The machine being now rearranged and washed, the executioner returned
to the chapel to take charge of Beatrice, who, on seeing the sacred
crucifix, said some prayers for her soul, and on her hands being tied,
cried out, "God grant that you be binding this body unto corruption, and
loosing this soul unto life eternal!" She then arose, proceeded to the
platform, where she devoutly kissed the stigmata; then, leaving her
slippers at the foot of the scaffold, she nimbly ascended the ladder,
and instructed beforehand, promptly lay down on the plank, without
exposing her naked shoulders. But her precautions to shorten the
bitterness of death were of no avail, for the pope, knowing her
impetuous disposition, and fearing lest she might be led into the
commission of some sin between absolution and death, had given orders
that the moment Beatrice was extended on the scaffold a signal gun
should be fired from the castle of Sant' Angelo; which was done, to the
great astonishment of everybody, including Beatrice herself, who,
not expecting this explosion, raised herself almost upright; the pope
meanwhile, who was praying at Monte Cavallo, gave her absolution 'in
articulo mortis'. About five minutes thus passed, during which the
sufferer waited with her head replaced on the block; at length, when the
executioner judged that the absolution had been given, he released the
spring, and the axe fell.

A gruesome sight was then afforded: whilst the head bounced away on one
side of the block, on the other the body rose erect, as if about to step
backwards; the executioner exhibited the head, and disposed of it and
the body as before. He wished to place Beatrice's body with that of her
stepmother, but the brotherhood of Mercy took it out of his hands, and
as one of them was attempting to lay it on the bier, it slipped from
him and fell from the scaffold to the ground below; the dress being