November 1, 2022 • 47 mins
In 1599, Beatrice Cenci, the daughter of a wealthy Roman nobleman, was convicted of her father's murder. She almost certainly did it—no one was arguing that. But some things are more complicated than they first appear.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey listener discretion advised. Hi,
this is Danish Swartz, the host of Noble Blood. Thank
you so much for listening It just a quick bit
of housekeeping before the episode. I wrote a book called Anatomy,
a Love Story, which is about a young woman who
(00:21):
wants to be a surgeon in the eighteen hundreds in Scotland.
And if you like this podcast, I really think you'll
like the book, and I have a sequel coming out,
Immortality a Love Story, which comes out this February February,
and in the book world might publishing people keep telling
me that pre orders are like the most helpful thing
you could do to support the book, So if you
(00:43):
were at all interested in it, preorder information is in
the episode description and it would be incredibly useful. We
also have links to show merch. I know there's some
weird like unofficial show merch that I've seen around the internet,
but what's LinkedIn bio is the only actual official and
a Patreon where I post bonus episodes and episode scripts.
(01:05):
But thank you so much for listening. That truly is
the best support that you could give a quick morning
before this episode begins. It contains graphic depictions of violence
and contains references to sexual violence, so if that makes
you uncomfortable or might be triggering, this might be an
episode to skip. It was fifine and in the early
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morning hours of the eleventh of September, the city of
Rome was rioting. A massive, angry crowd gathered and grew
as Romans rich and poor like pressed on towards a
building known as Castel sant Angelo, a fortress and prison
whose imposing form had stood in the city since the
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second century se Shoulder to shoulder, the rioters pushed their
way on this dangerously hot day toward the bridge that
led to the prison, where a platform had been erected
out front for a set of executions which were to
take place at dawn. Executions almost always drew crowds in
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pre modern Europe, their publicity and visibility a central part
of many justice systems all over the continent. They were
a morbid spectacle shore, but they were also understood as
crime deterrence, and sometimes they even had a sort of
ritual component, aiming to restore the moral balance of a
(02:46):
community after a crime had been committed. An execution in
this period needed witnesses to fulfill its intended purpose. People
in this period were, of course, not nearly as uni
formally pro execution as we might believe. Plenty of people
had serious reservations about the moral rectitude of this kind
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of state violence. But it wasn't often that the crowds
at public executions tried so actively or so fervently as
the crowd did that morning in Rome to stop the
event from taking place at all. In fact, there was
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one execution in particular that the crowd seemed to want
to prevent more than any of the others. They were there,
sweating and pushing and shouting for a woman named Beatrice
chen Chi. Only twenty two years old. She had been convicted,
along with her stepmother and her brothers, of the murder
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of her father, Francesco Cenchi. It had been an open
and shut case, a brutal patricide, and a sloppy attempt
at making it look like an accident, but the people
of Rome were sympathetic. For years, whispers had abounded in
the city, but this day they became shouts. Beatrice's father
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abused her. He was a tyrant, a danger to his
family and a terror to everyone. Whatever fate he got,
the crowd reasoned it was well deserved. In the year
between the murder and the day of her execution, Beatrice
had become a symbol of innocence pushed to the brink.
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Her story resonated with the people of Rome, who felt,
despite her noble status, that her plight paralleled the triumph
of a people over an oppressive noble regime. She would
eventually become known as the Roman Virgin, her in a sense,
forever baked into her moniker and her short life forever
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a symbol of popular resistance. But it wasn't just the
rabble who wanted to see Beatrice spared. Cardinals and esteemed
members of the nobility had begged Clement the Eighth, the
pope and head of the Papal states of which Rome
was the capital, to have mercy on the young woman
and her co conspirators. But on the heels of several
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other scandals that involved nobles taking matters into their own hands,
Clement decided that he needed to make an example, a
show of strength that would keep the nobility in line.
The Pope had made his choice, the Roman Virgin would
have no reprieve. I'm Dani Schwartz, and this is noble blood.
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Although BEATRICEA is remembered rather singularly, she was in fact
only one member of a rather large and rather troubled family.
Born in fifteen seventy seven to Count Francesco Cenchi and
Urcilia Santa Croce, Beatrice was the fifth of their twelve
or thirteen children, seven of whom would survive infancy. Relatively
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little is known about Urcilia, who would die before Beatrice
turned eight in fifteen eighty four. Much more, and much worse,
is known about her father. Francesco. Francesco Cenci was the
so called natural, that is to say, illicit son of
Monseigneur Christophero Cenci, treasurer of the Apostolic Camera, which is
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basically a papal treasury, which papal fun fact interlude was
just abolished by Pope Francis this year, shortly before his
father's death. Francesco was legitimized, meaning he stood too then
did at age twelve. Inherit a massive estate which included
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two palaces in Rome, a set of properties and pieces
of land on the outskirts of the city, and various
others in Abruzzo, a region east of Rome belonging to
the Kingdom of Naples. Of course, much of the estate
was ill gotten, gained in no small part through embezzlement
from the papal coffers. The apple didn't fall far from
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the tree, it seems. Even as a child, Francesco was
described as ill tempered and violent. The first of many
lawsuits was brought against him when he was only eleven
years old, after he attacked someone, drawing blood in the process.
He was also, to put it bluntly, apparently so sexually
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precocious that his tutor advised his mother to marry him
off quickly to keep him from spending too much time
with courtesan's or ahem, taking matters into his own hands.
Maybe the tutor was simply trying to tie himself to
the Cenchi fortune, but either way, a solution was quickly offered.
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Francesco Cenci would marry his tutor's niece, the aforementioned or Cilia,
in fifteen sixty three, when they were both fourteen years old.
It would be four years before the pair had their
first child, and by then it was clear that Francesco
was not just quote sexually precocious, He was a sexual predator.
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He racked up criminal and civil penalties not only for
his violent outbursts, but for acts of sexual violence as well.
He often assaulted, both sexually and otherwise, men of his
staff as punishment for violations real and perceived. In fifteen
sixty seven, around the time that his first child was born,
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Francesco was convicted of hanging a vassal of his one
who had committed no crime, following a peasant uprising. Later,
he would beat a servant girl with a broom handle
for misunderstanding his orders, injuring her so severely that you
reported being unable to eat, drink, or speak for several
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days following the attack. There does not seem to be
any documentation confirming whether Francesco's violence was directed at his
wife or children during this earlier period, although even if
he did not directly harm them, he certainly created an
environment of violence and rage in his household that must
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have been unimaginably frightening. And we do know that after
our Cilia died two days after giving birth, their newborn daughter,
Francesca died only three days later. From that point, Francesco's
violence and wild lifestyle escalated rapidly, and his interest in
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showing any kind of care or concerned for his family disappeared,
if it was ever there to begin with. In fact,
he got rid of his family where he could. Following
their mother's death, Beatrice and her older sister Antonia were
sent to live with the Franciscan nuns at the monastery
of Santa Croce in Monticettorio. They would remain there for
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roughly seven years. While Beatrice and her sister were in
the convent. In fifteen eighty five, Feliche Pierre Gentile was
elected to the papacy, taking the pontifical name Sixtus the Fifth.
Coming to the role in the midst of the counter Reformation,
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and after some years of stability, he was determined to
curb corruption in Rome, seeking first and foremost to hold
the nobility accountable by gasp punishing them when they committed
crimes in a totally normal response. Francesco Cenchi responded by
drawing up a will in a bid to protect his assets.
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Upon his death on November twenty two, fifty six, he
met with a notary and dictated his last wishes. Some
have pointed to this will and some of the language
that it uses, the phrase that death may come at
any hour, and death being the one thing that is
certain end quote, along with his charitable bequests and many
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invocations of saints, gods and other religious themes, as evidence
that he was not so evil as some might believe.
