<img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-7256" title="Cenci" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Cenci-228x300.jpg" alt="" width="228" height="300" />Most of my books hinge upon some aspect of history, sometimes recent, sometimes ancient. <a href="http://davidhewson.com/the-nic-costa-series/the-fallen-angel/"><em>The Fallen Angel</em></a>, which is published this week by Macmillan in the UK, is no different. The inspiration behind it is a very curious episode from Rome's past, one little known outside Italy, more's the shame.

So let me tell you a little about the curious and bloody case of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Cenci" target="_blank">Beatrice Cenci</a>, a young noblewoman who was executed in 1599 on a scaffold by the bridge to the Castel Sant'Angelo, a place now crammed with traffic and tourists enjoying the sights of the city.

Beatrice was the daughter of Francesco Cenci, an aristocrat from a long line of nobility, one that traced its ancestry, probably rather creatively, all the way back to imperial times. The Cenci owned a considerable chunk of valuable land and property in Rome in the area that is now the ghetto. Their name lives on in the rather bleak and sprawling palace which Beatrice and her unfortunate siblings regarded as home, now a block of offices and apartments. The nearby riverside road, the Lungotevere, bears the name Cenci too, and a narrow street off it is named after Beatrice herself.

<!--more-->Francesco Cenci was by all accounts a monster. Unpleasant, violent, prone to constant arguments, often in trouble with the law. In 1598 he was found dead outside his castle in the remote Abruzzi mountains. It appeared that Cenci had fallen from the window of his bedroom. But suspicious locals pointed the finger at his family, who were duly arrested and taken to Rome for interrogation.

A story emerged that Francesco was abusive to both his wife, Beatrice's stepmother and his two sons. Worse, he had formed an incestuous relationship with the beautiful Beatrice. The family had become so frightened of his violent and tyrannical behaviour they eventually decided to put an end to the man, and try to make his death appear an accident. All of them were tortured, usually with the 'strappado', a method which involved tying the victim's hands behind the back then hoisting them to a ceiling and jerking them until they talked. This frequently dislocated the suspect's shoulders, which supposedly happened with Beatrice though still she refused to talk.

Her brother Giacomo eventually coughed under torture, and admitted they'd murdered Francesco. Ordinary Romans who killed people could expect swift and bloody judgement. Aristocrats, however, frequently escaped with exile or a ticking off. The Cenci got neither, and quite why remains open to debate. Some say the pope of the time, Clement VIII, was worried about violence in the upper classes. Others believe Clement wanted the Cenci's extensive property estate for himself. Whatever the reason he decreed that Beatrice, her stepmother and Giacomo must die, and only the twelve-year-old brother, who could scarcely have been involved, was to survive, stripped of rank and riches.

Rome was outraged. To the average citizen Beatrice became a beacon of innocence in a world that was venal and corrupt, a young woman who'd defended her own honour in the only way she knew.

On the day of her execution, September 11, 1599, thousands turned out to line the streets demanding she be saved. To no avail. The unfortunate Giacomo was paraded through the city while torturers tore his flesh with red-hot pincers. He was then bludgeoned to death and quartered on the scaffold. Next the stepmother Lucrezia was beheaded, followed by Beatrice. The youngest brother, Bernardino, was forced to watch this spectacle. All this happened a few yards to the right of the point on the Tiber bank where this picture was taken.
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Crowds followed Beatrice's coffin to the beautiful church of Montorio where she was interred in an unmarked grave. So great was her fame that Napoleon's soldiers chose to desecrate what they thought was her body, playing football with the severed skull. Now nothing marks her resting place, though even today, on September 11, some people will lay flowers for her, and there's a memorial service in the Cenci's private church in the ghetto.

This extraordinary story caught the imagination of many. In the Barberini you will find the portrait at the top of this post, one that bears her name and is attributed to the great Guido Reni. Shelley saw this in 1818, fell a little in love with Beatrice I suspect and wrote a verse drama about her. Stendhal, Alberto Moravia and Alexandre Dumas among others followed suit.

But... where does the truth end and legend begin?

