hey would call upon the people to acclaim the
return of the ancient Republic, the Pope should be set free to fulfil
the offices of religion, while deprived of all temporal power, and the
vision of freedom would become a glorious reality.

But Rome was not with Porcari, and he paid the terrible price of
unpopular fanaticism and useless conspiracy. He was betrayed by the
folly of his nephew, who, with a few followers, killed the Pope's
equerry in a street brawl, and then, perhaps to save himself, fired the
train too soon. Stephen shut the great gates of his house and defended
himself as well as he could against the men-at-arms who were sent to
take him. The doors were closed, says the chronicler, and within there
were many armed men, and they fought at the gate, while those in the
upper story threw the tables from the windows upon the heads of the
besiegers. Seeing that they were lost, Stephen's men went out by the
postern behind the house, and his nephew, Battista Sciarra, with four
companions, fought his way through, only one of them being taken,
because the points of his hose were cut through, so that the hose
slipped down and he could not move freely. Those who had not cut their
way out were taken within by the governor's men, and Stephen was dragged
with ignominy from a chest in which he had taken refuge.

The trial was short and sure, for even the Pope's patience was
exhausted. Three days later, Stephen Infessura, the chronicler, saw the
body of Stephen Porcari hanging by the neck from the crenellations of
the tower that used to stand on the right-hand side of Sant' Angelo, as
you go towards the Castle from the bridge; and it was dressed in a black
doublet and black hose--the body of that 'honourable man who loved the
right and the liberty of Rome, who, because he looked upon his
banishment as without good cause, meant to give his life, and gave his
body, to free his country from slavery.'

Infessura was a retainer of the Colonna and no friend of any Pope's, of
course; yet he does not call the execution of Porcari an act of
injustice. He speaks, rather, with a sort of gentle pity of the man who
gave so much so freely, and paid bodily death and shame for his belief
in a lofty vision. Rienzi dreamed as high, rose far higher, and fell to
the depths of his miserable end by his vanity and his weaknesses.
Stephen Porcari accomplished nothing in his life, nor by his death; had
he succeeded, no one can tell how his nature