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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 bumane 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 expatiated 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 licence 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 Ca pitol; 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.* But their applause was mute, their pity ineffectual, their liberty for ever 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.

But the independence of the nobles, which was fomented by discord, survived the freedom of the commons, which must be founded in union. A privilege of rapine and oppression was long maintained by the harons of Rome; their houses were a fortress and a sanctuary; and the ferocious train of banditti and criminals whom they protected from the law, repaid the hospitality with the service of their swords and daggers. The private interest of the pontiffs, or their nephews, sometimes involved them in these domestic feuds. Under the reign of Sixtus the Fourth, Rome was distracted by the battles and sieges of the rival houses; after the conflagration of his palace, the protonotary Colonna was tortured and beheaded; and Savelli, his captive friend, was murdered on the spot, for refusing to join in the acclamations of the victorious Ursini.+ But the popes no longer trembled in the Vatican; they had strength to command, if they had resolution to claim, the obedience of their subjects; and the strangers, who observed these partial disorders, admired the easy taxes and wise administration of the ecclesiastical state.‡

* Besides the curious though concise narrative of Machiavel (Istoria Fiorentina, 1. 6, 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. 2, p. 1134, 1135) and in a separate tract by Leo Baptista Alberti (Rer. Ital. tom. xxv. p. 609-614). It is amusing to compare the style and sentiments of the courtier and citizen. Facinus profecto quo. neque periculo horribilius, neque audaciâ detestabilius, neque crudelitate tetrius, a quoquam perditissimo uspiam excogitatum sit . . . Perdette la vita quell' huomo da bene, e amatore dello bene et libertà di Roma. The disorders of Rome, which were much inflamed by the partiality of Sixtus IV. are exposed in the Diaries of two spectators, Stephen Infessura and an anonymous citizen. See the troubles of the year 1484, and the death of the protonotary Colonna, in tom. iii. p. 2, p. 1083. 1158.

Est toute la terre de l'église troublée pour cette partialité (des Colonnes et des Ursins), comme nous dirions Luce et Grammont, ou en Hollande Houc et Caballan; et quand ce ne se seroit ce différend la terre de l'église seroit la plus heureuse habitation pour les sujets, qui soit dans tout le monde (car ils ne payent ni tailles ni guères autres choses), et seroient toujours bien conduits (car toujours les

The spiritual thunders of the Vatican depend on the force of opinion; and if that opinion be supplanted by reason or passion, the sound may idly waste itself in the air; and the helpless priest is exposed to the brutal violence of a noble or a plebeian adversary. But after their return from Avignon, the keys of St. Peter were guarded by the sword of St. Paul. Rome was commanded by an impregnable citadel; the use of cannon is a powerful engine against popular seditions; a regular force of cavalry and infantry was enlisted under the banners of the pope; his ample revenues supplied the resources of war; and, from the extent of his domain, he could bring down on a rebellious city an army of hostile neighbours and loyal subjects.* Since the union of the duchies of Ferrara and Urbino, the ecclesiastical State extends from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, and from the confines of Naples to the banks of the Po; and as early as the sixteenth century, the greater part of that spacious and fruitful country acknowledged the lawful claims and temporal sovereignty of the Roman pontiffs. Their claims were readily deduced from the genuine, or fabulous, donations of the darker ages; the successive steps of their final settlement would engage us too far in the transactions of Italy, and even of Europe; the crimes of Alexander the Sixth, the martial operations of Julius the Second, and the liberal policy of Leo the Tenth, a theme papes sont sages et bien conseillés); mais très souvent en adviennent de grands et cruels meurtres et pilleries. [Luce and Grammont are names that belong to the Huguenots and Catholics of France. The Dutch factions are more obscure. On the death of Louis of Bavaria in 1347, his widow Margaret contested with her son William V., the sovereignty of Holland. The partisans of the young prince took the name of Kabbeljauws (cod-fish), intimating that they would devour their opponents, who then called themselves, according to some Hoeken (hooks), or, as is said by others, Snoeken (pikes). The former distinguished themselves by grey caps, and the latter by red. For many years the whole country was distracted by their quarrels; battles were fought on land and sea; and even after the death of both mother and son, the animosities of party-strife were prolonged till about 1492, when more serious subjects began to demand attention and enforce union.-ED.] * By the economy of Sixtus V. the revenue of the ecclesiastical state was raised to two millions and a half of Roman crowns (Vita, tom. ii. p. 291-296); and so regular was the military establishment, that in one month Clement VIII. could invade the duchy of Ferrara with three thousand horse and twenty thousand foot (tom. iii. p. 64). Since that time (4.D. 1597)

