I PAPI ABBANDONANO ROMA

In questa pagina:
Papa Clemente V e lo spostamento ad Avignone
Declino dell'Economia Romana
Il tentativo di Cola di Rienzo di restaurare la Repubblica Romana
Calls for the Return of the Pope
Il Cardinal Albornoz
Papa Gregorio XI e il suo ritorno a Roma
Iconografia

Papa Clemente V e lo Spostamento ad Avignone

Le circostanze che provocarono la morte di Papa Bonifacio VIII nel  1303 portarono alla sottomissione dei papi alla volontà di Filippo il Bello, Re di Francia. Al termine di un conclave durato dodici mesi  which followed the short period in office of Pope Benedict XI, the king saw his efforts rewarded by the election of his candidate, the Archbishop of Bordeaux, who was not even a cardinal. The new pope summoned the cardinals and the key members of the Curia, the papal court, a Lyons where he was anointed e divenne Papa Clemente V il 14 novembre 1305. Alla cerimonia partecipò Re Filippo, accompagnato dai membri più importanti dell'aristocrazia francese, ma la giornata fu funestata da cattivi presagi: in particolare un murò crollò sul papa durante la processione, egli perse l'equilibrio e la sua corona cadde a terra.
It was not the first time that a pope was conferred his office outside Rome, nor was it unusual for a pope to spend long periods away from his diocese, so the decision of the new pope not to hurry to Rome and to stay for a while in several towns of southern France was not particularly odd. Things changed in 1309 when the pope decided to permanently settle at Avignone, a town in Provence which belonged to the Angevin King of Naples, in his capacity of Count of Provence.
In addition to choosing to stay in France, Pope Clement V nominò nove nuovi cardinali Francesi. At the request of the French king he excommunicated il potente Ordine dei Templari e lasciò mano libera al re di impossessarsi dei loro beni. 
Gioco del toro nel '300

Anche durante il periodo Avignonese, Roma, governata da famiglie baronali, cui si opporrà per un breve periodo la Repubblica fondata nel 1337 e guidata da Cola di Rienzo, dimostrò una certa vitalità tanto che a metà del secolo venne costruita la scalinata dell'Ara Coeli. 



S. Giovanni in Laterano: new ciborium (1370)

The French popes who resided in Avignon for seventy years did not care about the maintenance and improvement of the great Roman basilicas. S. Giovanni in Laterano was partially destroyed by a fire in 1308 and again damaged by another fire in 1361. These fires caused a silver ciborium to melt down. It was only in 1370 that a new ciborium was erected. Its design, elegant but very similar to that of the ciboria erected eighty years earlier by Arnolfo di Cambio in S. Cecilia e in S. Paolo fuori le Mura, shows that Rome was lagging behind the artistic developments which in the meantime occurred in Tuscany and northern Italy.

Decline of the Roman Economy

The administration of Rome in the first half of the XIVth century was entrusted to a legate, a cardinal representing the pope, and to the Senator of Rome (also appointed by the pope), who had jurisdiction over some municipal matters. These two key positions were in the hands respectively of the Orsini and the Colonna. These two families were at loggerheads, but were united in the spoliation of Rome and in particular of its countryside. During this period of time the small villages around Rome were abandoned and replaced by casali, (farms) belonging to few important families who rented their estates to owners of cattle who used the land as grazing ground. The confrontation between the Colonna and the Orsini also led to a reduction of the security level both in Rome and along the roads used by the pilgrims to reach the city.
The absence from Rome impacted on the authority of the pope: Pope John XXII tried to exert the traditional papal role in the appointment of the German emperor, but his excommunication of Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria had very little impact. The emperor invaded Italy, was welcomed in Rome by Senator Sciarra Colonna and he appointed a new pope, a member of the spiritual Franciscans, who advocated evangelical poverty. The emperor decided to be crowned in Rome, but he did not care about the religious aspects of the ceremony: the event took place on the Campidoglio and the crown of Holy Roman Emperor was placed on Louis' head by Sciarra Colonna, as representative of the City of Rome: after a thousand years (the practice had been dismissed by Costantino il GRande in 313) an emperor was crowned on the sacred hill of Ancient Rome.
In the XIVth century the great nations of Europe were taking shape and the words of a French pope had little to say to a German audience.


