to Rome, having expiated his guilt by long and painful exile.  In this abstract of the Cenci tragedy, I have followed the documents published by Signor Bertolotti.  They are at many points in startling contradiction to the legend, which is founded on MS. accounts compiled at no distant period after the events.  One of these was translated by Shelley; another, differing in some particulars, was translated by De Stendhal.  Both agree in painting that lurid portrait of Francesco Cenci which Shelley has animated with the force of a great dramatist.[201] Unluckily, no copy of the legal instructions upon which the trial was conducted is now extant.  In the absence of this all-important source of information, it would be unsafe to adopt Bertolotti’s argument, that the legend calumniates Francesco in order to exculpate Beatrice, without some reservation.  There is room for the belief that facts adduced in evidence may have partly justified the prevalent opinion of Beatrice’s infamous persecution by her father.

[Footnote 199:  De Stendhal’s MS. authority says she was sixteen, Shelley’s that she was twenty.]

[Footnote 200:  De Stendhal’s MS. describes how Giacomo was torn by pincers; Shelley’s says that this part of the sentence was remitted.]

The Massimi.

The tragedy of the Cenci, about which so much has been written in consequence of the supposed part taken in it by Beatrice, seems to me common-place compared with that of the Massimi.[202]

[Footnote 201:  The author of De Stendhal’s MS. professes to have known the old Cenci, and gives a definite description of his personal appearance.]

[Footnote 202:  Litta supplies the facts related above.]

Whether this family really descended from the Roman Fabii matters but little.  In the sixteenth century they ranked, as they still rank, among the proudest nobles of the Eternal City.  Lelio, the head of the house, had six stalwart sons by his first wife, Girolama Savelli.  They were conspicuous for their gigantic stature and herculean strength.  After their mother’s death in 1571, their father became enamoured of a woman inferior at all points, in birth, breeding, and antecedents, to a person of his quality.  She was a certain Eufrosina, who had been married to a man called Corberio.  The great Marc Antonio Colonna murdered this husband, and brought the wife to Rome as his own mistress.  Lelio Massimo committed the grand error of so loving her, after she had served Colonna’s purpose, that he married her.  This was an insult to the honor of the house, which his sons could not or would not bear.  On the night of her wedding, in 1585, they refused to pay her their respects; and on the next morning, five of them entered her apartments and shot her dead.  Only one of the six sons, Pompeo Massimo, bore no share in this assassination.  Him, the father, Lelio, blessed; but he solemnly cursed the other five.  After the lapse of a few weeks, he followed his wife to