CENCI, BEATRICE. - Born in Rome on 6 February 1577 to Francesco, a violent and avaricious man who, seeing his vast patrimony dwindle because of the continuous fines for the crimes he committed, moved to the Colonna castle of Rocca Petrella near Rieti (1597), where already two years earlier he had confined his second wife, Lucrezia Petroni, and his children. Life at the Rocca must have been hard and sad if the two sons Giacomo and Bernardo fled with the complicity of Olimpio Calvetti, castellan of the Colonna and in love with B. The discovery of this love and the news of Giacomo's marriage drove Francesco into a fury. The consequence was that the family members plotted the murder. On 9 September 1598, in the presence of B., with the complicity of Lucrezia, Francesco was killed and then thrown from the balcony to simulate an accident. The two women returned to Rome, but the truth soon leaked out, and all were arrested.

The trial began on 14 January 1599, and despite the defense of the celebrated lawyer Prospero Farinaccio, B., Lucrezia and Giacomo were found guilty and condemned to death; only Bernardo received the penalty of life imprisonment. On 11 September, in the square of Ponte S. Angelo, in the presence of a multitude of people, B. and Lucrezia were beheaded, Giacomo killed with a mace and quartered. B. died with courage and left a series of pious dispositions; the people accompanied her body to S. Pietro in Montorio and made of her a kind of heroine.

From the enemies of the Holy See arose the accusation that Pope Clement VIII had so severe a sentence carried out for the purpose of taking possession of the family's vast patrimony; the condemnation is justified instead by the necessity of setting an example at a moment when the repetition of similar crimes was continually disturbing public order, and the duty of a reform of morals imposed itself.

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: I. Rinieri, B. C., secondo i costituiti del suo processo, Siena 1909; O. Montenovesi, B. C., Rome 1928; Pastor, XI, pp. 625-29 (with bibl.); the most complete work is that of C. Ricci, B. C., 2 vols., Milan 1923, republished various times, with rich bibl.; cf. the observations of I. Rinieri in Gio. Catt., 1924, I, pp. 33-41; 1925, III, pp. 311-23, 500-10. For the portrait cf. D. Donati, La leggenda di B. C. e il mistero del suo ritratto dipinto da C. Reni, Rome 1934; G. Costa, B. C. e il mistero di un ritratto rivelato, ibid. 1937.

Renata Orazi Ausenda

@incollection{ec3_cenci_beatrice, author = {Orazi, Ausenda Renata}, title = {Cenci, beatrice}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {1289--1290}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/cenci-beatrice} }

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Cenci, Beatrice

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