Attributed to Bernardo Celentano by Bruno Mantura and Stefano Susinno in 1989 on the occasion of the exhibition Historical memory and current events between the Revolution and Restoration , the canvas is rather to be related to the painting by Lorenzo Vallés The body of Beatrice Cenci exhibited at Ponte Sant'Angelo. This is one of the most important works of the Spanish artist for a long time active in Rome, where, thanks to a pension from the Duke de Sisto, he moved in 1853 to improve his skills. In the Eternal City he had first caught the stimuli of the Nazarene painting of Johann Friederich Overbeck, of Léopold Robert and of the Roman international environment, as the refined group of commoners depicted on the left attests in the work in question, and then of the history painting of Domenico Morelli and Bernardo Celentano, to whom he is indebted both as regards the technical and compositional choices and as regards the fidelity to the historical data in the choice of costumes. After having obtained the first recognitions with The body of Saint Sinforosa taken from the river by her family (1858) and The conversion of the Marquis de Lombai, future Saint Francesco Borgia (1862), in 1864 he had obtained the second prize at the Exposición Nacional with The body of Beatrice Cenci exhibited in Ponte Sant'Angelo, purchased the following year by the king for the Prado Museum and sent in the same year to the 'Exhibition in Dublin and in 1867 at the Universal Exhibition in Paris [ 1]. The work, partially destroyed by a fire in 1872, is, however, known today in its entirety only through a vintage photo. This dramatic loss does not allow for a correct analysis. The work of the Mantura collection in question could, in fact, be as much an unsigned replica remained in the Roman studio in Vallés as a copy, which precisely because of its excellent quality could not have been made on the basis of a photographic reproduction, but from the true in the short amount of time the painting was still in the artist's studio before taking the road to Madrid, Dublin and Paris. Vallés, fully integrated into the Roman international koinè, deals with one of the most popular themes of the mid-nineteenth century. Beatrice Cenci, condemned for the murder of her violent and abusive father and executed when she was just twenty-two on 11 September 1599, starting from the tragedy The Cenci (1819), inspired by Shelley from the famous portrait (Rome , Barberini Corsini National Galleries) attributed to Guido Reni, a symbol of rebellion against tyrants. The illustrated editions of the novel Beatrice Cenci (1854) by Francesco Guerrazzi and the ten tables Last events in the life of Beatrice Cenci published in the same years in Florence by the publisher Ricordi sanction the definitive popular diffusion of the dramatic story of the young Roman, whose last days of life were the subject of a large number of paintings. Vallés himself was also the author of a lost canvas depicting Beatrice Cenci led to the gallows presented in Rome in 1864 [2] . The chronicles tell that the trial and conviction of the young woman, who even under torture did not want to admit the abuses suffered by her father in order not to compromise her honor, had particularly affected all the inhabitants of Rome, without distinction of social classes, and that the on the day of his death a large crowd had gathered at the crossroads in front of Ponte Sant'Angelo, where executions were traditionally held. To appease the spirits, Pope Clement VIII had, therefore, allowed the body of the unfortunate heroine to be exhibited in the public square, to which the Romans had honored by sprinkling it with flowers. As underlined by Caterina Bon Valsassina, the painting is the result of a careful study of the sources and is almost a manifesto of the success of the theme. All social classes combine to create a choral scene of great dramatic impact, starting from the group of commoners on the left to the children on the right climbing the base of the statue and the group of three armed men. The figures of the Franciscan friars, who share solemnity and composure with Friar Cristoforo Manzoniano, and the hooded brother of the Confraternity of Prayer and Death are matched by that of the cardinal who looks at the scene from his sedan chair. At the center of the composition stands a noblewoman in elegant clothes accompanying a child, probably the "poor child pupil" mentioned in the will of Beatrice Cenci and considered by many to be her illegitimate son.

Teresa Sacchi Lodispoto