Noble Blood - The Execution of the Roman Virgin

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

In 1599, Beatrice Cenci, the daughter of a wealthy Roman nobleman, was convicted of her father's murder. She almost certainly did it—no one was arguing that. But some things are more complicated than they first appear. Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon — Merch! — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and pre-order its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. Hi, this is Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood. Thank you so much for

listening. Just a quick bit of housekeeping before the episode. I wrote a book called Anatomy, a Love Story, which is about a young woman who wants to be a surgeon in the 1800s in Scotland. And if you like this podcast, I really think you'll like the book. And I have a sequel coming out, Immortality, A Love Story, which comes out this February, February, 2023. And in the book world, my publishing people keep telling me that pre-orders are like the most helpful thing you could do to support the book. So if you are at all interested in it, Pre-order information is in the episode description, and it would be incredibly useful. We also have links to show merch.

I know there's some weird, like, unofficial show merch that I've seen around the internet, but what's linked in bio is the only actual official merch, and a Patreon where I post bonus episodes and episode scripts. But thank you so much for listening. That truly is the best support that you could give. A quick warning before this episode begins. It contains graphic depictions of violence and contains references to sexual violence. So if that makes you uncomfortable or might be triggering, this might be an episode to skip.

It was 1599, and in the early morning hours of the 11th of September, the city of Rome was rioting. A massive, angry crowd gathered and grew as Romans rich and poor alike, pressed on toward a building known as Castel San Angelo, a fortress and prison, whose imposing form had stood in the city since the second century CE. Shoulder to shoulder, the rioters pushed their way on this dangerously hot day, toward the bridge that led to the prison, where a platform had been erected out front for a set of executions which were to take place at dawn. Executions almost always drew crowds in pre-modern Europe.

Their publicity and visibility a central part of many justice systems all over the continent. They were a morbid spectacle, sure, but they were also understood as crime deterrence. And sometimes they even had a sort of ritual component, aiming to restore the moral balance of a community after a crime had been committed. An execution in this period needed witnesses to fulfill its intended purpose. People in this period were, of course, not nearly as uniformly pro-execution as we might believe. Plenty of people had serious reservations about the moral rectitude of this kind of state violence. But it wasn't often that the crowds at public executions tried so actively or so fervently,

as the crowd did that morning in Rome to stop the event from taking place at all. In fact, there was one execution in particular that the crowd seemed to want to prevent more than any of the others. They were there, sweating and pushing and shouting, for a woman named Beatrice Chenchi. Only 22 years old, she had been convicted, along with her stepmother and her brothers of the murder of her father, Francesco Chenchi.

It had been an open and shut case, a brutal patricide and a sloppy attempt at making it look like an accident. But the people of Rome were sympathetic. For years, whispers had abounded in the city, but this day they became shouts. Beatrice's father abused her. He was a tyrant, a danger to his family, and a terror to everyone. Whatever fate he got, the crowd reasoned, it was well deserved. In the year between the murder and the day of her execution, Beatrice had become a symbol of innocent pushed to the brink.

Her story resonated with the people of Rome who felt, despite her noble status, that her plight paralleled the triumph of a people over an oppressive noble regime. She would eventually become known as the Roman Virgin. Her innocence forever baked into her moniker, and her short life forever a symbol of popular resistance. But it wasn't just the rabble who wanted to see Beatrice spared. Cardinals and assistant. esteemed members of the nobility had begged Clement the 8th, the Pope and head of the papal states, of which Rome was the capital, to have mercy on the young woman and her co-conspirators. But on the heels of several other scandals that involve nobles taking matters into their own hands,

Clement decided that he needed to make an example, a show of strength that would keep the nobility in line. The Pope had made his choice. the Roman Virgin would have no reprieve. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Although Beatrice is remembered rather singularly, she was, in fact, only one member of a rather large and rather troubled family. Born in 1577 to Count Francesco Chenchi and Ursula Santa Croce, Beatrice was the fifth of their 12 or 13 children,

seven of whom would survive infancy. Relatively little is known about Ursulia who would die before Beatrice turned eight in 1584. Much more and much worse is known about her father, Francesco. Francesco Chenchi was the so-called natural, that is to say, illicit, son of Monseigneur Christophoro Chenchi, treasurer of the apostolic camera, which is basically a papal treasured, which, papal fun fact interlude, was just abolished by Pope Francis this year. Shortly before his father's death, Francesca was legitimized, meaning he stood to, then did at age 12, inherit a massive estate, which included two palaces in Rome, a set of properties and

pieces of land on the outskirts of the city, and various others in Abruzzo, a region east of Rome belonging to the kingdom of Naples. Of course, much of the estate was ill-gotten, gained in no small part through embezzlement from the papal coffers. The apple didn't fall far from the tree, it seems. Even as a child, Francesco was described as ill-tempered and violent. The first of many lawsuits was brought against him when he was only 11 years old after he attacked someone.

