Book description
Beatrice Cenci was executed in Rome in September 1599: she was said
to be sixteen, and was hauntingly beautiful. Her crime was the murder
of her father, a member of one of the greatest Roman families, but his
cruel treatment of her, including incestuous rape, moved the people of
the city to take her side.
Weeping crowds lined the streets, and a special mass is still said
in Rome on the anniversary of her death. She was at once innocent and
guilty, the victim and the perpetrator of appalling crimes. From that
time since, the ambivalent image of Beatrice has attracted writers and
artists, and often their obsession with her fed their own
self-destruction. In this compelling study, Belinda Jack takes on the
dangerous challenge of bringing Beatrice to life, and of tracing her
power over those who tried to resurrect her, from the tragedy of
Shelley to the novels of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, from
the sculpture of Harriet Hosmer and the photographs of Julia Margaret
Cameron to the desperate drama of Antonin Artaud.
As we follow the stories of their lives and ambitions, we see how
they suffered critical condemnation for their works about Beatrice,
and were sometimes pushed to the brink of insanity. Her story, which
is one of lust, passion and violence, contains a powerful sense of the
forbidden, the taboo that drives people over the edge. Beatrice's
Spell is at once scholarly and utterly engrossing, carrying the power
of her story through time.
Belinda Jack is the author of an acclaimed biography of George Sand
and teaches French at Christ Church, Oxford. She lives in Oxford with
her husband and three children.
