"Beatrice Cenci."
In the small collection of paintings in the Barberini Palace at Rome, the entire interest centres in two portraits--that of Lucrezia, the unhappy wife of Francesco Cenci (by Scipione Galtani), No. 81, and No. 85, that of Beatrice Cenci (by Guido Reni).
It has been much disputed whether Guido Reni in fact painted the portrait of Beatrice, as ascribed to him; some authorities attempt to set the tradition aside by asserting that Guido did not go to Rome until nine years after her death.
The proof that he did paint the portrait, is mainly derived from a work entitled "Beatrice Cenci Romana, Storia del Secola XVI." Whiteside's translation is as follows: "Five days had been passed by Beatrice in the secret prisons of the Torre Savella, when, at an early hour in the morning, her advocate, Farinacci, entered her sad abode. With him appeared a young man of about twenty-five years of age, dressed in the fashion of a writer in the courts of justice of that day. Unheeded by Beatrice, he sat regarding her at a little distance with fixed attention. She had risen from her miserable pallet, but, unlike the wretched inmate of a dungeon, she seemed a being from a brighter sphere. Her eyes were of liquid softness, her forehead large and clear, her countenance of angelic purity, mysteriously beautiful. Around her head a fold of white muslin had been carelessly wrapped, from whence in rich luxuriance fell her fair and waving hair. Profound sorrow imparted an air of touching sensibility to her lovely features.
"Farinacci conversed with her for some time, while at a distance sat his companion, sketching the features of Beatrice. Turning round she observed this with displeasure and surprise; Farinacci explained that this seeming writer was the celebrated painter Guido Reni, who, earnestly desiring her picture, had entreated to be introduced into the prison for the purpose of obtaining so rich an acquisition. At first unwilling, but afterward consenting, she turned and said, 'Signor Guido, your renown might make me desirous of knowing you, but how will you undervalue me in my present situation. From the fatality that surrounds me, you will judge me guilty. Perhaps my face will tell you I am not wicked; it will show you, too, that I now languish in this prison, which I may quit, only to ascend the scaffold. Your great name and my sad story may make my portrait interesting, and,' she added with touching simplicity, 'the picture will awaken compassion if you write on one of the angles the word innocent.'
"The great artist set himself at work, and produced the picture now in the Palazzo Barberini; a picture that rivets the attention of every beholder; which once seen, ever after hovers over the memory with an interest most harrowing and mysterious."
Dickens says of this picture:--
"The portrait of Beatrice Cenci is a picture almost impossible to be forgotten. Through the transcendent sweetness and beauty of face there is a something shining out that haunts me. I see it now as I see this paper or my pen. The head is loosely draped in white, the light hair falling down below the linen folds. Some stories say that Guido painted it the night before her execution, others that he painted it from memory, after having seen her on the way to the scaffold. I am willing to believe that, as you see her on his canvas, so she turned toward him, in the crowd, from the first sight of the axe, and stamped upon his mind a look which he has stamped on mine as though I had stood beside him in the concourse."
Hawthorne says of it:--
"It is the very saddest picture ever painted or conceived."
The fullest and most interesting account of Beatrice Cenci is given in Whiteside's "Italy in the Nineteenth Century." She was a Roman girl, noted for her great beauty and her sad fate. Her father, the wicked Count Cenci, is said to have immured her, when fourteen years of age, in a solitary chamber of a lonely old castle, to which no one but himself was admitted; here he alternately starved and beat her.
Beatrice contrived at length to communicate with her family, whereupon her brother, Giacomo, her stepmother, Lucrezia, her lover, Signor Guerra, and two family servants entered into a conspiracy to assassinate the Count and liberate Beatrice.
They succeeded in their designs, Francesco Cenci being murdered in his sleep.
Some days after the funeral had taken place suspicions arose, the body was exhumed, and the servants and all the Cenci family were placed under arrest; only Guerra escaped.
Unable to endure the torture of the rack, Lucrezia and Giacomo confessed the crime and were condemned. Beatrice, under the most extreme torture, proclaimed her innocence. The servant who committed the crime, and her brother Giacomo, who planned it, both declared her innocent, but she was condemned to be executed with the others.
Her brother Bernardo was sentenced to witness the execution of his family, and then to be set free.
The details of the trial and the execution are most harrowing.
Several attempts were made to rescue Beatrice; even on her way to the scaffold a desperate attempt was made by forty young men to rescue her, but all failed.
Near the statue of St. Paul, according to custom, were placed three biers, each with four lighted torches. On these were laid the bodies of the victims. A crown of flowers had been placed around the head of Beatrice, who seemed as though in sleep, so calm, so peaceful was that placid face, while a smile such as she wore in life, still hovered on her lips.
Many a tear was shed over that bier; many a flower was scattered around her, whose fate all mourned; whose innocence none questioned.
On that night the bodies were interred. The corpse of Beatrice, clad in the dress she had worn on the scaffold, was borne, covered with garlands of flowers, to the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in chains), and buried at the foot of the high altar before Raphael's picture of "The Transfiguration."
The Palace of the Cenci is still visited by tourists. It is situated in an obscure corner of Rome, near the Jews' quarter, called the Ghetto.