312

THE DECLINE AND FALL

CHAPLX IX.

of the name. By the usurpation of Cavce, theColonna provoked the arms of Paschal the se-cond; but they lawfully held, in the Campagnaof Rome , the hereditary fiefs of Zagarola andColonna; and the latter of these towns was pro-bably adorned with some lofty pillar, the relicof a villa or temple.' They likewise possessedone moiety of the neighbouring city of Tusculum;a strong presumption of their descent from thecounts of Tusculum, who in the tenth centurywere the tyrants of the apostolic see. Accord-ing to their own and the public opinion, the pri-mitive and remote source was derived from thebanks of the Rhine;® and the sovereigns of Ger-many were not ashamed of a real or fabulousaffinity with a noble race, which in the revolu-tions of seven hundred years has been often illus-trated by merit, and always by fortune . 11 Aboutthe end of the thirteenth century, the mostpowerful branch was composed of an uncle andsix brothers, all conspicuous in arms, or in the

r Pandulph. Pisan, in Vit. Paschal. II , in Muratori, Script. Ital.tom. iii, p. i, p. S35. The family has still great possessions in theCampagna of Rome ; but they have alienated to the Rospigliosi thisoriginal fief of Colonna (Eschinard, p. 258, 269).

* Te longinqua dedit lellus et paseua Rheni,

says Petrarch; and, in 1447, a duke of Guelders and Juliers acknow-ledges (Lenfant, Hist, du Concile de Constance, tom. ii, p, 539) hisdescent from the ancestors of Martin V (Otho Colonna) : but the royalauthor of the Memoirs of Brandenburg observes, that the sceptre in hisarms has been confounded with the column. To maintain the Romanorigin of the Colonna, it was ingeniously supposed (Diario di Monal-deschi, in the Script. Ital. tom. xii, p. 533), that a cousin of the emperorNero escaped from the city, and founded Mcntz in Germany

* I cannot overlook the Roman triumph or ovation of Marco Anto-nio Colonna , who had commanded the pope’s gallies at the nasal vic-tory of Lepanto (Thuan. Hist. 1. 7, tom. iii, p. 65, 5G. MuretOratio x, Opp. tom, i, p 160-190)