One morning, misfortunes often happen when you least expect them and always happen to me in the morning, the world wakes up and discovers that Rome is a city of ghosts. Ok, the noisy, generous and happy Roman still exists but....
The problem is those ghosts, they haunt houses, streets, arcades, and many other places ... fiery carts in the skies, strange nocturnal noises, unexplained light phenomena and much more.
Ready to tour the ghosts ... or are your legs trembling ?
The most famous ghost in Rome . On 10th of September
Beatrice Cenci, Count Francesco Cenci and Ersilia Santacroce's daughter
After her mother's death at the young age of 7, she was forced to retire at the convent of the Franciscan nuns of Santa Croce in Montecitorio, together with her older sister Antonina.
She remained there until the age of fifteen when she came back at home but she found an unfriendly environment due to a heavy family crisis.
The father, violent and angry, did not spare even suffering from the young Beatrice.
Even among the domestic walls Francesco Cenci behaved like a brute. He mistreated his wife and children, and had gone so far as to have incestuous relations with Beatrice.
He had been in prison for other crimes committed, but thanks to the benevolence fo the nobles, he was released very soon. Every one in Rome knew about the misdeeds of the Count, Beatrice had tried to inform the authorities of these abuses but no one intervened.
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| Cenci's Palace - Piazza del Gesù |
Francesco learned of his daughter's complaint and he sent her and her sister Lucrezia into exile
The Cenci's brothers (Beatrice, Lucrezia, Giacomo and Bernardo) organized a plan to kill their father.
In 1598 while Francesco stays at the castle, the watchman and the blacksmith (the first of the two seems to be Beatrice's secret lover) helped them to drug the man, pierce his skull and then the throat with a long nail and finally to throw the body from a balcony, to simulate an accidental fall.
During the investigation the papal guards found the body. The exam revealed it was not the wounds compatible with the fall.
A servant also said that Beatrice had ordered her to wash the blood-stained sheets, justifying it with her own menstruation, she became suspicious and reported the fact to the investigators.
The guardian, threatened with torture, confessed the crime; he succeeded in escaping, but a friend of the Cenci's family ordered the killing, to avoid other risks.
The farrier was almost tortured to death; initially he confessed, then retreated but died shortly thereafter.
Even Beatrice's confession was obtained under torture.
The four members of the Cenci family were then found guilty and sentenced to death.
The Roman people rose up against the decision of the court, obtaining a short extension of the execution. But Pope Clement VIII did not show mercy and on 11 September 1599, at dawn, family members were taken to Ponte Sant'Angelo, where the gallows for public executions were raised.
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| Ponte Sant Angelo |
On the Sant'Angelo's Bridge Giacomo was tortured with red-hot tongs
Lucrezia (she was already fainted) was beheaded with a sword. Beatrice ended up on the hangman's block immediately after.
Finally Giacomo was hit in the head with a mallet, which probably killed him; but then with the same instrument he was quartered and his torn limbs were hung from the four corners of the scaffold, where they remained on display for the entire day.
Only the young Bernardo was spared, but he was taken to the place of torture to witness the fate of his relatives, before being taken back to prison and subject to the confiscation of his property (which were then bought at a ridiculously low price by a nephew of the same Pope!).
Beatrice was buried in the church of San Pietro in Montorio, although in an anonymous tomb (as executed).
The people of Rome elected her as a symbol of resistance against the arrogance of the aristocracy.
Even today, in the night on the eve of her execution, her ghost comes back to life with his own severed head in his hand.
In 1798 Napoleon conquered Rome, some French soldiers entered into San Pietro in Montorio, destroying the tombstones to plunder the sarcophagi of lead, including the Beatrice's one, whose remains were dispersed and never recovered, and - reportedly by a witness - l a soldier played ball with her skull.
Her sad story inspired paintings (G.Reni), tragedies (P.B.Shelley) and novels (A.Dumas, Stendhal).
