Cola di Rienzo

The Cola di Rienzos monument on the Cordonata in Rome

Cola di Rienzo (* spring 1313 in Rome ; † October 8, 1354 ibid) was a Roman politician and tribune . He was best known to posterity through the three-volume novel Rienzi, or the Last of the Tribunes ( Rienzi, der letzte Tribun , 1835) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton and the inspired opera Rienzi (1842) by Richard Wagner . Cola di Rienzo is a controversial figure to this day: for some he is a humanist and fixed star of the Renaissance , for others a megalomaniac tyrant .

Life

Youth and advancement

Cola di Rienzo was born in the first half of 1313 as the son of a innkeeper and a laundress. The usual form of the name "Cola di Rienzo" comes from the Roman colloquial language, in Italian it was called Nicola di Lorenzo (Latin Nicolaus Laurentii, German Nikolaus, son of Laurentius).

It is very likely that di Rienzo received a thorough education despite his simple background. He had a profound knowledge of classical Roman authors and ancient inscriptions. This enabled him to move up in society and to marry the daughter of a notary . He himself also took up the profession of notary and was apparently soon politically active. In 1343 he was a member of a delegation of the Roman People's Party, which was in Avignon Pope Clement VI. wanted to move to return to Rome. Clemens was French and had little desire to move to Rome, which was barely populated, torn by family feuds and completely shabby. However, di Rienzo attracted the Pope's attention and the Pope appointed him notary for the municipal chamber in Rome.

After his return to Rome in 1344, di Rienzo was able to gain deep insights into the ailing economic and financial situation of the city. To him, who was a great admirer of the fallen Roman Empire , the causes of the misery became increasingly clear: The violent struggles between the Colonna and Orsini families for power in Rome led to great destruction in the city as well as fear and horror among the population . Due to the absence of the papacy, which had accompanied the Eternal City through the Middle Ages , the administration and the building fabric fell into disrepair. But Cola di Rienzo saw the Roman nobility as the biggest problem.

The reach for power

In 1347 di Rienzo went public with a campaign that would be called pejorative populist today: he denounced the situation in Rome, blamed the nobility for it and thus drew the already grumbling people to his side. He was quickly successful, because on May 20th he "conquered" the Capitol with the revolting people behind him and drove the hated city nobility from Rome. He proclaimed the republic according to the ancient Roman model, and the Romans gave him the title "Tribune of freedom and illustrious liberator of the Roman republic thanks to the authority of our gracious Lord Jesus Christ" in gratitude. Di Rienzo based his claim to power in particular on a bronze plaque with the " Lex de imperio Vespasiani " (which was hidden in an altar of the Lateran Church with the writing on the inside ) , which he had discovered. This law gave Vespasian imperial powers in 69 .

Cola di Rienzo immediately began his new role as ruler in the city of Rome. He issued ordinances and laws to protect citizens, ensured a certain degree of legal security and restructured the administration and finances. Indeed, these measures were followed by an economic upswing, food prices fell, and citizens increasingly lived without fear. Di Rienzo also found prominent admirers such as the poet and notary colleague Francesco Petrarca , who even fell out over it with his patrons, the Roman noble Colonna family.

Exile and return

But di Rienzo's goals were not shared by everyone: He demanded the sovereignty of the Roman people over the papacy and empire as well as the unification of Italy . He made himself suspicious of both Pope Clement and the Roman-German King (and future emperor) Charles IV . Ultimately, however, his apparently incipient megalomania was his undoing. He was ordained a knight on August 1, 1347 with a solemn ceremony in the Church of San Giovanni in Laterano. From then on he carried the self-conferred title "Candidate of the Holy Spirit, Knight Nicolaus der Gestrenge and gracious, liberator of the city, zealot for Italy, friend of the world, exalted tribune". His ostentatiousness and theatrical self-productions in connection with the tax increases were soon too much, even for the Romans.

The originally hostile Roman noble families allied against the tribune, who only moved through the city in triumphal procession and dressed in an ancient Roman toga . On November 20, 1347, there was a bloody argument at the Porta San Lorenzo . Almost 5,000 aristocratic supporters attacked di Rienzo and his supporters, but were beaten off. Almost 100 dead were left on the streets. Shortly afterwards, di Rienzo was hit by the Pope's beam and he left the city in a hurry on December 15th. For three years he lived with hermits in Abruzzo , which probably saved his life, because in 1348 a wave of plague rolled over Europe (see Black Death ).

