od, that you
are innocent, and that it is a cruel abuse of justice to compel you to
witness this frightful spectacle."

The executioner then made him kneel down, bound his legs to one of the
beams erected on the scaffold, and having bandaged his eyes, shattered
his head with a blow of his mallet; then, in the sight of all, he hacked
his body into four quarters. The official party then left, taking with
them Bernardo, who, being in a state of high fever, was bled and put to
bed.

The corpses of the two ladies were laid out each on its bier under the
statue of St. Paul, at the foot of the bridge, with four torches of white
wax, which burned till four o'clock in the afternoon; then, along with
the remains of Giacomo, they were taken to the church of San Giovanni
Decollato; finally, about nine in the evening, the body of Beatrice,
covered with flowers, and attired in the dress worn at her execution, was
carried to the church of San Pietro in Montorio, with fifty lighted
torches, and followed by the brethren of the order of the Stigmata and
all the Franciscan monks in Rome; there, agreeably to her wish, it was
buried at the foot of the high altar.

The same evening Signora Lucrezia was interred, as she had desired to be,
in the church of San Giorgio di Velobre.

All Rome may be said to have been present at this tragedy, carriages,
horses, foot people, and cars crowding as it were upon one another. The
day was unfortunately so hot, and the sun so scorching, that many persons
fainted, others returned home stricken with fever, and some even died
during the night, owing to sunstroke from exposure during the three hours
occupied by the execution.

The Tuesday following, the 14th of September; being the Feast of the Holy
Cross, the brotherhood of San Marcello, by special licence of the pope,
set at liberty the unhappy Bernardo Cenci, with the condition of paying
within the year two thousand five hundred Roman crowns to the brotherhood
of the most Holy Trinity of Pope Sixtus, as may be found to-day recorded
in their archives.

Having now seen the tomb, if you desire to form a more vivid impression
of the principal actors in this tragedy than can be derived from a
narrative, pay a visit to the Barberini Gallery, where you will see, with
five other masterpieces by Guido, the portrait of Beatrice, taken, some
say the night before her execution, others during her progress to the
scaffold; it is the head of a lovely girl, wearin