§ 6. THE TRANSFER OF THE PAPACY TO AVIGNON. 47
refuge of wrath, the school of errors, a temple of lies, the awful prison, hell on earth." ^ But the corruption of Avignon was too glaring to make it necessary for him to invent charges. This ill-faine^ives Avignon a place at the side of the courts ot Lo^uis XIV. and Charles II. of England* " During this papal expatriation, Italy fell into a deplorable condition. Rome, which had been the queen of cities, the goal of pilgrims, the centre towards which the pious affections of all Western Europe turned, the locality where royal and princely embassies had sought ratification for ambitious plans —Rome was now turned intojji_a^na^|_vQki confusion_£m4 riot. Contending factions of nobles, the Colonna, Orsini, Gaetani, and others, were in constant feud,^ and strove one with the other for the mastery in municipal affairs and were often themselves set aside by popular leaders whose low birth they despised. The source of her gains gone, the city withered a\v^y and was reduced to the proportions, the poverty, and the dull happenings of a provincial town, till in_ 1370 the, population numbered less tha,n 20,001). She had no commerce to stir her pulses like the young cities in Northern and Southern Germany and in Lombardy. Obscurity and melancholy settled upon her palaces and public places, broken only by the petty attempts at civic displays, which were like the actings of the circus ring compared with the serious manoeuvres of a military campaign. The old monuments were neglected or torn down. A papal legate sold the stones of the Colosseum to be burnt in lime-kilns, and her marbles were transported to other cities, so that it was said she was drawn upon more than Carrara. ^ Her churches became^
1 Petrarch speaks of it "as filled -with every kind of confusion, the powers of darkness overspi-eading it and containing everj'thing fearful which had ever existed or been imagined by a disordered mind." Robinson : Petrarch^ p. 87. Pastor, I. p. 76, seeks to reduce the value of Petrarch's testimony on the ground that he spoke as a poet, burning with the warm blood of his country, who, notwithstanding his charges, preferred to live in Avignon.
2 The children did not escape the violence of this mad frenzy. The little child, Agapito Colonna, was found in the church, where it had been taken by the servant, strangled by the Orsini.
3 Pastor, p, 78, with note.
48 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
rooflfisa, Cattle ate grass up to the very altars of the Lateran and St. Peter's. The moyement of art was {iit.n|ijTP.fl which had begun witli the arrival of Giotto, who had come to Rome at the call of Boniface VIII. to adorn St. Peter's. No product of architecture is handed down from this period except the marble stairway of the church of St. Maria, Ara Coeli, erected in 1348 with an inscription commemorating the deliverance from the plague, and the restored Lateran church which was burnt, 1308. ^ Ponds and debris interrupted the passage of the streets and filled the air with offensive and deadly odors. At Clement V.'s death. Napoleon Orsini assured Philip that the Eternal City was on the verge of destruction and, in 1347, Cola di Rienzo thought it more fit to be called a den of robbers than the residence of civilized men.
The_Italian peninsula, atj^aat-iaits northem-half, was-a. scene of political division and social anarchy. The country districts were infested with bands of brigands. The cities were given to frequent and violent changes of government. High officials of the Church paid the price of immunity from plunder and violence by exactions levied on other personages of station. Such were some of the immediate results of the exile of the papacy. Italy was in dan^er^pf succumbing to tl^e fate of Hellas and being turned into a desolate waste.
Avignoiij which Clement chose as his residence, is 460 miles southeast of Paris and lies south of Lyons. Its proximity to the port of Marseilles made it accessible to Italy. It was purchased by Clement VI., 1848, from Naples for 80,000 gold tiarins^-and remained papal territory until the Freiu li Revolution. As early as 1229, the popes held territory in the vicinity, the duchy of Venaissin, which fell to them from the domain of Raymond of Toulouse. On every side this free papal home was closely confined by French territory. Clement was urged by Italian bishops to go to Rome, and Italian writers gave as one reason for his refusal fear lest he should receive meet punishment for his readiness to condemn Boniface VIII. ^
1 John XXII. paid off the cost incurred for this restoration with the price of silver vessels left by Clement V. for the relief of the churches in Rome. See Ehrle, V. 131. - See Finke : Quellen, p. 92.