(COPYRIGHT STORY.) The True Story of the Cenci

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXV, Issue 10, 9 September 1905, Page 50

(COPYRIGHT STORY.) The True Story of the Cenci

By

Allen Upward

Author of “ Underground History,” Etc.

N the gallery «»f the Btibcrini I palace ill Koine there hangs one of the most famous pictures in the world. It is the portrait of a young woman of twenty: the Mhead is turned.and thrown >lighlly backward on the left shoulder. ami the beauitftil face is framed by dark chestnut hair, bound round by a white silk turban. But what give- the portrait its unique character is the wonderful expression of the eyes, which look out of the picture with a sublime and mournful yearning that haunts all who have ever seen it. 'this is the picture which legend asserts to be the portrait of Beatrice (enci, painted in prison on the night before her execution. The story with which it is associated is almost without parallel in the history of crime. The scene is a gloomy stone pile, the Castle of Rocca di Petrella, standing in forbidding isolation at the summit of a lonely pass in the Apennine mountains, on the border of the kingdom of Naples. The castle had once been a feudal stronghold in the hands of the famous family of Colonna, but the age of private wars was over, and Korea di Petrella had passed within the last few years into the possession of a wealthy Roman noble, who used it as a count i v seat, io which be retreated in summer time from the sultry air of J’oinu. I’he name of the tenant of Rocca di Petrella was Count Francesco Cenci. In 1 he year 1598 hr had come out as usual 1<» pass the hot months in the castle, bringing with him his wife Lucrezia. his daughter Beatrice, and Bernardo,, his youngest sonAt one side of the castle there was a garden. On the morning of the 10th September, a servant passing through this garden noticed something unusual about an cider 1 rer which grew.hard by the castle wall. A dark object hung dangling among the broken branches. The servant went closer, and saw that jt was the corpse of Francesco Cenci. How had the elder come to bear that ghastly fruit? Directly above the tree was an open terrace, or balcony, without a parapet. The ('ount’s bedroom. in which he slept by himself, was in that part of the building. lie must have left his bed in the night., wandered out on to the terrace, ami fallen over in the dark. The brandies of the elder had been snapped by the weight of I he bhdy. The broken twigs had scratched the face and hands of the eorp e. in particular there were two ugly marks, one in the throat, the other w here an eye-ball had been crushed in. The servant who made the discovery instantly arou-ed the household. I he body was taken down and carried indoors. The widow and daughter of the Count were told the dreadful news, and they appeared upon the scene, weeping ami wringing their hands. Jt was not deemed necessary tn hold any investigation. The Count’s relatives appeared satisfied that his death was 1 he rr-ult of accident. The body was buried the next day. ami the family’ relumed to Rome, where Giacomo Cenci. the ('ount’s eldest son, at once took out letter’s of administration to his father's property. A part of the estate which thus descended to the ('ount’s heirs was i he castle of Rocca di Petrella itself. But Rocco di Petrella had a feudal lord. ( olonna. whose mind was not satisfied by the account which had readlid him of Francesco Cenci’s death. Perhaps the wish was father to the though' If < olonna could prove tlr.H litre had been foul play, the law might allow him 1<» resume possesion of the lief. * Be that as it may. two months after I In* discovery he wrote Io the aulhmities in Naples, demanding an inquiry into Count ( enci’- death. The Government of Naples at once

