working at Civita Vecchia until 1606, obtained release and lived in banishment till his death in 1627. Monsignor Querro, for his connivance in the whole affair, was banished to the island of Malta, whence he returned at some date before the year 1633 to Rome, having expiated his guilt by long and painful exile. In this abstract of the Cenci tragedy, I have followed the documents published by Signor Bertolotti. They are at many points in startling contradiction to the legend, which is founded on MS. accounts compiled at no distant period after the events. One of these was translated by Shelley; another, differing in some particulars, was translated by De Stendhal. Both agree in painting that lurid portrait of Francesco Cenci which Shelley has animated with the force of a great dramatist.[201] Unluckily, no copy of the legal instructions upon which the trial was conducted is now extant. In the absence of this all-important source of information, it would be unsafe to adopt Bertolotti's argument, that the legend calumniates Francesco in order to exculpate Beatrice, without some reservation. There is room for the belief that facts adduced in evidence may have partly justified the prevalent opinion of Beatrice's infamous persecution by her father. [Footnote 199: De Stendhal's MS. authority says she was sixteen, Shelley's that she was twenty.] [Footnote 200: De Stendhal's MS. describes how Giacomo was torn by pincers; Shelley's says that this part of the sentence was remitted.] _The Massimi_. The tragedy of the Cenci, about which so much has been written in consequence of the supposed part taken in it by Beatrice, seems to me common-place compared with that of the Massimi.[202] [Footnote 201: The author of De Stendhal's MS. professes to have known the old Cenci, and gives a definite description of his personal appearance.] [Footnote 202: Litta supplies the facts related above.]