But here's the thing. If you were to walk into
the state archives of Rome, where most of the city's
pre modern wills are housed, and pick out a hundred
from this period at random, you would probably find almost
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these exact phrases and bequests about a hundred times. They
were just a standard part of will writing in Rome,
and a variation on the same standards to be found
in other parts of Italy and beyond. Those words, simply put,
did not come out of Francesco Cenci's mouth or brain
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the document itself aside. It's the choices Francesco made in
terms of his children that are of interest here. Most
of his bequests were pretty standard. He left money for
the care of his daughters, both legitimate and otherwise, and
named his primary beneficiaries his sons Christoforo, Rocco, Bernardo, and Paulo,
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noting also that should he have other sons in his future,
they would be added to the list, except he already
had another son who wasn't on the list. He had
long openly disliked his eldest living child, Jocomo, and took
this opportunity to give his least favorite son one last
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slight to be felt from beyond the grave. Francesco left
him the minimum amount allowed by the law, a far
cry from the lavish inheritance presumably awaiting Jacomo's brothers. We
should not mistake his other bequests for care about his children. Again,
there were a lot of standard practices in willmaking, and
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other accounts of Francesco's behavior around this time point to
a neglectful approach to his children at best. But his
will tells us something important about his relationship with Jacomo
and his willingness to spite his children in general. Perhaps
spurred on by Francesco's increasingly erratic behavior, in Pope six
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finally set his sights on the nobleman's embezzled in Brittants.
He originally instructed Francesco to sell any properties purchased through
illegal negotiations by his father and returned the money to
the papal treasury, which would have bankrupted him. But by
April of that year the fine was whittled down to
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twenty five thousand scootie, which records indicate was enough for
success To consider the many sins, and I mean many,
he listed them out in the papal decree of the
late Monseigneur to be absolved. Now thousand scootie was nothing
to scoff at, but by now Francesco was well used
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to heavy fines. Over the course of his lifetime, Francesco
would slowly but surely run his inheritance into the ground,
simply by the sheer number of criminal and civil penalties
racked up as a result of his violent nature. Pope
Sixtus died only a few months later, in August five
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teen ninety. Over the next several years, Rome stability faltered
under a series of short lived popes, and the city
became practically lawless. In this environment, Francesco became more violent
and more brazen about it. The following year, things escalated
again when Giacomo, his least favorite son, remember, decided to
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get married. Up until now, Beatrice and her sister Antonia
had been spared their father's wrath while living up at
the convent. Of course, convent life in the sixteenth century
was no vacation. This convent, in particular, was generally populated
by poorer women, and was in fact located in the
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area of Rome in which most of the city's sex
workers resided. It was an odd place to board two
young noble girls. It's possible that their father placed them
there out of a lack of care for their comfort,
simply wishing to be rid of them in the easiest
way for him possible. But at the very least the
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two sisters would have been kept safe away from Francesco's
pattern of violent behavior, and so although we don't know
much for sure about this time in their lives, I
like to imagine it was happy, if austere. Unfortunately, that
peace would not last. Giaco mo Chenchi's marriage to Ludvika Velli,
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a distant cousin, left Francesco seething with jealousy and rage.
When the newly wet couple settled into their apartment in
the Cenchi palace, Francesco decided two things. First, he would
rather move out than witness his son's prosperity, and second,
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it was time for his daughters to come home. One
can only imagine how jarring it must have in for
Beatrice A to return to her father's residence in She
had spent the prior seven years half of her life
at this point with her sister in a convent, likely
not sealed off, but certainly shielded from the outside world.
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Now nearly fifteen years old, she was returning to a
new palace following a great deal of upheaval, both in
the city and in her family. It was at this
point that Beatrice's life, already characterized by instability, would take
a turn toward the horrific. Enraged at his eldest son's
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decision to get married and bring his wife to the
family palace, Francesco Chenchi moved his permanent residence to another
of his properties, a palace nestled along the Tiber River.
He decided to bring Beatrice and Antonia home, ripping them
from their home of seven years in the process, ostensibly
because he wanted the company. His decision had essentially split
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the family into His son, Rocco, had come to join
him in the new residence, but another of his sons, Christofero,
had chosen to stay with Giacomo, the oldest son and
his new wife. Francesco had sent two of his other sons,
Paolo and Bernardo, off to school elsewhere in the city,
so perhaps bringing the girls home was an attempt to
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tip the family scales in his favor, or maybe he
simply felt that they had been free from his direct
control for too long. Competition and bitterness toward his children,
particularly Giacomo, seems to have fueled not only Francesco's rage
but also his life choices. Not long after he moved
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to the new palace, he set his sights on procuring
a marriage of his own. On November he married Lucrezia Petroni,
the widow of a distant cousin. By this time, Francesco's
violent nature and tendency towards infidelity was common knowledge, but
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Lucretia had six children of her own, and she entered
the marriage on the promise that Francesco would fund her
younger children's education, a promise he would of course fail
to fulfill, not only for her children but for many
of his own. The day after their wedding, an illegitimate
daughter of Francesco's was baptized. The child's mother was a
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long term mistress whom Francesco would try to move into
his palace with his family and new wife. On this,
at least, Lucretia was able to put her foot down,
but it did little to stem her husband's behavior. Not
even four months into his new marriage, Francisco's habits began
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slowly to catch up with him. In March, Matteo Bonavera,
a servant of Francesco's, was caught in the act of
stealing a man's cape. As the police questioned him about
his crime and asked him who he worked for, they
were baffled by the servants intimation that his master did
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not want to be spoken of by his staff. Seemingly
forgetting the matter at hand, The police pressed the issue,
wondering why on earth any man of noble status would
wish for such secrecy. Finally, the truth spilled forth. Matteo
admitted that he and other servants, and even some of
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Francesco's own sons, had witnessed Francesco's many times committing the
so called unspeakable act sodomy. Sodomy, which by legal definition,
included any kind of non vaginal intercourse between persons of
any gender, was a crime during this period in Rome,
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and one so severe it carried the death penalty. Witnesses
aimed to have seen Francesco with women, girls and male youths.
Mateo himself claimed to have refused his master's advances. Francesco,
as might be expected, had committed not just sodomy, but
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had also committed seemingly countless instances of sodom ascidal rape.
Further investigation brought forth more and more witnesses and victims,
most of them his servants, who described his tactics of
coercion and the pleasure he seemed to take in inflicting
pain on his victims during the act. There was little
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physical evidence to corroborate these crimes, but the sheer number
of witnesses, coupled with the scandalousness of the crime, meant
that Francesco would be arrested and imprisoned awaiting trial. After
all his years of violence, it finally seemed like he
might be stopped. Despite the scandal that it would have
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brought on the Chenchi family, this moment must have brought
with it also some real, if tentative relief. But abusive,
powerful men with wide networks of people willing to protect
them are a tale as old as time. The husband
of one of Francesco's illegitimate daughters, happened to be a
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lawyer in the Papal Court of Justice. He took on
the job of being Francesco's advocate and managed to get
him released from prison. There was, however, a fine. Francesco
was ordered to pay one hundred thousand scootie, a significant
portion of his already disappearing inheritance, and he could not
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leave the Papal States until his fine was paid. Whatever neglect, spite,
or violence or combination Francesco had previously directed towards his family,
it would pale in comparison to the all out war
he waged after his sodomy aisle. He openly accused Giacomo
of getting him imprisoned in order to steal his fortune,
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and even of plotting his murder, which, while it was
a prescient accusation, it was one that was directed at
the wrong child. Francesco had also by this time turned
on Christophero, the one who had chosen not to move
with him following Jacomo's marriage, Having taken after his father.
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In terms of his reputation for brutality, it seems Christofero
was a more formidable foe than his father expected, and
a threat from him may have been the reason Francesco
was anxious to leave Rome at the earliest opportunity. You
might have noticed that for much of this episode, Beatrice
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has been very much a background player, nearly forgotten in
the chaos, drama, bloodshed and crimes of her father's life.