drawing blood in the process. He was also, to put it bluntly, apparently so sexually precocious that his tutor advised his mother to marry him off quickly to keep him from spending too much time with courtesans or, ahem, taking matters into his own hands. Maybe the tutor was simply trying to tie himself to the Chenchi fortune, but either way a solution was quickly. offered. Francesco Chenchi would marry his tutor's niece, the aforementioned Ursilia in 1563, when they were both 14 years old. It would be four years before the pair had their first child, and by then it was clear that Francesco was not just, quote, sexually precocious. He was a sexual predator. He racked up criminal and civil penalties, not only for his violence, but he was a sexual,

violent outbursts, but for acts of sexual violence as well. He often assaulted, both sexually and otherwise, members of his staff as punishment for violations real and perceived. In 1567, around the time that his first child was born, Francesco was convicted of hanging a vassal of his, one who had committed no crime following a peasant uprising. Later, he would beat a servant girl with a broom handle for misunderstanding his orders, injuring her so severely that she reported being unable to eat, drink, or speak for several days following the attack. There does not seem to be any documentation confirming whether Francesco's violence was directed at his wife or children during this earlier period, although even if he did not directly harm them, he certainly created an environment of violence and

rage in his household that must have been unimaginably frightening. And we do know that after Ursula died two days after giving birth, their newborn daughter Francesca died only three days later. From that point, Francesco's violence and wild lifestyle escalated rapidly, and his interest in showing any kind of care or concerned for his family disappeared if it was ever there to begin with. In fact, he got rid of his family where he could. Following their mother's death, Beatrice and her older sister Antonia were sent to live with the Franciscan nuns at the monastery of Santa Croce in Montecitorio. They would remain there for roughly seven years. While Beatrice and her sister were in the convent in 1585, Felice Piragentile was elected to the pastor.

taking the pontifical name Sixtus the Fifth. Coming to the role in the midst of the Counter-Reformation and, after some years of instability, he was determined to curb corruption in Rome, seeking first and foremost to hold the nobility accountable by, gasp, punishing them when they committed crimes. In a totally normal response, Francesco Chenchi responded by drawing up a will in a bid to protect his assets upon his death. On November 22, 1586, he met with a notary and dictated his last wishes. Some have pointed to this will and some of the language that it uses, the phrase that death may come at any hour and death being the one thing that is certain, end quote, along with

his charitable bequests and many invocations of saints, gods, and other religious themes, as evidence that he was not so evil as some might believe. But here's the thing. If you were to walk into the state archives of Rome where most of the city's pre-modern wills are housed and pick out a hundred from this period at random, you would probably find almost these exact phrases and bequests about a hundred times.

They were just a standard part of will writing in Rome and a variation on the same standards to be found. found in other parts of Italy and beyond. Those words, simply put, did not come out of Francesco Chenchi's mouth or brain. The document itself, aside, it's the choices Francesco made in terms of his children that are of interest here. Most of his bequests were pretty standard. He left money for the care of his daughters, both legitimate and otherwise, and named his primary beneficiaries his sons, Christophero, Rocco, Bernardo, and Paolo. Noting also that should he have other sons in his future,

they would be added to the list. Except he already had another son who wasn't on the list. He had long openly disliked his eldest living child, Giacomo, and took this opportunity to give his least favorite son one last slight to be felt from beyond the grave. Francesco left him the minimum, amount allowed by the law, a far cry from the lavish inheritance, presumably awaiting Giacomo's brothers. We should not mistake his other bequests for care about his children. Again, there were a lot

of standard practices in willmaking and other accounts of Francesco's behavior around this time point to a neglectful approach to his children at best. But his will tells us something important about his relationship with Giacomo and his willingness to spite his children in general. Perhaps spurred on by Francesco's increasingly erratic behavior, in 1590, Pope Sixtus finally set his sights on the nobleman's embezzled inheritance. He originally instructed Francesco to sell any properties purchased through illegal negotiations by his father and return the money to the Papal treasury, which would have bankrupted him.

