Beatrice di, a noble Roman lady of the sixteenth century, whose beauty, sufferings, and tragical fate, have invested her name with a melancholy celebrity. The violence and cruelty of her father's character were notorious at Rome, and had long rendered him an object of terror to those whom fortune had placed within his power. Stained with crimes of the darkest hue, Count Cenci had purchased pardon from the government on various occasions by the sacrifice of enormous sums of money and portions of his estates; and, indeed, he appears to have been regarded by the state as "a certain and copious source of revenue." On the Sabine hills, about three miles N.E. of Borgo San Pietro, stands the castle of Petrella, in one of the most wild and desolate spots on the Neapolitan frontiers; and here Count Cenci retired during the heats of summer with his family, consisting of Beatrice, Bernardo, her youngest brother, and her stepmother Lucrezia. The loneliness of this place was well suited for the indulgence of his malignant and vindictive spirit, which wonted in every species of cruelty that ingenuity could devise to aggravate the miseries of his long persecuted family.

"That savage rock, the castle of Petrella, 'Tis safely wall'd and meant round about; Its dungeons underground, and its thick towers Never told tales; though they have heard and seen What might make dumb things speak."

The surpassing beauty of Beatrice, now on the verge of womanhood, excited in the breast of this unnatural parent feelings at which nature shudders; and to this crime was added every circumstance of violence and cruelty. The attempts of his victim to escape by flight were frustrated by his vigilance; and Beatrice sunk into the lethargy of despair. The accumulated villanies of Count Cenci having at length aroused the vengeance of his wife, she conspired with the steward of the castle and several other persons to destroy their common tyrant. They accomplished their purpose by means of a hired assassin; and in order that the fatal wound might appear the result of accident, the body of the count was thrown from the walls among the branches of a jagged tree that grew in the fosse. Suspicious, however, being excited, the unhappy Cenci were apprehended, sent to Rome, and consigned to the castle of St Angelo, where they were subjected to tortures of the most frightful description. Beatrice, in the midst of her protracted sufferings, maintained the most heroic firmness; and even when suspended by her long and beautiful hair, her fortitude remained unshaken. Moved at last, however, by the entreaties of her relations to relieve them from their sufferings, she yielded so far as to reply to each interrogation of the judge—"E vero,"—adding, "O God, thou knowest if this be true." On this admission she was condemned to death.

The excitement caused in Rome by this decision was extraordinary. Many of the most illustrious families besought Clement VIII. (Aldobrandini) to reconsider the case; and some of the ablest advocates undertook to prove her innocence. But all their attempts to move compassion in the breast of the stern pontiff were unavailing. Counter influences, too, were at work; for the temptation of the princely possessions of the Cenci were too strong to be resisted by some who had an interest in the total extinction of her line. Beatrice was beheaded on the 11th September 1599. On the scaffold, when the executioner bound her hands she said—"You bind my body for destruction, but free my soul for immortality." A vast concourse of people assembled on the occasion, deeply commiserating the fate of one so young and gentle, a being "formed to adorn and be admired." More than one attempt was made to rescue her, and many lives were lost in the fray. In the church of San Pietro in Montorio, and before the high altar, were interred the remains of the beautiful, the noble-minded, the ill-fated Beatrice Cenci.

For a long period the MSS. recording these details were preserved with scrupulous secrecy, on account of the connection of the Cenci with many of the most illustrious houses in Rome; and it is only within a few years that they have been made accessible. A complete English version of this terrible tragedy, entitled *The True Story of Beatrice Cenci*, is to be found in Whiteside's *Italy*, vol. ii. pp. 128-72. In the Palazzo Barberini at Rome is preserved Guido's celebrated portrait of Beatrice, taken just before her execution. The story of the Cenci has been dramatized with great power by Shelley; who has, however, used a poet's license in implicating Beatrice unjustly in the guilt of her family.