The Cenci (Masterplots, Revised Second Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley
- First Published: 1819
- Type of Work: Drama
- Type of Plot: Tragedy
- Time of Work: 1599
- Setting: Rome and the Apennines
- Principal Characters: Count Francesco Cenci, Beatrice, Bernardo, Giacomo, Lucretia, Orsino, Olimpio, Marzio, Savella, Cardinal Camillo
- Genres: Drama, Tragedy, Closet drama
- Subjects: Murder or homicide, Incest, Rape, Assassination, Fratricide, parricide, or filicide, Assassins, hit men, or contract killers, Sixteenth century, Italy or Italians, Popes or papacy, Romanticism, Rome
- Locales: Rome, Italy, Apennines, Italy
The Story:
Count Cenci was a cruel and brutal man whose greatest delight was to make people suffer. He had sent two of his sons to Salamanca in the hope that they would starve. His daughter, Beatrice, had been in love with Orsino, who had entered the priesthood. She did not know where to turn for solace. Her father was worse than cruel to her and her lover had become a priest. Orsino promised to present to the Pope a petition in which Beatrice begged relief from the sadistic abuses she and the rest of her family were suffering from her father. Beatrice told Orsino of a banquet...
[The entire page is 2183 words long]