But by April of that year, the fine was whittled down to 25,000 Scudy, which records indicate was enough for success to consider the many sins, and I mean many, he listed them out in the papal decree, of the late Montignor to be absolved. Now, 25,000 Scudy was nothing to scoff at, but by now Francesco was well used to heavy fines.

Over the course of his lifetime, Francesco would, slowly but surely, run his inheritance into the ground, simply by the sheer number of criminal and civil penalties racked up as a result of his violent nature. Pope Sixtus died only a few months later in August, 1590. Over the next several years, Rome's stability faltered under a series of short-lived popes, and the city became practically lawless. In this environment, Francesco became more violent and more brazen about it. The following year, things escalated again

when Giacomo, his least favorite son, remember, decided to get married. Up until now, Beatrice and her sister, Antonia, had been spared their father's wrath while living up at the convent. Of course, convent life in the 16th, century was no vacation. This convent in particular was generally populated by poorer women and was, in fact, located in the area of Rome in which most of the city's sex workers resided. It was an odd place to board two

young noble girls. It's possible that their father placed them there out of a lack of care for their comfort, simply wishing to be rid of them in the easiest way for him possible. But at the very least, the two sisters would have been kept safe away from Francesco's pattern of violent behavior. And so, although we don't know much for sure about this time in their lives, I like to imagine it was happy, if austere. Unfortunately, that peace would not last. Giacomo Chenchi's marriage to Ludvica Vali, a distant cousin, left Francesco seething with jealousy and rage.

When the newlywed couple settled into their apartment in the Chenchi Palace, Francesco decided two things. First, he would rather move out than witness his son's prosperity. And second, it was time for his daughters to come home. One can only imagine how jarring it must have been for Beatrice to return to her father's residence in 1591. She had spent the prior seven years, half of her life at this point,

with her sister in a convent, likely not sealed off, but certainly shielded from the outside world. Now, nearly 15 years old, she was returning to a new palace following a great deal of upheaval, both in the city and in her family. It was at this point that Beatrice's life

already characterized by instability, would take a turn toward the horrific. Enraged at his eldest son's decision to get married and bring his wife to the family palace, Francesco Chenchi moved his permanent residence to another of his properties, a palace nestled along the Tiber River. He decided to bring Beatrice and Antonia home,

ripping them from their home of seven years in the process, ostensibly because he wanted the company. His decision had essentially split the family in two. His son Rocco had come to join him in the new residence, but another of his sons, Christophero, had chosen to stay with Giacomo, the oldest son and his new wife. Francesco had sent two of his other sons, Paolo and Bernardo, off to school elsewhere in the city.

So perhaps bringing the girls home was an attempt to tip the family scales in his favor, or maybe he simply felt that they had been free from his direct control for too long. Competition and bitterness toward his children, particularly Giacomo, seems to have fueled not only Francesco's rage, but also his life choices. Not long after he moved to the new palace, he set his sights on procuring a marriage of his own. On November 27, 1593, he married Lucrezia Petroni, the widow of a day. distant cousin. By this time, Francesco's violent nature and tendency towards infidelity was common knowledge.

But Lucretia had six children of her own, and she entered the marriage on the promise that Francesco would fund her younger children's education. A promise he would, of course, fail to fulfill, not only for her children, but for many of his own. The day after their wedding, an illegitimate daughter of Francesco's was baptized. The child's mother was a long-term mistress, whom Francesco would try to move into his palace with his family and new wife. On this, at least, Lucretia was able to put her foot down, but it did little to stem her husband's behavior.

Not even four months into his new marriage, Francisco's habits began slowly to catch up with him. In March, Mateo, Bonavara, a servant of Francesco's, was caught in the act of stealing a man's cape. As the police questioned him about his crime and asked him who he worked for, they were baffled by the servant's intimation that his master did not want to be spoken of by his staff. Seemingly forgetting the matter at hand, the police pressed the issue, wondering why on earth any man of noble status would wish for such secrecy.