This is for many reasons, chief among them that French
ESCO's life has been heavily documented through court records in
a way Beatrichse was not, which simply left us with
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more information about him than about her. All of this
would change in when Francesco made his final payment to
the Papal exchequer and moved to a castle he borrowed
from a friend, because by this point most of his
places were in disrepair. The castle was in Petrella, about
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a hundred miles east of Rome, somewhat menacingly called lau
Roca or the Rock. He took Lucretia, his wife of
not quite two years, and be a Treach with him.
It was this move, and the horrific events which followed,
which would finally put Via Treach center stage. The next
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two years of Beatricese life were ones of unending torture
and cruelty. She and her stepmother were in prisoned in Larocca.
Francesco had fashioned their chambers into literal cells, making their
servants into jailers, and cutting off their access to the
outside world. During this time, Beatrice also lost two of
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her brothers, Christofero in a dispute over a courtesan and
Paulo of an unknown cause. Following his and Bernardo's own
escape back to Rome after an ill fated visit to
La Petrella, Bernardo, the youngest of Francesco's legitimate sons, found
safe haven in the household of his elder brother Jacomo.
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Over these two years, Beatrice and Lucretia had considered and
attempted to plot and escape, and, according to reports from servants,
at least Beatrice was so distraught she was even considering suicide.
With the help of the administrator of Larocca, the women
were eventually able to send letters to Giacomo and other
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relatives in Rome begging for help, and said that at
one point Beatrice even reached out to Pope Clement, begging
him to free her from her father's torment. In December, however,
Francesco managed to intercept one of these letters while he
was in Rome conducting business and who knows what else.
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Enraged by the entirely correct accusations his daughter had made,
he returned to La Petrella determined to make her regret it.
In depositions, witnesses would later offer a cryptic description of
Beatrice's treatment at the hands of her father, depositions that
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would fuel rumors and be a cause for great dispute
among scholars and people who have written about her. Although
Beatrice was about twenty and Francesco had made no attempts
to secure a marriage for her, even going so far,
according to some accounts, as to refuse a match suggested
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by Pope Clement himself, there was the matter of a
dowry he didn't want to pay, but the testimony of
the servants at Larocca would fuel other suspicions. In one deposition,
a servant named Girolama described in graphic detail via triche's
terrifying punishment following Francesco's discovery of her letters. According to
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the notary who transcribed her testimony, the servant said, quote,
he took a bull pizzle which he kept there, and
he thrashed her horribly with it. Saying that she had
written to Rome and had also sent a petition and
Beatriche denied these allegations, and he kept her shut in
her bedroom for two or three days, and he himself
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brought her food, and he would open the door of
her bedroom and put it on the floor, and then
he would go away at his good will and quote
it is this last bit he would go away at
his good will in particular, which would fuel allegations in
his time as well as ours, that Francesco committed incest
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with his daughter. Belinda Jack, a scholar who has written
on bea Tree Cha, suggests that this phrasing may have
been a roundabout way of indicating this that Francesco was
entering his daughter's bedroom for a specific purpose and would
only leave when his desires had been met. She also
points out one of the trap scholars tend to fall
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into in their debates about this allegation. Following hundreds of
years of speculation, many have insisted that even for someone
like Francesco, incest was a quote natural boundary he simply
could not have crossed. It's an assertion one can only
make because of the lack of physical evidence and even
of outright accusation and be a tree chase case, although
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her lawyer would use it as a defense later on.
But just because something is terrible doesn't mean it didn't happen,
And as we well know, just because no physical evidence
was found doesn't mean it wasn't there, especially when the
perpetrator in question was one of great means and influence
with a lot to lose. We may never know what
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exactly happened to be a treach a when her father
would quote open the door of the bedroom. But Dr
Jack I believe is correct that we need to consider
the possibility that incestuous rape or the threat of it,
was a significant factor in determining what would happen next.
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That administrator of La Rocca, a man named Olympio Calvetti,
would remain be a treach a and lucretious connection to
their relatives in Rome. When Beatrice finally decided that she
had enough, it was Olympio whom she turned to first.
The original plan was to poison Francesco, and Olympio was
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set to meet with Giacomo and Paulo in Rome to
procure the means. When Olympia returned, however, via trich A
lamented that her paranoid father had begun making her and
Lucretia taste his food before he ate. They would have
to think of something else. Finally, they had a lucky opportunity.
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In September, Francesco took ill with gout and was convalescing
in his chambers. Via Tricha knew now was the time
to strike. Olympio and another servant, Marzio Catalano, was sent
into Francesco's chambers on the morning of September seven. They
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almost immediately ran back out, fearful of what might happen
if they got caught. But for beatri Cha, there was
too much at stake and there was no turning back.
She chastised the men, saying that if they were unwilling
to carry out their long standing plan, she would mark
to write in there and murder her father with her
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own bare hands. Renewed in their resolve, the two men
went back in and bludgeoned Francesco to death as he slept.
Be a tree Cha was free. Before she could revel
in her freedom, be a tree Cha knew there was
another matter at hand, that of covering up their crime.
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She had her hitman dressed her father's corpse and fling
him off of his balcony into the brush below. They
made a hole in the balcony by removing some planks
from the floor, hoping to make it seem as though
the man had fallen through and be a tree. Cha
and Lucretia took on the task of hiding the bloody sheets.
Then they called for help, and Olympio came to the
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castle to share the news of a horrible accident at
La Rocca. For his part, Marzio fled the castle, though
he later would return to collect payment for his part
in the conspiracy. But whether it was through adrenaline or
sheer ineptitude, their cover up was sloppily carried out and
in the end quite obvious. As the crowd gathered at
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the castle, they wondered how could such a large man
fall through such a small hole in the balcony, and
certainly a passing branch could not have made such a
deep gash in his eye. As the days war on,
gossip continued as Lucretia and Beatrice declined to attend Francesco's burial.
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Before long it was determined that Francesco Chenchi's death, however
well deserved, it might have been was no accident. It
would not take long for these rumors and the consensus
that followed to reach Rome, more specifically the papal authorities.
An investigation began in Earnest in November, and initially, although
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they were detained on house arrest in Rome, Jacomo, Lucretia
and Beatrice were treated with a great deal of civility
due to their status. Back in La Patrella, Olympia was
trying to retroactively make their case stronger. He widened the
hole they had made in the balcony and employed his
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wife to dispose of the hidden bloody bedsheets. For some reason,
perhaps some would later suggest she was jealous of her
husband's relationship to be a tree Cha she did not
dispose of them, but rather simply hid them away elsewhere
whereas Romans would express a great deal of compassion for
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be a tree Chase plate. The clumsiness of the cover up,
coupled with the conspirators apparent arrogance in sticking to their
ridiculous story, rankled the people of La Petrella. Although they
had little love for the late Francesco, the villagers bulked
at the thought of powerful people literally getting away with
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murder and they share their suspicions and observations with investigators
from Rome. With all of this new evidence in hand,
Papal authorities began to treat the chen Chi like the
criminals they supposed them to be. They were moved from
house arrest to the prison at toward Nona Jiacomo Chenchi,
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from his imprisonment, was able to allegedly orchestrate the murder
of their greatest threat, Olympio. His arrogance threatened them all,
and so he was beheaded by a bounty hunter, allegedly
after Jacomo put a price on his head. The other murderer, Marzio,
would not survive either, dying while in the process of
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being tortured by authorities. But Olympio's death was in fact
what sealed the chen Chi's fate. His wife, enraged by
the murder of her husband, went to the authorities with
everything she knew. She had seen the bloody bedsheets, in fact,
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she had hidden them and knew exactly where they were
under torture. Both Jacomo and Lucretia admitted to their crime,
but both pointed the finger firmly at Beatrice as the
guiding force of the conspiracy. For her part, Beatrice is
said to have withstood torture bravely and resolutely, admitting nothing
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except an affair with Olympio, which some scholars believe was
a forced confession. The point of getting her to admit
an affair would be to quell the already growing compassion
for her among the Roman people. All of the conspirators, Jocomo, Lucretia,
Young Bernardo and Beatrice would be subject to torture as
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authorities questioned them. This was unusual. Nobility were usually spared
from such brutal treatment, but Pope Clement had given special
permission for its use in this case. He was on
a tirade against increasing violent crime among the wealthy and powerful,
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and of course, there was the matter of the funds
he stood to gain through the seizure of assets and
fines should the Chench's be executed. Francesco and his sins
and the debts that came of them continued taunt the
Chenchi family. Finally, almost exactly one year after the murder
(36:31):
of Francesco Cenchi, Pope Clement's sentence was handed down. Accounts
vary as to the exact order of the events. On
the day the Cenchi were executed even early in the morning.
