Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2: Studies from the Chronicles of RomeCrawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion)
History
Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2: Studies from the Chronicles of Rome
Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion)
Rome (Italy) -- Description and travel
But after that the quarrel was renewed between Pope Sixtus and Lorenzo
Colonna, on pretext that a certain part of the agreement to which they
had come had not been executed by the Protonotary; and while the matter
was under discussion, the Cardinal of Saint George, nephew of the great
Count Jerome Riario, sent word privately to the Protonotary Colonna,
warning him either to escape from Rome or to be on his guard if he
remained, 'because some one was plotting against him, and hated him.'
Wherefore Lorenzo shut himself up in the dwelling of Cardinal Colonna,
between the Colonna palace and Monte Cavallo on the Quirinal hill, and
many young men, attached to the great house, began to watch in arms,
day and night, turn and turn about. And when this became known, the
Orsini also began to arm themselves and keep watch at Monte Giordano.
Scenting a struggle, a Savelli, siding with Colonna, struck the first
blow by seizing forty horses and mules of the Orsini in a farm building
on the Tivoli road; and immediately half a dozen robber Barons joined
Savelli, and they plundered right and left, and one of them wrote a long
and courteous letter of justification to the Pope. But Orsini retorted
swiftly, 'lifting' horses and cattle that belonged to his enemies and
making prisoners of their retainers. Among others he took two men who
belonged to the Protonotary. And the latter, unable to leave Rome in
safety, began to fortify himself in the Cardinal's house with many
fighting men, and with many strange weapons, 'bombardelle, cerobottane,'
and guns and catapults. Whereupon the Pope sent for Orsini, and
commanded him, as the faithful adherent of the Church, to go and take
the Protonotary prisoner to his house. But while Orsini was marshalling
his troops with those of Jerome Riario, at Monte Giordano and in Campo
de' Fiori, the Pope sent for the municipal officers of the city and
explained that he meant to pardon the Protonotary if the latter would
come to the Vatican humbly and of his own free will; and certain of
these officers went to the Protonotary as ambassadors, to explain this.
To them he answered, in the presence of Stephen Infessura, the
chronicler who tells the story, that he had not fortified himself
against the Church, but against private and dangerous enemies, against
whom he had been warned, and that he had actually found that his house
was spied upon by night; but that he was ready to carry out the terms of
the old agreement, and finally, that he was ready to go freely to the
Pope, trusting himself wholly to His Holiness, without any earnest or
pledge for his safety, but that he begged the Pope not to deliver him
into the hands of the Orsini. Yet even before he had spoken, the Orsini
were moving up their men, by way of Saint Augustine's Church, which is
near Piazza Navona. Nevertheless Colonna, the Protonotary, mounted his
horse to ride over to the Vatican.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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