S. Maria sopra Minerva: monumento al Cardinal Matteo Orsini

It would be inappropriate to assume a rivalry between the Dominicans and the Franciscans, but for sure in the XIVth century there was a spirit of competition between these two monastic orders.
Pope John XXII in 1323 proclaimed the sainthood of Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican monk whose works had an enormous influence on the theology of the Roman Catholic Church.
In Rome the new church of S. Maria sopra Minerva was the Dominican response to the Franciscan church of S. Maria in Aracoeli. It was a very large church, the only one in Rome to have a distinct Gothic design. Knowing that the pope liked the Dominicans, who, unlike some Franciscans, did not criticize the pomp of the papal court, the Orsini chose to build their family chapel in this church (which was not yet completed). Today's visitors however do not find any longer an Orsini chapel in the church: this is now known as Cappella Aldobrandini, it has a lavish early Baroque marble decoration and it contains the monuments to the parents of Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini (you may see it in a page covering the colours of Baroque Rome). The chapel was sold by the Orsini to the Aldobrandini in 1587 and the new landlords evicted the monument to Cardinal Matteo Orsini, the founder of the chapel. It was placed (without its Gothic baldachin) in a dark corridor leading to the church rear entrance (sic transit gloria mundi - thus passes the glory of the world).
1347 - Violenza e giustizia
nella Roma trecentesca

Cola di Rienzo

The vexations to which the people of Rome were subjected eventually led to a revolt against the Colonna and the Orsini.
(Ni)Cola di Rienzo, a notary who had spent some time at the papal court in Avignon, arranged a public meeting in the square below the Capitol on Whit Sunday 1347. There he spoke with eloquence about the need to redeem Rome and proposed new laws which were acclaimed by the crowd. The enthusiasm was such that both Colonna and Orsini chose to leave Rome. Cola di Rienzo (or Rienzi) took the ancient title of Tribune of the People, an office of Republican Rome.
Cola went ahead with his ambitious plan to renovate the political role of Rome by calling an assembly of the representatives of the Italian towns during which he proposed to them a federation under the leadership of Rome. He also wrote to the kings and emperors of Europe asking them to recognize the Republic of Rome.
With the fall of the first leaves, his words lost their appeal and both the great families and the pope started to plot against him. The Colonna led a small army to Rome to execute a papal order of arrest: Cola fled the city and hid into a monastery. The short season of the new Roman Republic came to an end.


S. Maria in Aracoeli: steps and monument to Cola di Rienzo

The Romans soon lost interest in the whereabouts of Cola di Rienzo because in 1348 a major pestilence spread throughout Europe. The Black Death, as this outbreak of bubonic plague became known, is estimated to have halved the population of Europe. In Rome the disease was accompanied by another calamity: a strong earthquake damaged several buildings including the Colosseo. The end of the plague was celebrated by providing S. Maria in Aracoeli with steps which allowed direct access to its main entrance: the church had initially had the entrance facing the Roman Forum, then the Franciscans rebuilt the church and reversed its orientation, but people continued to access the church from the Forum through a still existing side door. The new steps were a clear indication that the centre of Rome had moved from the Forum to Campo Marzio, the flat area between the hills and the river.
Cola di Rienzo was eventually arrested and brought to Avignon. In 1353 however Pope Innocent VI thought the man could help him in restoring the papal authority in Rome and he was sent back with a small military force. He was initially greeted by the Romans, but the taxes he levied to maintain his troops and his personal greed soon made him unpopular. In addition, notwithstanding Cola's current role as papal envoy, the Colonna were less than enthusiastic about having him back in Rome. In September 1354 a hostile mob gathered at Palazzo Senatorio: Cola tried to speak, but he was soon interrupted and had to escape in disguise. He was identified from the gold bracelets he wore and killed without a trial. The body was left for two days outside the houses of the Colonna.
Il ruolo di Cola come precursore della nazione Italiana e vittima del potere teocratico fu enfatizzato nel XIX secolo e il 20 Settembre 1887 (settimo anniversario dell'entrata delle truppe italiane a Roma attraverso la breccia vicino Porta Pia) fu inaugurato un monumneto a lui dedicato in un piccolo spiazzo tra le due scalinate al Campidoglio. He was portrayed in the act of haranguing the Romans: the statue was placed on a high base decorated with pieces of ancient lintels.

