Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes

Rome, 1347: a notary's son raises the mob, drives out the barons, restores the Republic and is crowned tribune — then discovers that holding power and deserving it are unrelated skills. Bulwer-Lytton's reconstruction gave Wagner his first success and still reads as a study of how idealism governs. Paintings of medieval Rome, triumphal procession and ruined forum, with Gilded Library ornament of eagle, laurel and a broken column.