The second major character in the drama was Cola’s nemesis, eighty-year-old Stefano Colonna, Rome’s most powerful aristocrat and an authentic natural wonder. “Great God, what majesty is in this old man,” wrote a contemporary. “What a voice, what a brow and countenance, . . . what energy of mind and strength of body at such an age!” When Cola’s supporters killed Stefano’s son, grandson, and nephew, the old man refused to mourn, saying, “It is better to die than [to] live in servitude to a clown.”
