Beatrice Cenci

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Beatrice Cenci (disambiguation) .

Alleged portrait of Beatrice Cenci ( attributed to Elisabetta Sirani )

Beatrice Cenci (born February 6, 1577 in Rome , † September 11, 1599 there ) was a Roman patrician . She gained fame that continues to the present day because she was executed at the age of 22 for the murder of her father Francesco Cenci , which she instigated .

origin

Beatrice came from an old Roman noble family that had played an important role in the Middle Ages. Her grandfather Cristoforo Cenci († 1562) had been treasurer general of the Apostolic Chamber and had used his position in the papal financial administration to amass a huge fortune. Shortly before his death he married his mistress Beatrice Arias, with whom he had the son Francesco (1549–1598).

Francesco inherited the fortune at the age of twelve. The inheritance consisted of over 420,000 Scudi as well as land and palazzi. At the age of fourteen, Francesco was married by his mother to Ersilia Santacroce, who was the same age.

As a ten-year-old, Francesco had been noticed by violence and was therefore reported. In 1566 he was convicted of an attack on his cousin Cesare Cenci, and further legal proceedings for various kinds of violence followed. Francesco was bisexual and has been known for his numerous sexual assaults since his youth, for which he was repeatedly reported and repeatedly arrested. In trouble it brought especially his homosexual debauchery, because homosexuality as " sodomy was called," was in the Papal States as a serious crime. In 1570 he was tried for the first time for sodomy. The fines he was sentenced to resulted in a significant reduction in wealth. In this way, the papal financial administration was able to get back part of the money that Francesco's father had embezzled.

With his wife Ersilia, Francesco had twelve children, including daughters Antonina and Beatrice and sons Bernardo, Paolo and Giacomo.

Life

childhood

Beatrice Cenci was born on February 6, 1577 in the Palazzo of Monte dei Cenci. Her mother died in April 1584. In June, Francesco brought his two daughters Antonina and Beatrice to the Franciscan convent of Santa Croce a Montecitorio, where noble daughters were raised until they reached marriageable age. The two stayed there for eight years.

Return to the father

In September 1592 Antonina and Beatrice returned to their father, who shortly afterwards, in 1593, married the widow Lucrezia Petroni for a second time. This marriage remained childless.

In 1594, Francesco Cenci was again charged with sodomy, but was able to buy himself out with an extraordinarily high fine of 100,000 Scudi.

In January 1595 Antonina was married; she died that same year giving birth to a child. In April 1595 Francesco moved with Lucrezia and Beatrice to Petrella Salto in the castle of Marzio Colonna in Abruzzo . This area then belonged to the Kingdom of Naples .

In 1598 Francesco also brought his younger sons Bernardo and Paolo to Petrella, but the two were soon able to escape and return to Rome. To prevent Lucrezia and Beatrice from escaping as well, Francesco locked them up. Tensions grew between father and daughter. In a letter to her brother Giacomo, who lived in Rome, Beatrice asked for help. When this letter got into her father's hands, he mistreated her severely.

The murder

Eventually Beatrice decided together with her stepmother Lucrezia and her brothers Giacomo and Bernardo to have their father killed. The sources show that Beatrice's de facto imprisonment in Petrella, severe abuse by her father and his refusal to allow her to marry were the motives for the act. Beatrice was undoubtedly the driving force; her determination made the difference when the others hesitated. Giacomo's motive was that he had been disinherited by Francesco after he had married against his father's will. It was only in the final phase of the murder trial that Beatrice's lawyer Prospero Farinaccio brought a new aspect into play for relief: the claim that Francesco had raped Beatrice. The court did not consider this to be credible, especially since Beatrice had not made such a statement herself.

At first it was planned to commission local bandits to do the crime, but an agreement with them was not reached. Also poisoning failed because the suspicious Francesco was only devour all his food. Eventually it was decided to kill him in his sleep. The deed was to be carried out by the castellan Olimpio Calvetti and the farrier Marzio di Floriano Catalano. It is clear from the sources that Beatrice had a relationship with Olimpio; However, there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that he was pregnant and gave birth to a child who was hidden. Because of the difference in class, such a relationship was highly scandalous according to the ideas of the time.