Si invoca il Ritorno dei Papi

Nel giugno del 1348 Papa Clemente VI comprò Avignone dal re di Napoli; questo atto, insieme con la costruzione di un grande palazzo indicavano che i papi francesi erano determinati a stabilire la loro residenza in maniera permanente in quella città. In un certo senso era una scelta forzata. Dopo la morte di Filippo il Bello, una serie di successori ressero la Francia per brevi periodi finché la corona passò a Filippo VI di Valois, che nel 1337 iniziò la Guerra dei Cento Anni dichiarando che Edoardo III, Re d'Inghilterra, aveva perduto i suoi diritti sull'Aquitania. Con la Francia indebolita dagli effetti della guerrai i papi si sentivano relativamente al sicuro ad Avignone mentre Roma e in generale le regioni italiane sotto l'autorità formale dei papi erano in preda all'anarchia.
From a religious point of view however the decision to stay in Avignon was highly criticized. The great Italian poeti Dante e Petrarca ebbero aspre parole per la riluttanza papale a ritornare a Roma.
Francesco Petrarca, che aveva avuto diretta esperienza della vita alla corte papale, descrisse Avignone come una nuoba Babilonia:
Canzoniere - CXIV
De l'empia Babilonia, ond'è fuggita
ogni vergogna, ond'ogni bene è fori,
albergo di dolor, madre d'errori,
son fuggito io per allungar la vita...

Francesco Petrarca

The comparison between Babylon and the papal court had more lasting effects than Petrarca could have imagined when he wrote his sonnet. It was used again by Martin Luther in a letter to Papa Leone X: "Your See, however, which is called the Court of Rome, and which neither you nor any man can deny to be more corrupt than any Babylon ..".


1962 Monumento a S. Caterina da Siena di Francesco Messina nei giardini di Castel Sant'Angelo

Santa Caterina da Siena ebbe un ruolo molto importante in calling for the return of the popes. She was a Dominican Tertiary (a lay member of a monastic order) and in Rome she lived in a house near S. Maria sopra Minerva: after a series of visions, she felt she had to write to popes and kings begging for peace and for the return of the papacy to Rome. In June 1376 she was sent to Avignon as ambassador of the Republic of Florence to settle a long dispute with the pope and on that occasion she so impressed Pope Gregory XI that he decided to move to Rome.
For the 500th anniversary of her canonization in 1462 a monument was dedicated to St. Catherine in the gardens of Castel Sant'Angelo: the saint was portrayed on her way to St Peter's where she used to go every day to pray for the return of the pope. One of the reliefs of the monument shows the saint asking the pope to make a firm decision.

Il Cardinal Albornoz

The popes were able to restore their authority over their Italian possessions due to the services of Gil Alvarez De Albornoz, a Spanish cardinal, who had military experience because of the particular situation of his country where the Christian kingdoms were trying to conquer the last Arab strongholds. Albornoz, as archbishop of Toledo, personally led his troops in several battles. In addition to his military skills, Albornoz had a shrewd knowledge of how to survive in the treacherous environment of the papal court. In 1353 he was sent to Italy as papal legate and, apart from a short interval, he held this office until his death in 1367. By following a systematic approach and by exploiting the rivalries among the various towns of the Papal State, he gradually managed by force or by consent to restore the pope's authority. He was so successful that in 1367 Pope Urban V decided to make an attempt to return to Rome; he left the papal court at Avignon and escorted by ships sent by Venice, Naples, Pisa and Genoa, he landed at Corneto where he was greeted by Albornoz.
The pope set his residence in the Vatican but soon he started to regret his decision: Albornoz died of malaria, the Romans were not too happy about the first papal decrees aimed at reducing their municipal powers, the French cardinals who had accompanied the pope missed the wines of Burgundy. Pope Urban V preferred to move his residence to Viterbo and Montefiascone and in September 1370 he left Italy to return to Avignon, notwithstanding the fact that St. Bridget of Sweden had warned him that he would die if he left Rome. In December of that same year the pope actually died.

Spoleto
Rocca di Spoleto

Cardinal Albornoz did not trust the unwilling professions of allegiance made by the citizens of the towns he forced to surrender. He therefore built fortresses in many of these towns; they were not meant to protect the town from external enemies, but to allow a small garrison to repel rebellions against papal decisions. These fortresses were usually called la Rocca because they were located on the rocky top of a hill in a commanding position. A major fortress was built in Spoleto; other fortresses built by Cardinal Albornoz can be seen in a page covering the fortresses of the popes.