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<a href="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Cenci.jpeg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-7256" title="Cenci" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Cenci-228x300.jpg" alt="" width="228" height="300" /></a>That painting by Reni, for example. It is such a beautiful and haunting image I find it hard to imagine the Cenci story could have proved so enduring without it. The story has it Reni saw Beatrice the night before she was beheaded and painted from his memory of that meeting. The trouble is... several sources indicate Reni wasn't in Rome at the time. Some experts question whether the canvas is a Reni at all, and  if it is whether it it's actually a depiction of a classical sibyl, not a convicted and executed murderer.

In an adjoining room you can see another canvas from this time, Caravaggio's savage <em><a class="zem_slink" title="Judith Beheading Holofernes" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Beheading_Holofernes">Judith Beheading Holofernes</a>. </em>It's no great stretch of the imagination to think that Caravaggio was in the crowd that day, witnessing her execution. Most of Rome was there, and he was a man who was always drawn to violence. Look at his version though... the distanced determination in Judith's eyes, the way she stares calmly at the man she's slaughtering. Close up  this is darkly erotic in the physical detail of Judith too. In the biblical story she seduced the tyrant Holofernes, offering up herself to gain the chance to kill him. This Judith knows exactly what she's doing and why.
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Was Beatrice, like the Judith here, less innocent than she appeared? Possibly. Though the 'portrait' seems to show her as a virginal teenager she was actually twenty two when she died. Public records suggest she had a lover in the Cenci household, a man who helped in Francesco's murder. According to <a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n13/charles-nicholl/screaming-in-the-castle-the-case-of-beatrice-cenci" target="_blank">a fascinating article by Charles Nicholl in the </a><em><a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n13/charles-nicholl/screaming-in-the-castle-the-case-of-beatrice-cenci" target="_blank">London Review of Books</a> </em>there's also a hint that she had an illegitimate child by the same man.

Not that any of this lessens the crime of incest. But did that happen? Nicholl's 1998 article reveals that the records of her last interrogation have Beatrice saying her stepmother urged her to kill him with the words, 'He will abuse you and rob you of your honour'. He <em>will</em>. Not he <em>has. </em>There's clear evidence Francesco was a beast, and cruel to those around him. But nothing much to confirm incest. So perhaps the legend of Beatrice -- the angelic young innocent defending her virtue -- is just a myth.

An enduring one though. Once you've seen that portrait in the Barberini it's hard not to notice her presence in Rome. In <em>The Fallen Angel</em> another young woman becomes obsessed with her story, and takes Nic Costa on a guided tour of the last few days of her life, from where she was imprisoned to the place of her execution, and then to the beautiful church of Montorio on the Gianicolo hill. Those places are all real.

<a href="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/cloak.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-7278" title="cloak" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/cloak-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="152" height="203" /></a>And here is the grimmest, most shocking memento of all, a sight down a back street not far from the place of Beatrice's execution: the black museum of Rome. The <a href="http://www.museocriminologico.it/storia_3_uk.htm" target="_blank">Museo Criminologico</a> is run by the Justice Ministry and frankly scares the life out of me. This is a chilling collection of the instruments of 'justice' used by the Vatican and Italian state over the centuries. It's the stuff of nightmares. You can see the red cloak of the infamous Roman executioner <a href="http://www.museocriminologico.it/boia_uk.htm" target="_blank">Mastro Titto</a> who took no fewer than 516 lives in his long career.

You can see the sack cloth hooded robes of the friars who were charged with 'comforting' the condemned before they died, accompanying them to the scaffold, chanting prayers and waving crucifixes in their faces, as happened with Beatrice and her family.

<a href="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/cloak2.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-7283" title="cloak2" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/cloak2-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="200" /></a>These cheery chaps were part of the 'Brotherhood of the Decapitated John the Baptist' who still do charity work, of a more mundane nature, today. They have a church of their own in Rome, one that is usually closed to visitors and possesses a number of historic items from the past, some memorabilia of Beatrice among them.

Have I put you off the black museum? I hope not. It is one of the most extraordinary sights in Rome, inexpensive and open to the public. Definitely worth a look so long as you don't scare easily.

Oh, and you can also see this. The sword which historians firmly believe was used to behead the unfortunate woman on distant bright September day four hundred odd years ago.
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People say I write about crime. Maybe, but I like to think I write more about justice. What constitutes it, how we find it, how loosely, on occasion, we define it. <em>The Fallen Angel</em> is a story that grows out of the Cenci legend and tackles those questions. How, in the twenty-first century, would we react to a crime such as Beatrice's? Are we really more civilised? Or just blind in different ways?