In spite of these two rivals the dream of a Rome renewed remained alive in the German Empire until the fall of the Hohenstaufens, now weaker, now stronger, now ebbing, now surging up as in the days of the third Otto and of Barbarossa. The changefulness of the Roman idea is a testimony to its life: each of the Emperors who took it up gave it the impress of his time. Certain elements in it remained constant: from the very beginning this idea of rebirth involved rivalry with Byzantium, the capital of the Eastern Empire. Roman law had inculcated the subjection of all peoples under one Roman Caesar. Its resumption under Barbarossa set a goal for the Roman dream: to establish once again the Roman world of the days before Constantine in its whole undivided comprehensiveness. The Crusades enlarged the world indefinitely towards the East. Finally, Henry VI, as heir of Robert Guiscard, of whom they wrote “it might have been his to renew the ancient Empire of the Romans,” had planned to give the coup de grâce to languishing Byzantium. The West-Roman German Emperor was to be sole monarch of the world. Such was his will. Such was granted, in fact, not to him but to his son.
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No Angelus and no Comnenus challenged the rivalry of Frederick II. Before his rule began Byzantium had been conquered by the Crusaders. Titular Emperors, vassals of the Pope, reigned on a Latin Bosporus. What was left of the Empire of Nicaea was ruled by an impotent Basileus who had been given to wife a natural daughter of the Hohenstaufen Emperor. Frederick II was unquestionably the last emperor of the ancient Roman Empire, the one and only head of the Christian world. If he took up the thought of a Renewal of Rome—and how could he fail to take it up!—he must give it a new meaning against internal rivals, for outer rivals there were none.
The triumph of Jerusalem had exalted the Hohenstaufen to be the Son of God: the bloodier victory of Cortenuova made him also a Son of Earth. The former was followed by the formation of the Sicilian monarchy: the celebration of the latter by Frederick’s Renovatio Imperii. A secondary consequence was that Frederick II as triumphator legibus et armis stepped into the circle of the Caesars, attained the rank of a World Monarch though not that of a conqueror of distant worlds. In the signs manifested by Providence Frederick had read his task: “After the pacification of the surrounding peoples to bring the centre of Italy into the service of the Empire.” This call to subdue “the province of provinces” accorded marvellously with the personal and private wish of the Emperor himself: “From the very beginning of our days, since the illustrious nature of the Caesars with happy violence overcame our royal disposition, ere yet a higher fortune had fallen to our lot, our heart has ever burned with the desire to reinstate in the position of their ancient dignity the Founder of the Roman Empire and the Foundress, Rome herself,… and this unquenched desire was fused with the dignity of Empire which ensued.”
Retrospectively we see the boy and king, then the Emperor, enthroned in Palermo, in Aix, in Worms, in Mainz and in Jerusalem, straining from childhood towards the one great goal: by his own deeds to beget anew the ancient greatness of the Caesars and of Rome. Impelled by this passionate desire Frederick II journeyed through his realms with pride: “David in Syria; Guiscard in Sicily; Charles in Germany,” as Henry of Avranches phrased it. From each of these countries the Hohenstaufen took something, but each of these rôles he exalted by the inspiration and impulse of a Caesar, and each he brought to ripeness and fulfilment. Others had prepared the ground, others had sown and watered; the fulness of time had come, and Frederick was chosen to reap the harvest of centuries. The form of one great Ruler was to be conjured up anew less by magic than by force: the flattering poet had sung “and Caesar art thou in Rome!” It seemed that the victory of Cortenuova might perhaps make this promise good: here was the key to Italy, the land of the Caesars, not the provinces alone. Sicilia—Germania—Syria—Frederick wrote to the Romans that he hoped to see again the borders of Latium and to be Caesar in the home of the Caesars: that would be for himself and for the world the ultimate fulfilment.
