ng time, it has never shown that sort of
strength which can hold land or political power in adverse
circumstances. In the twelfth century the Pierleoni were the masters of
Rome; in the thirteenth, they had disappeared from history, though they
still held the Theatre of Marcellus; in the fourteenth they seem to have
perished altogether and are never heard of again. And it should not be
argued that this was due to any overwhelming persecution and destruction
of the Jews, since the Pierleoni's first step was an outward, if not a
sincere, conversion to Christianity. In strong contrast with these facts
stands the history of the Colonna. The researches of the learned Coppi
make it almost certain that the Colonna descend from Theodora, the
Senatress of Rome, who flourished in the year 914; Pietro della Colonna
held Palestrina, and is known to have imprisoned there, 'in an empty
cistern,' the governor of Campagna, in the year 1100; like the Orsini,
the Colonna boast that during more than five hundred years no treaty was
drawn up with the princes of Europe in which their two families were not
specifically designated; and at the time of the present writing, in the
last days of the nineteenth century, Colonna is still not only one of
the greatest names in Europe, but the family is numerous and
flourishing, unscathed by the terrible financial disasters which began
to ruin Italy in 1888, not notably wealthy, but still in possession of
its ancestral palace in Rome, and of immense tracts of land in the
hills, in the Campagna, and in the south of Italy--actively engaged,
moreover, in the representative government of Italy, strong, solid and
full of life, as though but lately risen to eminence from a sturdy
country stock--and all this after a career that has certainly lasted
eight hundred years, and very probably nearer a thousand. Nor can any
one pretend that it owes much to the power or protection of any
sovereign, since the Colonna have been in almost constant opposition to
the Popes in history, have been exiled and driven from Italy more than
once, and have again and again suffered confiscation of all they
possessed in the world. There have certainly not been in the same time
so many confiscations proclaimed against the Jews.

The question presents itself: why has a prolific race which, as a whole,
has survived the fall of kingdoms and empires without end, with singular
integrity of original faith and most extraordinary tenacity of t