“The very saddest picture ever painted or conceived,” says Nathaniel Hawthorne. Accused of complicity in the murder of a brutal father, Beatrice Cenci endured horrible torture in St. Angelo with heroic fortitude rivalling that of strong men, and never really confessed the crime. She was beheaded in front of the Castle of St. Angelo. ] sorrow and a desolate earthly helplessness remained.” Again, Nathaniel Hawthorne has written:--“The picture of Beatrice Cenci is the very saddest picture ever painted or conceived; it involves an unfathomable depth of sorrow, the sense of which comes to the observer by a sort of intuition. She knows that her sorrow is so strange and immense that she ought to be solitary for ever, both for the world’s sake and her own; and this is the reason we feel such a distance between Beatrice and ourselves, even when our eyes meet hers. It is infinitely heart-breaking to meet her glance and to know that nothing can be done to help or comfort her; neither does she ask help or comfort, knowing the hopelessness of her case better than we do. She is a fallen angel--fallen and yet sinless.” Further additions were made to St. Angelo in the seventeenth century, in improving its interior and strengthening its defences. Urban VIII in 1623 built the bastions, still standing, and restricted the bed of the Tiber so as to put an end to the inundations that so often had done great damage to this part of the city. The pope also improved the armament of the castle and cast many pieces of cannon with the bronze he removed from the roof of the Pantheon. He was of the Barberini family, whose crest is a bee, and a contemporary writer, the Jesuit Donato, paid Urban the compliment of saying that “bees not only make honey but possess stings to be used in self-defence.” The expenditure on the new guns amounted to 67,260 scudi; there were 110 pieces in all, described as “_Colubrini, cannoni, falconetti, petardi ed altri stromenti_.” It was in carrying out these works and excavating a new ditch that the Barberini or so-called “Sleeping Faun” was unearthed from the spot where it had lain since the sixth century. Pope Urban VIII also improved the long corridor or passage that connected the Vatican with the castle. Arches had been added by Pius IV in 1559, and then Urban roofed it in. This gallery had two stories, the lower enclosed and tunnel-like, lighted by loopholes and a perfectly secure passageway, and the upper a covered loggia of open arches, as it may be seen to this day. The keys of these vitally important passages have always been retained by the pope himself in his own keeping.