ROMA CAPUT MUNDI! This age-old phrase graced like a challenge a seal of Frederick II’s. If this rune was as tangibly and literally fulfilled as the ancient claim of the Emperors to be the successors of David; if Frederick II was Maximus Imperator of Italy and with the Pontifex, a Caesar again in Rome; if Rome was, in no spiritual, transcendental sense, but in sober actual fact, the capital of Italy and of the Roman Empire, then the Empire of the Caesars, so oft invoked in manifesto, had become tangible once more and the Empire had been perfected as befitted the time. It was the opinion of the time that as a matter of course:
Roma caput mundi frenas regit orbis rotundi.
An Emperor celebrating a triumph in Rome itself would, in some mystic way, become possessed of all the kingdoms of the West. Rome was the key to the ultimate Empire of Peace: He who should renew the Augustan Age on earth must reign in Rome and judge the peoples of the earth according to Roman Law. People expected the world’s salvation to flow from Roman Law, from one Justice in all countries: legibus antiquis totus reparabitur orbis. Such had long been the hope—the Arch-Poet had sung the same for his master Barbarossa. More recently another poet had promised Kaiser Frederick that a collection of imperial laws would make him orbis terrarum salutifer. The idea of renewal was doubtless at all times quickened by such speculations about salvation; but now they are all finally engulfed in the belief in the imminence of the Last Day, which so completely dominated the time. Everything was straining back to the same origins, the origins of Church and Empire: the expected Prince of Peace, the Justitia-Imperator and the Renewer of Caesar Augustus were ultimately, not radically different.
“His heart beat with no other purpose than to be Lord and Master of the Whole World…” Brunetto Latini declared later, and other contemporaries exchanged similar whispers. The world-dominion of which Frederick II dreamed, however, contained no threat to neighbouring rulers. “At the height of imperial fortune, content with our own lot, fulfilled with supreme happiness, we envy none. …” The Roman world-dominion of this Hohenstaufen was not to be won on the battlefields of Gaul or Spain, of Egypt or of Poland, but in Rome. Frederick II concentrated all his plans on Rome. The modern mind expects organic growth to proceed centrifugally, its ever-widening circles stretching further and further into actual space. In contrast this last Emperor in his ascent to the dominion of the world drew his centripetal circles ever narrower and closer. His task was to penetrate to the innermost recesses of the Empire, as his office entitled him to do, and condense all the widely-diffused spiritual influences of the Empire at its very heart. In proportion as his power increased he must, therefore, avoid the danger of dissipating his strength afar, and must concentrate it all at the central point. The ultimate result was an intolerable strain which, lacking an outward safety valve, grew in the centre more and more intense. Frederick II provides the only historical example of a World Ruler aiming not at expansion but at condensation.
The distant spaces of empire were closed to Frederick II by Cortenuova. Often as he sought to escape again from Italy he never left the peninsula. Italy consumed him. Cortenuova was also the beginning of his Caesarship, of his metamorphosis from the Law-Giver of great dominions into the Leader of tiny armies, a reflection of his personal pilgrimage from the spiritual spaces of a world-empire back to the core of Italy, “the province of provinces,” the City of Cities. During the very battle itself and in the triumph after victory Frederick was mindful of the customs of ancient Rome and of the Caesars. His titles now ring truer, more sonorous: Victor, Felix, Triumphator. They are no longer mere symbols of an idea; they are the sober statement of its realisation. The imperial Chancery now multiplied the Caesarean titles. It was a venerable custom to speak of the Empire of the Caesars. Now unceasingly the swords of Caesar are victorious; glorious and all-conquering are Caesar’s standards, and the Roman Eagles, and Caesar’s army. This flood of resonant adjectives exceeds all custom, as does also the “unquenchable will” by very deed to reawaken to new life the Roman Caesars. It is idle
to ask whether Cortenuova was a victory comparable to those of ancient days. People wanted to see Caesar. And the living history—deed and gesture and spectacle—was interpreted in the ancient Roman mood and brought more of the genuine Caesarean atmosphere into the time than scores of learned treatises could have done.
