Giovanni Janduno placarded the walls with insulting manifestoes against the pope, whom the Minorites stigmatized as a heretic and wished to depose. In April Louis twice assembled the parliament in St Peter's Square, and, after obtaining its sanction to several anti-papal edicts, declared John XXII. degraded and deposed as a heretic. This was a very strange and novel spectacle, the more so that, as was speedily proved, the Romans were stirred by no anti-Catholic spirit, no yearning for religious reform. Jacopo Colonna, a canon of the Lateran, was able to make his way into Rome with four masked companions, to publicly read, at the top of his voice and before a great multitude, the excommunication launched against the emperor by the deposed pope, to traverse the entire city, and to withdraw unmolested to Palestrina. Meanwhile the emperor contented himself with decreeing that henceforth the popes must reside in Rome,—that if, when invited, they should fail to come they would be thereby held deposed from the throne. As a logical consequence, proceedings were immediately begun for the election of the new pope, Nicholas V., who on the 12th of May was proclaimed by the popular voice in St Peter's Square, and received the imperial sanction. But this ephemeral drama came to an end when the emperor departed with his antipope on the 4th of August. This caused the immediate downfall of the democratic government. Bertoldo Orsini, who had returned to Rome with his Guelphs, and Stefano Colonna were elected senators, and confirmed in the office by Cardinal Giovanni Orsini in the name of the pope. A new parliament cancelled the emperor's edicts, and had them burnt by the public executioner. Later, Nicholas, the antipope, went with a rope about his neck to make submission to John XXII., and Louis promised to disavow and retract all that he had done against the church, provided the sentence of excommunication were withdrawn. This, however, was refused. Never had the empire fallen so low. Meanwhile King Robert was again supreme in Rome, and, being re-elected senator, appointed vicars there as before. Anarchy reigned. The city was torn by factions, and the provinces rebelled against the French representatives of the pope, who, in their ignorance of Italian affairs, were at a loss how to act.
And after the election of Benedict XII. (1334-42) confusion reached so great a pitch that, on the expiration of Robert's senatorial term, the Romans named thirteen heads of regions to carry on the government with two senators, while the king still sent vicars as before. The people, for the sake of peace, once more granted the supremacy of the senate to the pope, and he nominated two knights of Gubbio, Giacomo di Cante dei Gabrielli and Bosone Novello dei Gabrielli, who were succeeded by two other senators the following year. But in Reconstitution of the republic. 1339 the Romans attacked the Capitol, named two senators of their own choice, re-established a democratic government, and sent ambassadors to Florence to ask for the ordinances of justice (ordinamenti della giustizia), by which that city had broken the power of the nobles, and also that a few skilled citizens should lend their help in the reconstitution of Rome. Accordingly some Florentines came with the ordinamenti, some portions of which may be recognized in the Roman statutes, and, after first rearranging the taxes, elected thirteen priors of the gilds, a gonfalonier of justice, and a captain of the people after the Florentine manner. But there was a dissimilarity in the conditions of the two cities. The gilds having little influence in Rome, the projected reform failed, and the pope, who was opposed to it, re-elected the senators. Thereupon public discontent swelled, and especially when, by the foundation of the papal palace of Avignon, it was evident that Benedict XII. had no intention of restoring the Holy See to Italy. This pope was succeeded in 1342 by Clement VI. (1342-52), and King Robert in 1343 by his niece Joanna; and the latter event, while plunging the kingdom in anarchy, likewise aggravated the condition of Rome. For not only were the Neapolitan sovereigns still very powerful there, but the principal Roman nobles held large fiefs across the Neapolitan borders.
Shortly before this another revolution in Rome had re-established the government of the thirteen elders and the Cola di Rienzi. two senators. The people, being anxious to show their intention of respecting the papal authority, had dispatched to Avignon as ambassador of the republic, in 1343, a man destined to make much noise in the world. This was Cola di Rienzi, son of a Roman innkeeper, a notary, and an impassioned student of the Bible, the fathers, Livy, Seneca, Cicero, and Valerius Maximus. Thoroughly imbued with a half pagan, half Christian spirit, he believed that he had a divinely inspired mission to revive the ancient glories of Rome. Of handsome presence, full of fantastic eloquence, and stirred to enthusiasm by contemplation of the ruined monuments of Rome, he harangued the people with a stilted oratory that enchanted their ears. He hated the nobles, because one of his brothers had been killed by them; he loved the republic, and in its name addressed a stately Latin speech to the astonished pope, and, offering him the supreme power, besought his instant return to Rome. He also begged him to allow the city to celebrate a jubilee every fifty years, and then, as a personal request, asked to be nominated notary to the urban chamber. The pope consented to everything, and Rienzi communicated this good news to Rome in an emphatically worded epistle. After Easter, in 1344, he returned to Rome, and found to his grief that the city was a prey to the nobles. He immediately began to admonish the latter, and then, draped in a toga adorned with symbols, exhibited and explained allegorical designs to the people, and announced the speedy restoration of the past grandeur of Rome. Finally he and a few burghers and merchants, whom he had secretly inflamed by his discourses, made a solemn vow to overthrow the nobility and consolidate the republic. The moment was favourable, owing to the anarchy of Naples, the absence of the pope, the weakness of the empire and the disputes of the barons, although the latter were still very potent and constituted, as it were, a separate government opposed to that of the people. Rienzi, having gained the pope's ecclesiastical vicar to his side, passed in prayer the night of the 10th of May 1347, placing his enterprise under the protection of the Holy Spirit, and the following day marched to the Capitol, surrounded by his adherents, convoked a parliament of the people, and obtained its sanction for the following proposals:—that all pending lawsuits should be at once decided; that justice should be equally administered to all; that every region should equip one hundred foot soldiers and twenty-five horse; that the dues and taxes should be rearranged; that the forts, bridges and gates of the city should be held by the rector of the people instead of by the nobility; and that granaries should be opened for the public use. On the same day, amid general homage and applause, Rienzi was proclaimed head of the republic, with the title of tribune and liberator of the Holy Roman Republic, “by authority of the most merciful Lord Jesus Christ.” The nobles withdrew scoffing but alarmed. Rienzi engaged a body-guard of one hundred men, and assumed the command of thirteen hundred infantry and three hundred and ninety light horse; he abolished the senators, retained the Thirteen and the general and special councils, and set the administration on a new footing. These measures and the prompt submission of the other cities of the state brought an instant increase of revenue to Rome.
This revolution, as will be noted, was of an entirely novel stamp. For its leader dispatched envoys to all the cities of Italy, exhorting them to shake off the yoke of their tyrants, and send representatives to the parliament convoked for the 1st of August, inasmuch as the liberation of Rome also implied the “liberation of the sacred land of Italy.” In Rienzi's judgment the Roman revolution must be, not municipal, but national, and even in some points universal. And this idea was welcomed with general enthusiasm throughout the peninsula. Solemn festivals and processions were held in Rome; and, when the tribune went in state to St Peter's, the canons met him on the steps chanting the Veni, Creator Spiritus. Even the pope, willingly or unwillingly, accorded his approval to