which has been adorned by the pens of the noblest historians of the times.* In the first period of their conquests, till the expedition of Charles the Eighth, the popes might successfully wrestle with the adjacent princes and states, whose military force was equal, or inferior, to their own; but as soon as the monarchs of France, Germany, and Spain, contended with gigantic arms for the dominion of Italy, they supplied with art the deficiency of strength; and concealed, in a labyrinth of wars and treaties, their aspiring views, and the immortal hope of chasing the Barbarians beyond the Alps. The nice balance of the Vatican was often subverted by the soldiers of the North and West, who were united under the standard of Charles the Fifth; the feeble and fluctuating policy of Clement the Seventh exposed his person and dominions to the conqueror; and Rome was abandoned seven months to a lawless army, more cruel and rapacious than the Goths and Vandals. After this severe lesson, the popes contracted their ambition, which was almost satisfied, resumed the character of a common parent, and abstained from all offensive hostilities, except in a hasty quarrel, when the vicar of Christ and the Turkish sultan were armed at the same time against the kingdom of Naples. The French and Germans at length withdrew from the field of battle; Milan, Naples, Sicily,

the Papal arms are happily rusted; but the revenue must have gained some nominal increase. [The revenues of the papal States in 1837 amounted to 13,485,000 dollars (3,034,125 pounds sterling) and the military force to 18,748 men. Malte Brun and Balbi. p. 583. -ED.] * More especially by Guicciardini and Machiavel; in the General History of the former, in the Florentine History, the Prince, and the Political Discourses of the latter. These, with their worthy successors, Fra-Paolo and Davila, were justly esteemed the first historians of modern languages, till, in the present age, Scotland arose, to dispute the prize with Italy herself. [Germany prefers no ignoble claim in the names of Schmidt, Schrökh, Neander, and Ranke; and our own countryman Roscoe, in his Lives of Lorenzo de' Medici and Leo X., is another and not unworthy competitor.-ED.] In the history of the Gothic siege, I have compared the Barbarians with the subjects of Charles the Fifth (vol. iii. p. 447, 448); an anticipation, which, like that of the Tartar conquests, I indulged with the less scruple, as I could scarcely hope to reach the conclusion of my work.

‡ The ambitious and feeble hostilities of the Caraffa pope, Paul IV., may be seen in Thuanus (1. 16-18) and Giannone (tom. iv. p. 149– 163). Those Catholic bigots, Philip II. and the duke of Alva, presumed to separate the Roman prince from the vicar of Christ: yet the

Sardinia, and the sea-coast of Tuscany, were firmly possessed by the Spaniards; and it became their interest to maintain the peace and dependence of Italy, which continued almost without disturbance from the middle of the sixteenth to the opening of the eighteenth century. The Vatican was swayed and protected by the religious policy of the Catholic king; his prejudice and interest disposed him in every dispute to support the prince against the people; and instead of the encouragement, the aid, and the asylum, which they ob tained from the adjacent states, the friends of liberty, or the enemies of law, were enclosed on all sides within the iron circle of despotism. The long habits of obedience and edu cation subdued the turbulent spirit of the nobles and commons of Rome. The barons forgot the arms and factions of their ancestors, and insensibly became the servants of luxury and government. Instead of maintaining a crowd of tenants and followers, the produce of their estates was consumed in the private expenses which multiply the pleasures, and diminish the power, of the lord.* The Colonna and Ursini vied with each other in the decorations of their palaces and chapels; and their antique splendour was rivalled or surpassed by the sudden opulence of the papal families. In Rome, the voice of freedom and discord is no longer heard; and instead of the foaming torrent, a smooth and stagnant lake reflects the image of idleness and servitude.

A Christian, a philosopher,† and a patriot, will be equally scandalized by the temporal kingdom of the clergy; and the local majesty of Rome, the remembrance of her consuls and triumphs, may seem to imbitter the sense, and aggravate

holy character, which would have sanctified his victory, was decently applied to protect his defeat. * This gradual change of manners and expense, is admirably explained by Dr. Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p. 495-504), who proves, perhaps too severely, that the most salutary effects have flowed from the meanest and most selfish causes.

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+ Mr. Hume (Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 389) too hastily concludes, that if the civil and ecclesiastical powers be united in the same person, it is of little moment whether he be styled prince or prelate, since the temporal character will always predominate. [None can have studied these volumes without perceiving that ecclesiastical encroachment always aims at temporal objects. The bustling, ambitious priest seeks to grasp power, only for the sake of the worldly treasures which it commands. It is then of some moment by what name he is styled, as the sacred title implies that worst of hypocrisies, which conceals the sordid under the guise of generous motives. The most convincing

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