 ✓
| ||
|
This Villain was proposed and approved by Villains Wiki's Pure Evil Proposals Thread. Any act of removing this villain from the category without a Removal Proposal shall be considered vandalism (or a futile "heroic" attempt of redemption) and the user will have high chances of being | ||
  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
| “ | Conscience! O thou most insolent of lies! They say that sleep, that healing dew of heaven, steeps not in balm the foldings of the brain which thinks thee an impostor. I will go, first to belie thee with an hour of rest, which will be deep and calm, I feel; and then— O multitudinous Hell, the fiends will shake thine arches with the laughter of their joy! There shall be lamentation heard in Heaven as o'er an angel fallen; and upon Earth all good shall droop and sicken, and ill things shall, with a spirit of unnatural life, stir and be quickened—even as I am now. | „ |
| ~ Count Cenci flouting the idea of conscience, his last onstage words before his assassination. |
Count Francesco Cenci is the main antagonist of Percy Bysshe Shelley's 1820 tragedy The Cenci. Like his real-life counterpart he is an Italian nobleman notorious for his brutality and sadism and the sexually abusive father of Beatrice Cenci.
Biography[]
Act 1[]
Count Cenci is introduced negotiating with Cardinal Camillo, a representative of the Catholic Church, who warns him that his infamous reputation is growing to the point that the church is becoming increasingly reluctant to protect him. Camillo, who has already covered up for three of Cenci's past murders, explains that, to cover up for his latest, he has been obliged to promise Pope Clement one-third of Cenci's estate, and urges Cenci to repent before things get any worse, beseeching him to think of his wife Lucretia and daughter Beatrice who he keeps locked away from the public. Cenci reminds Camillo that the last person to talk about how he treats his family was never seen again and laughs off his request that he repent, boasting of his love of torturing helpless victims and how he loves nothing more than savouring the terror and agony of his victims. A horrified Camillo leaves, vowing to pray for Cenci's soul.
As Camillo is leaving, Cenci receives a messenger from Salamanca, which displeases him; he had sent two of his sons, Rocco and Cristofano, to Salamanca in the hope they would be cut off and starve to death, and if they remain alive then he must make fourfold provisions for them by holy order. He offers up a prayer for God to "send some quick death upon" his sons, then begins making plans to further abuse Beatrice, telling his servant that he will visit Beatrice in her bedchamber at midnight.
That evening, Cenci throws a banquet to celebrate the good news he has received from Salamanca. Beatrice and Lucretia are unsettled, as they know Cenci wishes death upon his sons; sure enough, Cenci announces with joy that Rocco and Cristofano have been killed by random acts of God, exclaiming that his prayer has been answered and gloating that he will drink his wine as if it were his children's blood. His horrified guests try to confront him, spurred on by Beatrice who pleads with several influential guests to save her and her mother, but Cenci intimidates them into backing down by threatening to kill the families of anyone who moves against him.
Beatrice continues to curse her father until he dismisses his guests in order to save face. Cenci then insults Beatrice for her defiance, ordering her back to her room and threateningly telling her he knows how to "tame" her. When Beatrice leaves, Cenci takes a drink of wine in order to steel his nerves for what he plans to do tonight.
Act 2[]
After being dismissed, Beatrice tries to hide from her father with her brother Bernardo and Lucretia. A servant brings them a message from Beatrice's lover Orsino, a Catholic prelate, claiming that Beatrice's petition to the Pope for relief from her father has been rejected (in reality it was never delivered). In despair, Beatrice recounts all the abuses Count Cenci has heaped upon her family, including beating and trampling them, depriving them of food and water and forcing them to eat rotted flesh and drink ditchwater, and chaining them up in the dungeons, once keeping Bernardo enchained in rusted chains until his limbs rotted from gangrene before forcing Beatrice to watch his suffering.