The murder was carried out on September 9, 1598. Giacomo, who was still in Rome, had obtained opium which was mixed into a drink by Francesco. This initially numbed him, but he woke up when the murderers came. Olimpio brought about death with blows of the hammer.

In order to cover up the murder, the perpetrators tried to fake an accident. They threw the body down from a balcony, claiming it had fallen. The body was found and hastily buried in the neighboring church of Santa Maria. The traces of the crime were only inadequately covered. The family did not attend the funeral. She left the castle on September 13th and went to Rome.

Sentencing and execution

Because of a number of inconsistencies, the local population soon began to suspect that it was a murder. Investigations were initiated and the suspicion was confirmed. Olimpio Calvetti was initially able to escape, but an influential friend of the Cenci family, Mario Guerra, had him killed to prevent him from incriminating the family.

The Cencis and Marzio were arrested. Initially, everyone denied the act. According to the law of the time, circumstantial evidence was not permitted; A conviction required a confession, which was obtained through torture if necessary. Since the Cencis were nobles, only Marzio was tortured at first. He confessed the act. When the cencis continued to deny, they too were tortured, for which a special permit ( motu proprio ) from the Pope was required because of their status . One by one confessed. Finally, Beatrice, who appeared self-confident and still stubbornly denied, came under the torture. After a short period of torture, she also made a confession.

Although the Cencis had the sympathy of the population on their side, Giacomo, Beatrice and Lucrezia were sentenced to death . Pope Clement VIII refused a pardon , even though numerous, sometimes high-ranking personalities had advocated it. Bernardo, who was only eighteen years old, was sentenced not to death because of his youth and minor guilt, but to life in the galley .

On September 11, 1599, the condemned were publicly executed in Rome. Beatrice and Lucrezia were beheaded in the square of Castel Sant'Angelo , Giacomo was executed by the Mazzolata , that is, tormented with red- hot pliers, then beaten to death with a hammer and quartered . Many spectators filled the square.

As Beatrice had wished, her body was buried in front of the main altar of San Pietro in Montorio under an unnamed stone (as is usual with those who were executed).

epilogue

The family's property was confiscated by the Apostolic Chamber . A nephew of Pope Clement, Giovan Francesco Cardinal Aldobrandini, acquired a particularly valuable part of the property at a remarkably low price, which caused further resentment among the population. After the death of Pope Clement VIII in 1606, Bernardo was pardoned by his successor Paul V , who was aware of the continuing popularity of the cencis among the Roman population. In 1798, at the time of the French occupation, Beatrice's grave was desecrated by soldiers; their bones were removed and have been lost ever since.

reception

memory

Even after her death, Beatrice was and remained extremely popular among the Roman population. Her act was considered legitimate self-defense and her execution severely damaged the Pope's reputation.

In 1999, on the 400th anniversary of his death, the city of Rome had a plaque erected on the site of the former prison of Corte Savella on Via di Monserrato, where Beatrice was imprisoned until she was executed, describing her as “an exemplary victim of an unjust justice”.

Visual arts

Beatrice Cenci , sculpture by Harriet Hosmer , 1857

An authentic picture of Beatrice is not known. Her alleged portrait, which Guido Reni is said to have painted, is famous . It is unclear whether the picture actually comes from this artist. The only thing that is certain is that Reni could not have portrayed Beatrice, as he did not come to Rome until three years after her death.

Fiction

In the modern age, the material was often processed literarily. The English poet Shelley wrote the verse drama The Cenci in 1819 , placing the incest motif in the foreground. Astolphe de Custine , Juliusz Słowacki , Antonin Artaud and Alberto Moravia wrote other tragedies . Stendhal wrote the story Les Cenci . Alexandre Dumas described the case in 1840.

