persons would be spared; for the evidence all went to prove that even
if the children had taken their father's life, all the provocation came
from him, and that Beatrice in particular had been dragged into the part
she had taken in this crime by the tyranny, wickedness, and brutality
of her father. Under the influence of these considerations the pope
mitigated the severity of their prison life, and even allowed the
prisoners to hope that their lives would not be forfeited.

Amidst the general feeling of relief afforded to the public by these
favours, another tragical event changed the papal mind and frustrated
all his humane intentions. This was the atrocious murder of the Marchese
di Santa Croce, a man seventy years of age, by his son Paolo, who
stabbed him with a dagger in fifteen or twenty places, because the
father would not promise to make Paolo his sole heir. The murderer fled
and escaped.

Clement VIII was horror-stricken at the increasing frequency of this
crime of parricide: for the moment, however, he was unable to take
action, having to go to Monte Cavallo to consecrate a cardinal titular
bishop in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli; but the day following,
on Friday the 10th of September 1599, at eight o'clock in the morning,
he summoned Monsignor Taverna, governor of Rome, and said to him--

"Monsignor, we place in your hands the Cenci case, that you may carry
out the sentence as speedily as possible."

On his return to his palace, after leaving His Holiness, the governor
convened a meeting of all the criminal judges in the city, the result of
the council being that all the Cenci were condemned to death.