It was so swelteringly hot, and the crowd was so
riotous and chaotic that multiple onlookers died, either of heat
(36:55):
stroke or by falling into the Tiber as people pushed
and shoved their way onto the sant Angelo. Of course,
it would be difficult to keep a clear sense of
what was going on and in what order in these conditions.
Many retellings of the story put Via Trea Chase execution last,
likely because that's just good storytelling, but most sources and
(37:18):
scholars do seem to agree that the order was Lucretia,
then via Tricha, then Giacomo. The two women were brought
to the place of execution together and offered at least
a modicum of dignity. They were made to walk on
foot through the straits of Rome, unbound and wearing mourning garments,
(37:39):
before being allowed to say their last rites in a
small chapel near their place of execution. Bernardo, the younger brother,
who because of his young age and limited involvement, was
spared execution, was still required to witness the deaths of
his family as part of his punishment before he was
sentenced to labor and he joined his sister and stepmother
(38:03):
as they said massed together. Lucretia's execution was swift, and
the crowd seemed to have relatively little sympathy for her,
although she had suffered many of the same injustices as
her stepdaughter. She was apparently so fearful as she approached
the platform that she fainted and had to be carried
(38:23):
to the execution block. She was beheaded before she regained consciousness,
which to me seems a mercy. Jacomo was likely executed last,
and certainly most brutally. He was led by a cart
through the streets to the execution platform. They're already injured
(38:45):
from torture. He was further mutilated with red hot tongs
before being bludgeoned to death with a mallet, dismembered and
having parts of his body displayed unhooked by the platform.
In between these two extremes was be a tree Chay.
The crowd had fallen silent the moment she came into view,
(39:06):
but as she walked, showing not a bit of hesitation
to replace on the platform, many in the crowd couldn't
help but let out a cry at her plight. Without
a word, she knelt at the block, the axe fell
and it was over. The Roman virgin was dead. The
(39:28):
moment be a tree Cha chen she died, something changed
in the crowd. What had been a riot immediately transformed
into a somber funeral for their newfound popular heroine, taken
in her prime for the crime of standing up to
her oppressor. Even the bloody display of Jochma's execution couldn't
(39:51):
divert their intense focus on be A tree Chay. Following
the executions and Bernardo's returned to the prison at toward
an Era, it was required for the bodies to remain
on display for some time part of the witnessing process
of public executions. Many onlookers waited with beatrie Chase body
(40:13):
as if to keep her company. Some accounts stated that
young girls left wreaths of flowers around her severed head.
When leave was finally given for the Chenchi to be
taken to their graves, be atrie Chase procession was by
far the largest. Romans from all corners of society gathered
(40:34):
again at pontisser Angelo and walked over a mile in
the heat, following her coffin through the streets of the city,
bringing Batre Chi chen Chi to her final resting place
at the Church of San Pietro in Montorio. They left
heaps of flowers, blit candles, and stood vigil for hours.
(40:57):
Although her grave was unmarked a consequence of her criminal status,
and would later be desecrated by French soldiers in seventeen,
beatreeche Chenchi left an indelible imprint on the people of
Rome and beyond. She has been the subject of endless plays, books,
movies and artwork, inspiring the likes of Percy Bysshelley, Alexander Dumat,
(41:21):
Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Stendel. But her most visible and perhaps
meaningful legacy is arguably still in the streets of Rome.
Among the many ways she has been memorialized throughout the city,
there's a small plaque that was placed in on Via Montserrato,
from where she has said to have begun her final
(41:44):
walk to pontissen Anglo. A translation reads from here where
stood the Savella Court prison. On the eleventh of September
fift beatreeche Chenchi moved toward the executioner's block. An exemplary
victim of an unjust justice. That's the story of Beatrice
(42:17):
Cenci's tragic life and end, but stick around after a
brief sponsor message to hear about one of the odd
places her legacy has endured. In the Palazzo Barberini, an
(42:38):
aristocratic estate turned art museum in the heart of Rome,
there are several rooms devoted to the famous painter Caravaggio
and his many followers. Caravaggio happened to have been among
the witnesses at the Cenchia execution. The sunlit space in
the museum is contrasted by paintings of darkened rooms, their
(43:00):
subjects seeming to be the only source of light in
the frame. Among these paintings, some of them grand and busy,
is a simple portrait of a young woman. She wears
a white chemise and a white head covering, both standing
out against and inscrutable blackened background. She faces away from
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the viewer, but turns her head back with a soft,
innocent expression. For hundreds of years, this was believed to
be a portrait of Beatrice Cenci in her final days,
and it's easy to see why. It's a painting of
a beautiful girl looking a little sad, maybe resolute, and
draped in white drapery. She's a picture of innocence, but
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she's also a blank canvas, someone we can paint a
story onto and make our own. Even though it has
been confirmed that this painting was not of Beatriccha, it
was more likely intended to represent a Ofpetus, it remains
the image most associated with her. It's at the top
of a Wikipedia page, on the cover of books about her,
(44:08):
and all over the Internet. It's the epitome of what
we've made be a treat A into not just in
public memory, but in an almost endless list of literary, dramatic,
and artistic renditions of her life, something that's compiling, dramatic,
and ultimately not really her at all. This painting, however,
(44:32):
is not the only one housed in the Barberini with
something to say about Beatrice and her story. One of
Caravaggio's best known works sits just stepped away from this
famed portrait, painted around the time of the trial and execution,
or possibly a few years later. Judith beheading Holofernes is
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said to have been inspired by the plight of beatri
Cha Chenchi. It depicts the climactic moment in the Biblical
story of Judith, a beautiful and brave Jewish widow who
charmed away into the chamber of the Assyrian General Hall
of furnace before you know, beheading him and becoming a
hero to her people. The story of Judith was a
(45:18):
symbol of feminine revenge even in this period, so the
parallels with Beatrice are definitely there. But what I think
is most interesting is Caravaggio's depiction of Judith herself. Where
other Judiths have been depicted with a fierceness befitting a
woman bravely sneaking behind enemy lines, particularly one excellent painting
(45:41):
by the female artist Artemacy of Gentileschi, in Caravaggio's painting,
his Judith seems almost doubtful. Her beautiful, innocent face is
contorted in disgust at her violent act, and she leans
her body away from the dying hall of furnace, almost
separating herself from her crime. This is reluctant violence. Caravaggio
(46:05):
seems to be saying the violence of a woman who
remains innocent, and yet her hands never falter. She resolutely
wields her sword and destroys her enemy, bloody ing his bedsheets.
She saves her people. She did what she had to do.
(46:43):
Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and
Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted
by me Danish Wartz. Additional writing and researching done by
Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sunder and Laurie Goodman.
The show is produced by rema Il Kali, with supervising
producer Josh Thaine and executive producers Aaron Manky, Alex Williams,
(47:08):
and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey listener discretion advised. Hi,
this is Danish Swartz, the host of Noble Blood. Thank
you so much for listening It just a quick bit
of housekeeping before the episode. I wrote a book called Anatomy,
a Love Story, which is about a young woman who
(00:21):
wants to be a surgeon in the eighteen hundreds in Scotland.