Finally, the truth spilled forth. Mateo admitted that he and other servants, and even some of Francesco's own sons, had witnessed Francesco's many times, committing the so-called unspeakable act, sodomy. Sodomy, which by legal definition included any kind of non-vaginal intercourse between persons of any gender, was a crime during this period in Rome,

and one so severe it carried the death penalty. Witnesses claimed to have seen Francesco with women, girls, and male youths. Mateo himself claimed to have refused his master's advances. Francesco, as might be expected, had committed not just sodomy, but had also committed seemingly countless instances of sodomicidal rape. Further investigation brought forth more and more witnesses. and victims, most of them his servants, who described his tactics of coercion and the pleasure he seemed to take in inflicting pain on his victims during the act. There was little physical

evidence to corroborate these crimes, but the sheer number of witnesses, coupled with the scandalousness of the crime, meant that Francesco would be arrested and imprisoned awaiting trial. After all his years of violence, it finally seemed like he might be stopped. Despite the scandal that it would have brought on the Chenchi family, this moment must have brought with it also some real, if tentative, relief. But abusive, powerful men with wide networks of people willing to protect them are a tale as old as time. The husband of one of Francesco's illegitimate daughters happened to be a lawyer in the papal court of justice. He took on the job of being Francesco's advocate and managed to get him released from prison. There was, however, a fine.

Francesco was ordered to pay 100,000 Scudy, a significant portion of his already disappearing inheritance, and he could not leave the papal states until his fine was paid. Whatever neglect, spite, or violence, or combination, Francesco had previously directed toward his family, it would pale in comparison to the all-out war he waged after his sodomy trial. He openly accused Giacomo of getting him imprisoned in order to steal his fortune and even of plotting his murder, which, while it was a prescient accusation, it was one that was directed at the wrong child.

Francesco had also, by this time, turned on Christophoro, the one who had chosen not to move with him following Giacomo's marriage. Having taken after his father in terms of his reputation for brutality, it seems Christophoro was a more formidable foe than his father expected, and a threat from him may have been the reason Francesco was anxious to leave Rome at the earliest opportunity. You might have noticed that for much of this episode, Beatrice has been very much a background player, nearly forgotten in the chaos, drama, bloodshed, and crimes of her father's life.

This is for many reasons, chief among them that Francesco's life has been heavily documented through court records in a way Beatrice's was not, which simply left us with more information about him than about her. All of this would change in 1595 when Francesco made his final payment to the papal X-checker and moved to a castle. he borrowed from a friend, because by this point, most of his places were in disrepair. The castle was in Petrella, about a hundred miles east of Rome, somewhat menacingly called La Roca, or The Rock. He took Lucretia, his wife of not quite two years, and Beatrice, with him. It was this move, and the horrific events which followed, which would finally put Beatrice

center stage. The next two years of Beatrice's life were ones of unending torture and cruelty. She and her stepmother were imprisoned in Laroca. Francesco had fashioned their chambers into literal cells, making their servants into jailers and cutting off their access to the outside world. During this time, Beatrice also lost two of her brothers. Christophoro, in a dispute over a and Paolo of an unknown cause following his and Bernardo's own escape back to Rome after an ill-fated visit to La Petrella. Bernardo, the youngest of Francesco's legitimate sons, found safe haven in the household of his elder brother, Giacomo. Over these two years, Beatrice and Lucretia had considered and attempted to plot an escape, and according to reports from servants, at least Beatrice was so distraught she was even considering suicide.

With the help of the administrator of Laroca, the women were eventually able to send letters to Giacomo and other relatives in Rome begging for help and said that at one point, Beatrice even reached out to Pope Clement, begging him to free her from her father's torment. In December 1597, however, Franceselius, managed to intercept one of these letters while he was in Rome conducting business and, who knows what else. Enraged by the entirely correct accusations his daughter had made, he returned to La Petrella, determined to make her regret it. In depositions, witnesses would later offer a cryptic description of Beatrice's treatment at the hands of her father,

