Rienzi,

The Last of the Roman Tribunes

by

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart.

Then turn we to her latest Tribune's name,
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame -
The friend of Petrarch - hope of Italy - 
Rienzi, last of Romans!  While the tree
Of Freedom's wither'd trunk puts forth a leaf,
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be - 
The Forum's champion, and the People's chief - 
Her new-born Numa thou!

Childe Harold, cant. iv. stanza 114.

Amidst the indulgence of enthusiasm and eloquence, Petrarch, Italy, and
Europe, were astonished by a revolution, which realized for a moment his
most splendid visions. - Gibbon, chap. 1xx.

Dedication of Rienzi.

To Alessandro Manzoni, as to the Genius of the Place,

Are Dedicated These Fruits, gathered on The Soil of Italian Fiction.

London, Dec. 1, 1835.

Dedication,

Prefixed to the First Collected Edition of the Author's Works in 1840.

My Dear Mother,

In inscribing with your beloved and honoured name this Collection of my
Works, I could wish that the fruits of my manhood were worthier of the
tender and anxious pains bestowed upon my education in youth.

Left yet young, and with no ordinary accomplishments and gifts, the sole
guardian of your sons, to them you devoted the best years of your useful
and spotless life; and any success it be their fate to attain in the paths
they have severally chosen, would have its principal sweetness in the
thought that such success was the reward of one whose hand aided every
struggle, and whose heart sympathized in every care.

From your graceful and accomplished taste, I early learned that affection
for literature which has exercised so large an influence over the pursuits
of my life; and you who were my first guide, were my earliest critic.  Do
you remember the summer days, which seemed to me so short, when you
repeated to me those old ballads with which Percy revived the decaying
spirit of our national muse, or the smooth couplets of Pope, or those
gentle and polished verses with the composition of which you had beguiled
your own earlier leisure?  It was those easy lessons, far more than the
harsher rudiments learned subsequently in schools, that taught me to admire
and to imitate; and in them I recognise the germ of the flowers, however
perishable they be, that I now bind up and lay upon a shrine hallowed by a
thousand memories of unspeakable affection.  Happy, while I borrowed from
your taste, could I have found it not more difficult to imitate your
virtues - your spirit of active and extended benevolence, your cheerful
piety, your considerate justice, your kindly charity - and all the
qualities that brighten a nature more free from the thought of self, than
any it has been my lot to meet with.  Never more than at this moment did I
wish that my writings were possessed of a merit which might outlive my
time, so that at least these lines might remain a record of the excellence
of the Mother, and the gratitude of the Son.

E.L.B.  London:  January 6, 1840.

Preface

to

The First Edition of Rienzi.

I began this tale two years ago at Rome.  On removing to Naples, I threw it
aside for "The Last Days of Pompeii," which required more than "Rienzi" the
advantage of residence within reach of the scenes described.  The fate of
the Roman Tribune continued, however, to haunt and impress me, and, some
time after "Pompeii" was published, I renewed my earlier undertaking.  I
regarded the completion of these volumes, indeed, as a kind of duty; - for
having had occasion to read the original authorities from which modern
historians have drawn their accounts of the life of Rienzi, I was led to
believe that a very remarkable man had been superficially judged, and a
very important period crudely examined.  (See Appendix, Nos. I and II.) 
And this belief was sufficiently strong to induce me at first to meditate a
more serious work upon the life and times of Rienzi.  (I have adopted the
termination of Rienzi instead of Rienzo, as being more familiar to the
general reader. - But the latter is perhaps the more accurate reading,
since the name was a popular corruption from Lorenzo.)  Various reasons
concurred against this project - and I renounced the biography to commence
the fiction.  I have still, however, adhered, with a greater fidelity than
is customary in Romance, to all the leading events of the public life of
the Roman Tribune; and the Reader will perhaps find in these pages a more
full and detailed account of the rise and fall of Rienzi, than in any
English work of which I am aware.  I have, it is true, taken a view of his
character different in some respects from that of Gibbon or Sismondi.  But
it is a view, in all its main features, which I believe (and think I could
prove) myself to be warranted in taking, not less by the facts of History
than the laws of Fiction.  In the meanwhile, as I have given the facts from
which I have drawn my interpretation of the principal agent, the reader has
sufficient data for his own judgment.  In the picture of the Roman
Populace, as in that of the Roman Nobles of the fourteenth century, I
follow literally the descriptions left to us; - they are not flattering,
but they are faithful, likenesses.

