Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City (21 page)
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Authors: Peter Demetz
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Charles, as it turned out, was not satisfied with this one written answer, and in late 1351 he prevailed on his prisoner to write a letter to Italy in his name and communicating his ideas. Di Rienzo’s admirer Petrarch, the great and famous poet, had also written to Charles asking him to intervene in Italian affairs, and Charles, being ironic or spiteful or both, now asked di Rienzo (possibly using Johannes, who was always enchanted by good letter writing, as intermediary) to formulate a brief message denying Petrarch’s request. The notion was perhaps that the most efficient way to impress his ideas on his Roman prisoner was to ask him to express them himself, in his best style and worthy of Petrarch, and perhaps poor di Rienzo hoped to derive advantage from an involuntary stint as the king’s secretary.
He wanted, above all, a fair hearing; and even before he was shifted in September from his Prague prison to the archbishop’s residence at Roudnice, where he was held in a prison “of three rooms,” he wrote two apologies for his life and ideas, one directed to the archbishop and another one to the king. These longish texts are marvels of discursive energy,
precise allusions to a wide array of theological and classical readings, and a courageous resolution to continue his fight. Still unfazed, he told the archbishop that the pope was a private person who could sin and accused the Avignon Curia of dishonesty with the Christian flocks given to its care. Playing on the image of sheep and rapacious wolves, he made the Curia responsible for the tyranny of the Italian nobles, the anarchy in Naples and Rome, and the corruption of justice; it was high time to take the bloody sword from the hands of the pope and return it to those of the king and emperor, where it belonged.
precise allusions to a wide array of theological and classical readings, and a courageous resolution to continue his fight. Still unfazed, he told the archbishop that the pope was a private person who could sin and accused the Avignon Curia of dishonesty with the Christian flocks given to its care. Playing on the image of sheep and rapacious wolves, he made the Curia responsible for the tyranny of the Italian nobles, the anarchy in Naples and Rome, and the corruption of justice; it was high time to take the bloody sword from the hands of the pope and return it to those of the king and emperor, where it belonged.
In his treatise addressed to Charles, di Rienzo was no less afraid to take on theological matters, and he demonstrated that he was a fine attorney for his beliefs. Charles had appealed to Christian charity, and di Rienzo (presumably his uncle) promptly addressed him with the informal tu, saying that he was following the laws of love, which were desirous of singularity; after all, he wrote, “we even address God who rules us all in the same way … and so did the Roman orators when addressing Roman caesars.” Invalidating a possible accusation of heresy as if in passing, he also declared that he firmly believed that the Holy Ghost was always active and present, coming and breathing every day; and he taught Charles an admirable lesson in charity, telling him about the humility, poverty, and self-denial of the Franciscan spirituals whom the king had accused of pride and vanity. There was more of the Christian heritage alive in the monks’ Apennine caves than in all the glories of Avignon.
Unfortunately, di Rienzo was a volatile man easily fired by enthusiasm and also quickly disconcerted, and as his imprisonment dragged on into its second year and the archbishop’s responses to his letters continued curt and impatient, he proposed that he was willing to go to Avignon, which he knew well, and stand trial there, no matter what the outcome. For some time, Charles had actually played a cat-and-mouse game with his irritated friend Pope Clement VI (I’ll give you the heretic, and you set the date of my imperial coronation, finally), but then the Curia increased the pressures and Charles finally agreed to deliver his prisoner to the pope—though not without hedging and a few tactical delays, because Charles knew that Clement VI was mortally ill and might die before too much harm was done to di Rienzo. The papal decree excommunicating Cola di Rienzo was read in the churches, and the pope sent the bishop of Spoleto to Prague to read it at St. Vitus Cathedral and take the prisoner away to Avignon. There he was held for another year, recanted (also in a letter to the Prague archbishop, which makes depressing reading), and then, in one of the melodramatic reversals so characteristic of his life, was
freed by Pope Innocent VI after the death of his predecessor, and sent to Rome to make it safe for the Avignon hierarchy. Di Rienzo executed a number of noble enemies without hearings or trials, but he was unable to restore his old popularity among the Romans, and when a street demonstration against a newly imposed tax got out of hand, he was brutally murdered by the mob (October 8, 1354), his nearly severed head dangling from his lacerated body. He was hung by his feet (as was Mussolini, another reckless populist, in Milan in 1945), and the Roman Jews were ordered to burn his remains on a stake of thistles and thorns (always a connoisseur of spectacles and emblems, he would have been pleased by the symbolic detail). It is not known whether Charles gave a thought to Cola di Rienzo when he traveled through Italy to be crowned emperor in Rome the following spring.