Alfred Nobel wrote a tragedy in four acts about Beatrice Cenci under the title Nemesis as a play based on Shelley's verse drama. The work was printed when Nobel was already dying, but after his death all but three copies were destroyed because it was perceived as scandalous and blasphemous . Only in 2003 was the book published in a bilingual edition in Swedish and Esperanto .

Opera, music and dance

Beatrice's fate has been portrayed in several operas, including by Havergal Brian ( The Cenci ), Berthold Goldschmidt ( Beatrice Cenci ), Giorgio Battistelli ( The Cenci ) and Alberto Ginastera ( Beatrix Cenci ). There is also a ballet by Gerhard Bohner ( The Tortures of Beatrice Cenci to music by Gerald Humel , 1971). Further musical (non-scenic) adaptations are by Giuseppe Rota (1836) and Ludomir Różycki (1927/1936) and a literary adaptation by George Elliott Clarke ( Beatrice Chancy , 1999).

Movies

The material was filmed several times, for example in 1909 in the silent film Beatrice Cenci by Mario Caserini , in 1926 by Baldassarre Negroni in the silent film Father, I Accuse You! , 1941 by Guido Brignone in the murderous Cenci and 1956 by Riccardo Freda in A tender neck for the executioner .

In 1969 the Italian director Lucio Fulci shot the film Beatrice Cenci , which was shown in Germany under the title The Naked and the Cardinal . The film is relatively accurate historically, but has come under fire for its drastic brutality.

literature

• Luigi Caiani: Cenci, Beatrice . In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Vol. 23, Rome 1979, pp. 512-515
• Belinda Jack : Beatrice's Spell. The Enduring Legend of Beatrice Cenci . Chatto & Windus, London 2004, ISBN 0-7011-7130-8 (covers the biography and the literary processing of the material; without evidence)
• Irene Musillo Mitchell: Beatrice Cenci . Peter Lang, New York 1991, ISBN 0-8204-1525-1 (English, based largely on the illustration by Ricci; detailed, but without evidence)
• Corrado Ricci: Beatrice Cenci . 2 volumes, Fratelli Treves, Milano 1923 (very thorough, still authoritative presentation; English translation: Beatrice Cenci , Boni & Liveright, New York 1925)
• September 11th, 1599 A Beatrice Cenci, a play in poetic prose by Sabrina Gatti (Italian writer), in The Throne of the Poor (2020)

Web links

Commons : Beatrice Cenci  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Beatrice Cenci in the catalog of the German National Library
• Beatrice Cenci. In: FemBio. Women's biography research (with references and citations).

Remarks

1. ↑ Belinda Jack: Beatrice's Spell , London 2004, pp. 17f .; Irene Musillo Mitchell: Beatrice Cenci , New York 1991, pp. 9-13.
2. ↑ Belinda Jack: Beatrice's Spell , London 2004, pp. 18-25; Irene Musillo Mitchell: Beatrice Cenci , New York 1991, pp. 12-14.
3. ↑ See on the monastery Mariano Armellini: Le chiese di Roma dal secolo IV al XIX , Volume 1, Rome 1942, p. 379 ( online, but without the footnotes ).
4. ↑ Luigi Caiani: Cenci, Beatrice . In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Vol. 23, Rome 1979, pp. 512-515, here: 513.
5. ↑ Irene Musillo Mitchell: Beatrice Cenci , New York 1991, pp. 227-231.
6. ^ Josef Imbach: Church princes, artists, courtesans , Düsseldorf 2003, p. 41.
7. ↑ Irene Musillo Mitchell: Beatrice Cenci , New York 1991, p. 4f.
8. ↑ Percy Bysshe Shelley: The Cenci. A Tragedy in Five Acts , ed. Alfred Forman et al., London 1886, reprinted New York 1975.
9. ↑ Astolphe de Custine: Beatrice Cenzi: tragédie en cinq actes et en vers , Paris 1853.
10. ↑ Juliusz Słowacki: Beatryks Cenzi , 1839th