BEATRICE CENCI. — Born in Rome on 6 Feb. 1577 to Francesco, a violent and avaricious man who, seeing his vast patrimony dwindle because of the continual fines for the crimes he committed, moved to the Colonna castle of Rocca Petrella near Rieti (1597), where he had already confined his second wife, Lucrezia Petroni, and his children two years earlier. Life at the fortress must have been harsh and sorrowful, for the two sons Giacomo and Bernardo fled with the complicity of Olimpio Calvetti, castellan of the Colonnas and in love with B. The discovery of this love and the news of Giacomo’s marriage enraged Francesco. The consequence was that the family plotted the murder. On 9 Sept. 1598, in B.’s presence and with Lucrezia’s complicity, Francesco was killed and then thrown from the balcony to simulate a fall. The two women returned to Rome, but the truth soon leaked out, and all were arrested.
The trial began on 14 Jan. 1599, and despite the defence by the celebrated lawyer Prospero Farinacci, B., Lucrezia and Giacomo were found guilty and condemned to death; only Bernardo received a life sentence. On 11 Sept., in the square of Ponte S. Angelo, before a vast crowd, B. and Lucrezia were beheaded, while Giacomo was clubbed to death and quartered. B.
Cenci, Beatrice - Closing minutes of the codicil (8 Sept. 1599) of B. C. with her signature - Rome, State Archive.
She died bravely and left a series of pious dispositions; the people accompanied her body to S. Pietro in Montorio and made her into a kind of heroine.
From the enemies of the Holy See arose the accusation that Pope Clement VIII had the severe sentence carried out in order to seize the family’s vast wealth; the sentence, however, is justified by the need to set an example at a time when the repetition of such crimes continually disturbed public order and the duty to reform morals was imperative.