoms in Lombardy and Tuscany; and to invest them with the perpetual office of senators of Rome. All that has been observed of the greatness of the Colonna will likewise redound to the glory of the Ursini, their constant and equal antagonists in the long hereditary feud, which distracted above two hundred and fifty years the ecclesiastical state. The jealousy of pre-eminence and power was the Their hetrue ground of their quarrel; but as a specious badge of feuds. distinction, the Colonna embraced the name of Ghibelines and the party of the empire; the Ursini espoused the title of Guelphs and

104

Vallis te proxima misit,`

Appenninigenæ qua prata virentia sylvæ

Spoletana metunt armenta gregesque protervi.

reditary

Monaldeschi (tom. xii. Script. Ital. p. 533.) gives the Ursini a French origin, which may be remotely true.

103 In the metrical life of Celestine V. by the Cardinal of St. George (Muratori, tom. iii. P. i. p. 613, &c.) we find a luminous, and not inelegant, passage (1. i. c. 3. p. 203, &c.):

genuit quem nobilis Ursæ (Ursi?)

Progenies, Romana domus, veterataque magnis
Fascibus in clero, pompasque experta senatûs,
Bellorumque manû grandi stipata parentum
Cardineos apices necnon fastigia dudum
Papatûs iterata tenens.

Muratori (Dissert. xlii. tom. iii.) observes, that the first Ursini pontificate of Celestine
III. was unknown: he is inclined to read Ursi progenies.

106 Filii Ursi, quondam Cœlestini papa nepotes, de bonis ecclesiæ Romanæ ditati (Vit. Innocent. III. in Muratori, Script. tom. iii. P. i.). The partial prodigality of Nicholas III. is more comspicuous in Villani and Muratori.

disdain the nephews of a modern pope.

Yet the Ursini would

the cause of the church. The eagle and the keys were displayed in their adverse banners; and the two factions of Italy most furiously raged when the origin and nature of the dispute were long since forgotten. 107 After the retreat of the popes to Avignon they disputed in arms the vacant republic; and the mischiefs of discord were perpetuated by the wretched compromise of electing each year two rival senators. By their private hostilities the city and country were desolated, and the fluctuating balance inclined with their alternate success. But none of either family had fallen by the sword, till the most renowned champion of the Ursini was surprised and slain by the younger Stephen Colonna, 108 His triumph is stained with the reproach of violating the truce; their defeat was basely avenged by the assassination, before the church door, of an innocent boy and his two servants. Yet the victorious Colonna, with an annual colleague, was declared senator of Rome during the term of five years. And the muse of Petrarch inspired a wish, a hope, a prediction, that the generous youth, the son of his venerable hero, would restore Rome and Italy to their pristine glory; that his justice would extirpate the wolves and lions, the serpents and bears, who laboured to subvert the eternal basis of the marble COLUMN. 109

107 In his fifty-first Dissertation on the Italian Antiquities, Muratori explains the factions of the Guelphs and Ghibelines.

108 Petrarch (tom. i. p. 222-230., has celebrated this victory according to the Colonna; but two contemporaries, a Florentine (Giovanni Villani, 1. x. c. 220.) and a Roman (Ludovico Monaldeschi, p. 533, 534.) are less favourable to their arms.

109 The Abbé de Sade (tom. i. Notes, p. 61-66.) has applied the vith Canzone of Petrarch, Spirto Gentil, &c., to Stephen Colonna the younger :

Orsi, lupi, leoni, aquile e serpi
Ad una gran marmorea colonna
Fanno noja sovente e à se danno

CHAP. LXX.

Character and Coronation of Petrarch.

Restoration of the Freedom and Government of Rome by the Tribune Rienzi. His Virtues and Vices, his Expulsion and Death. - Return of the Popes from Avignon. Great Schism of the West. Re-union of the Latin Church. Last Struggles of Roman Liberty. Rome. Final Settlement of the Ecclesiastical State.

Statutes of

Petrarch.
June 19-
July 19.

