OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

349

views, he fulminated a bull of excommunication,in which the tribune is degraded from his office,and branded with the guilt of rebellion, sacri-lege, and heresy/ The surviving barons ofRome were now humbled to a sense of allegi-ance; their interest and revenge engaged themin the service of the church; but as the fate ofthe Colonna was before their eyes, they aban-doned to a private adventurer the peril and gloryof the revolution. John Pepin, count of Minor-bino' in the kingdom of Naples, had been con-demned for his crimes, or his riches, to perpetualimprisonment; and Petrarch , by soliciting hisrelease, indirectly contributed to the ruin of hisfriend. At the head of one hundred and fiftysoldiers, the count of Minorbino introduced him-self into Rome ; barricaded the quarter of theColonna; and found the enterprise as easy as ithad seemed impossible. From the first alarm,the bell of the capitol incessantly tolled; but,instead of repairing to the well-known sound,the people was silent and inactive; and the pu-sillanimous Rienzi, deploring their ingratitudewith sighs and tears, abdicated the governmentand palace of the republic.

Without drawing his sword, count Pepin re-

b The briefs and bulls of Clement VI against Rienzi are translatedby the P. dn Cervean (p. 196, 232), from the Ecclesiastical Annals ofRodericus Raynaldus (a. d. 1347, No. 15,17, 21, if c ), who found themin the archircs of the Vatican.

1 Matteo Villani describes the origin, character, and death, of thiscount of Minorbino, a man da natura inconstante e senza fede, wlio^egrandfather, a crafty notary, was enriched and ennobled by the spoils. f the Saracens of Nocera (1. vii, c. 102, 103). See his imprisonment,and the efforts of Petrarch , tom. ii, p. 14J-161.

CHAP.

LXX.