freed by Pope Innocent VI after the death of his predecessor, and sent to Rome to make it safe for the Avignon hierarchy. Di Rienzo executed a number of noble enemies without hearings or trials, but he was unable to restore his old popularity among the Romans, and when a street demonstration against a newly imposed tax got out of hand, he was brutally murdered by the mob (October 8, 1354), his nearly severed head dangling from his lacerated body. He was hung by his feet (as was Mussolini, another reckless populist, in Milan in 1945), and the Roman Jews were ordered to burn his remains on a stake of thistles and thorns (always a connoisseur of spectacles and emblems, he would have been pleased by the symbolic detail). It is not known whether Charles gave a thought to Cola di Rienzo when he traveled through Italy to be crowned emperor in Rome the following spring.
The king’s encounter with Francesco Petrarch, the most renowned man of letters of his age, was a matter of prestige, high decorum, diplomacy, and a little literature. Petrarch, too, dreamed of a
renovatio Romae,
a rejuvenation of Rome, but in literary and historical terms, and he did not conflate his classical utopia with religious ideas on the brink of heresy, as Cola di Rienzo did. Charles, more than willing to entertain a defender of the imperial idea so long as this did not offend the pope, was eager to attract the poet to Prague. If older interpretations of Petrarch’s sonnet 238 are legitimate, the Bohemian regent and the Italian poet may have met, or at least observed each other from afar, as early as 1346, in Avignon, for the sonnet describes a festive dance, bringing together many beautiful girls—of course, Petrarch singles out Laura, “
real natura, angelico intelleto
,” of regal nature, angelic intellect—and when Charles enters, “his sound discernment quickly saw/among so many faces the most perfect” (
fra tanti et sì bei volti il più perf etto):
Laura’s, as it could not be otherwise. The prince politely approaches Laura “and with kindly expression he kissed her eyes and brow.” All the ladies are happy because they consider, or so the poem suggests, that the kisses are compliments to the entire assembly; only the poet, watching from afar, feels a twinge of jealousy and envy (“
me empiè d‘invidia l’atto dolce et strano”
). It is a lovely court scene, but the poet never mentioned it later to King Charles and there is little evidence that Charles ever read Italian sonnets, though he could have done so easily.
renovatio Romae,
a rejuvenation of Rome, but in literary and historical terms, and he did not conflate his classical utopia with religious ideas on the brink of heresy, as Cola di Rienzo did. Charles, more than willing to entertain a defender of the imperial idea so long as this did not offend the pope, was eager to attract the poet to Prague. If older interpretations of Petrarch’s sonnet 238 are legitimate, the Bohemian regent and the Italian poet may have met, or at least observed each other from afar, as early as 1346, in Avignon, for the sonnet describes a festive dance, bringing together many beautiful girls—of course, Petrarch singles out Laura, “
real natura, angelico intelleto
,” of regal nature, angelic intellect—and when Charles enters, “his sound discernment quickly saw/among so many faces the most perfect” (
fra tanti et sì bei volti il più perf etto):
Laura’s, as it could not be otherwise. The prince politely approaches Laura “and with kindly expression he kissed her eyes and brow.” All the ladies are happy because they consider, or so the poem suggests, that the kisses are compliments to the entire assembly; only the poet, watching from afar, feels a twinge of jealousy and envy (“
me empiè d‘invidia l’atto dolce et strano”
). It is a lovely court scene, but the poet never mentioned it later to King Charles and there is little evidence that Charles ever read Italian sonnets, though he could have done so easily.
Petrarch attached his hopes for the rejuvenation of the ancient empire of the Romans variously to the Anjou family and to Cola di Rienzo, whose excesses he viewed with increasing misgivings, and, after a brief visit to desolate Rome, he addressed a stately letter to King Charles urging him
to action; in the initial paragraph, he tells him he will spare him flattery and, rather, present lamentations. He entreats Charles not to waste time in superfluous negotiations and to use the time that flies; “what was achieved in the course of many centuries was often destroyed in a single day.” Charles should not be distracted by the political problems of Germany or by his love for his sweet Bohemia but hurry to act in Italy, “which has never welcomed with greater joy the coming of a foreign ruler”; after all, he had been educated in Italy and would bring balm to heal its wounds.
to action; in the initial paragraph, he tells him he will spare him flattery and, rather, present lamentations. He entreats Charles not to waste time in superfluous negotiations and to use the time that flies; “what was achieved in the course of many centuries was often destroyed in a single day.” Charles should not be distracted by the political problems of Germany or by his love for his sweet Bohemia but hurry to act in Italy, “which has never welcomed with greater joy the coming of a foreign ruler”; after all, he had been educated in Italy and would bring balm to heal its wounds.
