Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-08-08
BETWEEN OURSELVES.

| Townsend's fling at Mrs. Surratt fades into
| insignifcance beside the Obstructive complete
ness of Signor A. Bertolotti in similar direo-
| tion. This ruthless Italian takes no less a
person than Beatrice Cenoi and strips her of
all respect sympathy, and sentiment, placing
her before us by q series of irIefutable records
| from papal archives, and notaries' documents,
| as vile wanton who justly suffered the penal
| ty of her many crimes. For more than two
bund red years the world has accepted the,be-
| lief in her loneliness, her unutterable wrong,
and her grevious death. The fascinating por-
trait attributed to Guido REM with its exquis-
| ite head white-turbaned, and the face APP
p. alingly pathetic, is more familiar to-day than
| ever before by reason of the all.pervading
chrome, whore printed yellowness in this in
| stance is ore of the staring nuisances OF the
time in shops and ''genteew parlors. Yet this
81 mister signor cancels the authenticity of this
amous picture just as cOpelusively as he
wi pes ont the romance which has given it its
| perennial charm. He shows that Beatrice
Cenci could not have been painted by Guido
REM, as be did not paintsin Rome until several
years after her death, and the tireless Berto-
lotti proves period of seven years between the
|
| his work in Rome. he also adds that there were
two descriptive inventories taken of the pic
lures il the Bal berini palace, one in the year
1904, and the other in 1925 and there is no note
of this remarkable portrait in either. If such
a picture had been in the Barberini collection
| in 1904, only five years after the death of Bea-
trice, and while all the honor OF it was yet ripe
in the public memory, 1t is hardly
possible that it could have escaped
appropriate comment in the first cata-
logue. just as Croker proved that Miss Bur
ney was twenty-six instead of sixteen years ODD
W hen she wrote Eyelina, does S,gnor Ber-
toiotti give us the exact age of Beatrice Cenei.
Instead of being sweet creature of sixteen
summers. as historians, biographers and poets
describe her, be shows us that she was more
! than twenty-two years old, and thoroughly
| so phisticated woman. The horrible charge
against the father, francesca Cenci, is shown
to be a lawyers plea, unsupported by any evil
| dence hat soever. although it is conceded that
she was treated with severity by him, even to
keeping her under lock and key for long
time because of conduct which was held to be
! an insufferabie blot upon the honor of noble
family" The evidence of her unchastity as
arrayed by the msrciless]y keen Bertolot,i de.
molishes the sympathetic Interest of
two centuries, and kes a sorry
figure Of the heret ofore lovely Beatrice.
So accurate ia this writer's information on
every point of his su biect that he actually
| quotes the daily accoa nts Of the expenses in
furnishing the. table of the prisoners while
they were in the dungeons of Castle st. Angelo
| for the murder Of francesca Cenci, there by
refuting the stories of privation and cruelties.
His extraordinary skill in placing all his proofs
of every as, ertion before his readers has some
thing OF the method of geological strata. No
hints, NO surmises, no ingenious tricks upon
credulity, bat irrefutable proof from first to
last, for the veriest TRIES, as well as for the
gravest charges. The notari al records running
back into the sixteenth and seventeenth CEN
turies have been bonanza to Slgnor Berto-
lotti in the preparation of his life of
the Cenci family. The testimony against the
father of BEATRICE Is in some passages too re-
voting for print. He was married twice, and
in his first marriage had twelve children,
and Beatrice was the youngest. His depravity
and iawlessness were notorious, but says the
veracions chronicler. "he was rich and had no
difficulty in marrying one of the noblest ladies
| in Rome"
History repeats itself and this century is not
materially different from that in the conduct
of its 'noblest ladies'" The daughter of Lor-
Hard Spencer, Of New York, married Prince
Vlcovaro Cenc,, a lineal descendant of family
known only to the world through the most
| b1,~ I 10
crime. In all the craze for titles and patrician
alliances, it might be considered little strange
that any one should covet a title whose sole
claim to memory is the malodorous fame of
po,r Beatrice. But as sort of purgative,
perhsps, we read that the Princess Vicoyaro
Genet has been appointed Lady of Honor to
Queen Marguerite, and she is the first Ameri-
can, it is said, who has enjoyed this distinction
at the Italian court. In her leisure moments
this mbitious Lady of Honor can study the
Cenci pedigree as it is given by Signor Berto-
| lotri. It will be salutary meditation on the
glory Of suoh an alliance. Francesca Cenci
lived his turbulent and dissolute life to the
day of his death. His Oldest son, Giacomo, end
ed his career on the scaffold., The second,
Christofurd, was murdered by a rival in the af-
fections of q courtesan. Rocco, another son,
was killed in duel. Antonio, the only sister
of Beatrice, died young. The wife led mis-
cradle life and died when Beatrice was years
| old.
Fhe second wife of francesca was executed
as an acconplice in his murder. In such an
atmosphere Of guilt Beatrice grew according to
the criminal bent The expert post mortem
gossip asks why, at the age of 20, the daughter
of noble Roman family, having wealth and
beauty, is without husband. The reason
given, and with confirmation, too, is her bad
character and her intrigue with Guerra a man
| 10 years old, who was tried for
theft committed jointly with Rocco
Cenci, the brother of Beatrice. Her devotion
| to her lover Guerra has been glowingly de-
scribed, but on this trial for theft she was a
voluntary and damaging witness against him.
She had other lovers, and the harsh measures
Of the father were due to the disc very, when
| it was too late to do aught bat punish.
| From the precise date of her birth, TO the
plea of Prospero Ferinaccio the celebrated
lawyer, in the trial for her life when be essays
to defend the parricide OF the ground of the
monstrous persecution to which she was SUBJ
! iected, the author of this remarkable book has
| / -, r;,I, 4