The story of the Cenci family is perhaps best known from a verse drama by Percy Shelley. However, Shelley based his play on real-life events at the end of the 16th century.
An English translation of an account of the Cenci family from the 18th-century Annali d'Italia by Lodovico-Antonio Muratori exists partially in the hand of Mary Shelley (better known for writing other things). When it gets to the part where poor Beatrice Cenci is violated by her father, the translation glosses over the details, and a note by Mary Shelley states, "The details here are horrible, and unfit for publication."
Those details were not glossed over by Alexandre Dumas, who also wrote a play about the actor Edmund Kean in addition to some books about musketeers. In Les crimes célèbres, Dumas wrote about Count Cenci not only taking his daughter by force, but compelling her to take part in orgies involving men, women, and children. While Shelley shows Beatrice as escaping torture after she was arrested for the murder of her father, Dumas depicts her being interrogated while subjected to the rope and pulley, also known as the strappado.
An image of Beatrice being tortured also appears in the play about her by Antonin Artaud, which is based on Shelley's play but also contains elements from Dumas's version of the story. (It also might have been influenced by a historical novel by Stendhal on the ill-fated family.)
For many years, a portrait of a young woman attributed to the artist Guido Reni was thought to represent Beatrice Cenci. Even if it was not her, it certainly influenced Shelley and the many other artists who have endeavored to tell her story.
If you'd like to hear her story for yourself, Red Bull Theater will be putting on a reading of Shelley's play this November.