In Prague, Charles must have been overwhelmed, or amused, by Petrarch’s power of words; he did not immediately dictate an answer, as was his habit, but thought it best to employ his prisoner Cola di Rienzo, ideally qualified to couch a negative answer in an impressive idiom perhaps equal to Petrarch’s; it is one of the many ironies of this particular exchange that the king’s letter was not delivered to Petrarch until two years later (the poet had changed addresses too often) and he never suspected who had actually written the artful communication. Charles, relying on di Rienzo’s
fioritura
, praises Petrarch’s letter, adorned by laurel, for its manly courage and compassion but does not hesitate to describe Italian conditions in strong language—“justice sold into the brothel of miserliness” (
ad avaricie lupanar prostituta iustitia
, a master touch by di Rienzo)—and, sighing audibly and referring to a Horatian image, to say that it was more difficult to raise a sunken ship than to restore its sails and ropes. Charles had no quarrel about the glory that was Rome, yet the past was past and the present was different. It was necessary to consider past and present in order to restore honor by honest means; everything had to be tried first before the iron was applied (
omnia nam prius temptanda quam ferrum
), as surgeons and emperors knew. Never was Charles closer to defining the first principle of his diplomacy.
fioritura
, praises Petrarch’s letter, adorned by laurel, for its manly courage and compassion but does not hesitate to describe Italian conditions in strong language—“justice sold into the brothel of miserliness” (
ad avaricie lupanar prostituta iustitia
, a master touch by di Rienzo)—and, sighing audibly and referring to a Horatian image, to say that it was more difficult to raise a sunken ship than to restore its sails and ropes. Charles had no quarrel about the glory that was Rome, yet the past was past and the present was different. It was necessary to consider past and present in order to restore honor by honest means; everything had to be tried first before the iron was applied (
omnia nam prius temptanda quam ferrum
), as surgeons and emperors knew. Never was Charles closer to defining the first principle of his diplomacy.
When Petrarch learned that Charles was to cross the Alps to go to Rome to be crowned emperor, he felt immensely encouraged in his hopes. In a new letter, he welcomed Charles descending the Alpine passes, not only for himself but in the name of Italy and Rome; Italy, he wrote, always considered Charles an Italian, wherever he was born, and it was not important whence he came but what he wanted to do. Charles and his retinue settled for a while in Mantua before proceeding south, and by special messenger he invited Petrarch to join him privately as “a friend of peace,” not necessarily as a diplomat in the service of the archbishop of Milan, to avoid complications. Petrarch, braving one of the coldest winters ever “the roads were not so much earth as steel and diamonds”—arrived at
Mantua on December 15, 1354, and stayed there for more than two weeks. We know a good deal about his conversations with the king because he reported about them to his friends; while Charles could not be “more cordial and humane,” he clearly skirted the question of his political intentions in Italy and elsewhere, and was not averse to “descending to an everyday level” or kidding (
longis iocosisque sermonibus protracta altercatio)
. He asked Petrarch to tell the story of his life, and Charles also wanted to know about work in progress, in particular the book De
viris illustribus
(
On Famous Men
), perhaps in the hope of being included in it. Petrarch, on his part, avoiding a precise answer to the implied question, told him he would receive such a book if he were to join illustrious men not so much “by meaningless diadems” but rather by deeds and by “nobility of spirit.” Petrarch also gave Charles a few ancient coins with the image of Caesar Augustus, challenging him symbolically; but when Charles invited the poet to go with him to Rome, politely suggesting that he wanted to see the Eternal City through his eyes, Petrarch declined. There was a later occasion to accompany Charles from Milan, where he had been crowned king of Italy, farther south, but Petrarch stopped at Piacenza and did not ride further.
Mantua on December 15, 1354, and stayed there for more than two weeks. We know a good deal about his conversations with the king because he reported about them to his friends; while Charles could not be “more cordial and humane,” he clearly skirted the question of his political intentions in Italy and elsewhere, and was not averse to “descending to an everyday level” or kidding (
longis iocosisque sermonibus protracta altercatio)
. He asked Petrarch to tell the story of his life, and Charles also wanted to know about work in progress, in particular the book De
viris illustribus
(
On Famous Men
), perhaps in the hope of being included in it. Petrarch, on his part, avoiding a precise answer to the implied question, told him he would receive such a book if he were to join illustrious men not so much “by meaningless diadems” but rather by deeds and by “nobility of spirit.” Petrarch also gave Charles a few ancient coins with the image of Caesar Augustus, challenging him symbolically; but when Charles invited the poet to go with him to Rome, politely suggesting that he wanted to see the Eternal City through his eyes, Petrarch declined. There was a later occasion to accompany Charles from Milan, where he had been crowned king of Italy, farther south, but Petrarch stopped at Piacenza and did not ride further.
