Rienzi by Edward Bulwer-lytton — Read

With the following twilight, Rome was summoned to the commencement of / the most magnificent spectacle the Imperial City had witnessed since the / fall of the Caesars. It had been a singular privilege, arrogated by the / people of Rome, to confer upon their citizens the order of knighthood. / Twenty years before, a Colonna and an Orsini had received this popular / honour. Rienzi, who designed it as the prelude to a more important / ceremony, claimed from the Romans a similar distinction. From the / Capitol to the Lateran swept, in long procession, all that Rome boasted / of noble, of fair, and brave. First went horsemen without number, and / from all the neighbouring parts of Italy, in apparel that well befitted / the occasion. Trumpeters, and musicians of all kinds, followed, and / the trumpets were of silver; youths bearing the harness of the knightly / war-steed, wrought with gold, preceded the march of the loftiest / matronage of Rome, whose love for show, and it may be whose admiration / for triumphant fame, (which to women sanctions many offences,) made them / forget the humbled greatness of their lords: amidst them Nina and Irene, / outshining all the rest; then came the Tribune and the Pontiff's Vicar, / surrounded by all the great Signors of the city, smothering alike / resentment, revenge, and scorn, and struggling who should approach / nearest to the monarch of the day. The high-hearted old Colonna alone / remained aloof, following at a little distance, and in a garb studiously / plain. But his age, his rank, his former renown in war and state, did / not suffice to draw to his grey locks and highborn mien a single one / of the shouts that attended the meanest lord on whom the great Tribune / smiled. Savelli followed nearest to Rienzi, the most obsequious of the / courtly band; immediately before the Tribune came two men; the one bore / a drawn sword, the other the pendone, or standard usually assigned to / royalty. The tribune himself was clothed in a long robe of white / satin, whose snowy dazzle (miri candoris) is peculiarly dwelt on by the / historian, richly decorated with gold; while on his breast were many / of those mystic symbols I have before alluded to, the exact meaning of / which was perhaps known only to the wearer. In his dark eye, and on / that large tranquil brow, in which thought seemed to sleep, as sleeps a / storm, there might be detected a mind abstracted from the pomp around; / but ever and anon he roused himself, and conversed partially with / Raimond or Savelli.

"This is a quaint game," said the Orsini, falling back to the old / Colonna: "but it may end tragically."