xteenth century, each of which is well
calculated to illustrate the conditions of society and manners at that
epoch. It may be well to begin with the Cenci tragedy. In Shelley's
powerful drama, in Guerrazzi's tedious novel, and Scolari's digest, the
legend of Beatrice Cenci has long appealed to modern sympathy. The real
facts, extracted from legal documents and public registers, reduce its
poetry of horror to comparatively squalid prose.[196] Yet, shorn of
romantic glamour, the bare history speaks significantly to a student of
Italian customs. Monsignore Cristoforo Cenci, who died about the year
1562, was in holy orders, yet not a priest. One of the clerks of the
Apostolic Camera, a Canon of S. Peter's, the titular incumbent of a
Roman parish, and an occupant of minor offices about the Papal Court and
Curia, he represented an epicene species, neither churchman nor layman,
which the circumstances of ecclesiastical sovereignty rendered
indispensable. Cristoforo belonged to a good family among that secondary
Roman aristocracy which ranked beneath the princely feudatories and the
Papal bastards. He accumulated large sums of money by maladministration
of his official trusts, inherited the estates of two uncles, and
bequeathed a colossal fortune to his son Francesco. This youth was the
offspring of an illicit connection carried on between Monsignore Cenci
and Beatrice Amias during the lifetime of that lady's husband. Upon the
death of the husband the Monsignore obtained dispensation from his
orders, married Beatrice, and legitimated his son, the inheritor of so
much wealth. Francesco was born in 1549, and had therefore reached the
age of thirteen when his father died. His mother, Beatrice, soon
contracted a third matrimonial union; but during her guardianship of the
boy she appeared before the courts, accused of having stolen clothing
from his tutor's wardrobe.

[Footnote 196: _Francesco Cenci e la sua Famiglia_. Per A. Bertolotti,
Firenze, 1877.]

Francesco Cenci disbursed a sum of 33,000 crowns to various public
offices, in order to be allowed to enter unmolested into the enjoyment
of his father's gains: 3,800 crowns of this sum went to the Chapter of
S. Peter's.[197] He showed a certain precocity; for at the age of
fourteen he owned an illegitimate child, and was accused of violence to
domestics. In 1563 his family married him to Ersilia, a daughter of the
noble Santa Croce house, who brought him a fair dowry. Francesco l