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 wants to be a surgeon in the eighteen hundreds in Scotland.
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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 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 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 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 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 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 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
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 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. 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
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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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.
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, 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
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 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 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
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, 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. 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 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 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
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, 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 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 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 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 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
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 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 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 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 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, 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,
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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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.
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 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 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 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 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 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.
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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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
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 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 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. 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 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. 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 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
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. 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 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 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. 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 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 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
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 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, 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 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, 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 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
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, 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 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 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 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, 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
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 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 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, 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 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
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 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 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.
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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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. 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, 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.