depositions that would fuel rumors and be a cause for great dispute among scholars and people who have written about her. Although Beatrice was about 20 in 1597, Francesco had made no attempts to secure a marriage for her, even going so far, according to some accounts, as to refuse a match suggested by Pope Clement himself. There was the matter of a dowry he didn't want to pay, but the testimony of the servants at La Roca, would fuel other suspicions. In one deposition, a servant named Girolama described in graphic detail Beatrice's terrifying punishment following Francesco's discovery of her letters. According to the notary who transcribed her testimony,

the servant said, quote, he took a bullpiddle which he kept there, and he thrashed her horribly with it, saying that she had written to Rome and had also sent a petition and Beatrice denied these allegations, and he kept her shut in her bedroom for two or three days, and he himself brought her food, and he would open the door of her bedroom and put it on the floor,

and then he would go away at his goodwill, end quote. It is this last bit he would go away at his goodwill, in particular, which would fuel allegations, in his time as well as ours, that Francesco committed incest with his daughter. Belinda Jack, a scholar who has written on Beatrice, suggests that this phrasing may have been a roundabout way of indicating this, that Francesco was entering his daughter's bedroom for a specific purpose and would only leave when his desires had been met. She also points out one of the trap scholars tend to fall into in their debates about this allegation.

Following hundreds of years of speculation, many have insisted that even for someone like Francesco, incest was a, quote, natural boundary he simply could not have crossed. It's an assertion one can only make because of the lack of physical evidence, and even of outright accusation in Beatrice's case, although her lawyer would use it as a defense later on. But just because something is terrible doesn't mean it didn't happen, and as we well know, just because no physical evidence was found doesn't mean it wasn't there, especially when the perpetrator in question

was one of great means and influence with a lot to lose. We may never know what exactly happened to be a treche when her father would, quote, open the door of the bedroom. But Dr. Jack, I believe, is correct that we need to consider the possibility that incestuous rape or the threat of it was a significant factor in determining what would happen next. That administrator of La Roca, a man named Olympio Calvetti, would remain Beatrice and Lucretius' connection to their relatives in Rome. When Beatrice finally decided that she had enough, it was Olympio, whom she turned to first.

The original plan was to poison Francesco, and Olympio was set to meet with Giacomo and Paolo in Rome to procure the means. When Olympia returned, however, Beatrice lamented that her paranoid father had begun making her and Lucretia taste his food before he ate. They would have to think of something else. Finally, they had a lucky opportunity. In September 1598, Francesco took ill with gout and was convalescing in his chambers. Beatrice knew now was the time to strike. Olympio and another servant, Marcio Catalano, was sent into Francesco's chambers on the morning of September 7th. They almost immediately ran back out, fearful of what might happen if they got caught.

But for Beatrice, there was too much at stake, and there was no turning back. She chastised the men, saying that if they were unwilling to carry out their longstanding plan, she would march right in there and murder her father with her own bare hands. Renewed in their resolve, the two men went back in and bludgeoned Francesco to death as he slept. Beatrice was free. Before she could revel in her freedom, Beatrice knew there was another matter at hand, that of covering up their crime. She had her hitmen, dress her father's corpse, and fling him,

off of his balcony into the brush below. They made a hole in the balcony by removing some planks from the floor, hoping to make it seem as though the man had fallen through. And Beatrice and Lucretia took on the task of hiding the bloody sheets. Then they called for help, and Olympio came to the castle to share the news of a horrible accident at La Roca. For his part, Martzio fled the castle, though he later would return to collect payment for his part in the conspiracy. But whether it was through adrenaline or sheer ineptitude, their cover-up was sloppily carried out, and in the end, quite obvious.

As the crowd gathered at the castle, they wondered, how could such a large man fall through such a small hole in the balcony? And certainly, a passing branch could not have made such a deep gash in his eye. As the days wore on, gossip continued as Lucretia and Beatrice declined to attend Francesco's burial. Before long, it was determined that Francesco Chenchi's death, however well-deserved it might have been, was no accident. It would not take long for these rumors and the consensus that followed to reach Rome, more specifically the papal authorities. An investigation began in earnest in November 1598, and initially, although they were detained on house arrest in Rome, Giacomo, Lucretia, and Beatrice, were treated with a great deal of civility due to their status. Back in La Petrella, Olympio was trying to retroactively make their case stronger.

