[Footnote 52: These visions, of which the friends and
enemies of Rienzi seem alike ignorant, are surely magnified
by the zeal of Pollistore, a Dominican inquisitor, (Rer.
Ital. tom. xxv. c. 36, p. 819.) Had the tribune taught, that
Christ was succeeded by the Holy Ghost, that the tyranny of
the pope would be abolished, he might have been convicted of
heresy and treason, without offending the Roman people.
Note: So far from having magnified these visions, Pollistore
is more than confirmed by the documents published by
Papencordt. The adoption of all the wild doctrines of the
Fratricelli, the Spirituals, in which, for the time at
least, Rienzi appears to have been in earnest; his
magnificent offers to the emperor, and the whole history of
his life, from his first escape from Rome to his
imprisonment at Avignon, are among the most curious chapters
of his eventful life. - M. 1845.]