Explore "Rienzi" by Edward Bulwer-lytton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
On an evening in April, 1347, and in one of those wide spaces in which Modern and Ancient Rome seemed blent together -- equally desolate and equally in ruins -- a miscellaneous and indignant populace were assembled. That morning the house of a Roman jeweller had been forcibly entered and pillaged by the soldiers of Martino di Porto, with a daring effrontery which surpassed even the ordinary licence of the barons. The sympathy and sensation throughout the city were deep and ominous.
"Never will I submit to this tyranny!"