He widened the hole they had made in the balcony and employed his wife to dispose of the hidden bloody bedsheet. For some reason, perhaps some would later suggest she was jealous of her husband's relationship to Beatrice. She did not dispose of them, but rather simply hid them away elsewhere. Whereas Romans would express a great deal of compassion for Beatrice's plight, the clumsiness of the cover-up, coupled with the conspirators' apparent arrogance in sticking to their ridiculous story, rankled the people of La Petrella. Although they had little love for the late Francesco, the villagers bulked at the thought of powerful people

literally getting away with murder, and they shared their suspicions and observations with investigators from Rome. With all of this new evidence in hand, papal authorities began to treat the Chenchi like the criminals they supposed them to be. They were moved from house arrest to the prison at Tord Nona. Giacomo Chenchi from his imprisonment was able to allegedly orchestrate the murder of their greatest threat, Olympio. His arrogance threatened them all and so he was beheaded by a bounty hunter, allegedly after Giacomo put a price on his head.

The other murderer, Martzio, would not survive either, dying while in the process of being tortured by authorities. But Olympio's death was in fact what sealed the Chenchee's fate. His wife, enraged by the murder of her husband, went to the authorities with everything she knew. She had seen the bloody bedsheets. In fact, she had hidden them and knew exactly where they were. Under torture, both Giacomo and Lucretia admitted to their crime, but both pointed the finger firmly at Beatrice as the guiding force of the conspiracy.

For her part, Beatrice is said to have withstood torture bravely and resolutely, admitting nothing except an affair with Olympio, which some scholars believe was a forced confession. The point of getting her to admit an affair would be to quell the already growing compassion for her among the Roman people. All of the conspirators, Giacomo, Lucretia, young Bernardo, and Beatrice, would be subject to torture as authorities question them. This was unusual. Nobility were usually spared from such brutal treatment, but Pope Clement had given special permission for its use in this case.

He was on a tirade against increasing violent crime among the wealthy and powerful, and of course there was a the matter of the funds he stood to gain through the seizure of assets and fines should the Chenchis be executed. Francesco and his sins, and the debts that came of them, continued to haunt the Chenchi family. Finally, almost exactly one year after the murder of Francesco Chenchi, Pope Clement's sentence was handed down. Accounts vary as to the exact order of the events on the day the Chenchi were executed. Even early in the morning, it was so swelteringly hot, and the crowd was so riotous and chaotic that multiple onlookers died, either of heatstroke or by falling into the tiber as people pushed and shoved their way onto the Ponce Angelo. Of course, it would be

difficult to keep a clear sense of what was going on and in what order in these conditions. Many retellings of the story put Beatrice's execution last, likely because that's just good storytelling. But most sources and scholars do seem to agree that the order was Lucretia, then Beatrice, then Giacomo. The two women were brought to the place of execution together and offered at least a modicum of dignity. They were made to walk on foot through the streets of Rome, unbound and wearing mourning garments before being allowed to save their last rights in a small chapel near their place of execution. Bernardo, the younger brother, who, because of his young age and limited involvement, was spared execution, was still required to witness the deaths of his family as part of his punishment

before he was sentenced to hard labor, and he joined his sister and stepmother as they said mass together. Lucretia's execution was swift. and the crowd seemed to have relatively little sympathy for her, although she had suffered many of the same injustices as her stepdaughter. She was apparently so fearful as she approached the platform that she fainted and had to be carried to the execution block. She was beheaded before she regained consciousness,

which to me seems a mercy. Giacomo was likely executed last and certainly most brutally. He was led by a cart through the streets to the execution platform. There, already injured from torture, he was further mutilated with red-hot tongs before being bludgeoned to death with a mallet, dismembered, and having parts of his body displayed on hooks by the platform. In between these two extremes was Beatrice.

The crowd had fallen silent the moment she came into view, but as she walked, showing not a bit of hesitation to her place on the platform, many in the crowd couldn't help but let out a cry at her plight. Without a word, she knelt at the block. The axe fell and it was over. The Roman Virgin was dead. The moment Beatrice Chenchi died, something changed in the crowd, what had been a riot immediately transformed into a somber funeral for their newfound popular heroine, taken in her prime for the crime of standing up to her oppressor. Even the bloody display of Giacomo's execution couldn't divert their intense focus on Beatrice. Following the executions and Bernardo's return to the prison at Tor de Nora, it was required for the body.

to remain on display for some time, a part of the witnessing process of public executions. Many onlookers waited with Beatrice's body as if to keep her company. Some accounts stated that young girls left wreaths of flowers around her severed head. When leave was finally given for the Chenchi to be taken to their graves, Beatrice's procession was by far the largest. Romans from all corners of society gathered again at Pontusinangelo and walked over a mile in the heat, following her coffin through the streets of the city, bringing Beatrice Chichensi to her final resting place at the Church of San Piotro in Montario. They left heaps of flowers, lit candles, and stood vigil for hours.