despatched a Royal Commissioner to Boeva di Petrella, charged to sift the affair. His first proceeding was to have rhe body disinterred. But corruption! had set in. and it was no longer possible io gather any indications of the cause oi death. The Commissioner then caused the servants of the castle to be arrested, and examined them one by' one. He quickly discovered that Colonna’s suspicions were well founded. For some days before the Count’s death, it appeared, two strangers had been seen lurking in the neighbourhood of the eastle. One of the two. named Olimpio, was known to have a grudge against Cenci. lie had formerly been castellan of the fortress, and had been dismissed by the Count. His companion, whose name was Marzio. was not known in the district. Olimpio’s knowledge of the building of which he had formerly had charge, coupled with his hatred of the Count, pointed him out as a possible assassin. Directly after the death ho and his companion had disappeared. A far more dreadful discovery followed. The woman who w’ashed the linen of the castle informed the Royal Commissioner that the day after the body had been found, Beatrice Cenci had brought her a sheet soaked in blood, and she had endeavoured to account for tho stains by a commonplace explanation which the woman did not believe. The Neapolitan authorities proceeded cautiously. Suppressing the evidence against Beatrice for the moment, they published the han of the kingdom against Olimpio and Marzio. But this was a sullieient intimation to the guilty that justice was aroused and moving on their track. Before the olliccrs of the law could find Olimpio he had been removed beyond their reach for ever. At the door of an inn in a remote village where he had gone to hide, three unknown men came upon him and stabbed him to death. Even this desperate measure did not serve to arrest the inarch of discovery. Not many days had passed before a man whom justice had laid hold of in connection with another crime confessed that lie was one of the three who had assassinated Olimpio. He and his companions had been engaged to commit the murder by a Roman priest. Monsignor Querro. And Querro was a near connection of the Cenci family. Doubtless 1 he same fate would have befallen Marzio, but by this time he had been arrested. From his lips by torture they dragged the story of what passed that night in Rocca di Petrella. According to this man five members of Francesco’* family had taken part in the conspiracy to murder him. Marzio and Olimpio were hired to do the work by Giacomo Cenci and the priest, Querro, in Rome. Armed with a letter of introduel ion to Beatrice, they’ arrived in the ntughbourhood of Rocca di Petrella and lay in wailing for an opportunity to enter the eastle. One day’ they saw her walking on the walls: they made signals, and as soon.as it was dark she contrived to admit them Unseen. \ consultation took place. It was settled that old Cenci should be killed on the night after the Nativity of the Virgin, as the assassins shrank from committing the crime on that day. Beatrice undertook that she and her step-mother. Lucrezia. should put :.n opiate in I he Count’s wine at supper. As soon as u had taken effect, the men wire to be brought into the castle, and were to kill their victim in liis sleep. What was the motive of this diabolical plot ? What was the reason, more urgent than a wife’s loyalty or a daughter’s love, stronger than instinct itself, that had united these women in an unnatural league against a husband’s and father’s life? 11 is night in the castle of Rocca di: Petrella. Outside the cold night wind of the Apennines blows through the solitary valley, chilling the two men. who lurk in the shadow of the postern

waiting for the summons within. Inside the castle, in the banqueting room, the supper-table is spread for four persons. Francesco ( enci, the formidable old man whose life* has been one long violence against all law and all morality, who hates his children and exults in their answering hate, sits in his dressing-gown at the head of the table, watching with an evil sneer the movements of the two women, as they Lover about him to till his cup and carve his meat. Both arc young. There are many years between Lucrezia and her husband; Beatrice is not yet twenty-two. Cenci himself is in his fiftieth year, but men lived fast in those days, and an Italian at fifty was reckoned an old man. At the eml of the table sits a boy of sixteen, a man in the estimation of the age, Bernardo Cenci. the Count’s youngest child. Bernardo was not too young to be a party' to the frightful plot. But he plays no active part in it. It is Beatrice and the young wife who carry out their part o fthe workk. Old Cenci sits ami scowls at them, but never sees the powder that falls from his daughter’s hand into the crystal goblet as she hands it to him. They talk to him. perhaps, with soothing and submissive words, hut with agonised terror in their hearts, as he lifts the cup deliberately to his lips, takes it away a moment to launch some barbed jest or brutal threat at his slaves, and then slowly drains it to the bottom. The wife and children watch him with a silent awe. Something has all at once invested that wicked old man with a sacred character. He does not taste the opiate but complains of feeling heavy’ and rises to go io his room. Not till the door has closed behind him do the three others breathe easily again. The hours pass on to niiduis'lit, Benita rd o has retired. It is Beatrice who, looking like some beautiful ghost in the darkness, steals to the little postern, and unlocks it. The two assassins spring to their feet and shake them elves to get rid of the chill which numbs their limbs. Then they pass inside. Lucrezia receives them. She and Beatrice lead the way', creeping with noiseless feet to the door of old Cenci'.* bedchamber. Then the two women stand aside, and Olimpio and Marzio enter. There follows a minute or two of terrible suspense for the wife and daughter as they stand in the room outside listening. There is no sound of violence. Suddenly the door opens, and two rullians come shambling out. with downcast eyes, unable to look the women in the face. Beatrice realised on the instant how things stood. “What does this mean? Why have you not done your work?” she demanded with a lofty sternness before which they shrank abashed. “When we saw 1 he poor old man lying there.” was the muttered answer, “looking white and venerable in his sleep, our hearts misgave us, and we felt ashamed to kill him.” Beatrice replied almo-t in the words that the inspired dramatist, writing perhaps at that very moment a thousand miles away, put into the mouth of Lady Macbeth, — “Give me the dagger! —lf you are cowardly enough to fear a sleeping man,