A. D. 1304.

A. D. 1374.

IN the apprehension of modern times, Petrarch is the Italian songster of Laura and love. In the harmony of his Tuscan rhymes, Italy applauds, or rather adores, the father of her lyric poetry; and his verse, or at least his name, is repeated by the enthusiasm, or affectation, of amorous sensibility. Whatever may be the private taste of a stranger, his slight and superficial knowledge should humby acquiesce in the judgment of a learned nation; yet I may hope or presume, that the Italians do not compare the tedious uniformity of sonnets and elegies with the sublime compositions of their epic muse, the original wildness of Dante, the regular beauties of Tasso, and the boundless variety of the incomparable Ariosto. The merits of the lover I am still less qualified to appreciate: nor am I deeply interested in a metaphysical passion for a nymph so shadowy, that her existence has been questioned 2; for a matron so prolific 3, that she was delivered of eleven legitimate children, while her amorous swain sighed and

1 The Mémoires sur la Vie de François Pétrarque (Amsterdam, 1764, 1767, 3 vols. in 4to.) form a copious, original, and entertaining work, a labour of love, composed from the accurate study of Petrarch and his contemporaries; but the hero is too often lost in the general history of the age, and the author too often languishes in the affectation of politeness and gallantry. In the preface to his first volume, he enumerates and weighs twenty Italian biographers, who have professedly treated of the same subject. The allegorical interpretation prevailed in the xvth century; but the wise commentators were not agreed whether they should understand by Laura, religion, or virtue, or the blessed virgin, or See the prefaces to the first and second

volume.

3 Laure de Noves, born about the year 1307, was married in January, 1325, to Hugues de Sade, a noble citizen of Avignon, whose jealousy was not the effect of love, since he married a second wife within seven months of her death, which happened the 6th of April, 1348, precisely one-and-twenty years after Petrarch had seen and loved her.

4 Corpus crebis partubus exhaustum: from one of these is issued, in the tenth degree, the abbé de Sade, the fond and grateful biographer of Petrarch; and this domestic motive most probably suggested the idea of his work, and urged him to

6

sung at the fountain of Vaucluse.5 But in the eyes of Petrarch, and those of his graver contemporaries, his love was a sin, and Italian verse a frivolous amusement. His Latin works of philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, established his serious reputation, which was soon diffused from Avignon over France and Italy: his friends and disciples were multiplied in every city; and if the ponderous volume of his writings be now abandoned to a long repose, our gratitude must applaud the man, who by precept and example revived the spirit and study of the Augustan age. From his earliest youth, Petrarch aspired to the poetic crown. The academical honours of the three faculties had introduced a royal degree of master or doctor in the art of poetry; and the title of poetlaureat, which custom, rather than vanity, perpetuates in the English court, was first invented by the Cæsars of Germany. In the musical games of antiquity, a prize was bestowed on the victor": the belief that Virgil and Horace had been crowned in the Capitol inflamed the emulation of a Latin bard 10; and the laurel 11 was

inquire into every circumstance that could affect the history and character of his grandmother (see particularly tom. i. p. 122–133. notes, p. 7-58. tom. ii. p. 455–495. not. p. 76-82.).

5 Vaucluse, so familiar to our English travellers, is described from the writings of Petrarch, and the local knowledge of his biographer (Mémoires, tom. i. p. 340-359.). It was, in truth, the retreat of a hermit; and the moderns are much mistaken, if they place Laura and a happy lover in the grotto.

Of 1250 pages, in a close print, at Basil in the xvith century, but without the date of the year. The abbé de Sade calls aloud for a new edition of Petrarch's Latin works; but I much doubt whether it would redound to the profit of the bookseller, or the amusement of the public.

An

Consult Selden's Titles of Honour, in his works (vol. iii. p. 457-466.). hundred years before Petrarch, St. Francis received the visit of a poet, qui ab imperatore fuerat coronatus et exinde rex versuum dictus.

From Augustus to Louis, the muse has too often been false and venal: but I much doubt whether any age or court can produce a similar establishment of a stipendiary poet, who in every reign, and at all events, is bound to furnish twice a year a measure of praise and verse, such as may be sung in the chapel, and, I believe, in the presence, of the sovereign. I speak the more freely, as the best time for abolishing this ridiculous custom is while the prince is a man of virtue, and the poet a man of genius.