Although her grave was unmarked, a consequence of her criminal status, and would later be desecrated by French soldiers in 1798, Beatrice Chenchi left an indelible imprint on the people of Rome and beyond. She has been the subject of endless plays, books, movies, and artwork, inspiring the likes of Percy Bischelli, Alexander Dumas, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Stendell. but her most visible and perhaps meaningful legacy is arguably still in the streets of Rome. Among the many ways she has been memorialized throughout the city, there's a small plaque that was placed in 1999 on Via Monserado, from where she has said to have begun her final walk to Pontes-en-Anglo. A translation reads,

From here, where stood the Savella Court prison on the 11th of September 4th,000. 1599, Beatrice Chenchi moved toward the executioner's block, an exemplary victim of an unjust justice. That's the story of Beatrice Chenchi's tragic life and end, but stick around after a brief sponsor message to hear about one of the odd places her legacy has endured. I'm Egowod. My next guest, you know from Stepbrothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo.

My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place they come, look for up-and-coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah.

He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give you. it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right. It wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to thanks dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell.

My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.

It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In the Palazzo Barbarini, an aristocratic estate-turned art museum in the heart of Rome, there are several rooms devoted to the famous painter Caravaggio and his many followers. Caravaggio happened to have been among the witnesses at the Chenchia execution.

The sunlit space in the museum is contrasted by paintings of darkened rooms, their subjects seeming to be the only source of light in the frame. Among these paintings, some of them grand and busy, is a simple portrait of a young woman. She wears a white chemise and a white head covering, both standing out against an inscrutable blackened background. She faces away from the viewer but turns her head back with a soft, innocent expression.

For hundreds of years, this was believed, to be a portrait of Beatrice Chenchi in her final days, and it's easy to see why. It's a painting of a beautiful girl looking a little sad, maybe resolute, and draped in white drapery. She's a picture of innocence, but she's also a blank canvas, someone we can paint a story onto and make our own. Even though it has been confirmed that this painting was not of Beatrice, it was more likely intended to represent a prophetess, it remains the image most associated with her. It's at the top of her Wikipedia page on the cover of books about her and all over the internet. It's the epitome of what we've made Beatrice into, not just in public memory,

but in an almost endless list of literary, dramatic, and artistic renditions of her life, something that's compelling, dramatic, and ultimately not, really her at all. This painting, however, is not the only one housed in the Barberini with something to say about Beatrice and her story. One of Carvaggio's best-known works sits just stepped away from this famed portrait. Painted around the time of the trial and execution, or possibly a few years later, Judith beheading Holofernes is said to have been inspired by the plight of Beatrice Chenchi. It depicts the climactic moment in the biblical story of Judith, a beautiful and brave Jewish widow who charmed away into the chamber of the Assyrian general Hullifernus before, you know,

beheading him and becoming a hero to her people. The story of Judith was a symbol of feminine revenge even in this period, so the parallels with Beatrice are definitely there. But what I think is most interesting is Caravaggio's depiction of Judith herself. Where other Judiths have been depicted with a fierceness befitting a woman bravely sneaking behind enemy lines, particularly one excellent painting by the female artist Artemisia Gentileshi, in Caravaggio's painting, his Judith seems almost doubtful. Her beautiful, innocent face is contorted in disgust at her violent act, and she leans her body away from the dying hull of furnace, almost separating herself from her crime. This is reluctant violence, Caravaggio seems to be saying, the violence of a woman who remains innocent.

And yet her hands never falter. She resolutely wields her sword and destroys her enemy, bloodying his bedsheets. She saves her people. She did what she had to do. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz. Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Mira Hayward, Courtney Sender, and Lori Goodman. The show is produced by Rima Il-Kaali, with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive producers Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.

For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a, a, you know, calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right. It wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.