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CONTENTS. - N° 210.

NOTES:-The True Story of the Cenci Family, 1-New Year's

Gifts, 3-Abyssinian and Irish Legends, 4-Naval Artillery in Ancient Times: Fire-Arms A. c. 1100-Lowland Aberdeen, 5-"Mucked to death"-Charlotte Bronte: Elizabeth Barrett Browning-New Works on Words Wanted-" Cleanliness is next to Godliness"- Obsolete Words in the English Bible, 6.

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been founded on one common original, with variations and glosses by other hands. But they are valuable as traditionary accounts of the family, &c., and certainly some of the touches in them could only have been given by an eye-witness, who might be ignorant of the events that preceded the trial, though he had seen the execution, and was familiar with the features and personal appearance of many of the actors in the sad drama.

The subject falls naturally under five heads: the family of Count Cenci; the murder; the trial; the execution; the survivors.

THE FAMILY OF CENCI.

Clarendon-Curious Custom, 16-Rev. W. Garnett-Portrait of Beatrice Cenci-A Pseudo-Christ-Christmas Service for

Notes on Books, &c.

Notes.

THE TRUE STORY OF THE CENCI FAMILY.

The note which appeared in these columns a few weeks ago on this subject was necessarily brief, as its only purport was to call attention to the latest Italian publications on the history of the Cenci. Since then it has occurred to me that some notes on the Cenci family, their trial and execution, may be interesting to those who are not likely to see the books referred to, as the accounts till now accessible to English readers are most grossly incorrect. It appears that a MS. extant in the Minerva Library at Rome is the foundation of a notice in the Quarterly Review, in an article "Italian Tours," published in April, 1858. The story, as related there, is a tissue of misstatements, the guilt of Beatrice being the solitary fragment of truth to be found in it. But worse still, in Hare's Walks in Rome-a book in the hands of every traveller in Italy-the account of the tragedy is taken from Ademollo, who assumes the innocence of Beatrice. To tell the story correctly, according to lately discovered documentary evidence, shall be the aim of this paper; and some of the MSS., though not trustworthy in facts, will help in details. These different MS. versions of the story seem to have

D'Albono's volume on the Cenci is not out of print,

and is published by Nobile, Naples.

eyelid drooping a little, a large prominent nose, thin lips, and a charming smile."

Though stained with nameless crimes, and knowing no bounds to his passions, he cannot have been the bold infidel ordinary accounts have made him. In his will, dated Nov. 22, 1586, after directing that his body shall be laid in the little church of S. Tommaso, which he had rebuilt, leaves several bequests to hospitals and for the he provides an endowment for a chaplain, and dower of poor girls. He was notoriously grasping

his step-daughters speak of his notoria tenacità --and of a most restless disposition. Bernardo, his son, describes his father as continually changing house, as he took a fresh fancy into his head.

He married at fourteen Ersilia Santa Croce, of the great Roman family of that name. She died in April, 1584, leaving him seven surviving children; and though the first years of their married life, owing perhaps to a lawsuit about her dowry, do not seem to have been happy, as his first will, in 1567, attests, yet there is not the slightest evidence that he poisoned her, according to the common story, to marry Lucrezia Petroni. On the contrary, he remained a widower nine years, not remarrying till Nov. 9, 1593.

Between 1567 and 1573 he was, from time to time, under surveillance in his own house, or in prison for assaults; and Sept. 14, 1572, was banished from Rome for six months. From 1591 to 1594 he was, at times, again in prison, and on trial, for blacker deeds. His evidence is given in full by Cavaliere Bertolotti. From it we learn the reason of his former imprisonments; his age; date of marriage; that during the sedia vacante all men used to go about armed; that he suffered

