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…

“Then he predicted his ascendancy and his reform of the government of the city in this way: on the wall of Sant’Angelo in Pescheria, a place famous throughout the world, he had a picture painted.” The Life of Cola di Rienzo I.IV, pp. 37. Pope Stephen…

Now Cola de Rienzi, though still somewhat fearful, gathered his courage and set out, together with the Pope’s vicar, and climbed to the Palace of the Campidoglio in the year of our Lord thirteen forty-six. He had a force of about one hundred armed…

Petrarch was an influential humanist and poet who lived and wrote contemporary to Cola di Rienzo. In 1341, probably on April 8th, Petrarch was crowned poet laureate at the Campidoglio. When he was selected for this honor, he was given his choice of…

"The three bodies, covered with golden mantles were carried into Santa Maria by the friars into the chapel of Colonna. The countesses came with a multitude of women, tearing their hair to weep and mourn over the dead, over the bodies of Stefano,…