for September 9
EVENTS
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1513: |
Battle of Flodden |
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This disastrous encounter for the Scots saw the death of Scottish king James IV. |
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1598: |
Francesco Cenci murdered |
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Francesco Cenci was a powerful and vicious nobleman of Rome. In 1595 he took his second wife Lucrezia and his daughter Beatrice to the remote castle of La Petrella, where he imprisoned them and treated them with the utmost brutality. Beatrice tried several different ways to escape, but failed. On September 9th, 1598, the body of Francesco Cenci was thrown from a balcony. It appeared to be an accident, but murder was soon discovered to be the case, and the entire Cenci family was arrested. Beatrice's stepmother and her brothers Giacomo and Bernardo confessed to the crime. Beatrice herself denied everything, even under torture. In the end, however, she too confessed. All Cenci family members were sentenced to death. Beatrice was known as a quiet, kind, amiable young woman and, in the light of what she had suffered at the hands of her father, many efforts were made to get her sentence overturned. But Pope Clement VIII was adamant. At the age of 22, Beatrice Cenci was executed with all her family but Bernardo, whose youth prevented his death. The property of the Cenci (which amounted to quite a large sum) was confiscated by the papal authorities. The story of Beatrice and her family became the subject of much literature and drama, including The Cenci: A Tragedy in Five Acts by Percy Bysshe Shelley. |
WHO DIED
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1087: |
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Medieval History |
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