When Pius II was at Viterbo he said frankly to the Roman
deputies who begged him to return, 'Rome is as much my home as Siena,
for my House, the Piccolomini, came in early times from the capital to
Siena, as is proved by the constant use of the names 'neas and Sylvius
in my family.' He would probably have had no objection to be held a
descendant of the Julii. Paul II, a Barbo of Venice, found his vanity
flattered by deducing his House, notwithstanding an adverse pedigree,
according to which it came from Germany, from the Roman Ahenobarbus,
who had led a colony to Parma, and whose successors had been driven by
party conflicts to migrate to Venice. That the Massimi claimed descent
from Q. Fabius Maximus, and the Cornaro from the Cornelii, cannot
surprise us. On the other hand, it is a strikingly exceptional fact for
the sixteenth century that the novelist Bandello tried to connect his
blood with a noble family of Ostrogoths.
To return to Rome. The inhabitants, 'who then called themselves
Romans,' accepted greedily the homage which was offered them by the
rest of Italy. Under Paul II, Sixtus IV and Alexander VI, magnificent
processions formed part of the Carnival, representing the scene most
attractive to the imagination of the time- -the triumph of the Roman
Imperator. The sentiment of the people expressed itself naturally in
this shape and others like it.
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