And if you like this podcast, I really think you'll
like the book, and I have a sequel coming out,
Immortality a Love Story, which comes out this February February,
and in the book world might publishing people keep telling
me that pre orders are like the most helpful thing
you could do to support the book, So if you
(00:43):
were at all interested in it, preorder information is in
the episode description and it would be incredibly useful. We
also have links to show merch. I know there's some
weird like unofficial show merch that I've seen around the internet,
but what's LinkedIn bio is the only actual official and
a Patreon where I post bonus episodes and episode scripts.
(01:05):
But thank you so much for listening. That truly is
the best support that you could give a quick morning
before this episode begins. It contains graphic depictions of violence
and contains references to sexual violence, so if that makes
you uncomfortable or might be triggering, this might be an
episode to skip. It was fifine and in the early
(01:39):
morning hours of the eleventh of September, the city of
Rome was rioting. A massive, angry crowd gathered and grew
as Romans rich and poor like pressed on towards a
building known as Castel sant Angelo, a fortress and prison
whose imposing form had stood in the city since the
(02:01):
second century se Shoulder to shoulder, the rioters pushed their
way on this dangerously hot day toward the bridge that
led to the prison, where a platform had been erected
out front for a set of executions which were to
take place at dawn. Executions almost always drew crowds in
(02:24):
pre modern Europe, their publicity and visibility a central part
of many justice systems all over the continent. They were
a morbid spectacle shore, but they were also understood as
crime deterrence, and sometimes they even had a sort of
ritual component, aiming to restore the moral balance of a
(02:46):
community after a crime had been committed. An execution in
this period needed witnesses to fulfill its intended purpose. People
in this period were, of course, not nearly as uni
formally pro execution as we might believe. Plenty of people
had serious reservations about the moral rectitude of this kind
(03:08):
of state violence. But it wasn't often that the crowds
at public executions tried so actively or so fervently as
the crowd did that morning in Rome to stop the
event from taking place at all. In fact, there was
(03:29):
one execution in particular that the crowd seemed to want
to prevent more than any of the others. They were there,
sweating and pushing and shouting for a woman named Beatrice
chen Chi. Only twenty two years old. She had been convicted,
along with her stepmother and her brothers, of the murder
(03:51):
of her father, Francesco Cenchi. It had been an open
and shut case, a brutal patricide, and a sloppy attempt
at making it look like an accident, but the people
of Rome were sympathetic. For years, whispers had abounded in
the city, but this day they became shouts. Beatrice's father
(04:17):
abused her. He was a tyrant, a danger to his
family and a terror to everyone. Whatever fate he got,
the crowd reasoned it was well deserved. In the year
between the murder and the day of her execution, Beatrice
had become a symbol of innocence pushed to the brink.
(04:40):
Her story resonated with the people of Rome, who felt,
despite her noble status, that her plight paralleled the triumph
of a people over an oppressive noble regime. She would
eventually become known as the Roman Virgin, her in a sense,
forever baked into her moniker and her short life forever
(05:04):
a symbol of popular resistance. But it wasn't just the
rabble who wanted to see Beatrice spared. Cardinals and esteemed
members of the nobility had begged Clement the Eighth, the
pope and head of the Papal states of which Rome
was the capital, to have mercy on the young woman
and her co conspirators. But on the heels of several
(05:29):
other scandals that involved nobles taking matters into their own hands,
Clement decided that he needed to make an example, a
show of strength that would keep the nobility in line.
The Pope had made his choice, the Roman Virgin would
have no reprieve. I'm Dani Schwartz, and this is noble blood.
(06:03):
Although BEATRICEA is remembered rather singularly, she was in fact
only one member of a rather large and rather troubled family.
Born in fifteen seventy seven to Count Francesco Cenchi and
Urcilia Santa Croce, Beatrice was the fifth of their twelve
or thirteen children, seven of whom would survive infancy. Relatively
(06:27):
little is known about Urcilia, who would die before Beatrice
turned eight in fifteen eighty four. Much more, and much worse,
is known about her father. Francesco. Francesco Cenci was the
so called natural, that is to say, illicit son of
Monseigneur Christophero Cenci, treasurer of the Apostolic Camera, which is
(06:51):
basically a papal treasury, which papal fun fact interlude was
just abolished by Pope Francis this year, shortly before his
father's death. Francesco was legitimized, meaning he stood too then
did at age twelve. Inherit a massive estate which included
(07:12):
two palaces in Rome, a set of properties and pieces
of land on the outskirts of the city, and various
others in Abruzzo, a region east of Rome belonging to
the Kingdom of Naples. Of course, much of the estate
was ill gotten, gained in no small part through embezzlement
from the papal coffers. The apple didn't fall far from
(07:35):
the tree, it seems. Even as a child, Francesco was
described as ill tempered and violent. The first of many
lawsuits was brought against him when he was only eleven
years old, after he attacked someone, drawing blood in the process.
He was also, to put it bluntly, apparently so sexually
(07:59):
precocious that his tutor advised his mother to marry him
off quickly to keep him from spending too much time
with courtesan's or ahem, taking matters into his own hands.
Maybe the tutor was simply trying to tie himself to
the Cenchi fortune, but either way, a solution was quickly offered.
(08:23):
Francesco Cenci would marry his tutor's niece, the aforementioned or Cilia,
in fifteen sixty three, when they were both fourteen years old.
It would be four years before the pair had their
first child, and by then it was clear that Francesco
was not just quote sexually precocious, He was a sexual predator.
(08:47):
He racked up criminal and civil penalties not only for
his violent outbursts, but for acts of sexual violence as well.
He often assaulted, both sexually and otherwise, men of his
staff as punishment for violations real and perceived. In fifteen
sixty seven, around the time that his first child was born,
(09:09):
Francesco was convicted of hanging a vassal of his one
who had committed no crime, following a peasant uprising. Later,
he would beat a servant girl with a broom handle
for misunderstanding his orders, injuring her so severely that you
reported being unable to eat, drink, or speak for several
(09:32):
days following the attack. There does not seem to be
any documentation confirming whether Francesco's violence was directed at his
wife or children during this earlier period, although even if
he did not directly harm them, he certainly created an
environment of violence and rage in his household that must
(09:52):
have been unimaginably frightening. And we do know that after
our Cilia died two days after giving birth, their newborn daughter,
Francesca died only three days later. From that point, Francesco's
violence and wild lifestyle escalated rapidly, and his interest in
(10:13):
showing any kind of care or concerned for his family disappeared,
if it was ever there to begin with. In fact,
he got rid of his family where he could. Following
their mother's death, Beatrice and her older sister Antonia were
sent to live with the Franciscan nuns at the monastery
of Santa Croce in Monticettorio. They would remain there for
(10:38):
roughly seven years. While Beatrice and her sister were in
the convent. In fifteen eighty five, Feliche Pierre Gentile was
elected to the papacy, taking the pontifical name Sixtus the Fifth.
Coming to the role in the midst of the counter Reformation,
(10:58):
and after some years of stability, he was determined to
curb corruption in Rome, seeking first and foremost to hold
the nobility accountable by gasp punishing them when they committed
crimes in a totally normal response. Francesco Cenchi responded by
drawing up a will in a bid to protect his assets.
(11:20):
Upon his death on November twenty two, fifty six, he
met with a notary and dictated his last wishes. Some
have pointed to this will and some of the language
that it uses, the phrase that death may come at
any hour, and death being the one thing that is
certain end quote, along with his charitable bequests and many
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invocations of saints, gods and other religious themes, as evidence
that he was not so evil as some might believe.