Cenci enters and dismisses Beatrice and Bernardo before accusing Lucretia of conspiring with their children to murder him. When Lucretia denies it, Cenci calls her a liar and declares his intention to take his family to his castle at Petrella and keep them prisoner there to prevent them from humiliating him in the way Beatrice did, boasting of all the people who have suffered torturous deaths in the dungeons of Petrella. Lucretia leaves in horror, leaving Cenci to await nightfall so that he can carry out his plans for Beatrice.
Meanwhile, Cenci's eldest surviving son Giacomo is told that his petition against his father, who cheated him out of his wife's dowry and drove him, his wife and their children into poverty for his own amusement, has been rejected. He is approached by Orsino, who persuades him that the only way to save his mother and siblings and avenge himself upon his father is to assassinate him.
Act 3[]
The next morning, a distraught Beatrice seeks out Lucretia and reveals that Cenci came up to her room and raped her during the night. She now believes herself to be unclean and no longer wants to live. When Orsino learns of the crime, he reveals his plan to kill Cenci and they agree to help him. Orsino and Giacomo's plan is that a pair of hired assassins will ambush Cenci on the way to Petrella. However, the plot is foiled when Cenci sets out an hour ahead of schedule and misses the assassins.
Act 4[]
Cenci arrives at Petrella, where his family are waiting. He orders Beatrice to come to his bedchamber so he can rape her again, wanting to make her "consent" to the act in order to further break her spirit. Beatrice refuses to come and sends Lucretia to talk to her father. Lucretia threatens him with divine retribution, which Cenci laughs off before describing his plans: he will rape Beatrice until she dies in despair and her soul is so ruined that not even God wants her, ensure that Giacomo's life is worse than Hell, and burn all his material possessions before he dies so that Bernardo will be left with nothing to inherit from him except the memory of his cruelty.
When Beatrice continues to refuse to come, Cenci decides to curse her, anticipating that God will listen to his prayers as he did with Rocco and Cristofano. He curses Beatrice that if she does not submit to him, she will be stricken with leprosy, blindness, and lameness, and that she will have a child from the rape which will grow up deformed and drive her into an early grave. Beatrice still will not submit, and Cenci decides to assault her again later. He then declares that he will go and sleep, and the peace with which he does so will prove that conscience is a lie that all the devils laugh at.
Unbeknownst to Cenci, his sudden tiredness is a result of having been drugged by Lucretia. While he is unconscious, Lucretia and Beatrice open the castle gates and let in two former servants of his, Marzio and Olimpio, who have been hired to kill him. The plot almost fails when Cenci begins talking in his sleep, causing the superstitious Marzio to believe he is possessed and lose his nerve, but, urged on by Beatrice, the assassins manage to summon enough courage to choke the life out of the sleeping Cenci. They then throw his body over the balcony to make it look like he fell off by accident.
Mere minutes after Cenci is killed, the papal legate Savella arrives at Petrella bearing news: Pope Clement has finally grown tired of Cenci's crimes and signed an order for his arrest and execution. Savella soon finds Cenci's corpse and realizes immediately that he was murdered, as marks of violence are still visible on his body.
Act 5[]
Everybody involved in Count Cenci's murder is arrested except for Olimpio, who is killed by Marzio, and Orsino, who manages to escape in disguise. Marzio confesses under torture and implicates Beatrice; though she manages to get him to recant and he never speaks again until he dies on the rack, his confession is enough to justify torturing the others. Everyone ultimately confesses except for Beatrice, who maintains she is guiltless; the play ends with Beatrice, Lucretia, and Giacomo being led to their execution.
