OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

the reproach of violating the truce; their defeatwas basely avenged by the assassination, beforethe church door, of an innocent boy and his twoservants. Yet the victorious Colonna, with anannual colleague, wa.s declared senator of Rome during the term of five years. And the muse ofPetrarch inspired a wish, a hope, a prediction,that the generous youth, the son of his venerablehero, would restore Rome and Italy to their pris-tine glory'; that his justice would extirpate thewolves and lions, the serpents and bears, wholaboured to subvert the eternal basis of the mar-ble column , r

to the Colonna; but two contemporaries, a Florentine (Giovanni Vil-lani, 1. x, c. 220) and a Roman (Ludovico Monaldeschi, p. 533, £34),are lees favourable to their arms.

*■ The abb£ de Sade (tom. i, notes, p. 61-GG) has applied the sixthcanzone of Petrarch , Spirto Gentil, See. to Stephen Colonna theyoungeri

Ora, lupi, leoni, aqnile e serpiAd nna gran marmorea colonnaFanno noja savente ease damtw.

317

CHAP.

LXIX.