Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/574

510 lowest ranks of the people a deliverer in the person of one Nicola di Rienzi. Possessed of considerable talent and great eloquence, Rienzi easily incited the people to a revolt against the rule, or rather misrule, of the nobles, and succeeded in having himself, with the title of Tribune, placed at the head of a new government for Rome.

Encouraged by the success that had thus far attended his schemes, Rienzi now began to concert measures for the union of all the principalities and commonwealths of Italy in a great republic, with Rome as its capital. He sent ambassadors throughout Italy to plead, at the courts of the princes and in the council-chamber of the municipalities, the cause of Italian unity and freedom. The splendid dream of Rienzi was shared by other Italian patriots besides himself, among whom was the poet Petrarch, who was the friend and encourager of the "plebeian hero."

But the moment for Italy's unification had not yet come. Not only were there hindrances to the national movement in the ambitions and passions of rival parties and classes, but there were still greater impediments in the character of the plebeian patriot himself. Rienzi proved to be an unworthy leader. His sudden elevation and surprising success completely turned his head, and he soon began to exhibit the most incredible vanity and weakness. The people withdrew from him their support, and he was finally assassinated.

Thus vanished the dream of Rienzi and Petrarch, of the hero and the poet. Centuries of division, of shameful subjection to foreign princes,—French, Spanish, and Austrian,—of wars and suffering, were yet before the Italian people ere Rome should become the centre of a free, orderly, and united Italy.

The Renaissance.—Though the Middle Ages closed in Italy without the rise there of a national government, still before the end of the period much had been done to awaken those common ideas and sentiments upon which political unity can alone safely repose. Literature and art here performed the part that war did in other countries in arousing a national spirit. The Renaissance (see p.