The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cenci, by Alexandre Dumas, Pere

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Title: The Cenci
Celebrated Crimes

Author: Alexandre Dumas, Pere

Last Updated: February 8, 2009
Release Date: February 28, 2006 [EBook #2742]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CENCI ***

Produced by David Widger

CELEBRATED CRIMES

By Alexandre Dumas, Pere

In Eight Volumes

THE CENCI--1598

Should you ever go to Rome and visit the villa Pamphili, no doubt, after
having sought under its tall pines and along its canals the shade
and freshness so rare in the capital of the Christian world, you will
descend towards the Janiculum Hill by a charming road, in the middle of
which you will find the Pauline fountain. Having passed this monument,
and having lingered a moment on the terrace of the church of St. Peter
Montorio, which commands the whole of Rome, you will visit the cloister
of Bramante, in the middle of which, sunk a few feet below the level,
is built, on the identical place where St. Peter was crucified, a little
temple, half Greek, half Christian; you will thence ascend by a side
door into the church itself. There, the attentive cicerone will show
you, in the first chapel to the right, the Christ Scourged, by Sebastian
del Piombo, and in the third chapel to the left, an Entombment by
Fiammingo; having examined these two masterpieces at leisure, he will
take you to each end of the transverse cross, and will show you--on one
side a picture by Salviati, on slate, and on the other a work by Vasari;
then, pointing out in melancholy tones a copy of Guido's Martyrdom
of St. Peter on the high altar, he will relate to you how for three
centuries the divine Raffaelle's Transfiguration was worshipped in that
spot; how it was carried away by the French in 1809, and restored to
the pope by the Allies in 1814. As you have already in all probability
admired this masterpiece in the Vatican, allow him to expatiate, and
search at the foot of the altar for a mortuary slab, which you will
identify by a cross and the single word, Orate; under this gravestone
is buried Beatrice Cenci, whose tragical story cannot