Papa Gregorio XI

Il nuovo papa, Gregorio XI, era il nipote di Papa Clemente VI che nel 1348 aveva comprato la città di Avignon. Non sembrava incline a lasciare il suo palazzo francese sebbene he had committed to move to Rome in May 1372. In the Italian papal possessions the absence of the firm grip of Cardinal Albornoz, was soon felt.
Florence and Milan supported the rebellion of many towns; the pope excommunicated the city of Florence, but that did not have a great impact on its inhabitants who were enjoying themselves reading the Decameron, a book of tales where priests and monks were ridiculed. It was written by Giovanni Boccaccio and it described how a group of ten young men and women spent ten days in a countryside villa outside Florence where they hoped to escape the 1348 pestilence: every day each member of the happy brigade told a tale so the book was also known as Centonovelle (100 tales). Overall Boccaccio's tales portrayed a wealthy and active society which showed little interest in the teachings of the Church.
Other political initiatives of Pope Gregory XI met with similar failures to the point that he realized that only the return to Rome could restore the authority of the pope, both in spiritual and political matters.
He sent an army of 10,000 mercenaries led by Cardinal Robert de Genevois to restore order in the papal state: this cardinal lacked the balance of Cardinal Albornoz and his troops left behind them a series of horrible massacres.
In September 1376 Pope Gregory XI left Avignon and by moving at a very slow pace he reached Rome in January 1377. In the meantime Cardinal Robert was unable to control the country without excessive use of force: the massacre of 4,000 inhabitants of Cesena, a town near Bologna, earned him the unflattering title of Boia (executioner) di Cesena. The pope felt unsafe in the Vatican and spent several months in Anagni. He returned to Rome only in November when Gomez Albornoz, nephew of Cardinal Albornoz, managed to improve the acceptance of the pope, at least among the Romans. It was a short stay as Pope Gregory XI died a few months later and was buried in S. Francesca Romana.


S. Francesca Romana: Monumento a Papa Gregorio XI: bassorilievo che ritrae il suo arrivo a Roma.

Nel 1584 la municipalità di Roma costruì un monumento per celebrare Papa Gregorio XI e il suo ritorno a Roma; la decisione può essere interpretata come un omaggio indiretto al papa del tempo, un altro Gregorio (XIII). Il monumento fu progettato da Pietro Paolo Olivieri che in un grande bassorilievo ritrasse l'arrivo del papa a Porta S. Paolo dove he was greeted by a personification of Rome. Dietro il papa si può vedere una serie di cardinali.

Durante il periodo che i papi trascorsero ad Avignone il ruolo ed il potere dei cardinali crebbe significativamente: they were in charge of the most important branches of the administration or they were sent as legate (governors) to the main towns of the papal state. The Curia divenne un corpo esteso, non molto differente dalla corte di un re di una delle grandi nazioni europee. Il suo mantenimento richiedeva ingenti risorse finanziarie; anche i cardinali avevano una corte personale e sfruttavano i loro uffici per trovare i mezzi per mantenerla. This large financial burden had a significant impact on the events which eventually led to the Reformation.

Con il rientro di Gregorio XI a Roma si liquidarono gradualmente le prerogative comunali, ma anche quelle nobiliari furono tenute a bada: il potere dei papi era ormai destinato a divenire incontrastato e assoluto. D'ora in poi la storia e le trasformazioni della città saranno strettamente legate ai nomi dei Pontefici. Il Rinascimento era alle porte e la città di Roma comincerà ad essere guardata con altri occhi: il culto della classicità, già presente in epoca medievale, diverrà totale e gli antichi monumenti saranno trattati quali preziose testimonianze di un'antica e splendida civiltà a cui si farà riferimento per edificare la nuova Roma dei Papi.

Iconografia

The following external links show works of art portraying characters and events mentioned in this page:
Rienzi (Cola di Rienzo) by W. H. Hunt (1848).
Rienzi opera di Richard Wagner.
Victims of the Black Death medieval miniature.
Decameron di J. W. Waterhouse (1849-1917).
Cardinal Albornoz miniatura medievale.
The Anointment of Pope Gregory XI miniatura medievale.
Papa Gregorio XI ritorna da Avignone di Giorgio Vasari (1511-74).

L'immagine usata come sfondo di questa pagina mostra una vista di Avignone (Roma Gallica). E' una piccola illustrazione presa da G. Palazzo - Gesta Pontificum Romanorum - Venezia - 1688.