Where Rienzi Tried to Save Rome

Rienzi, Last of the Roman Tribunes by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

You are supposed to make fun of Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The contest named for him is a competition to write "the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels," harking back to his "dark and stormy night" sentence. (Look it up. It's not that bad. In fact, I want to read that book.) Anyway, that's kinda nonsense. Yes, he writes like a well-educated 19th Century male novelist. That's what he was. High diction, occasionally archaic in tone. Long-ish sentences. A sometimes-intrusive narrator who directly addresses the reader. That does not set him apart from his contemporaries.

Give him a chance--that's my point.

This is a very entertaining adventure novel in the high romantic tradition. Set in Rome in the 14th Century, when the nobles were no better than robber barons, when the people had no allies and Rome was only half populated, a brilliant commoner named Cola de Rienzi rose to prominence and tried to restore some of the glory of the ancient city. (Think Alexander Hamilton, except he was liked by almost everyone.) In real life, recounted here in a fictionalized account, he leveraged the power of the people to evict the nobles and rule for a time as Tribune, bringing justice to the oppressed citizens, never forgetting he was himself a commoner. Later chased from the city by the resurgent nobles and their German mercenaries, and for a time imprisoned by the pope in Avignon, Rienzi rose again years later to retake the city (this time with the pope's support). But Rome looked a lot like other cities waking up from tyranny (Paris in the 1790's, Moscow and Russia in the 1990's), and the route to justice, fairness, opportunity, and safety was still a tough one.

Like other novels of the sort, we have true love, duels, intrigue, children wanting to discover their true parents, and honorable enemies (as well as dishonorable ones). Castles and palaces. Haughty noblewomen. All that stuff. But there's more! The plague hits Rome in the middle of the story; Petrarch is everywhere present and discussed, though never actually met; and some hippy type young people who look a lot like Boccaccio's ten story-tellers from the Decameron are revealed to be hedonistic and unlikable. In the midst of all this, the idealistic but highly intelligent Rienzi is trying to find the right way to lead a fractious people to a better society, scraping together whatever authority and support he can find. His wife, his sister, and his best friend work with him, but almost no one else, and yet he achieves amazing things. For a little while.

It's a great story.

It's the writer's language that put him on the "so bad it's just bad" list, and discourages people from reading him today, but here's a purely random page of his prose for you to judge:

As the traveller neared the city the scene became less solitary, yet more dread. There might be seen carts and litters, thick awnings wrapped closely round them, containing those who sought safety in fight, forgetful that the Plague was everywhere! And while these gloomy vehicles, conducted by horses, gaunt shadowy skeletons, crawling heavily along, passed by, like hearses of the dead, sometimes a cry burst the silence in which they moved, and the traveller's steed started aside, as some wretch, on whom the disease had broke forth, was dropped from the vehicle by the selfish inhumanity of his comrades, and left to perish by the way. Hard by the gate a wagon paused, and a man with a mask threw out its contents in a green, slimy ditch that bordered the road. These were garments and robes of all kind and value; the broidered mantle of the gallant, the hood and veil of my lady, and the rags of the peasant. While glancing at the labor of the masker, the cavalier beheld a herd of swine, gaunt and half-famished, run to the spot in hopes of food, and the traveller shuddered to think what food they might have anticipated!

I like it.

Rienzi is an admirable character, but so is his greatest enemy, the mercenary Montreal. They are sometimes friends, or at least friendly, and their interaction makes the story. But the other amazing aspect of this novel is the setting and how much the novel fills in (for me, anyway) the history of Rome between empire and modern times. It helps me see what life looked like there in those times, who it was who kept the lights on, so to speak, after it dwindled to a backwater. The author speaks with some authority on the topic and includes notes throughout, so even if his scholarship turns out to be out of date, it isn't made up.

And the history of Rienzi is well worth knowing. I'd never even heard of him before.

Recommended

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