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Latin speeches in honour of ancient republican liberty. The
admiration of antiquity was then at its height, and Porcari
iound many enthusiastic hearers. Directly after the death of
Eugenius IV. he made a first and unsuccessful attempt to proclaim
the republic. Nevertheless Nicholas V., with the same
indulgence for scholars that had prompted him to pardon
Valla for denying the temporal power of the papacy and laughing
to scorn the pretended donation of Constantine, freely pardoned
Porcari and named him podesta of Anagni. He filled this
office with credit, but on his return to Rome again began to
play the agitator, and was banished to Bologna with a pension
from the pope. Nicholas V. had conferred all the state offices
upon priests and abbots, and had erected numerous fortresses.
Hence there were many malcontents in Rome, in communication
with Porcari at Bologna, and ready to join in his plot.
Arms were collected, and on the day fixed he presented himself
to his fellow-conspirators adorned with rich robes and a gold
chain, and harangued them in Latin on the duty of freeing
their country from the yoke of the priests. His design was to
set fire to the Vatican on the 6th of January 145 3, the feast of
the Epiphany; he and his -followers were to seize the pope,
the cardinals and the castle of St Angelo. But Nicholas
received timely warning; the conspirators' house was surrounded;
and Porcari himself was seized while trying to escape,
confined in the castle of St Angelo, and put to death with nine
of his companions on the 9th of January. Others shortly
sufiered the same fate.
Under Calixtus III. and Pius II. affairs went on quietly
enough, but Paul II. (1464-71) had a somewhat troubled
reign. Yet he was a skilled politician. He re-ordered the
finances and the courts of justice, punished crime with severity,
was an energetic foe to the Malatesta of Rimini, put an
end to the oppression exercised in Rome by the wealthy and
arrogant house of Anguillara, and kept the people in good
humour with continual festivities. But-and this was a grave
defect at that period-he extended no favour to learning, and,
by driving many scholars from the curia to make room for his
own kinsmen, brought a storm about his ears. At that time
the house of Pomponio Leto was the rendezvous of learned
men and the seat of the Roman Academy. Leto was an
enthusiast of antiquity; and, as the members of the Academy
all assumed old Latin names, they were suspected of a design
to re-establish paganism and the republican governfgjgnirig
ment. It is certain that they all inveighed against
perse- the pope; and, as the latter was no man of half
;';;';';c';:n measures, during the carnival of 1468 he suddenly
ofre- imprisoned twenty Academicians, and even subjected
publican a few of them to torture. Pomponio Leto, although
:;;';;ies absent in Venice, was also arrested and tried; but he
exculpated himself, craved forgiveness, and was set
at liberty. His friends were also released, for the charge of
conspiracy proved to be unfounded. Certain members of
the Academy, and notably Platina in his Lives of the
Popes, afterwards revenged themselves by stigmatizing Paul II.
as the persecutor of philosophy and letters. But he was no more
a persecutor than a patron of learning; he was a politician,
the author of some useful reforms, and solely intent on the
consolidation of his absolute power. Among his reforms may
be classed the revision of the Roman statutes in 1469, for the
purpose of destroying the substance while preserving the form
of the old Roman legislation, and entirely stripping it of all
political significance. In fact the pope's will was now absolute,
and even in criminal cases he could trample unhindered
on the common law.
There was still a senator of Rome, whose nomination was
entirely in the hands of the pope, still three conservators, the
heads of the rioml, and an elected council of twenty-six citizens.
Now and then also a shadowy semblance of a popular assembly
was held to cast dust in the eyes of the public, but even this was
not for long. All these officials, together with the judges of the
Capitol, retained various attributes of different kinds. They
administered justice and gave sentence. There were numerous
tribunals all with undefined modes of procedure, so that it was
very difficult for the citizens to ascertain in which court justice
should be sought. But in last resort there was always the
supreme decision of the pope. Thus matters remained to the
time of the French Revolution.
For the completion of this system a final blow had to be dealt
to the aristocracy, whose power had been increased by nepotism;
and it was dealt by bloodshed under the three following popes-Sixtus
IV. (1471-84), Innocent VIII. (1484-92) and Alexander
VI. (1492-1 5o3)-each of whom was worse than his predecessor.
The first, by means of his nephews, continued the slaughter of
the Colonna, sending an army against them, devastating their
estates at Marino, and beheading the protonotary Lorenzo
Colonna; Innocent VIII. was confronted by the power of the
Orsini, who so greatly endangered his life by their disturbances
in the city that he was only saved by an alliance with Naples.
Neither peace nor order could be lastingly established until
these arrogant barons were overthrown. This task was accomplished
by the worst of the three pontiffs, Alexander VI. All
know how the massacre of the Orsini was compassed, almost
simultaneously, by the pope in Rome and his equally iniquitous
son, Caesar Borgia, at Sinigaglia (1502). This pair dealt the
last blow to the Roman aristocracy and the tyrants of Romagna,
and thus the temporal dominion of the papacy was finally
assured. The republic was now at an end; it had shrivelled
to a civil municipality. Its institutions, deprived of all practical
value, lingered on like ghosts of the past, subject from century
to century to unimportant changes. The history of Rome is
henceforth absorbed in that of the papacy.-Nevertheless
the republic twice attempted to rise from its
grave, and on the second occasion gave proofs of heroism
worthy of its most glorious past. It was first resus- post.
citated in February 1798, by the influence of the medieval
French Revolution, and the French constitution of R°m"the
year III. was rapidly imitated. Rome had again 'two
councils-the tribunate and the senate, with five consuls constituting
the executive power. But in the following year,
owing to the military reverses of the French, the government
of the popes was restored until 1809, when Napoleon I. annexed
to his empire the States of the Church. Rome was then
governed by a consulta straordinaria-a special commission with
the municipal and provincial institutions of France, In
1814 the papal government was again reinstated, and the old
institutions, somewhat modified on the French system, were
recalled to life. Pius IX. (1846-77) tried to introduce political
reforms, and to improve and simplify the old machinery of state;
but the advancing tide of the Italian revolution of 1848 drove
him from Rome; the republic was once more proclaimed, and
had a brief but glorious existence. Its programme was dictated
by Giuseppe Mazzini, who with Safii and Armellini formed the
triumvirate at the head of the government. United Italy was
to be a republic with Rome for her capital. The rhetorical idea
of Cola di Rienzi became heroic in 1849. The constituent
assembly (9th February 1849) proclaimed the fall of the temporal
power of the popcs, and the establishment of a republic
which was to be not only of Rome but of all Italy. France,
although then herself a republic, assumed the unenviable task
of re-establishing the temporal power by force of arms. But
the gallant defence of Rome by Garibaldi covered the republic
with glory. The enemy was repulsed, and the army of the
Neapolitan king, sent to restore the pope, was also driven off.
Then, however, France dispatched a fresh and more powerful
force; Rome was vigorously besieged, and at last compelled
to surrender. On the 2nd of July 1849 the heroic general
departed from the city with some thousands of his followers.
Almost at the same time the constituent assembly proclaimed
in the Capitol the constitution of the Roman Republic. Immediately
afterwards the French restored the government of Pius IX.,
whose reign down to 1870 was that of an absolute sovereign.
Then the Italian government entered Rome (zoth September
1870), proclaimed the national constitution (oth October 1870),
and the Eternal City became the capital of Italy. Thus the<noinclude>{{smallrefs}}</div></noinclude>