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 but impress you profoundly.

She was the daughter of Francesco Cenci. Whether or not it be true that
men are born in harmony with their epoch, and that some embody its good
qualities and others its bad ones, it may nevertheless interest our
readers to cast a rapid glance over the period which had just passed when
the events which we are about to relate took place. Francesco Cenci will
then appear to them as the diabolical incarnation of his time.

On the 11th of August, 1492, after the lingering death-agony of Innocent
VIII, during which two hundred and twenty murders were committed in the
streets of Rome, Alexander VI ascended the pontifical throne. Son of a
sister of Pope Calixtus III, Roderigo Lenzuoli Borgia, before being
created cardinal, had five children by Rosa Vanozza, whom he afterwards
caused to be married to a rich Roman. These children were:

Francis, Duke of Gandia;

Caesar, bishop and cardinal, afterwards Duke of Valentinois;

Lucrezia, who was married four times: her first husband was Giovanni
Sforza, lord of Pesaro, whom she left owing to his impotence; the second