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CENCI, BEATRICE (1577-1599)

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Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 661 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CENCI, See also:BEATRICE (1577-1599) , a See also:Roman woman, famous for her tragic See also:story; poetic See also:fancy has See also:woven a See also:halo of See also:romance about her, which See also:modern historic See also:research has to a large extent destroyed. See also:Born at See also:Rome, she was the daughter of See also:Francesco Cenci (1549-1598), the See also:bastard son of a See also:priest, and a See also:man of See also:great See also:wealth but dissolute habits and violent See also:temper. He seems to have been guilty of various offences and to have got off with See also:short terms of imprisonment by See also:bribery; but the monstrous See also:cruelty which popular tradition has attributed to him is purely legendary. His first wife, Ersilia See also:Santa Croce, See also:bore him twelve See also:children, and nine years after her See also:death he married Lucrezia Petroni, a widow with three daughters, by whom he had no offspring. He was very quarrelsome and lived on the worst possible terms with his children, who, however, were all of them more or less disreputable. He kept various mistresses and was even prosecuted for unnatural See also:vice, but his sons were equally dissolute. His harsh treatment of his daughter Beatrice was probably due to his See also:discovery that she had had an illegitimate See also:child as the result of an intrigue with one of his stewards (A. Bertolotti, in his Francesco Cenci, publishes Beatrice's will in which she provides for this child), but there is no See also:evidence that he tried to commit See also:incest with her, as has been alleged. The eldest son Giacomo was a riotous, dishonest See also:young See also:scoundrel, who cheated his own See also:father and even attempted to See also:murder him (1595). Two other sons, Rocco and Cristoforo, both of them notorious rakes, were killed in brawls. Finally Francesco's wife Lucrezia and his children Giacomo, Bernardo and Beatrice, assisted by a certain See also:Monsignor Guerra, plotted to murder him. Two bravos were hired (one of them named Olimpio, according to Bertolotti, was probably Beatrice's See also:lover), and Francesco was assassinated while asleep in his See also:castle of Petrella in the See also:kingdom of See also:Naples (1598).

Giacomo afterwards had one of the bravos murdered, but the other was arrested by the Neapolitan authorities and confessed everything. See also:

Information having been communicated to Rome, the whole of the Cenci See also:family were arrested See also:early in 1599; but the story of the hardships they underwent in See also:prison is greatly exaggerated. Guerra escaped; 66 Lucrezia, Giacomo and Bernardo confessed the See also:crime; and Beatrice, who at first denied everything, even under See also:torture, also ended by confessing. Great efforts were made to obtain See also:mercy for the accused, but the crime was considered too heinous, and the See also:pope (See also:Clement VIII.) refused to See also:grant a See also:pardon; on the 1 r th of See also:September 1599, Beatrice and Lucrezia were beheaded, and Giacomo, after having been tortured with red-hot pincers, was killed with a See also:mace, See also:drawn and quartered. Bernardo's See also:penalty, on See also:account of his youth, was commuted to perpetual imprisonment, and after a See also:year's confinement he was pardoned. The See also:property of the family was confiscated. The romantic See also:character of the See also:history of this family has been the subject of poems, dramas and novels. See also:Shelley's tragedy is well known as a magnificent piece of See also:writing, although the author adopts a purely fictitious version of the story. Nor is F. D. Guerrazzi's novel, Beatrice Cenci (See also:Milan, 1872), more trustworthy. The first See also:attempt to See also:deal with the subject on documentary evidence is A.

Bertolotti's Francesco Cenci e la See also:

sue famiglia (2nd ed., See also:Florence, 1879), containing a number of interesting documents which See also:place the events in their true See also:light; cf. Labruzzi's See also:article in the Nueva Antologia, 1879, vol. xiv., and another in the See also:Edinburgh See also:Review, See also:January 1879.

End of Article: CENCI, BEATRICE (1577-1599)

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