OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

honours of the church. Of these, Peter was-elected senator of Rome , introduced to the ca-pital in a triumphant car, and hailed in somevain acclamations with the title of Caesar; whileJohn and Stephen were declared marquis of An-cona and count of Romagna by Nicholas thefourth, a patron so partial to their family, thathe has been delineated, in satirical portraits, im-prisoned as it were in a hollow pillar. 1 Afterhis decease, their haughty behaviour provokedthe displeasure of the most implacable of man-kind. The two cardinals, the uncle and thenephew, denied the election of Boniface theeighth; and the Colonna were oppressed for amoment by his temporal and spiritual arms. kHe proclaimed a crusade against his personalenemies; their estates were confiscated ; theirfortresses on either side of the Tyber were be-sieged by the troops of St. Peter and those ofthe rival nobles; and after the ruin of Palestrina or Praeneste , their principal seat, the ground wasmarked with a ploughshare, the emblem of per-petual desolation. Degraded, banished, pro-scribed, the six brothers, in disguise and danger,wandered over Europe without renouncing thehope of deliverance and revenge. In this doublehope, the French court was their surest asylum :

■ Muratori, Annali d’ltalia, tom. x, p. 216, 220.

k Petrarch ’s attachment to the Colonna has authorised the abbe deSadc to expatiate on the state of the family in the fourteenth centnry,the persecution of Boniface VIII, the character of Stephen and hissons, their quarrels with theUrsini, itc. (Memoires sur Petrarque, tom.1 , p. 08-110, 146 148, 174-176, 222-230, 275-280). His criticism oftenrectifies the hearsay stories of Villani, and the errors of the less diligentmoderns. I understand the branch of Stephen to be now extinct.

313

CHAP.

LXIX.