Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/672

 The Crime and Trial of Beatrice Cenci.

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THE CRIME AND TRIAL OF BEATRICE CENCI. BY H. GERALD CHAPÍN, LL. D. IT may be doubted whether any of the famous crimes committed in Renaissance Italy possesses greater attraction for histo rian or romancist than does that of Beatrice Cenci. While we shudder at the atrocities of the Borgias, the recital of none of them suffices to excite the sympathetic interest which is experienced when we listen to the story of the fair parricide. What degree of guilt is to be imputed to her has furnished a most fruitful field for discussion. Pictured by many as the innocent victim of papal greed, by others as an incarnation of the de pravity of her epoch, the real character of Beatrice must ever remain somewhat of a mystery. The following pages present what there is reason to believe is a truthful ac count of the crime and its punishment. In the Barberini gallery is the beautiful painting by Guido Reni generally supposed to represent the unhappy Beatrice on the eve of her execution. The task of the iconoclast is ever a thankless one and but slight grati tude will be encountered for assuring the admiring tourist that while the picture is very probably by Guido, it is certainly not a portrait of Beatrice. To begin with, no mention is made of it in catalogues of the Barberini paintings printed in 1604 and 1623, five and twenty-four years, respec tively, after the execution of the criminals, an omission which the prominence of the present cause célèbre would certainly have prevented had the picture then existed. Be sides, Guido never painted in Rome until the seventeenth century was well under way, and the execution of the Cenci took place at the close of the sixteenth. In fact, as the features reappear in several church frescoes, the work of that artist, it is highly probable that the beautiful original was but one of his favorite models.

Beatrice's father, Francesco, Count Cenci, was one of the wealthiest men of his epoch, of a lineage antedating the Caesars. The very name shows the antiquity of the race — a cor rupted form of the Centii of Republican Rome. In the history of mediaeval Italy, the Cenci are often mentioned as being of a rank almost equal to that of the Colonna, Orsini, Frangipinni and Savelli. Although the Borgias had ceased to reign for nearly half a century prior to Francesco's birth, their influence had remained and Roman society was sunk in a depravity scarcely exceeded by that which prevailed in the days of Commodus. Living under such conditions, gifted with immense wealth, the result was what might have been expected. That Francesco Cenci was, viewed from our modern standpoint, a monster of iniquity — a doer of crimes unspeakable — may well be be lieved. That he was any degree worse than many of his well-known contemporaries, is doubtful. Indeed, many charges brought against him have had no foundation other than the brief of that eminent advocate, Prospero Farinaccio, counsel for Beatrice. Nor can too much be expected from an age which had wit nessed the death of 72,000 persons practically at the whim of an English Henry, the massacre of St. Bartholomew under a French Charles, and the work of the Inquisition in the reign of a Spanish Philip. Whatever was his true character, certain it is that Francesco was perpetually at odds with justice. At the early age of eleven he was arrested for having beaten one Quintilio de Vetralli — " usque ad sangirincm," as the record quaintly expresses it. On numerous other occasions he was heavily fined for vari ous offences, the most trifling of which was the beating of two of his servants. In the archives of the Basilica of San