They say that on moonlit nights the ghost of a young girl wanders around Rome. Frightening the late couples in love, he follows the same route: Cinque Scole - Pont Sant'Angelo - Church of San Pietro in Montorio.
Saint Angel Bridge
Many have tried to photograph this, according to the poet Paolo Hugo Tozzi, "half-naked, with my head in the palm of my hand." But the terrible, pupilless eyes of Beatrice Cenci used to light up photographic films a century earlier, and now they "erase" the digital files of modern cameras.
Everything is clear with the ghost's route: Beatrice walks from the square where she lived in one of the palaces, across the bridge where the girl was erected on the scaffold, and then to the last refuge, the grave in the said church. But then - about the fate of this real inhabitant of Rome in the 16th century - solid mysteries begin. We will try to understand them.
The classic legend of an innocent … parricide
This legend is built on a fact recorded in the chronicle: on September 11, 1599 near the Saint Angel's Bridge, now popular with tourists, and then serving as the "Place of Execution" of Rome, a large protesting crowd gathered. Residents (but mostly residents) of the city loudly protested against the imperial decree, according to which Beatrice Cenci was erected on a scaffold in order to be beheaded as a parricide.
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On the bridge of the Saint Angel, they executed after the young damsel and her brother and stepmother. For they all took part in a conspiracy to assassinate the father of our heroine Francesco Cenci, who served as the guardian of the treasury of the Apostolic Chamber. However, the heated crowd was not too worried about these victims of justice. Everyone protested exclusively against the execution of the one who, according to one version, killed Francesco Cenci by driving a long nail into his neck.
Further - one more historical fact, working for the legend of the allegedly innocent patricide. Beatrice Cenci, the only one of the conspirators, pleaded not guilty even under torture.
As a result, a classic urban legend was born with the following plot. The lustful old man Cenci, they say, imprisoned the young second wife and Beatrice in one of his palaces, where he forced both to participate in orgies, and, so to speak, with his eyes on his own daughter. The result of such actions allegedly was a "blow of honor", if not a dagger, but a nail.
Having drunk Francesco with opium, the daughter entered his sleeping room, struck a fatal blow to the throat, and then - with the help of relatives - threw her father out of the window into the elderberry bushes, trying to imitate the death of a "drunkard" from natural causes.
In folk tales and legends, such revenge for the "outraged honor" is fully justified. As you know, people tend to sympathize more with innocent girls than depraved old people.
Those who justify the parricide are not embarrassed by the young criminal's cold-blooded behavior. But let's think about: what nerves you need to have in order to deal with the "rapist" -father not spontaneously, in a state of passion from the atrocities he is committing, but by planning a whole "cover action" of the murder and driving a sharp nail down the throat of the one who gave you life …
A palace of debauchery or a place of confinement?
Often, the study of historical events is akin to archaeological excavations. You dug once - and the first layer of truth is revealed, buried under the layers of centuries-old legends, lies, legends. You dug again - and before you is a new layer of events, even more different from their classic version. The situation is exactly the same with respect to Beatrice's "half-naked, with his head in the palm of his hand." We begin to work in the archives and are immediately convinced: there are no certain facts about the father's incestuous violence against his daughter.
But what about the palace in which the "lascivious dad" imprisoned his daughter and young wife? Even here, the urban legend reinterprets the events. For we are not talking about a palace, but about the castle of La Petrello del Salto, located in the Abruzzo region. In this case, the seemingly unprincipled difference between a palace and a castle is extremely important. For the latter - the place of imprisonment of the daughter and stepmother - is located at a distance from the family palaces of Cenci as much as 100 kilometers to the east and is located in a rugged mountainous area.
It is more logical to assume that the purpose of imprisonment was not the desire to indulge in debauchery away from human eyes - this was quite feasible behind the high walls of one of the palaces on the Cinque Skole square - but the desire to deprive the captives of their ties with the outside world.
We continue our research and find confirmation that old Francesco had - at least from his point of view - reasons to do just that. The fact is that shortly before the events described, Beatrice's older sister, Antonia, complained to Pope Clement VIII about her father, who did not give her consent to marriage.
