When the Papacy moved to Avignon in 1309, a power vacuum was created in Rome. Without the authority of the papacy, many powerful baronial families were left to war with each other over the control of territory within the city. In the midst of this state, the charismatic Cola di Rienzo created a populist regime that seized power in Rome, promising to bring justice and peace to the city. Cola desired to rebuild the ancient imperial city and place it back on the world stage as an important player. He painted a picture of Rome in disarray, a Rome in need of recreation; a recreation he was ready to undertake.

Although the historical realities of the time may not be as violent and chaotic as Cola claimed, this collection of entries hopes to help the reader visualize the Rome of Cola, weaving narratives of his life and society into the present physical spaces of Rome. We aspire to guide the reader through Cola’s life chronologically using his biography as a narrative tool: from his rise to power to his gruesome demise. The biography, The Life of Cola di Rienzo, recently discovered to have been authored by Bartolomeo di lacovo Valmontone under the traditional alias Anonimo (Keyvanian pg.206 footnote 11), is a complex historical source that can illuminate life in 14th-century Rome, if used carefully. Because the work was written by a contemporary of Cola’s, the narrative offers a primary source critical to our understanding of Cola’s Rome from a point of view close to the action.

This tour is meant to take you to several different physical locations important in Cola’s Life. If you decide to undertake the entire tour as we suggest, you will travel from Sant’Angelo in Pescheria to the Capitoline Hill with a stop to check out Lex Vespasiana in the Capitoline Museum before eventually ending at the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. The tour is meant to take an hour or two in its entirety but also function independently at each of the sites, so if you are only making one stop, make sure to check out the entry for the corresponding place.

Before you go off on your journey to start exploring Cola’s Rome, here is some personal backstory on Cola, as told in The Life of Cola di Rienzo, to help you better understand him as a person:

Cola de Rienzi was of low birth: his father was an innkeeper named Rienzi; his mother, named Matalena, earned her living by washing clothes and carrying water... From his youth he was nourished on the milk of eloquence: a good grammarian, an excellent speaker, and a good scholar. Lord, what a fast reader he was! He was well acquainted with Livy, Seneca, Cicero, and Valerius Maximus; he loved to describe the great deeds of Julius Caesar. Every day he would gaze at the marble engravings which lie about in Rome. He alone knew how to read the ancient inscriptions. He translated all the ancient writings; he interpreted those marble shapes perfectly. Lord! How often he would say, “Where are those good Romans? Where is their high justice? If only I could line in such times!” (The Life of Cola di Rienzo I.1 pg.1)