It was remarkable the connotations that “Caesar” brought: fame, glory, triumph, of course; but also, rooted perhaps in Roman law: vengeance as function of the Caesars; their hate, their savagery, their lion’s wrath, their force and passion, their unbending will. Della Vigna in his victory manifesto proclaims that “streams of blood dyed the swords of Caesar,” and tells how “Caesar charged boldly at the head of his armies.” Again, the Emperor will show the world “how Augustus proceeds against the foe and Caesar works his vengeance with the steel.” “Augustus, the Avenger,” a brilliant figure, wrathful, terror-inspiring, which Frederick showed the foe and which remained vivid and little-changed throughout the Renaissance.
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Earlier Emperors had been freely enough compared to the Caesars, it is true. Frederick II, however, now began in quite a new strain to measure himself against their individual qualities. “You may turn over and search through the history of the Caesars, starred with deeds of incomparable greatness, described in ancient chronicles and annals, you may scan the acts of individual Emperors, but the most diligent seeker will not find a gentle generosity comparable to ours wherewith God hath inspired us,” thus Frederick wrote to all the world when he released a deeply-hated Cardinal from imperial imprisonment: convinced like many another despot of his own overflowing benevolence. In the celebrated mourning letter on the death of the discrowned King Henry, David and Caesar, the Biblical and the Roman prototypes, must justify the mourning father’s tears: “Neither the first are we, nor shall we be the last to suffer injury from sons who have done ill, and none the less to weep upon their grave. David mourned three days for Absalom, his first-born; and that illustrious Julius, the first Caesar, stinted neither duty nor the tears of fatherly affection over the ashes of his son-in-law Pompey, who had sought to compass the ruin and to take the life of his wife’s father.” This is a new way to envisage the past: the great figures live again when the man in action is called up behind the high-resounding name.
The picture for which Frederick II posed and which the imperial Chancery painted was quickly apprehended near and far. The times were ripe, and ready to see the Emperor under the symbols of the Roman Caesars, though, in fact, the statuesque and empty Roman of their dreams was as far removed from Frederick’s living Caesar-incarnation as classicism from Napoleon. But the shades had tasted blood again. The Emperor took rank in the Caesars’ heroic company. Poets, chroniclers and writers began to compare Frederick with Caesar and with Augustus and to seek resemblances in individual episodes. A poet expressly recalls the victor in civil war, and apostrophises Frederick thus: “Greater than Julius, thou, when the rebellious people challenge thee to battle.” They quote Lucan to compare Frederick’s treatment of his soldiers with Caesar’s. An historian in Florence not long after writes: “From the first Imperator, Julius Caesar, called in the beginning Gaius Julius, to the mighty Lord, the all-wise Frederick II, whom Merlin and the Sibyls had foretold. …” All the adjectives and all the superlatives which all the carefully recapitulated ancient Emperors had borne were heaped upon the Staufen.