from rogna, known in Italy as well as Scotland; that he lived at the Ripetta, and then at the Dogana, in Casa Patrizi; that he dealt ready blows on the slightest provocation, &c.; with much other unmentionable matter. At first he denied his crimes; but later he sent a memorial to the Pope practically admitting his guilt, and requesting to treat with his Holiness through friends and relations. Accordingly, on June 12, 1594, a penalty of 150,000 sc. was inflicted, which was afterwards reduced to 100,000, of which half was paid in August and the rest in instalments the same year. To effect this he had to contract large loans, some of which were not repaid at his death, but which seem to have been satisfied out of the property then confiscated. After 1594 no further proceedings against him have been found. His possessions comprised some places interesting to the traveller in Italy: Torre Nuova, with its pines and vast farm buildings, so well known to the hunting man at Rome; the Castle of Nemi, now the property of the Orsini, which still guards its lake, lying like a mirror below, over which still earlier a temple of Diana kept watch, whose priest none could be, according to old legend, unless he had killed his predecessor; the Castle of Falcognano, and the farms of Testa di Lepre and Castel Campanile, in the Roman Campagna. Besides these he held the Castle of Assergio and other estates in the Abruzzi, and the two Palazzi Cenci in Rome-one at the Ghetto, the other in the Piazza San Eustachio.

Of Lucrezia, his second wife, there is little to be said. She was the widow of a Velli, with three daughters. MSS. describe her as about forty-four, short, with dark eyes, a fresh pink and white complexion, very stout, with auburn hair, but

little of it.

Giacomo, the eldest son, and accomplice with Beatrice and Lucretia in the murder, was already out of favour with his father in 1586. Count Cenci, in his will made at that date, precluded him from any share in the estate beyond his leggitima, except 100 scudi, “and this for just and reasonable cause."

He had married Lodovica Velli without his father's consent, but documents show still worse was behind. A paper exists, signed by him, in which he promises to repay money unduly appropriated; among other items, a month's pay for his sisters in the convent of Monte Citorio, which he had kept back, and thirty scudi to replace tapestries which he had stolen from the guardarobba to which only his father and he had access. In 1594 Count Cenci threw him into prison for a supposed scheme of parricide, which however was trumped up by a servant whom he had chastised. His disposition, however, remained unchanged, and in his last moments he confessed to another fraud on his father-a bill forged for 13,000 sc.

"Elle avait surtout une gaîté, une candeur, et un

esprit comique, que je n'ai jamais vu qu'à elle.” The traditions of her beauty are incidentally confirmed by an answer of one of the assassins on his trial. Asked whether he knew Beatrice, he said "Yes"; asked under what circumstances, he replied, "Havendo grande desiderio di guardare la sua bellezza.” Beatrice kept house for her family, and accounts still exist showing the sums paid to her monthly, which were large. Her love story with Monsignor Guerra will be proved to be a fiction; but though she had a dowry of 20,000 sc. she remained unmarried. Her father kept her in "Come cara kind of imprisonment at Petrella. cerata e sotto chiave," she says in her deposition; but her young brothers Bernardo and Paolo were treated much in the same way. Bernardo, when asked on trial why they had left Petrella about six weeks before the murder, says, "My father kept us shut up in the Rocca, and would not let us go out." For this severe treatment of Beatrice we shall perhaps later find a reason.

His

Bernardo, the last of those implicated in the tragedy, though apparently innocent, was the youngest but one of the sons, and was born August 16, 1580. In figure, face, and hair he bore a marked resemblance to his sister. advocate Farinacci made him out to be only sixteen, and imbecile, but there appears no more foundation for the latter statement than for the former.

The other children were Antonina, the elder daughter, Rocco, Cristoforo, and Paolo, the youngest son, all of whom but Antonina died before the trial.

Antonina is commonly said to have presented a memorial to the Pope detailing her father's cruelties, which the Pope answered by marrying her to Carlo Gabrielli, of Gubbio. Still more, I find in one MS., which has the correct date of the marriage and the real name of the husband, Luzio Savelli, Baron of Riquano, the specific statement that the Pope committed the matter to Car

dinal Rusticucci, Vicar of Rome. The cardinal then sent for Count Cenci, obliged him to sign the marriage contract, while in the mean time Antonina was fetched, and married then and there in the cardinal's chapel. Unfortunately for the truth of this story, a steward's account is extant, in which the count is charged for carriages for an excursion to Riquano two months before the marriage, and forty baiocchi are put down for the dolls Antonina gave to the child of Luzio Savelli. Certainly it sometimes happens that "trifles light as air are confirmation strong." Who would have thought that the entry of the hire of carriages on an excursion, and the gift of two dolls to a child, would, after 270 years, clear the dark memory of Count| Cenci from a false accusation? Yet these trifling entries prove that the engagement was entered into with the father's consent, and that Antonina was on a visit to her future husband's family two months before her marriage. She appears to have died shortly before the execution of her family in

1599.

