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of the Church and empire. This prejudice was encouraged in some degree by the resort of pilgrims to the shrines of the apostles; and the last legacy of the popes, the institution of the HOLY YEAR,* was not less beneficial to the people than to the clergy. Since the loss of Palestine, the gift of plenary indulgences, which had been applied to the crusades, remained without an object; and the most valuable treasure of the Church was sequestered above eight years from public circulation. A new channel was opened by the diligence of Boniface the Eighth, who reconciled the vices of ambition and avarice; and the pope had sufficient learning to recollect and revive the secular games which were celebrated in Rome at the conclusion of every century. To sound without danger the depth of popular credulity, a sermon was seasonably pronounced, a report was artfully scattered, some aged witnesses were produced; and on the 1st of January of the year 1300, the church of St. Peter was crowded with the faithful, who demanded the customary indulgence of the holy time. The pontiff, who watched and irritated their devout impatience, was soon persuaded by ancient testimony of the justice of their claim; and he proclaimed a plenary absolution to all Catholics who, in the course of that year, and at every similar period, should respectfully visit the apostolic churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. The welcome sound was propagated through Christendom; and at first from the nearest provinces of Italy, and at length from the remote kingdoms of Hungary and Britain, the highways were thronged with a swarm of pilgrims who sought to expiate their sins in a journey, however costly or laborious, which was exempt from the perils of military service. All exceptions of rank or sex, of age or infirmity, were forgotten in the common transport; and in the streets and churches many persons were trampled to death by the eagerness of devotion. The calculation of their numbers could not be easy nor accurate; and they have probably been magnified by a dexterous clergy, well

traxisse noscuntur in memorato collegio existant. cipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 1281.)

(Thomassin, Dis

Our primitive account is from Cardinal James Caietan (Maxima Bibliot. Patrum, tom. xxv.); and I am at a loss to determine whether the nephew of Boniface VIII. be a fool or a knave: the uncle is a much clearer character,

apprized of the contagion of example; yet we are assured by a judicious historian, who assisted at the ceremony, that Rome was never replenished with less than two hundred thousand strangers; and another spectator has fixed at two millions the total concourse of the year. A trifling oblation from each individual would accumulate a royal treasure; and two priests stood night and day with rakes in their hands, to collect, without counting, the heaps of gold and silver that were poured on the altar of St. Paul.* It was fortunately a season of peace and plenty; and if forage was scarce, if inns and lodgings were extravagantly dear, an inexhaustible supply of bread and wine, of meat and fish, was provided by the policy of Boniface and the venal hospitality of the Romans. From a city without trade or industry, all casual riches will speedily evaporate; but the avarice and envy of the next generation solicited Clement the Sixth to anticipate the distant period of the century. The gracious pontiff complied with their wishes; afforded Rome this poor consolation for his loss; and justified the change by the name and practice of the Mosaic jubilee ‡ His summons was obeyed; and the number, zeal, and liberality, of the pilgrims did not yield to the primitive festival. But they encountered the triple scourge of war, pestilence and famine; many wives and virgins were violated in the castles of Italy; and many strangers were pillaged or murdered by the savage Romans, no longer moderated by the presence of their bishop.§ To the impatience of the popes we may ascribe the successive reduction to fifty, thirty-three, and twenty-five years; although the second of these terms is commensurate with the life of Christ. The

* See John Villani (1. 8, c. 36) in the twelfth, and the Chronicor Astense, in the eleventh, volume (p. 191, 192) of Muratori's Collection, Papa innumerabilem pecuniam ab eisdem accepit, nam duo clerici, cum rastris, &c. The two Bulls of Boniface VIII. Corpus Juris Canonici. (ExtraThe Sabbatic

and Clement VI. are inserted in the vagant. Commun. 1. 5, tit. 9, c. 1, 2.) years and jubilees of the Mosaic law (Car. Sigon. de Republicâ Hebræorum, Opp. tom. iv. 1. 3, c. 14, 15, p, 151, 152), the suspension of all care and labour, the periodical release of lands, debts, servitude, &c. may seem a noble idea; but the execution would be impracticable in a profane republic; and I should be glad to learn that this ruinous festival was observed by the Jewish people.

Soe the Chronicle of Matteo Villani (l. 1, c. 56) in the fourteenth

profusion of indulgences, the revolt of the Protestants, and the decline of superstition, have much diminished the valuo of the jubilee; yet even the nineteenth and last festival was a year of pleasure and profit to the Romans; and a philosophic smile will not disturb the triumph of the priest or the happiness of the people.*

In the beginning of the eleventh century, Italy was exposed to the feudal tyranny, alike oppressive to the sovereign and the people. The rights of human nature were vindicated by her numerous republics, who soon extended their liberty and dominion from the city to the adjacent country. The sword of the nobles was broken; their slaves were enfranchised; their castles were demolished; they assumed the habits of society and obedience; their ambition was confined to municipal honours, and in the proudest aristocracy of Venice or Genoa, each patrician was subject to the laws. But the feeble and disorderly government of Rome was unequal to the task of curbing her rebellious sons, who scorned the authority of the magistrate within and without the walls. It was no longer a civil contention between the nobles and plebeians for the government of the state; the barons asserted, in arms, their personal independence; their palaces and castles were fortified against a siege; and their private quarrels were maintained by the numbers of their vassals and retainers. In origin and affec tion, they were aliens to their country; and a genuine Roman, could such have been produced, might have r nounced these haughty strangers, who disdained the appellation of citizens, and proudly styled themselves the princes of Rome.§ After a dark series of revolutions, all records volume of Muratori, and the Mémoires sur la Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 75-89. The subject is exhausted by M. Chais, a French minister at the Hague, in his Lettres Historiques et Dogmatiques, sur les Jubilés et les Indulgences; La Haye, 1751, three vols. in 12mo.; an elaborate and pleasing work, had not the author preferred the character of a polemic to that of a philosopher.

