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The body of Francesco Cenci was found at the foot of the castle. Soon rumors and gossip accused Beatrice and the other family members to be the murderers. Then they were arrested and officially prosecuted for murder after Giacomo, Beatrice’s brother and the 2 castle inhabitants confessed to the conspiracy and the crime.

At the end of the most followed court case of the time, Beatrice and Lucrezia were condemned to be decapitated, her brother Giacomo to be dismembered and the younger Bernardo to spend the rest of his life in the galley.

The execution of Beatrice was attended by thousands of people in the square of Saint Angel Castle; the scene was said to have been extremely chaotic: people asked for the grace of the defendants, soldiers everywhere tried to restrain the pushing crowds and many people fell and drowned in the river…It seems that even the artist Caravaggio was there and became very shocked by what he saw.

After Lucrezia and Giacomo, a proud and beautiful Beatrice got on the gallows and dropped to her knees, ready to receive her punishment. The executioner cut her head off, and showed it to the astonished crowd.

This tragic story became a legend during the centuries and made Beatrice a popular Romanticism figure: she became a heroine for many poets, writers and musicians, for example Shelley and Stendhal wrote about her.

Rent apartments in Rome and don’t miss the chance to see Beatrice’s ghost that, according to the legend, appears in the night in front of Saint Angel Castle, showing off her decapitated head.

Beatrice Cenci was a noble Roman woman and member of an important aristocratic family. In the end of 16th century her sad story aroused a huge clamour in the society of that time.

Beatrice had a very unlucky childhood: her mother died when she was just 7, so she was sent by her father, the Count Francesco Cenci, to a convent. After she was sent back to Rome, at the age of 15, she started seeing the real character of her father: Francesco was a violent man with all the family members, including his new wife Lucrezia, Beatrice herself and her younger brother Bernardo.

Francesco had previously been in trouble for different crimes and his economic situation was desperate: to not pay her daughter’s dowry he decided to forbid her marriage and segregated her and her stepmother in a castle located in Petrella, a small town not far from Rome. However the situation got worse for Beatrice when her father, bound by his debts, escaped from Rome and reached the rest of the family in the castle. From that moment the domestic violence became unbearable: Beatrice was beaten and sexually abused for years.

The chronicles of the time tell that Beatrice, exasperated by the tortures she had to suffer, organised her father’s homicide, together with her stepmother, and her brothers Bernardo and Giacomo. They tried, in vain, to kill Francesco first with poison and then hiring some bandits from the countryside to assault him. As the third is always the charm, they were successful: Francesco was first drugged with some opium and then beaten to death by family members with the help of 2 castle inhabitants. Hurry up and rent apartments in Rome to find out more about Beatrice Cenci and other stories of the Eternal City.