[Footnote 197:  He was afterwards forced, in 1590, to disgorge a second sum of 25,000 crowns.]

[Footnote 198:  Prospero Farinaccio, the advocate of Cenci’s murderers, was himself tried for this crime (Bertolotti, op. cit. p. 104).  The curious story of the Spanish soldiers alluded to above will be found in Mutinelli, Stor.  Arc. vol. i. p. 121.  See the same work of Mutinelli, vol. i. p. 48, for a similar prosecution in Rome 1566; and vol. iv. p. 152 for another involving some hundred people of condition at Milan in 1679.  Compare what Sarpi says about the Florentine merchants and Roman cinedi in his Letters, date 1609, vol. i. p. 288.  For the manners of the Neapolitans, Vita di D. Pietro di Toledo (Arch.  Stor.  It., vol. ix. p. 23).  The most scandalous example of such vice in high quarters was given by Pietro de’Medici, one of Duke Cosimo’s sons. Galluzzi, vol. v. p. 174, and Litta’s pedigree of the Medici.  The Bandi Lucchesi, ed.  S. Bonghi, Bologna, 1863, pp. 377 381, treats the subject in full; and it has been discussed by Canello, op. cit. pp. 20-23.  The Artes Jesuiticae, op. cit.  Articles 62, 120, illustrate casuistry on the topic.]

In addition to his vindictive persecution of his worthless eldest son, Francesco Cenci behaved with undue strictness to the younger, allowing them less money than befitted their station and treating them with a severity which contrasted comically with his own loose habits.  The legend which represents him as an exceptionally wicked man, cruel for cruelty’s sake and devoid of natural affection, receives some color from the facts.  Yet these alone are not sufficient to justify its darker hues, while they amply prove that Francesco’s children gave him grievous provocation.  The discontents of this ill-governed family matured into rebellion; and in 1598 it was decided on removing the old Cenci by murder.  His second wife Lucrezia, his eldest son Giacomo, his daughter Beatrice, and the youngest son Bernardo, were implicated in the crime.  It was successfully carried out at the Rocca di Petrella in the Abruzzi on the night of September 9.  Two hired bravi, Olimpio Calvetti and Marzio Catalani, entered the old man’s bedroom, drove a nail into his head, and flung the corpse out from a gallery, whence it was alleged that he had fallen by accident.  Six days after this assassination Giacomo and his brothers took out letters both at Rome and in the realm of Naples for the administration of their father’s property; nor does suspicion seem for some time to have fallen upon them.  It awoke at Petrella in November, the feudatory of which fief, Marzio Colonna, informed the government of Naples that proceedings ought to be taken against the Cenci and their cut-throats.  Accordingly, on December 10, a ban was published against Olimpio and Marzio.  Olimpio met his death at an inn door in a little village called Cantalice.  Three desperate fellows, at the instigation of Giacomo