Their opponents, however, hold the time-honored tradition that Guido painted Beatrice in her cell upon the morning of her execution, or as she stood upon the scaffold—­for there are two versions of the story—­and that the gown and turban which she wears were made by her own hands on the night preceding the fatal day.  But no words of mine can give a fair idea of this celebrated painting:  I will transcribe Hawthorne’s description of it.

“The picture represented simply a female head; a very youthful, girlish, perfectly beautiful face, enveloped in white drapery, from beneath which strayed a lock or two of what seemed a rich though hidden luxuriance of auburn hair.  The eyes were large and brown, and met those of the spectator, but evidently with a strange, ineffectual effort to escape.  There was a little redness about the eyes, very slightly indicated, so that you would question whether or no the girl had been weeping.  The whole face was quiet; there was no distortion or disturbance of any single feature, nor was it easy to see why the expression was not cheerful, or why a single touch of the artist’s pencil should not brighten it into joyousness.  But in fact it was the very saddest picture ever painted or conceived; it involved an unfathomable depth of sorrow, the sense of which came to the observer by a sort of intuition.  It was a sorrow that removed this beautiful girl out of the sphere of humanity, and set her in a far-off region, the remoteness of which—­while yet her face is so close before us—­makes us shiver as at a spectre.”

Next to the Cenci a St. Francis hangs, his hands devoutly folded and his head bowed in pious meditation upon the sufferings of his Redeemer, whose figure bound upon the Cross lies before him.  The skull at his feet and the dreary landscape surrounding him indicate his hermit-life of isolation and penance.  The Saint is dressed in the coarse brown habit of a mendicant friar, and his face is luminous with that gentleness that distinguished his character after his conversion; for it is recorded of him that he would step aside rather than harm the smallest insect.

Above St. Francis is one of the most precious gems, historically and intrinsically considered, of the collection.  The picture is small—­only cabinet size; but it is none the less valuable on that account, when we reflect that it dates from the sixteenth or early in the seventeenth century.  It is a portrait of Galileo painted from life by Andrea Bartone, and was bought at a sale of the Santi Gallery.  Only the head and bust are represented—­the latter clothed in a dark-brown open vest, with a scarlet mantle thrown over the shoulders; but the face is one that would not easily be forgotten—­a rugged, powerful face, with great, earnest eyes, scant hair well sprinkled with gray, and deep furrows lining the dark brow.

Over the doorway, opening into the room that was formerly Aunt Mary’s, is an antique marble medallion of Juno, the haughty Mother of the gods; this was dug up near Tusculum.