Beatrice Cenci was an Italian noblewoman imprisoned and repeatedly raped by her own father. She killed him, and was tried for murder. Despite outpourings of public sympathy, Cenci was beheaded in 1599
A possible portrait of Cenci variously attributed to Reni or Sirani, supposedly from life, praised by Stendhal, Dickens, and Hawthorne and inspiring Shelley's verse play of her life.
H. G. Hosmer: Beatrice Cenci
From an Italian series of prints, 1870
Beatrice Cenci after the rack by Sarah A. Doidge about 1890. National Library of Wales.
The Cenci. A Tragedy, in Five Acts is a verse drama in five acts by Percy Bysshe Shelley written in the summer of 1819, and inspired by a real Roman family, the House of Cenci. Shelley composed the pl
Beatrice Cenci
…Combat (c.1619) contains specific echoes of the case and antedates the Romantic revival of Beatrice by 200 years Percy Bysshe Shelley's verse drama The Cenci: A Tragedy in Five Acts (composed at Rome and at Villa Valsovano near Livorno, May–5 August 1819, published spring 1820 by C. & J. Ollier, London, 1819) "Les Cenci", a short…
A possible portrait of Beatrice Cenci variously attributed to Guido Reni or Elisabetta Sirani, supposedly from life, praised by Stendhal, Dickens, and Hawthorne and inspiring Shelley's play.
Percy Bysshe Shelley by Alfred Clint