The Emperor’s relation to Piero della Vigna is compared with that of Augustus to Vergil, of Theodoric to Cassiodorus, and on a verse of Vergil is based the eulogy which runs: “Jointly with Julius, Caesar guides the Empire.” The poet, Orfinus of Lodi, taking the name of Caesar for his title, rattles out in threadbare phrase endless strophes of the type:
Nullus in mundo Caesare grandior…
Nullus sub sole Caesare fortior…
If it was possible for Frederick II to pose as Caesar amidst the fragments of the ancient world and in the new intellectual world that was awakening, it was much more possible in relation to Rome herself and to the Romans who, like the Emperor, were jealous for the revival of their ancient greatness. Frederick II wrote once that the Goddess Fortuna hailed Caesar more joyously in the neighbourhood of Rome than in any other place. The victory of the imperial, the Roman, army at Cortenuova brought Rome within nearer reach, and Rome promised the Triumphator a triumph of a quality Cremona could not give. Frederick II could strike a fuller note in celebrating Caesarism to the Romans, the music of his fame and theirs could ring more clear and true. The moment had not yet quite come to bring Caesar back to Rome. Frederick, however, could anticipate a little, could convey a harbinger of future glory, could transfer some reflection of his triumph to Rome, the home of imperial triumphs. To give richness and reality to the gesture of his ancient Roman triumph he sent, soon after the victory, to the Senate and People of Rome, the Milanese carroccio, the standard-bearing chariot, with banners, and standards and trumpets, as the spolia opima which victorious Caesar, after the manner of the ancient Emperors, laid at the feet of Rome. A solemn and magniloquent letter accompanied the trophies: “Nature and all-powerful Reason whose commands kings must obey, make it our duty in the days of our victory to exalt the fame of the city which our forefathers enhanced by the glory of triumphs, and humbly, in not unworthy phrase, we acknowledge our duty in this matter. Look ye, if the triumph be traced back to the inevitable nature of its origin, we could not exalt our imperial glory without exalting first the honour of the city whom we of old recognised as the fountain head of our power. Our wishes would verily be far removed from Reason if we, illumined by the radiance of the Caesars, were to tolerate the Romans’ being left without a share in the rejoicings over a Roman victory. … If we were to rob you of the fruits of a venture which was conducted in your name, when we conquered the rebels of the Roman Empire to the battle-cry of the Roman name… if we failed to bring home to the Royal City the fame and glory of our exploits, that city which sent us forth to Germany to scale the heights of Empire, as a mother sends her son. We ascribe to your renown whatever, under favourable auspices, we have subsequently achieved, we turn again in the fame of our most glorious success to the city which as a boy we quitted with the anxiety born of an unknown future.
“Thus we recall the Caesars of old to whom the Senate and people of Rome awarded triumph and laurel for deeds of arms performed under victorious standards, preparing from of old the paths according to your wishes by the present illustrious example which we give: for we send herewith after the victory over Milan, assuredly the Head of the Confederation of Italy, we send to you the standard-bearing chariot of that commune, as booty of the vanquished enemy and prize of victory, and for you a pledge of our valorous deeds and of our glory, in the intention of safely accomplishing all that remains, when once we see peace restored in Italy, the seat of our Roman Empire.
“Receive therefore with gratitude, O Quirites, the victory of your Imperator! The fairest hopes may smile on you, for dearly as we love to follow the old ceremonies, yet more eagerly do we aim at renewing the ancient nobility of the City. …”
Frederick II intended by triumphal ceremonies and by his example to re-awaken in modern Rome the ancient Roman spirit, as we also learn from the verses “of Caesar Augustus the Just” which accompanied the triumphal gift:
“And mayest thou thus, O City, be mindful of earlier triumphs
Destined aforetime for thee by the kings, the leaders in battle.”
The City of Cities, battening still on its ancient renown, responded to the mood of the new Caesar. The Romans led in solemn procession the captured chariot, which to the shame of Milan had been dragged for a spectacle through the awe-struck towns of Italy, drawn by a team of mules instead of its own white oxen. According to the Senate’s instructions the booty was escorted to the Capitol amidst the rejoicings of the people. There the chariot was mounted on five marble pillars. Then a relief was carved in white marble depicting this token of victory, with an inscription which sang in many distichs the fame o
f the Emperor and his love of Rome which had prompted him to send his trophies to the City.
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This whole episode marks a new feature of the time, not only of Frederick himself: the ancient Roman triumph already heralds the Renaissance, and no less the lust for trionfi, for laurels, for personal fame, for the immortalising of the hero. Frederick II had already celebrated a triumph in Jerusalem, the fountain head of his Christian kingdom, but that Eastern triumph had been offered to God (not to the Church, who was angry). It had been a mystical Gloria in Christo, “accomplished more by miracle than valour.” The new triumph of arms glorified only the Roman Imperator, Caesar, the man, as Victor.
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