Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/344

332 never reopened ; a new resting-place is formed for every one, and so the dead now occupy a wider territory than that which is covered by the homes of the living. The Turks believe that till the body is buried the soul is in a state of discomfort, and the funeral, therefore, takes place as soon as possible after death. lS T o coffin is used, the body is laid in the grave, a few boards are arranged round it, and then the earth is shovelled in, care being taken to leave a small opening extending from the head of the corpse to the surface of the ground, an opening not unfrequently enlarged by dogs and other beasts which plunder the grave. A tombstone of white marble is then erected, surmounted by a carved turban in the case of a man, and ornamented by a palm branch in low relief if the grave is that of a woman. The turban by its varying form indicates not only the rank of the sleeper below, but also the period of his death, for the fashion of the Turkish head-dress is always changing. A cypress is usually planted beside the grave, its odour being supposed to neutralize any noxious exhala tions from the ground, and thus every cemetery is a forest, where by day hundreds of turtle cloves are on the wing or perching on the trees, and where bats and owls swarm undisturbed at night. Especially for the Turkish women the cemeteries are a favourite resort, and some of them are always to be seen praying beside the narrow openings that lead down into a parent s, a husband s, or a brother s grave. Some of the other cemeteries of Constantinople contrast rather unfavourably with the simple dignity of those which belong to the Turks. That of the Armenians abounds with bas-reliefs which show the manner of the death of whoever is buried below, and on these singular tombstones there are frequent representations of men being decapitated or hanging on the gallows.

1em  CENCI, (1583-1599), called &quot; The Fair Parricide,&quot; was the daughter of Francesco Cenci (1527-1598), a Roman gentleman, no less notorious for his wealth and talents than for the shameless depravity of his life and character. Born during the sack of Rome by the troops of the Constable Bourbon, Francesco Cenci began early to be talked of as a man who cared little for law and less for public opinion, and whom it were better to serve than to offend. He was the son of a Cardinal Cenci, who. as financial minister under Pius V., had contrived in that capacity to amass an immense fortune. This enabled his heir to defy the law ; condemned on several occasions for murders and unnatural crimes, Francesco Cenci had always managed to escape sentence by the timely administration of enormous bribes. He was, therefore, a very profitable criminal, arid one with whom several popes in succession found it to their interest to deal gently. A man of great force of character and at the same time of boundless passions, in the service of which his fine intellect and indomitable courage were wholly employed, he was one of those personalities, interesting by sheer weight of depravity, in which the Italy of the Renaissance abounded. He is distinguishable, however, from his rivals in villainy by an entire absence of ambition except of a sensual kind. The pampering of his every appetite would seem to have induced in him its natural result, the infinite perversity known to psychologists as a common consequence of the weariness that follows satiety. Francesco Cenci was twice married ; by his first wife he had had seven children, one of whom had died in infancy ; his second wife, Lucrezia Petroni was childless. One of the strangest sides of his horrible character was the intensity of hatred with which he regarded his surviving children. The three eldest, Giacomo, Cristoforo, and Rocco, he had sent to a Spanish university, where he kept them penniless and starving, till they could bear no more, and returned. His conduct towards them remained unchanged. Shortly before the commencement of that episode of his life with which the name of his daughter Beatrice is inseparably connected, he was imprisoned for the third and last time, and his three sous presented a petition to the Pope regnant, Clement VIII., imploring him, for the sake of the honour of their house, to make an end of their father. Clement, however, wanted money, and Francesco Cenci was released. His hate for his children was by no means lessened by this circumstance. Of liis sons he never spoke but with curses ; his two daughters he was in the habit of beating violently. The elder sister, however, found means to get a petition presented to Clement, in which she prayed to be removed to a convent. The Pope took pity on her, and gave her in marriage to a gentleman of Gubbio, obliging her father to dower her largely. Cenci was furious. He shut his daughter Beatrice, then aged fourteen, in a lonely room, where he visited her to bring her food, to beat her, and to revile her with her sister s flight. It is said that it was in this place and under these circumstances that Francesco Cenci conceived the monstrous passion that resulted in his death. Meanwhile Rocco Cenci had been assassinated, and a year afterwards his brother Cristoforo met with a like fate. Thereafter Francesco Cenci, whose joy at the news of his sons death is recorded to have been awful, ceased not to torture his unhappy wife and unhappier daughter to the utmost. The ordeal must indeed have been a terrible one that could have transformed the gay light-hearted girl- humorist into the grand woman who was afterwards to play such a notable part in crime and expiation. The accounts of Cenci s conduct with her are not to be repeated. Meanwhile, however, a certain cardinal, Monsignor Guerra, one of the handsomest men in Rome, had fallen in love with her, and was in the habit of visiting the Palazzo Cenci whenever Francesco left it. Maddened by the failure of a petition for the redress of their wrongs, which they had addressed to Clement, and which had miscarried, Lucrezia and Beatrice turned for aid to the cardinal, and com municated to him their design of ending their troubles by the murder of the author of them. The cardinal allowed himself to be persuaded ; he lost no time in sounding Giacomo Cenci, the elder brother, and, after Francesco, head of the house, without whose consent nothing could be attempted. Meetings were held in a room in the cardinal s palace, and the advice of Lucrezia and Beatrice was taken on all points. For the execution of the design determined on, choice was made of two of Cenci s vassals, Olimpio and Marzio, both of whom were violently incensed against their master, Marzio out of pity for his mistresses, and Olimpio for his own wrong s sake. It was at first proposed to cloak the murder in an attack and robbery by banditti. A dozen men were to be held in readiness to stop Francesco Cenci on his way to Petrella, a fief within the Neapolitan frontier, whether he was wont to betake himself in the summer. An enormous ransom was to be asked, with the alternative of death ; the mother and daughter were to return to Rome to obtain the sum ; and the assassins were to carry their threat into execution. But the scheme miscarried ; Francesco reached Petrella in safety, and the conspirators were forced to arrange other combinations. The old man s treatment of his wife and daughter grew worse daily. He is said to have pretended that he believed them pleased and happy in his gray hairs and declining 