Cola di Rienzo and the reenactment of an ancient tale – finding the Prata Flaminia in fourteenth‐century Rome

Abstract

From the anonymous contemporary biographer of Cola di Rienzo (c. 1313–54), we know that the self‐declared Roman tribune engaged in a theatrical approach to the assertion of power and employed stories and symbols of the city's ancient past to reinforce his short‐lived reign. One story from Livy was a natural fit for the flamboyant Cola in staging his takeover of Rome's government in May 1347, and yet has not received scholarly attention. This was the tale of Lucius Verginius, the fifth‐century B.C.E. centurion whose attempt to thwart the debauchery of his daughter by a ruling decemvir, instigated the so‐called second plebeian secession. Two important topographical touchstones for the story were the Aventine Hill where the plebs chose their new tribunes and the Prata Flaminia, later the Circus Flaminius, where they voted to make consul elections subject to their approval. Cola di Rienzo employed both of these locations in May 1347, with the former Prata Flaminia serving as the starting point for his march to the Capitoline to seize power. This article considers the reasons Cola would employ the Verginius tale, how he knew the site of the Prata Flaminia and possible reasons its true location was later forgotten until 1960.