+ Muratori (dissert. 47) alleges the Annals of Florence, Padua, (lenoa, &c. the analogy of the rest, the evidence of Otho of Frisingen (de Gest. Fred. I. 1. 2, c. 13), and the submission of the marquis of Este. As early as the year 824, the emperor Lothaire I. found it expedient to interrogate the Roman people, to learn from each individual by what national law he chose to be governed. (Muratori, dissert. 22.) [See note, vol. iv. p. 185, 186.—ED.]

Petrarch attacks these foreigners, the tyrants of Rome, in a

of pedigree were lost; the distinction of surnames was abolished; the blood of the nations was mingled in a thousand channels; and the Goths and Lombards, the Greeks and Franks, the Germans and Normans, had obtained the fairest possessions by royal bounty or the prerogative of valour. These examples might be readily presumed; but the elevation of a Hebrew race to the rank of senators and consuls is an event without a parallel in the long captivity of these miserable exiles. In the time of Leo the Ninth, a wealthy and learned Jew was converted to Christianity, and honoured at his baptism with the name of his godfather, the reigning pope. The zeal and courage of Peter the son of Leo were signalized in the cause of Gregory the Seventh, who intrusted his faithful adherent with the government of Adrian's mole, the tower of Crescentius, or, as it is now called, the castle of St. Angelo. Both the father and the son were the parents of a numerous progeny; their riches, the fruits of usury, were shared with the noblest families of the city; and so extensive was their alliance, that the grandson of the proselyte was exalted by the weight of his kindred to the throne of St. Peter. A majority of the clergy and people supported his cause; he reigned several years in the Vatican, and it is only the eloquence of St. Bernard, and the final triumph of Innocent the Second, that has branded Anacletus with the epithet of anti-pope. After his defeat and death, the posterity of Leo is no longer conspicuous; and none will be found of the modern nobles ambi

tious of descending from a Jewish stock. It is not my design to enumerate the Roman families which have failed at different periods, or those which are continued in different degrees of splendour to the present time.† The old consular line of the Frangipani discover their name in the

declamation or epistle, full of bold truths and absurd pedantry, in which he applie sthe maxims, and even prejudices, of the old republic to the state of the fourteenth century. (Mémoires, tom. iii. p. 157— 139.) * The origin and adventures of this Jewish family are noticed by Pagi (Critica, tom. iv. p. 435, A.D. 1124, No. 3, 4), who draws his information from the Chronographus Maurigniacensis, and Arnulphus Sagiensis, De Schismate. (In Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. iii. p. 1, p. 423-432.) The fact must in some degree be true; yet I could wish that it had been coolly related, before it was turned into a reproach against the antipope. + Muratori has

giveu two dissertations (41 and 42) to the names, surnames, and VOL. VII. 20

generous act of breaking or dividing bread in a time of famine; and such benevolence is more truly glorious than to have enclosed, with their allies the Corsi, a spacious quarter of the city in the chains of their fortifications; the Savelli, as it should seem, a Sabine race, have maintained their original dignity; the obsolete surname of the Capizucchi is inscribed on the coins of the first senators; the Conti preserve the honour, without the estate, of the counts of Signia; and the Annibaldi must have been very ignorant, or very modest, if they had not descended from the Carthaginian hero.*

But among, perhaps above, the peers and princes of the city, I distinguish the rival houses of COLONNA and URSINI, whose private story is an essential part of the annals of modern Rome. I. The name and arms of Colonnat have been the theme of much doubtful etymology; nor have the orators and antiquarians overlooked either Trajan's pillar, or the columns of Hercules, or the pillar of Christ's flagellation, or the luminous column that guided the Israelites in

families of Italy. Some nobles, who glory in their domestic fables,
may be offended with his firm and temperate criticism; yet surely
some ounces of pure gold are of more value than many pounds of base
metal.
*The cardinal of St. George, in his
poetical, or rather metrical, history of the election and coronation of
Boniface VIII. (Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. iii. p. 1, p. 641, &c.)
describes the state and families of Rome at the coronation of Boni-
face VIII. (A.D. 1295).

Interea, titulis redimiti sanguine et armis,
Illustresque viri Romanâ a stirpe trahentes
Nomen, in emeritos tantæ virtutis honores,
Intulerant sese medios, festumque colebant,
Aurata fulgente toga, sociante catervâ.

Ex ipsis devota domus præstantis ab Ursa Ecclesiæ, vultumque gerens demissius altum Festa Columna jocis, necnon Sabellia mitis; Stephanides senior, Comites Anibalica proles, Præfectusque urbis magnum sine viribus nomen. (Lib. 2, c. 5. 100, p. 647, 648.) The ancient statutes of Rome (1. 3, c. 59, p. 174, 175) distinguish eleven families of barons, who are obliged to swear in concilio communi, before the senator, that they would not harbour or protect any malefactors, outlaws, &c.-a feeble security.

It is pity that the Colonna themselves have not favoured the world with a complete and critical history of their illustrious house I adhere to Muratori. Dissert. 42, tom. iii. p. 647, 648.)

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