History Today, May 1st, 1997
Cola di Rienzi built a reputation as a foe of corruption and a papal agent before staging a coup d'etat in Rome in 1347. He proclaimed a new constitution that made him Rome's ruler, but he fell from power by the end of the year and was executed in 1354. The coup d'etat staged in the ancient Capitol of Rome on Whit Sunday 1347, which made a thirty-something orator of plebian stock effective ruler of the Imperial city, ranks as one of the most intriguing and quixotic episodes in the history of medieval and Renaissance Italy. The rise and fall of Cola di Rienzi (christened Nicolas di Lorenzo by...
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