Arnold

Arnold OF BRESCIA, was a native of that town, and was distinguished by the success with which he contended against the corruptions of the clergy in the early part of the 12th century. He was educated in France under Abelard, and adopted the monastic life. By his preaching, the people of Brescia were exasperated against their bishop, and through him Arnold was cited before the second Lateran Council, and banished from Italy (1139). He retired to France, but experienced the bitter hostility of St Bernard, Abelard's opponent, who denounced him as an enemy of the church. He thereupon took refuge in Zurich, where he remained five years. Meanwhile, an insurrection against the papal government had taken place in Rome, and thither in 1143 Arnold repaired, and endeavoured to lead and direct the movement. He exhorted the people to organise a government similar to the ancient Roman republic, with consuls, tribunes, and equestrian order; but they were disunited and restless, and gave way to the grossest excesses. The city, indeed, continued for ten years in a state of agitation and disorder; but these violent struggles were subdued by Pope Adrian IV. (Nicholas Breakspear), who, feeling the weakness of his temporal authority, turned to the spiritual, and resorted to the extreme measure of laying the city under an interdict, when Arnold, whose party became discouraged and fell to pieces, took refuge with certain influential friends in Campania. On the arrival of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa for his coronation, in 1155, Arnold was arrested, brought to Rome, and hanged, his body burned, and the ashes thrown into the Tiber. But his influence lived after him, and through his sympathetic insight into his country's needs, his name is even yet revered and loved in Italy, though he left no record of his doctrines save in the heart of the people. His eloquence and disinterestedness are acknowledged even by his enemies, who are also his biographers, and who have yet placed him in history alongside Rienzi and Savonarola. His life is the subject of tragedies by Bodmer and by Nicolini.