and refuse to do the work for which' you have been paid. I myself will go in and kill my father.” Her terrible resolution overpowered the assassins, and they expressed themselves ready to return and carry out the murder. This time Beatrice and het step-mother followed them into the bedroom. In order to leave no trace of the (•rime. Olimpio and his comrade had provided themselves with two long ihiti needles of steel. One of the-e they’ drove into the w’indpipe of the sleeper, and the other through an eye-ball into the brain. As soon as Francesco ceased to breathe the needles were extracted, leaving only two slight marks. But to the dismay' of the women, the wounds, minute as they wefe, began to bleed at a fearful rate. The two assassins were already hurrying downstairs to make their escape. Lucrezia and Beatrice attempted to lift the body in the sheet on which it lay”, but finding their strength unequal to the burden, they went after the men and called them back. It was no longer possible to pretend that the (’(Mint had died a natural death. Iluw therefore carried the corpse out on to the balcony’, and dropped it over. They’ heard it crash down through the branches of the elder tree in the darkne-s below. Then Beatrice took the sheet to her own room, and the two men left the eastle. When this confession had been extracted from Marzio, the part of the Neapolitan authorities was over. The real criminals were in Rome. Alarziowas sent thither, together with his deposition. and the live <‘cnei were immediately arrested. ( Each in turn was put to the torture, and made to confess his share in the crime. Ihc legend relates that Beatrice held out to t’ne last, and only gave w'ay when she found that all tin* others had made a full confession. The tale is consistent with her determined character. It is even said that when she w;as confronted with Marzio. she compelled him, by sheer force of will, to retract his accusation, and that he afterwards perished under torture, refusing to recant. his retractation. This extraordinary crime made a deep sensation in Rome. The defence of the live Cenci was intrusted to Prospero Farinacci,One of the most brilliant advocates who ever adorned the Roman bar. The facts of the murder being beyond dispute, the only defence left for Farinacci to up wa« that of extenuating circumstances. He rose to the occasion, and undertook not merely to excuse but to justify the hideous transaction. \ It is t<> the genius of Farinacci that we owe the popular legend a>f the Cenci, the legend which has furnished Shelley with the materials for a splendid poem. The advocate of the ( enci has transformed a squalid domestic crime into algreat fateful tragedy worthy to stand beside those of Aeschylus and Soph<»eles. The methods of Continental jurisprudence differed, as they still dilfer, widely from our own. Instead of the evidence being conliued to the particular crime under investigation, that; crime was treated as part of a great whole. The prosecution went into the whole life history of the accused and sought io weave it into one consistent web. The defence did'the same. It was t his that afforded to Farinacci the opportunity of lay ing before the court which 1 ril'd the Cenci that appalling history which has come down to ns as the truth about the Cenci. Two versions are extant of Karinacci's great

defence, but the substance of both is the same. Francesco Cenci came of an accursed stock. He .was the orphan son of a Papal Monsignor who had beqdeatbed him an immense fortune embezzled from trust funds. During the boy’s minority his own mother had been brought before the Roman court*, charged with robbing him. His early precocity in vice had caused his family to marry him at the age of fourteen. His character was made up of cruelty and lust in equal proportions. His iniquities had made him notorious even in that iniquitous age. Not once nor twice only he had been punished for open breaches of the law. Five years before his death be had been imprisoned six months on an infamous charge, ami had only freed himself by paying a fine of 100,000 crowns. He was an atheistBut above all it was as a husband and father that the murdered man had disgraced human nature. He had hated his sons so passionately as to have expressed a wish that they were dead. He had left three of them.. Giacomo, Rocco and Cristoforo, to starve, till, on their petition, the Pope commanded him to make them an allowance of 2,000 crowns apiece. He had persecuted Giacomo with lawsuits, and rejoiced indecent I v at the news of the death of the other two. All his children had been forced to leave him, except the Lay Bernardo, who was half-witted, and Beatrice, who had been driven to a terrible alternative by her father’s un- ’ speakable crime. Every other means of redress had proved vain. Count Cenci’s family had petitioned against his release from prison, but their suit was rejected as odious and unnatural. His wife and daughter had presented a memorial to the Pope, praying for leave to retire into a convent, but the memorial had gone unanswered. It was Francesco’s boast that