Charles was crowned in Rome on Easter Day 1355 and left the Eternal City immediately, as he had promised the pope he would. His hasty departure shocked many Italian patriots as an undignified and even dishonorable escape from imperial responsibilities. His Italian joys were not enhanced when, in Pisa, an inimical faction of nobles put the torch to the house where he and the empress rested, and the imperial couple, lightly clad, had to run for their lives before royal soldiers intervened. Petrarch was terribly disappointed (and also knew that Charles had crowned his friend Zanobi da Strada
poeta laureatus
); writing to the emperor in June 1355, when Charles was still on his way to Prague, he did not mince words. Never in the past had any ruler voluntarily discarded such a great hope, but Charles, unfortunately, had only “his desire for Bohemia” in his mind. His august grandfather and his royal father, “hovering over the summits of the Alps,” would be shocked. Charles simply “lacked will [
voluntas deest
], the source of all action.”
poeta laureatus
); writing to the emperor in June 1355, when Charles was still on his way to Prague, he did not mince words. Never in the past had any ruler voluntarily discarded such a great hope, but Charles, unfortunately, had only “his desire for Bohemia” in his mind. His august grandfather and his royal father, “hovering over the summits of the Alps,” would be shocked. Charles simply “lacked will [
voluntas deest
], the source of all action.”
In 1356, Petrarch was sent by Milan’s rulers, the Viscontis, who were eager to receive Charles’s support against a group of their enemies, on a diplomatic mission to Prague. (It’s nice to see Petrarch involved with the powerful ancestors of the film director Luchino Visconti.) Petrarch went via Basel, where he had hoped to meet the emperor, and then through the gloomy and dangerous German forests, and was welcomed at Hrad
any
as a peerless guest of honor; had he wanted, he could have stayed in Prague for the rest of his life. He was probably not very successful in his mission (the Viscontis had always been a thorn in the emperor’s side, to say the least), but everybody, including the empress, the archbishop, and especially his fellow poet and fellow bibliophile Johannes, vied for the honor to make his stay in Prague pleasurable. Charles gave him a golden beaker and appointed him
comes palatinus
(count palatine), a rank which gave him the right to appoint his own notaries and a few other legal privileges; he happily received the appropriate document but refused at first to accept the heavy golden seal, adorned with a panorama of Rome, because he thought it too valuable. He accepted it only later, at the renewed entreaties of the chancellor. As always, Petrarch must have enjoyed his social success among the elite; after returning to Milan, he wrote a polite letter to Amestus, thanking him for all the encouragement he had received in Prague and assuring him that he remembered the civilized pleasures of the king’s metropolis with great affection. Referring to the archbishop’s self-deprecatory remark that he must have felt in Prague “among barbarians,” Petrarch said that the emperor and a few learned men around him were truly worth remembering, “as if they had been born in Attic Athens” (
si Athenis Atthicis nati essent).
Charles continued to invite the poet to Prague, but he did not accept for a long time, and when he finally did, he was not entirely disconsolate that military complications in northern Italy prevented him from traveling. He met Charles, possibly for the last time, in Udine and in Padua in 1368.
anyas a peerless guest of honor; had he wanted, he could have stayed in Prague for the rest of his life. He was probably not very successful in his mission (the Viscontis had always been a thorn in the emperor’s side, to say the least), but everybody, including the empress, the archbishop, and especially his fellow poet and fellow bibliophile Johannes, vied for the honor to make his stay in Prague pleasurable. Charles gave him a golden beaker and appointed him
comes palatinus
(count palatine), a rank which gave him the right to appoint his own notaries and a few other legal privileges; he happily received the appropriate document but refused at first to accept the heavy golden seal, adorned with a panorama of Rome, because he thought it too valuable. He accepted it only later, at the renewed entreaties of the chancellor. As always, Petrarch must have enjoyed his social success among the elite; after returning to Milan, he wrote a polite letter to Amestus, thanking him for all the encouragement he had received in Prague and assuring him that he remembered the civilized pleasures of the king’s metropolis with great affection. Referring to the archbishop’s self-deprecatory remark that he must have felt in Prague “among barbarians,” Petrarch said that the emperor and a few learned men around him were truly worth remembering, “as if they had been born in Attic Athens” (
si Athenis Atthicis nati essent).
Charles continued to invite the poet to Prague, but he did not accept for a long time, and when he finally did, he was not entirely disconsolate that military complications in northern Italy prevented him from traveling. He met Charles, possibly for the last time, in Udine and in Padua in 1368.
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