9 Isocrates (in Panegyrico, tom. i. p. 116, 117. edit. Battie, Cantab. 1729) claims for his native Athens the glory of first instituting and recommending the ảλŵvas — kal τά ἆθλα μέγιστα μὴ μόνον τάχους και ῥώμης, ἀλλὰ καὶ λόγων καὶ γνώμης. The example of the Panathenæa was imitated at Delphi; but the Olympic games were ignorant of a musical crown, till it was extorted by the vain tyranny of Nero (Sueton. in Nerone, c. 23.; Philostrat. apud Casaubon ad locum; Dion Cassius, or Xiphilin, 1. lxiii. p. 1032. 1041. Potter's Greek Antiquities, vol. i. p. 445. 450. ).

10 The Capitoline games (certamen quinquenale, musicum, equestre, gymnicum), were instituted by Domitian (Sueton. c. 4.) in the year of Christ 86 (Censorin. de Die Natali, c. 18. p. 100. edit. Havercamp.), and were not abolished in the ivth century (Ausonius de Professoribus Burdegal. V.). If the crown were given to superior merit, the exclusion of Statius (Capitolia nostræ inficiata lyræ, Sylv. l. iii. v. 31.) may do honour to the games of the Capitol; but the Latin poets who lived before Domitian were crowned only in the public opinion.

11 Petrarch and the senators of Rome were ignorant that the laurel was not the Capitoline, but the Delphic, crown (Plin. Hist. Natur. xv. 39. Hist. Critique de la

endeared to the lover by a verbal resemblance with the name of his mistress. The value of either object was enhanced by the difficulties of the pursuit; and if the virtue or prudence of Laura was inexorable 12, he enjoyed, and might boast of enjoying, the nymph of poetry. His vanity was not of the most delicate kind, since he applauds the success of his own labours; his name was popular; his friends were active; the open or secret opposition of envy and prejudice was surmounted by the dexterity of patient merit. In the thirty-sixth year of his age, he was solicited to accept the object of his wishes; and on the same day, in the solitude of Vaucluse, he received a similar and solemn invitation from the senate of Rome and the university of Paris. The learning of a theological school, and the ignorance of a lawless city, were alike unqualified to bestow the ideal though immortal wreath which genius may obtain from the free applause of the public and of posterity: but the candidate dismissed this troublesome reflection; and after some moments of complacency and suspense, preferred the summons of the metropolis of the world.

His poetic

coronation

at Rome,

A. D. 1341.

The ceremony of his coronation 13 was performed in the Capitol, by his friend and patron the supreme magistrate of the republic. Twelve patrician youths were April 8. arrayed in scarlet; six representatives of the most illustrious families, in green robes, with garlands of flowers, accompanied the procession; in the midst of the princes and nobles, the senator, count of Anguillara, a kinsman of the Colonna, assumed his throne; and at the voice of a herald Petrarch arose. After discoursing on a text of Virgil, and thrice repeating his vows for the prosperity of Rome, he knelt before the throne, and received from the senator a laurel crown, with a more precious declaration, "This is the reward of merit." The people shouted, "Long life to "the Capitol and the poet!" A sonnet in praise of Rome was accepted as the effusion of genius and gratitude; and after the whole procession had visited the Vatican, the profane wreath was suspended before the shrine of St. Peter. In the act or diploma 14

République des Lettres, tom. i. p. 150-220.).

The victors in the Capitol were

crowned with a garland of oak leaves (Martial, 1. iv. epigram 54.).

12 The pious grandson of Laura has laboured, and not without success, to vindicate her immaculate chastity against the censures of the grave and the sneers of the profane (tom. ii. notes, p. 76-82.).

13 The whole process of Petrarch's coronation is accurately described by the abbé de Sade (tom. i. p. 425-435. tom. ii. p. 1-6. notes, p. 1-13.) from his own writings, and the Roman diary of Ludovico Monaldeschi, without mixing in this authentic narrative the more recent fables of Sannuccio Delbene.

14 The original act is printed among the Pieces Justificatives in the Mémoires sur Pétrarque, tom. iii. p. 50-53.

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