Dad gave her permission to marry, but took away from Francesco the lion's share of his fortune - as a fine for being unmerciful to his daughter. Beatrice followed in the footsteps of the successful Antonia - with the only difference that her letter to Clement VIII was intercepted by her father's servants.
Francesco Cenci really did not give permission for marriage to the youngest daughter. For Italy of those years, his stubbornness does not seem entirely unfounded. For as a future husband, the young noblewoman Beatrice looked at the "uneven": one of the servants.
Be that as it may, but old Francesco had reason to fear once again "getting money", get his second daughter to Clement VIII, clearly not indifferent to the wealth of the family. Therefore, most likely, the guardian of the treasury of the Apostolic Chamber hid Beatrice in the impassable mountains - together with her stepmother, who helped her in writing the ill-fated letter.
To conclude this part of our "excavation", we repeat: there is not a single evidence that Francesco Cenci forced his youngest daughter to cohabit and participate in orgies. But there is evidence according to which the beautiful Beatrice, even if she led the conspiracy against Francesco, was still not a paricide.
Nail or hammer - that is the question
Until now, some historians repeat the "well-known facts" about the execution that took place on the Saint Angel Bridge on September 11, 1599. The guides echo the historians. There was nothing unusual in that execution, they say: they simply cut off the heads of the guilty, and that was all.
Meanwhile, Beatrice's brother Giacomo was the only one executed in a very unconventional way, unlike others. Before quartering Giacomo Cenci, the executioner crushed his head with a mace with multiple well-adjusted blows so that the criminal would experience the greatest pain and horror from the inevitable. Why was it Giacomo who was dealt with in such a cruel way, if Beatrice was the patricide?
We continue to search the archives. We find in the investigative documents in the case of the murder of Francesco Cenci information that the sleeping old man, whom Beatrice really drank with opium mixed with wine, crushed his head with a hammer. And, according to confessions under torture, it was Brother Beatrice who did it. Therefore, the real parricide was executed in a manner similar to the one he himself chose for the victim.
Did the young Giacomo have reasons to hate his own father no less than Beatrice, who was in love with the servant? Is he, according to legend, a victim of incest? Everything is simpler here: the guy claimed his father's capital, was dissatisfied with the content assigned to him and complained, having achieved an audience, to the same Clement VIII - even before the visit to the Pope of Sister Antonia. It was from Giacomo Cenci that the pontiff learned about the true size of the family's treasures.
The girl with the eyes of a witch
At the time of the execution, Beatrice Cenci was 22 years old. Her youth, external attractiveness, as well as the legend of "revenge for an outraged innocence" subsequently attracted many outstanding creators who dedicated their works to the girl. Percy Shelley, Alexander Dumas, Stendhal, Alberto Moravia, Oscar Wilde turned to her image in different years …
Meanwhile, in the highest Roman society at the end of the 16th century, and this is less known, Beatrice was famous as … "a girl with the eyes of a witch." Some of her contemporaries seriously argued that Beatrice, they say, "has no pupils."
Curiously, we find evidence of this in the portrait of our heroine, which is attributed to the brush of Guido Reni (1575-1642).
What do we see on this canvas, casting a superficial glance at it? A kind of embodied innocence, onto which the waves of light penetrate into the prison. And now we will enlarge the fragment of the “diva in white” face and invite the reader to take a closer look into her eyes.
Perhaps after that you no longer want to meet the ghost of a beauty under the light of the moon. Let even thousands of tourists dream about it, having heard about the legend about Beatrice and for the sake of such a meeting visiting the capital of Italy. Perhaps, following the traces of our "excavations", you yourself will draw a conclusion about who this "half-naked, with her head in the palm of her hand" was during her lifetime: a sinner or a victim of a depraved father.
There is another version of those tragic events. They say that the Vatican was behind all of them, skillfully provoking a scandal in the Chenchi family in order to take possession of its treasures.
Vasily I3OTOVICH