But here's the thing. If you were to walk into
the state archives of Rome, where most of the city's
pre modern wills are housed, and pick out a hundred
from this period at random, you would probably find almost
(12:05):
these exact phrases and bequests about a hundred times. They
were just a standard part of will writing in Rome,
and a variation on the same standards to be found
in other parts of Italy and beyond. Those words, simply put,
did not come out of Francesco Cenci's mouth or brain
(12:26):
the document itself aside. It's the choices Francesco made in
terms of his children that are of interest here. Most
of his bequests were pretty standard. He left money for
the care of his daughters, both legitimate and otherwise, and
named his primary beneficiaries his sons Christoforo, Rocco, Bernardo, and Paulo,
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noting also that should he have other sons in his future,
they would be added to the list, except he already
had another son who wasn't on the list. He had
long openly disliked his eldest living child, Jocomo, and took
this opportunity to give his least favorite son one last
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slight to be felt from beyond the grave. Francesco left
him the minimum amount allowed by the law, a far
cry from the lavish inheritance presumably awaiting Jacomo's brothers. We
should not mistake his other bequests for care about his children. Again,
there were a lot of standard practices in willmaking, and
(13:32):
other accounts of Francesco's behavior around this time point to
a neglectful approach to his children at best. But his
will tells us something important about his relationship with Jacomo
and his willingness to spite his children in general. Perhaps
spurred on by Francesco's increasingly erratic behavior, in Pope six
(13:56):
finally set his sights on the nobleman's embezzled in Brittants.
He originally instructed Francesco to sell any properties purchased through
illegal negotiations by his father and returned the money to
the papal treasury, which would have bankrupted him. But by
April of that year the fine was whittled down to
(14:17):
twenty five thousand scootie, which records indicate was enough for
success To consider the many sins, and I mean many,
he listed them out in the papal decree of the
late Monseigneur to be absolved. Now thousand scootie was nothing
to scoff at, but by now Francesco was well used
(14:37):
to heavy fines. Over the course of his lifetime, Francesco
would slowly but surely run his inheritance into the ground,
simply by the sheer number of criminal and civil penalties
racked up as a result of his violent nature. Pope
Sixtus died only a few months later, in August five
(15:00):
teen ninety. Over the next several years, Rome stability faltered
under a series of short lived popes, and the city
became practically lawless. In this environment, Francesco became more violent
and more brazen about it. The following year, things escalated
again when Giacomo, his least favorite son, remember, decided to
(15:24):
get married. Up until now, Beatrice and her sister Antonia
had been spared their father's wrath while living up at
the convent. Of course, convent life in the sixteenth century
was no vacation. This convent, in particular, was generally populated
by poorer women, and was in fact located in the
(15:47):
area of Rome in which most of the city's sex
workers resided. It was an odd place to board two
young noble girls. It's possible that their father placed them
there out of a lack of care for their comfort,
simply wishing to be rid of them in the easiest
way for him possible. But at the very least the
(16:09):
two sisters would have been kept safe away from Francesco's
pattern of violent behavior, and so although we don't know
much for sure about this time in their lives, I
like to imagine it was happy, if austere. Unfortunately, that
peace would not last. Giaco mo Chenchi's marriage to Ludvika Velli,
(16:32):
a distant cousin, left Francesco seething with jealousy and rage.
When the newly wet couple settled into their apartment in
the Cenchi palace, Francesco decided two things. First, he would
rather move out than witness his son's prosperity, and second,
(16:53):
it was time for his daughters to come home. One
can only imagine how jarring it must have in for
Beatrice A to return to her father's residence in She
had spent the prior seven years half of her life
at this point with her sister in a convent, likely
not sealed off, but certainly shielded from the outside world.
(17:17):
Now nearly fifteen years old, she was returning to a
new palace following a great deal of upheaval, both in
the city and in her family. It was at this
point that Beatrice's life, already characterized by instability, would take
a turn toward the horrific. Enraged at his eldest son's
(17:38):
decision to get married and bring his wife to the
family palace, Francesco Chenchi moved his permanent residence to another
of his properties, a palace nestled along the Tiber River.
He decided to bring Beatrice and Antonia home, ripping them
from their home of seven years in the process, ostensibly
because he wanted the company. His decision had essentially split
(18:03):
the family into His son, Rocco, had come to join
him in the new residence, but another of his sons, Christofero,
had chosen to stay with Giacomo, the oldest son and
his new wife. Francesco had sent two of his other sons,
Paolo and Bernardo, off to school elsewhere in the city,
so perhaps bringing the girls home was an attempt to
(18:26):
tip the family scales in his favor, or maybe he
simply felt that they had been free from his direct
control for too long. Competition and bitterness toward his children,
particularly Giacomo, seems to have fueled not only Francesco's rage
but also his life choices. Not long after he moved
(18:47):
to the new palace, he set his sights on procuring
a marriage of his own. On November he married Lucrezia Petroni,
the widow of a distant cousin. By this time, Francesco's
violent nature and tendency towards infidelity was common knowledge, but
(19:08):
Lucretia had six children of her own, and she entered
the marriage on the promise that Francesco would fund her
younger children's education, a promise he would of course fail
to fulfill, not only for her children but for many
of his own. The day after their wedding, an illegitimate
daughter of Francesco's was baptized. The child's mother was a
(19:33):
long term mistress whom Francesco would try to move into
his palace with his family and new wife. On this,
at least, Lucretia was able to put her foot down,
but it did little to stem her husband's behavior. Not
even four months into his new marriage, Francisco's habits began
(19:54):
slowly to catch up with him. In March, Matteo Bonavera,
a servant of Francesco's, was caught in the act of
stealing a man's cape. As the police questioned him about
his crime and asked him who he worked for, they
were baffled by the servants intimation that his master did
(20:14):
not want to be spoken of by his staff. Seemingly
forgetting the matter at hand, The police pressed the issue,
wondering why on earth any man of noble status would
wish for such secrecy. Finally, the truth spilled forth. Matteo
admitted that he and other servants, and even some of
(20:35):
Francesco's own sons, had witnessed Francesco's many times committing the
so called unspeakable act sodomy. Sodomy, which by legal definition,
included any kind of non vaginal intercourse between persons of
any gender, was a crime during this period in Rome,
(20:55):
and one so severe it carried the death penalty. Witnesses
aimed to have seen Francesco with women, girls and male youths.
Mateo himself claimed to have refused his master's advances. Francesco,
as might be expected, had committed not just sodomy, but
(21:15):
had also committed seemingly countless instances of sodom ascidal rape.
Further investigation brought forth more and more witnesses and victims,
most of them his servants, who described his tactics of
coercion and the pleasure he seemed to take in inflicting
pain on his victims during the act. There was little
(21:39):
physical evidence to corroborate these crimes, but the sheer number
of witnesses, coupled with the scandalousness of the crime, meant
that Francesco would be arrested and imprisoned awaiting trial. After
all his years of violence, it finally seemed like he
might be stopped. Despite the scandal that it would have
(22:00):
brought on the Chenchi family, this moment must have brought
with it also some real, if tentative relief. But abusive,
powerful men with wide networks of people willing to protect
them are a tale as old as time. The husband
of one of Francesco's illegitimate daughters, happened to be a
(22:21):
lawyer in the Papal Court of Justice. He took on
the job of being Francesco's advocate and managed to get
him released from prison. There was, however, a fine. Francesco
was ordered to pay one hundred thousand scootie, a significant
portion of his already disappearing inheritance, and he could not
(22:43):
leave the Papal States until his fine was paid. Whatever neglect, spite,
or violence or combination Francesco had previously directed towards his family,
it would pale in comparison to the all out war
he waged after his sodomy aisle. He openly accused Giacomo
of getting him imprisoned in order to steal his fortune,
(23:06):
and even of plotting his murder, which, while it was
a prescient accusation, it was one that was directed at
the wrong child. Francesco had also by this time turned
on Christophero, the one who had chosen not to move
with him following Jacomo's marriage, Having taken after his father.
(23:26):
In terms of his reputation for brutality, it seems Christofero
was a more formidable foe than his father expected, and
a threat from him may have been the reason Francesco
was anxious to leave Rome at the earliest opportunity. You
might have noticed that for much of this episode, Beatrice
(23:47):
has been very much a background player, nearly forgotten in
the chaos, drama, bloodshed and crimes of her father's life.