Preserving generally the real chronology of Rienzi's life, the plot of this
work extends over a space of some years, and embraces the variety of
characters necessary to a true delineation of events.  The story,
therefore, cannot have precisely that order of interest found in fictions
strictly and genuinely dramatic, in which (to my judgment at least) the
time ought to be as limited as possible, and the characters as few; - no
new character of importance to the catastrophe being admissible towards the
end of the work.  If I may use the word Epic in its most modest and
unassuming acceptation, this Fiction, in short, though indulging in
dramatic situations, belongs, as a whole, rather to the Epic than the
Dramatic school.

I cannot conclude without rendering the tribute of my praise and homage to
the versatile and gifted Author of the beautiful Tragedy of Rienzi. 
Considering that our hero be the same - considering that we had the same
materials from which to choose our several stories - I trust I shall be
found to have little, if at all, trespassed upon ground previously
occupied.  With the single exception of a love-intrigue between a relative
of Rienzi and one of the antagonist party, which makes the plot of Miss
Mitford's Tragedy, and is little more than an episode in my Romance, having
slight effect on the conduct and none on the fate of the hero, I am not
aware of any resemblance between the two works; and even this coincidence I
could easily have removed, had I deemed it the least advisable: - but it
would be almost discreditable if I had nothing that resembled a performance
possessing so much it were an honour to imitate.

In fact, the prodigal materials of the story - the rich and exuberant
complexities of Rienzi's character - joined to the advantage possessed by
the Novelist of embracing all that the Dramatist must reject (Thus the
slender space permitted to the Dramatist does not allow Miss Mitford to be
very faithful to facts; to distinguish between Rienzi's earlier and his
later period of power; or to detail the true, but somewhat intricate causes
of his rise, his splendour, and his fall.) - are sufficient to prevent
Dramatist and Novelist from interfering with each other.

London, December 1, 1835.

Preface to the Present Edition, 1848.

From the time of its first appearance, "Rienzi" has had the good fortune to
rank high amongst my most popular works - though its interest is rather
drawn from a faithful narration of historical facts, than from the
inventions of fancy.  And the success of this experiment confirms me in my
belief, that the true mode of employing history in the service of romance,
is to study diligently the materials as history; conform to such views of
the facts as the Author would adopt, if he related them in the dry
character of historian; and obtain that warmer interest which fiction
bestows, by tracing the causes of the facts in the characters and emotions
of the personages of the time.  The events of his work are thus already
shaped to his hand - the characters already created - what remains for him,
is the inner, not outer, history of man - the chronicle of the human heart;
and it is by this that he introduces a new harmony between character and
event, and adds the completer solution of what is actual and true, by those
speculations of what is natural and probable, which are out of the province
of history, but belong especially to the philosophy of romance.  And - if
it be permitted the tale-teller to come reverently for instruction in his
art to the mightiest teacher of all, who, whether in the page or on the
scene, would give to airy fancies the breath and the form of life, - such,
we may observe, is the lesson the humblest craftsman in historical romance
may glean from the Historical Plays of Shakespeare.  Necessarily,
Shakespeare consulted history according to the imperfect lights, and from
the popular authorities, of his age; and I do not say, therefore, that as
an historian we can rely upon Shakespeare as correct.  But to that in which
he believed he rigidly adhered; nor did he seek, as lesser artists (such as
Victor Hugo and his disciples) seek now, to turn perforce the Historical
into the Poetical, but leaving history as he found it, to call forth from
its arid prose the flower of the latent poem.  Nay, even in the more
imaginative plays which he has founded upon novels and legends popular in
his time, it is curious and instructive to see how little he has altered
the original ground-work - taking for granted the main materials of the
story, and reserving all his matchless resources of wisdom and invention,
to illustrate from mental analysis, the creations whose outline he was
content to borrow.  He receives, as a literal fact not to be altered, the
somewhat incredible assertion of the novelist, that the pure and delicate
and highborn Venetian loves the swarthy Moor - and that Romeo fresh from
his "woes for Rosaline," becomes suddenly enamoured of Juliet:  He found
the Improbable, and employed his art to make it truthful.

That "Rienzi" should have attracted peculiar attention in Italy, is of
course to be attributed to the choice of the subject rather than to the
skill of the Author.  It has been translated into the Italian language by
eminent writers; and the authorities for the new view of Rienzi's times and
character which the Author deemed himself warranted to take, have been
compared with his text by careful critics and illustrious scholars, in
those states in which the work has been permitted to circulate.  (In the
Papal States, I believe, it was neither, prudently nor effectually,
proscribed.)  I may say, I trust without unworthy pride, that the result
has confirmed the accuracy of delineations which English readers relying
only on the brilliant but disparaging account in Gibbon deemed too
favourable; and has tended to restore the great Tribune to his long
forgotten claims to the love and reverence of the Italian land.  Nor, if I