"This happened," says the priest Giovanni
Battista Guadagnini, of Brescia, whose Life, published in 1790, I have
made use of--"this happened in the year 1155 before the 18th of June,
previous to the coronation of Frederick, Arnaldo being, according to
my thinking, fifty years of age. His eloquence," continues Guadagnini,
"was celebrated by his enemies themselves; the exemplarity of his life
was superior to their malignity, constraining them all to silence,
although they were in such great number, and it received a splendid
eulogy from St. Bernard, the luminary of that century, who, being
strongly impressed against him, condemned him first as a schismatic,
and then for the affair of the Council of Sens (the defense of
Abelard), persecuted him as a heretic, and then had finally nothing to
say against him. His courage and his zeal for the discipline of the
Church have been sufficiently attested by the toils, the persecutions,
and the death which he underwent for that cause."
IV
The scene of the first act of Niccolini's tragedy is near the
Capitoline Hill, in Rome, where two rival leaders, Frangipani and
Giordano Pierleone, are disputing in the midst of their adherents.
The former is a supporter of the papal usurpations; the latter is a
republican chief, who has been excommunicated for his politics, and is
also under sentence of banishment; but who, like Arnaldo, remains
in Rome in spite of Church and State.
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