This is for many reasons, chief among them that French
ESCO's life has been heavily documented through court records in
a way Beatrichse was not, which simply left us with
(24:07):
more information about him than about her. All of this
would change in when Francesco made his final payment to
the Papal exchequer and moved to a castle he borrowed
from a friend, because by this point most of his
places were in disrepair. The castle was in Petrella, about
(24:29):
a hundred miles east of Rome, somewhat menacingly called lau
Roca or the Rock. He took Lucretia, his wife of
not quite two years, and be a Treach with him.
It was this move, and the horrific events which followed,
which would finally put Via Treach center stage. The next
(24:51):
two years of Beatricese life were ones of unending torture
and cruelty. She and her stepmother were in prisoned in Larocca.
Francesco had fashioned their chambers into literal cells, making their
servants into jailers, and cutting off their access to the
outside world. During this time, Beatrice also lost two of
(25:15):
her brothers, Christofero in a dispute over a courtesan and
Paulo of an unknown cause. Following his and Bernardo's own
escape back to Rome after an ill fated visit to
La Petrella, Bernardo, the youngest of Francesco's legitimate sons, found
safe haven in the household of his elder brother Jacomo.
(25:37):
Over these two years, Beatrice and Lucretia had considered and
attempted to plot and escape, and, according to reports from servants,
at least Beatrice was so distraught she was even considering suicide.
With the help of the administrator of Larocca, the women
were eventually able to send letters to Giacomo and other
(26:00):
relatives in Rome begging for help, and said that at
one point Beatrice even reached out to Pope Clement, begging
him to free her from her father's torment. In December, however,
Francesco managed to intercept one of these letters while he
was in Rome conducting business and who knows what else.
(26:22):
Enraged by the entirely correct accusations his daughter had made,
he returned to La Petrella determined to make her regret it.
In depositions, witnesses would later offer a cryptic description of
Beatrice's treatment at the hands of her father, depositions that
(26:42):
would fuel rumors and be a cause for great dispute
among scholars and people who have written about her. Although
Beatrice was about twenty and Francesco had made no attempts
to secure a marriage for her, even going so far,
according to some accounts, as to refuse a match suggested
(27:03):
by Pope Clement himself, there was the matter of a
dowry he didn't want to pay, but the testimony of
the servants at Larocca would fuel other suspicions. In one deposition,
a servant named Girolama described in graphic detail via triche's
terrifying punishment following Francesco's discovery of her letters. According to
(27:27):
the notary who transcribed her testimony, the servant said, quote,
he took a bull pizzle which he kept there, and
he thrashed her horribly with it. Saying that she had
written to Rome and had also sent a petition and
Beatriche denied these allegations, and he kept her shut in
her bedroom for two or three days, and he himself
(27:49):
brought her food, and he would open the door of
her bedroom and put it on the floor, and then
he would go away at his good will and quote
it is this last bit he would go away at
his good will in particular, which would fuel allegations in
his time as well as ours, that Francesco committed incest
(28:09):
with his daughter. Belinda Jack, a scholar who has written
on bea Tree Cha, suggests that this phrasing may have
been a roundabout way of indicating this that Francesco was
entering his daughter's bedroom for a specific purpose and would
only leave when his desires had been met. She also
points out one of the trap scholars tend to fall
(28:31):
into in their debates about this allegation. Following hundreds of
years of speculation, many have insisted that even for someone
like Francesco, incest was a quote natural boundary he simply
could not have crossed. It's an assertion one can only
make because of the lack of physical evidence and even
of outright accusation and be a tree chase case, although
(28:54):
her lawyer would use it as a defense later on.
But just because something is terrible doesn't mean it didn't happen,
And as we well know, just because no physical evidence
was found doesn't mean it wasn't there, especially when the
perpetrator in question was one of great means and influence
with a lot to lose. We may never know what
(29:17):
exactly happened to be a treach a when her father
would quote open the door of the bedroom. But Dr
Jack I believe is correct that we need to consider
the possibility that incestuous rape or the threat of it,
was a significant factor in determining what would happen next.
(29:37):
That administrator of La Rocca, a man named Olympio Calvetti,
would remain be a treach a and lucretious connection to
their relatives in Rome. When Beatrice finally decided that she
had enough, it was Olympio whom she turned to first.
The original plan was to poison Francesco, and Olympio was
(29:59):
set to meet with Giacomo and Paulo in Rome to
procure the means. When Olympia returned, however, via trich A
lamented that her paranoid father had begun making her and
Lucretia taste his food before he ate. They would have
to think of something else. Finally, they had a lucky opportunity.
(30:21):
In September, Francesco took ill with gout and was convalescing
in his chambers. Via Tricha knew now was the time
to strike. Olympio and another servant, Marzio Catalano, was sent
into Francesco's chambers on the morning of September seven. They
(30:41):
almost immediately ran back out, fearful of what might happen
if they got caught. But for beatri Cha, there was
too much at stake and there was no turning back.
She chastised the men, saying that if they were unwilling
to carry out their long standing plan, she would mark
to write in there and murder her father with her
(31:03):
own bare hands. Renewed in their resolve, the two men
went back in and bludgeoned Francesco to death as he slept.
Be a tree Cha was free. Before she could revel
in her freedom, be a tree Cha knew there was
another matter at hand, that of covering up their crime.
(31:25):
She had her hitman dressed her father's corpse and fling
him off of his balcony into the brush below. They
made a hole in the balcony by removing some planks
from the floor, hoping to make it seem as though
the man had fallen through and be a tree. Cha
and Lucretia took on the task of hiding the bloody sheets.
Then they called for help, and Olympio came to the
(31:47):
castle to share the news of a horrible accident at
La Rocca. For his part, Marzio fled the castle, though
he later would return to collect payment for his part
in the conspiracy. But whether it was through adrenaline or
sheer ineptitude, their cover up was sloppily carried out and
in the end quite obvious. As the crowd gathered at
(32:10):
the castle, they wondered how could such a large man
fall through such a small hole in the balcony, and
certainly a passing branch could not have made such a
deep gash in his eye. As the days war on,
gossip continued as Lucretia and Beatrice declined to attend Francesco's burial.
(32:32):
Before long it was determined that Francesco Chenchi's death, however
well deserved, it might have been was no accident. It
would not take long for these rumors and the consensus
that followed to reach Rome, more specifically the papal authorities.
An investigation began in Earnest in November, and initially, although
(32:57):
they were detained on house arrest in Rome, Jacomo, Lucretia
and Beatrice were treated with a great deal of civility
due to their status. Back in La Patrella, Olympia was
trying to retroactively make their case stronger. He widened the
hole they had made in the balcony and employed his
(33:17):
wife to dispose of the hidden bloody bedsheets. For some reason,
perhaps some would later suggest she was jealous of her
husband's relationship to be a tree Cha she did not
dispose of them, but rather simply hid them away elsewhere
whereas Romans would express a great deal of compassion for
(33:37):
be a tree Chase plate. The clumsiness of the cover up,
coupled with the conspirators apparent arrogance in sticking to their
ridiculous story, rankled the people of La Petrella. Although they
had little love for the late Francesco, the villagers bulked
at the thought of powerful people literally getting away with
(33:58):
murder and they share their suspicions and observations with investigators
from Rome. With all of this new evidence in hand,
Papal authorities began to treat the chen Chi like the
criminals they supposed them to be. They were moved from
house arrest to the prison at toward Nona Jiacomo Chenchi,
(34:20):
from his imprisonment, was able to allegedly orchestrate the murder
of their greatest threat, Olympio. His arrogance threatened them all,
and so he was beheaded by a bounty hunter, allegedly
after Jacomo put a price on his head. The other murderer, Marzio,
would not survive either, dying while in the process of
(34:43):
being tortured by authorities. But Olympio's death was in fact
what sealed the chen Chi's fate. His wife, enraged by
the murder of her husband, went to the authorities with
everything she knew. She had seen the bloody bedsheets, in fact,
(35:04):
she had hidden them and knew exactly where they were
under torture. Both Jacomo and Lucretia admitted to their crime,
but both pointed the finger firmly at Beatrice as the
guiding force of the conspiracy. For her part, Beatrice is
said to have withstood torture bravely and resolutely, admitting nothing
(35:27):
except an affair with Olympio, which some scholars believe was
a forced confession. The point of getting her to admit
an affair would be to quell the already growing compassion
for her among the Roman people. All of the conspirators, Jocomo, Lucretia,
Young Bernardo and Beatrice would be subject to torture as
(35:50):
authorities questioned them. This was unusual. Nobility were usually spared
from such brutal treatment, but Pope Clement had given special
permission for its use in this case. He was on
a tirade against increasing violent crime among the wealthy and powerful,
(36:10):
and of course, there was the matter of the funds
he stood to gain through the seizure of assets and
fines should the Chench's be executed. Francesco and his sins
and the debts that came of them continued taunt the
Chenchi family. Finally, almost exactly one year after the murder
(36:31):
of Francesco Cenchi, Pope Clement's sentence was handed down. Accounts
vary as to the exact order of the events. On
the day the Cenchi were executed even early in the morning.