Rocco and Cristoforo were two mauvais sujets. The latter was killed in a brawl about a

woman, in 1598, on the little island of S. Bartolomeo. His murderer was banished; but before the sentence was carried out Giacomo and Bernardo forgave him their brother's death. Accordingly, in the same year, his mother petitioned the Pope to allow her son to return to Rome, next year being the Jubilee. This document, found by Bertolotti, gives a strange insight into the life of the period. She begs for her son's return, as she is old and infirm; besides, "he is ready to marry a tall and handsome girl (zitella vistosa e grande), whose father is bankrupt, and mother in bad health, and whose virtue will otherwise be in danger, as she is twenty years old."

Rocco was killed in 1595 by an Orsini; but in 1594 he had been implicated with Monsignor Guerra, a first cousin of his father, in a robbery of silk hangings, linen, tapestry, and a silver basin from Count Cenci's house. The depositions given by the Fiscale are published by Bertolotti. Certainly the Cenci family washed their dirty linen in public. Paolo, Antonina, and Beatrice Cenci gave evidence. The words of Beatrice are interesting, and not very lover-like :—

"I think that M. Guerra helped Rocco to take and carry away the articles in question, because Rocco alone could not carry them away; still more, I say that I think the aforesaid M. Guerra was the contriver of the whole affair, and I say so believing it to be the truth." The unfortunate Count Cenci has even been charged with the death of Rocco; but from the notes of the inquiry, published by Bertolotti, it is quite evident the murder was the result of an old quarrel.

The last of the family was Paolo, a weakly boy, who died about ten weeks after the murder, and

was apparently not implicated in it. All the sons had been in debt, whether owing to their scanty allowance or to their own extravagance it is impossible to determine. Rocco sends a petition from Padua, which town MSS. have changed into Salamanca, alleging that he is utterly destitutea statement which seems confirmed by other evidence; and we find that in 1595 the Pope, taking the matter into his own hands, really ordered some rents belonging to the father to be applied to the maintenance of the sons. The dissensions and misery of the family life are sketched by Bernardo, who says in his deposition, "My father and my brothers Giacomo and Cristoforo never spoke." Add to this the tyranny exercised by Count Cenci over the younger sons and Beatrice, and the forgery already committed by Giacomo, which perhaps threatened detection, and we see that things were ripening for the parricide. К. Н. В.

(To be continued.)

NEW YEAR'S GIFTS.

This is a subject which has been well nigh exhausted, but towards the illustration of which there is always some trifle presenting itself to be added to the already huge collection. From the time when branches of vervain, with fruit, honey, and good wishes, were acceptable gifts among the classical people of old, to the period when the custom became an imposition-a tax which the people paid to superiors, there was no very great interval. Some circumstances connected with the custom are noteworthy. It is difficult, for instance, to discover how the yearly flinging of little pieces of money into Curtius's lake could be a testimony on the part of the citizens of their good wishes for the long life and prosperity of Augustus. Of the new year's gifts contributed to this emperor by the chief citizens, it cannot be said that he made unpraiseworthy use. It is asserted that of money Augustus never put into his own purse, for his private use, more than a penny of the sum presented by each donor. With the rest he substituted gods of gold for those of wood, and set up divine figures in villages which had been lacking such protection and symbols. Perhaps the most welcome tribute Augustus ever received was the heap of gold which was placed at his feet by universal Rome for the rebuilding of his Palatine House, which fire had destroyed. Augustus knew how to accept with dignity.

On the other hand, Caligula had no such knowledge. He was at once a mean and truculent beggar. On the birth of his daughter he declared that he should be ruined by family expenses; and that as to maintaining the grace and glory of the imperial condition, it was out of the question, unless pecuniary aid was afforded. The imperial hint was so very broad, that the weight and value