A Portrait Not by Guido Reni of a Girl Who Is Not Beatrice Cenci

A P o r tr a it N o t b y G u id o R e n izyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCB o f a G irl W h o Is N o t B e a tric e C e n c i B A R B A R A G R O S E C L O S E ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Misattributions are frequently the stuff of which exciting art history is made —an Old Master in a major museum is unmasked as a students ef­ fort or a dusty canvas in storage long thought to be the product of a minor figure is revealed as an early attempt by an eminent painter. A brief flurry as thinking is altered precedes an eventual reconciliation of the new material with established ideas and assimilation results; art history, the discipline concerned, is revised. It is rare that the misattributed work af­ fects genres of art outside its own, but a painting not by Guido Reni of a girl who is not Beatrice Cenci (Fig. 1) was the inspiration for poetry, drama, fiction, popular journalism, even opera.1 Supposition has been that the power of the Cenci history alone motivated these literary off­ spring, to which the so-called portrait merely added reinforcement. It is a fetching picture: voluminous creamy white draperies and turban empha­ size the figure's slightness and vulnerability, while the pose —she glances over her left shoulder into the viewer's eyes —is somehow evocative of both shyness and intrepidity. Reddish-gold tendrils fall about her neck, accentuating the paler tints of red on the lips and around the eyes, and an absence of details coupled with softly brushed contours render the figure appealingly enigmatic. P. B. Shelley's emotional response to this "inex­ pressibly pathetic" image was the incentive for TSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA T h e C e n ci (1819).2 Nathan­ iel Hawthorne made the painting a central symbol of T h e M a r b le Fa u n (1860) and described it as "the very saddest picture ever painted or con107 108 / GROSECLOSEzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Figure 1: ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA B e a tric e C e n c i (?), attributed to Guido Reni. Oil on canvas, 65 X 49 cm. Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Palazzo Corsini, Rome. Photo: Saskia, Ltd., Cultural Documentation. A P o r t r a it N o t b y G u id o R e n iZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA / 109 ceived."3 What has been overlooked is the key role the attribution of the portrait to Guido Reni played in securing the painting s fame in the sec­ ond half of the eighteenth century and how both the attribution and the Cenci legend accommodated the era s taste, preparing and insuring the painting's acclamation by the Romantics. To address this matter, a preliminary recounting of the development of the Cenci saga is necessary in order to determine when and how legend succeeded "fact." The web of errors, half-truths, and myths surrounding the portrait must also be sorted out: when was the subject identified as Beatrice Cenci? When was the "portrait" ascribed to Guido Reni? How and why did the identification and the attribution win acceptance? The answers will elucidate the significance of Reni's affiliation with the Cenci for the late eighteenth century. Given the plethora of books, articles, essays and unpublished manu­ scripts which purport to document the murder of Count Francesco Cenci and the trial of his daughter Beatrice, the reader is hampered, not aided, by sheer quantity.4 No source is uncolored by partiality nor free of sensa­ tionalism, perhaps because the crime involved (parricide) and its alleged instigation (rape/ incest) are among the most heinous acts with which a civilized society must contend, but also because both trial and punish­ ment were enacted by an authoritarian and controversial Pope, Clement VIII Aldobrandini.5 The events upon which all sources agree are that a Roman girl, Beatrice Cenci, was convicted for the murder of her father Francesco and executed in 1599 by the Roman Catholic prelate who adju­ dicated the case; a claim to extenuating circumstances by reason of paren­ tal abuse, possibly including incest, was disallowed. Fleshing out...