It was so swelteringly hot, and the crowd was so
riotous and chaotic that multiple onlookers died, either of heat
(36:55):
stroke or by falling into the Tiber as people pushed
and shoved their way onto the sant Angelo. Of course,
it would be difficult to keep a clear sense of
what was going on and in what order in these conditions.
Many retellings of the story put Via Trea Chase execution last,
likely because that's just good storytelling, but most sources and
(37:18):
scholars do seem to agree that the order was Lucretia,
then via Tricha, then Giacomo. The two women were brought
to the place of execution together and offered at least
a modicum of dignity. They were made to walk on
foot through the straits of Rome, unbound and wearing mourning garments,
(37:39):
before being allowed to say their last rites in a
small chapel near their place of execution. Bernardo, the younger brother,
who because of his young age and limited involvement, was
spared execution, was still required to witness the deaths of
his family as part of his punishment before he was
sentenced to labor and he joined his sister and stepmother
(38:03):
as they said massed together. Lucretia's execution was swift, and
the crowd seemed to have relatively little sympathy for her,
although she had suffered many of the same injustices as
her stepdaughter. She was apparently so fearful as she approached
the platform that she fainted and had to be carried
(38:23):
to the execution block. She was beheaded before she regained consciousness,
which to me seems a mercy. Jacomo was likely executed last,
and certainly most brutally. He was led by a cart
through the streets to the execution platform. They're already injured
(38:45):
from torture. He was further mutilated with red hot tongs
before being bludgeoned to death with a mallet, dismembered and
having parts of his body displayed unhooked by the platform.
In between these two extremes was be a tree Chay.
The crowd had fallen silent the moment she came into view,
(39:06):
but as she walked, showing not a bit of hesitation
to replace on the platform, many in the crowd couldn't
help but let out a cry at her plight. Without
a word, she knelt at the block, the axe fell
and it was over. The Roman virgin was dead. The
(39:28):
moment be a tree Cha chen she died, something changed
in the crowd. What had been a riot immediately transformed
into a somber funeral for their newfound popular heroine, taken
in her prime for the crime of standing up to
her oppressor. Even the bloody display of Jochma's execution couldn't
(39:51):
divert their intense focus on be A tree Chay. Following
the executions and Bernardo's returned to the prison at toward
an Era, it was required for the bodies to remain
on display for some time part of the witnessing process
of public executions. Many onlookers waited with beatrie Chase body
(40:13):
as if to keep her company. Some accounts stated that
young girls left wreaths of flowers around her severed head.
When leave was finally given for the Chenchi to be
taken to their graves, be atrie Chase procession was by
far the largest. Romans from all corners of society gathered
(40:34):
again at pontisser Angelo and walked over a mile in
the heat, following her coffin through the streets of the city,
bringing Batre Chi chen Chi to her final resting place
at the Church of San Pietro in Montorio. They left
heaps of flowers, blit candles, and stood vigil for hours.
(40:57):
Although her grave was unmarked a consequence of her criminal status,
and would later be desecrated by French soldiers in seventeen,
beatreeche Chenchi left an indelible imprint on the people of
Rome and beyond. She has been the subject of endless plays, books,
movies and artwork, inspiring the likes of Percy Bysshelley, Alexander Dumat,
(41:21):
Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Stendel. But her most visible and perhaps
meaningful legacy is arguably still in the streets of Rome.
Among the many ways she has been memorialized throughout the city,
there's a small plaque that was placed in on Via Montserrato,
from where she has said to have begun her final
(41:44):
walk to pontissen Anglo. A translation reads from here where
stood the Savella Court prison. On the eleventh of September
fift beatreeche Chenchi moved toward the executioner's block. An exemplary
victim of an unjust justice. That's the story of Beatrice
(42:17):
Cenci's tragic life and end, but stick around after a
brief sponsor message to hear about one of the odd
places her legacy has endured. In the Palazzo Barberini, an
(42:38):
aristocratic estate turned art museum in the heart of Rome,
there are several rooms devoted to the famous painter Caravaggio
and his many followers. Caravaggio happened to have been among
the witnesses at the Cenchia execution. The sunlit space in
the museum is contrasted by paintings of darkened rooms, their
(43:00):
subjects seeming to be the only source of light in
the frame. Among these paintings, some of them grand and busy,
is a simple portrait of a young woman. She wears
a white chemise and a white head covering, both standing
out against and inscrutable blackened background. She faces away from
(43:22):
the viewer, but turns her head back with a soft,
innocent expression. For hundreds of years, this was believed to
be a portrait of Beatrice Cenci in her final days,
and it's easy to see why. It's a painting of
a beautiful girl looking a little sad, maybe resolute, and
draped in white drapery. She's a picture of innocence, but
(43:46):
she's also a blank canvas, someone we can paint a
story onto and make our own. Even though it has
been confirmed that this painting was not of Beatriccha, it
was more likely intended to represent a Ofpetus, it remains
the image most associated with her. It's at the top
of a Wikipedia page, on the cover of books about her,
(44:08):
and all over the Internet. It's the epitome of what
we've made be a treat A into not just in
public memory, but in an almost endless list of literary, dramatic,
and artistic renditions of her life, something that's compiling, dramatic,
and ultimately not really her at all. This painting, however,
(44:32):
is not the only one housed in the Barberini with
something to say about Beatrice and her story. One of
Caravaggio's best known works sits just stepped away from this
famed portrait, painted around the time of the trial and execution,
or possibly a few years later. Judith beheading Holofernes is
(44:55):
said to have been inspired by the plight of beatri
Cha Chenchi. It depicts the climactic moment in the Biblical
story of Judith, a beautiful and brave Jewish widow who
charmed away into the chamber of the Assyrian General Hall
of furnace before you know, beheading him and becoming a
hero to her people. The story of Judith was a
(45:18):
symbol of feminine revenge even in this period, so the
parallels with Beatrice are definitely there. But what I think
is most interesting is Caravaggio's depiction of Judith herself. Where
other Judiths have been depicted with a fierceness befitting a
woman bravely sneaking behind enemy lines, particularly one excellent painting
(45:41):
by the female artist Artemacy of Gentileschi, in Caravaggio's painting,
his Judith seems almost doubtful. Her beautiful, innocent face is
contorted in disgust at her violent act, and she leans
her body away from the dying hall of furnace, almost
separating herself from her crime. This is reluctant violence. Caravaggio
(46:05):
seems to be saying the violence of a woman who
remains innocent, and yet her hands never falter. She resolutely
wields her sword and destroys her enemy, bloody ing his bedsheets.
She saves her people. She did what she had to do.
(46:43):
Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and
Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted
by me Danish Wartz. Additional writing and researching done by
Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sunder and Laurie Goodman.
The show is produced by rema Il Kali, with supervising
producer Josh Thaine and executive producers Aaron Manky, Alex Williams,
(47:08):
and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
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