Quotes[]
| “ | One thing, I pray you, recollect henceforth, and so we shall converse with less restraint: A man you knew spoke of my wife and daughter; he was accustomed to frequent my house; so the next day his wife and daughter came and asked if I had seen him; and I smiled. I think they never saw him any more. | „ |
| ~ Count Cenci threateningly reminding Cardinal Camillo of a man he killed for asking about his wife and daughter. |
| “ | All men delight in sensual luxury; all men enjoy revenge, and most exult over the tortures they can never feel, flattering their secret peace with others' pain. But I delight in nothing else. I love the sight of agony, and the sense of joy, when this shall be another's and that mine; and I have no remorse and little fear, which are, I think, the checks of other men. | „ |
| ~ Count Cenci explaining his simple love of sadism. |
| “ | Till I killed a foe, and heard his groans, and heard his children's groans, knew I not what delight was else on earth,— which now delights me little. I the rather look on such pangs as terror ill conceals— The dry, fixed eyeball, the pale, quivering lip, which tell me that the spirit weeps within tears bitterer than the bloody sweat of Christ. I rarely kill the body, which preserves, like a strong prison, the soul within my power, wherein I feed it with the breath of fear for hourly pain. | „ |
| ~ Count Cenci describing how he loves killing and torturing people and listening to the cries of their children. |
| “ | O thou bright wine, whose purple splendor leaps and bubbles gaily in this golden bowl under the lamp-light, as my spirits do, to hear the death of my accursèd sons! Could I believe thou wert their mingled blood, then would I taste thee like a sacrament, and pledge with thee the mighty Devil in Hell, who, if a father's curses, as men say, climb with swift wings after their children's souls, and drag them from the very throne of Heaven, now triumphs in my triumph! | „ |
| ~ Count Cenci celebrating the deaths of his sons Rocco and Cristofano, picturing the wine as their blood. |
| “ | Ay--Rocco and Cristofano my curse strangled; and Giacomo, I think, will find life a worse Hell than that beyond the grave; Beatrice shall, if there be skill in hate, die in despair, blaspheming; to Bernardo, he is so innocent, I will bequeath the memory of these deeds, and make his youth the sepulchre of hope, where evil thoughts shall grow like weeds on a neglected tomb. When all is done, out in the wide Campagna I will pile up my silver and my gold; my costly robes, paintings, and tapestries; my parchments, and all records of my wealth; and make a bonfire in my joy, and leave of my possessions nothing but my name; Which shall be an inheritance to strip its wearer bare as infamy. | „ |
| ~ Count Cenci planning to break his children with despair and leave them with nothing but to inherit but his evil memory. |
| “ | When dead, as she shall die unshrived and unforgiven, a rebel to her father and her God, her corpse shall be abandoned to the hounds; her name shall be the terror of the earth; her spirit shall approach the throne of God plague-spotted with my curses. I will make body and soul a monstrous lump of ruin. | „ |
| ~ Count Cenci revealing his intent to have Beatrice's corpse desecrated and her very soul destroyed. |
| “ | If she ever have a child--and thou, quick Nature! I adjure thee by thy God, that thou be fruitful in her, and increase and multiply, fulfilling his command, and my deep imprecation!--may it be a hideous likeness of herself, that as from a distorting mirror she may see her image mixed with what she most abhors, smiling upon her from her nursing breast! And that the child may from its infancy grow, day by day, more wicked and deformed, turning her mother's love to misery! And that both she and it may live until it shall repay her care and pain with hate, or what may else be more unnatural; so he may hunt her through the clamorous scoffs of the loud world to a dishonored grave! | „ |
| ~ Count Cenci praying that Beatrice has a child from the incestuous rape who will grow wicked and deformed and torment her to her grave, even implying it would rape her. |
| “ | I do not feel as if I were a man, but like a fiend appointed to chastise the offences of some unremembered world. My blood is running up and down my veins; a fearful pleasure makes it prick and tingle; I feel a giddy sickness of strange awe; my heart is beating with an expectation of horrid joy. | „ |
| ~ Count Cenci reflecting that he feels so dizzyingly evil it's as if he is a demon sent to punish the sins of some forgotten world. |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Percy Bysshe Shelley deliberately avoided spelling out Count Cenci's worst crime in the play, the incestuous rape of Beatrice, in the hopes that this would allow the play to be staged despite its subject matter. Nevertheless, the play was not publicly performed in England until 1922, over a century after it was written.
- Shelley's depiction of Count Cenci did not explore all of his sexual crimes; in real life, he was said to have molested young boys as well.
External Links[]
- Count Francesco Cenci on the Pure Evil Wiki