In the spring of 1350, di Rienzo returned to Rome in disguise to attend the celebrations of the Holy Year . In July of the same year he fled to Prague to the court of King Charles IV, the candidate for the imperial crown. He predicted the reign of Joachim von Fiore in the Third Reich, the kingdom of the Holy Spirit , announced by Joachim von Fiore , and tried to persuade him to go on a campaign to Rome. But Karl could understandably not be enthusiastic about di Rienzo's ideas of popular sovereignty and handed him over to Pope Clemens in Avignon after a short time in June 1352. But events precipitated: Clemens died that same year and his successor Innocent VI. planned to use di Rienzo's still high popularity with the aim of eliminating the chaotic conditions in Rome. In order to keep the tribune in line, the Pope put the Spanish Cardinal Albornoz at his side as a guardian.

Fall and death

Albornoz was already involved in the Reconquista , he maintained contacts with the European ruling houses and was an important diplomat in the service of the Pope. He was sent to Rome to keep an eye on di Rienzo and to prepare for the Pope's return to Rome. He performed both tasks quite successfully. He appointed di Rienzo senator and thus enabled his triumphant return to Rome on August 1, 1354 - exactly seven years after his spectacular knighthood.

But di Rienzo hardly had a chance to carry out his role as senator. His administration was tyrannical, he was prone to unjust decisions. Incited by their enemies in the nobility, the people of Rome revolted again. On the morning of October 8, 1354, di Rienzo was surprised by the uprising and arrested. They wanted to bring him to justice, but no sooner had the trial started than the tribune was murdered from behind by a craftsman, his corpse desecrated and put on public display.

500 years later, Richard Wagner portrayed his end in a far more heroic way: in the opera "Rienzi" the hero dies under the falling ruins of the Capitol.

literature

Epistolario di Cola di Rienzo

• Edward Georges Bulwer-Lytton : Rienzi, or The Last Of The Tribunes . In: the same: Complete Works . Volume 9. Mrs. Fleischer, Leipzig 1835.
• Richard Wagner : Rienzi, the last of the tribunes . Great tragic opera in five acts. 1837.
• Friedrich Engels : Cola di Rienzi. (dramatic draft, handwriting) (1840/1841)
• Felix Papencordt : Cola di Rienzo and its time. Especially shown from unprinted sources . Perthes, Hamburg and Gotha 1841 digitized
• Julius Mosen : Cola Rienzi, Duke Bernhard, drama . Cotta, Stuttgart 1842.
• Paul Piur: Cola di Rienzo. Representation of his life and his spirit. Seidel, Vienna 1931.
• Iris Origo : Tribune of Rome. A biography of Cola di Rienzo. The Hogarth Press, London 1938.
• Karl Heinrich Höfele: Rienzi. The adventurous prelude to the Renaissance. Oldenbourg, Munich 1958 (= Janus Books Volume 120)
• Jürgen Neubauer: Rienzo (Rienzi), Cola di (Latin Nicolaus Laurentii) . In: Hans Herzfeld (ed.): History in shapes . Volume 4. Fischer Bücherei, Frankfurt am Main 1963, pp. 34–35.
• Amanda Collins: Greater than Emperor. Cola di Rienzo (approx. 1313-54) and the world of fourteenth-century Rome. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor MI 2002, ISBN 0-472-11250-3 (Also: Oxford, University, Dissertation, 1996).
• Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri: Cola di Rienzo (= Profili. NS Bd. 31). Salerno Editrice, Rome 2002, ISBN 88-8402-387-4 .
• Ronald G. Musto: Apocalypse in Rome. Cola di Rienzo and the Politics of the New Age. University of California Press, Berkeley CA et al. a. 2003, ISBN 0-520-23396-4 .
• Andreas Rehberg, Anna Modigliani: Cola di Rienzo e il Comune di Roma. Volume 1: Andreas Rehberg: Clientele e fazioni nell'azione politica di Cola di Rienzo. (= Roma nel Rinascimento inedita. Volume 33, 1). Roma nel Rinascimento, Rome 2004, ISBN 88-85913-43-1 .
• Tilman Struve : State and Society in the Middle Ages. Selected essays (= historical research. Volume 80). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-428-11095-1 , pp. 204–229 (Chapter: Cola di Rienzo: A dream of the renewal of Rome and the ancient lex regia ).

Web links

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