Rienzi, COLA DI, the famous Roman tribune, was born at Rome in 1313. His parentage was humble, his father being a tavern-keeper named Lorenzo, by abbreviation, Rienzo; the family name of Gabrini is sometimes added. The son Nicolas (shortened into Cola) studied grammar and rhetoric, read and re-read the Latin historians, philosophers, and poets (Greek was scarcely yet known in Italy), and excited his imagination, while at the same time he coloured his speech, with the prophetic enthusiasm of the inspired writers. The assassination of his brother by a Roman noble, whom he found it impossible to bring to punishment, finally determined him to deliver the city from the barbarous thralldom of the barons. In 1343 he was appointed by the heads of the Guelph party spokesman of a deputation sent to the papal court at Avignon to beseech Clement VI. to return to Rome in order to protect the citizens from the tyranny of their noble oppressors. Here he obtained a favourable hearing from the pope, who appointed him notary to the civic chamber. In April 1344 Rienzi returned home, and sought to obtain the countenance of the magistrates in his ideas of reform; but reform he found was impossible without revolution; and for three years he loudly and openly menaced the nobles. At last, when Rienzi thought he could rely on the support of the citizens, he summoned them together on the 28th of May 1347, and, surrounded by 100 horsemen and the papal legate, he delivered a magnificent discourse, and proposed a series of laws for the better government of the community, which were unanimously approved of. The aristocratic senators were driven out of the city, and Rienzi, as tribune of the holy Roman republic, was invested with practically dictatorial power. The pope confirmed the eloquent dictator in his authority; all Italy rejoiced in his success, and foreign lands, even warlike France (according to his enthusiastic friend and admirer, Petrarch), began to dread the reviving majesty of the Eternal City. A bright dream flashed across Rienzi's imagination, the dream of every great Italian from Dante to Mazzini—the unity of Italy and the supremacy of Rome! Rienzi despatched messengers to the various Italian states, requesting them to send deputies to Rome to consult for the general interests of the peninsula, and to devise measures for its unification. These messengers were everywhere received with enthusiasm, and, on the 1st of August 1347, 200 deputies assembled in the Lateran Church. Rienzi was crowned tribune with great ceremony on the 15th April. But the nobles were still bitterly hostile; Rienzi, who defeated them in a bloody battle on the 20th November, became suddenly infected with the insolence of victory and power, and proceeded to levy taxes and enforce obedience. The papal authority was turned against him; after a short reign of seven months he lost heart at the combination of forces against him, and fled to Naples.
After two years of religious meditation among the mountains of the Abruzzi, Rienzi resumed his life as political reformer, and went to Prague to secure the support of the emperor, Charles IV. Charles, however, sent him as a prisoner to Pope Clement VI. to Avignon, but by the mediation of Petrarch he was released from imprisonment. A new pope,
Innocent VI., resolved to take advantage of Rienzi's old popularity in order to crush the power of the Roman nobles, now becoming troublesome, and sent him to Rome in the train of Cardinal Albornoz. Their mission was swiftly accomplished, and the power of the nobles overthrown again. Rienzi aimed, however, at re-establishing himself in supreme authority. In August 1354, having borrowed money and raised a small body of soldiers, he made a sort of triumphal entry into Rome, and was received with universal acclamations. But misfortune had impaired and debased his character; he abandoned himself to luxurious living, and his once generous sentiments had given place to a hard, mistrustful, and cruel disposition. The barons refused to recognise his government, and fortified themselves in their castles. The war against them necessitated the contraction of heavy expenses; the people grumbled; Rienzi only grew more severe and capricious in his exactions and punishments. He even murdered the free captain, Fra Monreale, for his wealth. In two months his rule had become intolerable, and on the 8th of October an infuriated crowd surrounded him in the Capitol, and put him to death with ferocious indignities.
The fortunes and fate of Rienzi have been made the subject of a romance by Lord Lytton, and of an opera by Wagner. See monographs on Rienzi by Papencordt (Hamburg, 1841), Auriax (Amiens, 1885), and Rodocanachi (Paris, 1888); and the histories of Mediæval Rome by Gregorovius and Reumont.