with a well-filled purse he had no fe< of justice. Not till all other methods had been tried and failed did the victims, of unnumbered outrages fall back on the first law of nature, which authorised them to rid the world of a monster. The effect which thjs powerful effort of advocacy produced on the Court to which it was addressed may be estimated by the influence it has had on the opinion of the world since. What could be said in answer to it? What truth was there in Farinacei's tremendous indictment? Francesco Cenci was undoubtedly a violent and a vicious man. His imprisonment and fines were facts. But they did not prove him to be much worse than the average Roman noble of the day. He had lived with his first wife. Ersilia. for twenty years, and there was nothing to show that she had ever complained of him. His second wife, Lucrezia, was a widow, and therefore mistress of her actions, when she married him; and she had married him after his imprisonment, when she must have known the best and worst about his character. He was at enmity with his sons, true, but the fault was at least as much theirs as his. Giacomo had married against his father’s will, and raised money by forging his father’s name, ft was for this that old Cenci had gone to law against him. In one of these proceedings Count Francesco had accused his son of plotting against his life. The light of after events made such a charge seem only too well grounded. Of the other sons, Kocco had actually stolen plate from his father’s house, and lie was assisted in the burglary by .Monsignor Querro, the very man who came upon the seem* again as a joint instigator of the murder. Rocco had perished shortly afterwards in a street brawl provoked by himself. His brother Cristoforo had been assassinated while out on a discreditable night adventure. Such deaths of such sons might well provoke a father into using words of satisfac--1 ion. The story of the allowances of 2000 crowns rests on no evidence. It is not easy to understand why the Pope should order so very lavish an allowance to be paid to young men who might bp supposed capable of doing something for their own support. The story is inconsistent with the proved facts’of Rocco's burglary and Giacomo’s forgeries. It is no doubt a fable. Bernardo was certainly not an imbecile. He lived for some years afterwards, and was treated as fully responsible. There were other children of Count Cenci—he had twelve in all—sons who had gone out into the world, and daughters who had married. None of these were in any way implicated in the murder, and their names do not appear in the history of the trial, as they would have done had they interfered on behalf of the accused. Ihe part of Beatrice in the affair is the most difficult to handle. She was a woman, of twenty-two, and therefore fully capable of taking her own part. Her demeanour both on the night of Hie murder and afterwards showed her to possess a rare force of character. Her will, which lias been preserved. points to her having been Ihe mother of a son. whose existence she was anxious to conceal. Finally both the legend and the facts indicate that she was loved by Monsignor Quero. a cousin of the family, who is said to have contemplated getting a dispensation Io enable him to marry her.. .It is this priest who appears throughout the affair as the moving spirit, the evil genius of the Cenci family. He assists Boceo in his burglary. lie provides ihe two bravoes who are to carry out tin* murder of the (‘mint. Ami when discovery is on foot, his resolute spirit leads him to engage three other men to cover up the traces of 1 lie first crime by a second. Was his conduct that of a libertine who stirred up evil passions, and who was anxious to rid himself of old Cenci as an obstacle to his union with Beatrice? Or are we to regard him as a knight errant whose chivalrous devot ion to th**” woman he loved caused him to put aside the scruples of his railing, and embark cn a coiitse of crime to deliver her from a fair worse than death? Farinacei’s hold defence staggered the court. One formidable objection was made against it. The memorial which he alleged had been sent to the Pope by Beatrice and Lucrezia could not be found. Farinaeei retorted that, it had been suppressed in the Papal chancery by means of ttye Count’s

bribes. But this was mere assertion. A more damaging objection to most minds may be drawn from the murder of Olimpio. If Querro and Beatrice had been actuated by the lofty motives attributed to them by Farinaeei, it is difficult to understand their stooping to cloak their action by a deed worthy of the most, unscrupulous criminal. Nevertheless the public feeling of Rome declared itself on the side of the accused. They were condemned but the ease came before the Pope, (lenient VI IL. and he hesitated long before he could bring himself to pronounce judgment. The scale was turned by one of those tragic coincidences of which life is full. A young man named Paolo di Santa Croce, who was actually a relative of the condemned, slew his ow n mol her in her bed, in cold blood, his sole motive being to get possession of some property. The news of this atrocious outrage rang through Rome, and lent a dreadful probability to the theory that Francesco Cenci’s death was due to motives equally base. Pope (lenient was an old man. lie declared that it was necessary to protect age. There was to be no more mercy for parricide. Giacomo Cenci, as Ihe most guilty, was sentenced to have his flesh lorn by red-hot and his brains dashed out by a hammer. Lucrezia and Beatrice were 1o be beheaded. Bernardo’s life was spared on account of his youth, but he was sent to Ihe galleys. Querro apparently out of regard to his sacred character, was merely banished to the island of Malta, from whence he afterwards returned.

Thc*v s<ntrmc< \wir rallied old. But a doubt perhaps an awful compassion — still lingered in Hie mind of ( lenient VIII.. with regard to the ventral figure in the tragedy. He resolved that if her body was to perish, he would save her soul. <hi the morning of her execution he was engaged in prayer in a retreat |:t Monte Cavallo, outside tin* city wall*. The legend relates that at the moment when the beautiful Beatrice laid her head upon the block, the immense concourse that surrounded Ihe scafiold was start Ird by the sound of u cannon. It was a signal to the listening Pope, ami during the pause that followed the head-man delayed the falling of ihe fatal blad»‘ while the Viecregenl of God upon <■.nd h pronounced a plenary absolution in arlimlo mortis. Al the expiration of the allotted -crouds the axe fell, and Ihe sold oi Beatrice ( eiiri passed.