In Italy the Campo Santo (Holy Field) is best illustrated by the famous one at Pisa, from which the name has been given to other Italian burying-grounds. Of the cemeteries still in use in southern Europe the catacombs (q.v.) of Sicily are the most curious. There is one of these under the old Capuchin monastery of Ziza near Palermo, where in four large airy subterranean corridors 2000 corpses are ranged in niches in the wall, many of them shrunk up into the most grotesque attitudes, or hanging with pendent limbs and head from their places. As a preparation for the niche, the body is desiccated in a kind of oven, and then dressed as in life and raised into its place in the wall. At the end of the principal corridor at Ziza there is an altar strangely ornamented with a kind of mosaic of human skulls and bones.
Cemeteries have been in use among many Eastern nations from time immemorial. In China, the high grounds near Canton and Macao are crowded with tombs, many of them being in the form of small tumuli, with a low encircling wall, forcibly recalling the ringed barrows of western Europe. But the most picturesque cemeteries in the world are those of the Turks. From them it was, perhaps, that the first idea of the modern cemetery, with its ornamental plantations, was derived. Around Constantinople the cemeteries form vast tracts of cypress woods under whose branches stand thousands of tombstones. A grave is never reopened; a new resting-place is formed for every one, and so the dead now occupy a wider territory than that which is covered by the homes of the living. The Turks believe that till the body is buried the soul is in a state of discomfort, and the funeral, therefore, takes place as soon as possible after death. No coffin is used, the body is laid in the grave, a few boards are arranged round it, and then the earth is shovelled in, care being taken to leave a small opening extending from the head of the corpse to the surface of the ground, an opening not unfrequently enlarged by dogs and other beasts which plunder the grave. A tombstone of white marble is then erected, surmounted by a carved turban in the case of a man, and ornamented by a palm branch in low relief if the grave is that of a woman. The turban by its varying form indicates not only the rank of the sleeper below but also the period of his death, for the fashion of the Turkish head-dress is always changing. A cypress is usually planted beside the grave, its odour being supposed to neutralize any noxious exhalations from the ground, and thus every cemetery is a forest, where by day hundreds of turtle doves are on the wing or perching on the trees, and where bats and owls swarm undisturbed at night. Especially for the Turkish women the cemeteries are a favourite resort, and some of them are always to be seen praying beside the narrow openings that lead down into a parent’s, a husband’s, or a brother’s grave. Some of the other cemeteries of Constantinople contrast rather unfavourably with the simple dignity of those which belong to the Turks. That of the Armenians abounds with bas-reliefs which show the manner of the death of whoever is buried below, and on these singular tombstones there are frequent representations of men being decapitated or hanging on the gallows.
See also the articles [Burial and Burial Acts]; [Cremation]; [Funeral Rites]; [Churchyard].
CENCI, BEATRICE (1577-1599), a Roman woman, famous for her tragic story; poetic fancy has woven a halo of romance about her, which modern historic research has to a large extent destroyed. Born at Rome, she was the daughter of Francesco Cenci (1549-1598), the bastard son of a priest, and a man of great wealth but dissolute habits and violent temper. He seems to have been guilty of various offences and to have got off with short terms of imprisonment by bribery; but the monstrous cruelty which popular tradition has attributed to him is purely legendary. His first wife, Ersilia Santa Croce, bore him twelve children, and nine years after her death he married Lucrezia Petroni, a widow with three daughters, by whom he had no offspring. He was very quarrelsome and lived on the worst possible terms with his children, who, however, were all of them more or less disreputable. He kept various mistresses and was even prosecuted for unnatural vice, but his sons were equally dissolute. His harsh treatment of his daughter Beatrice was probably due to his discovery that she had had an illegitimate child as the result of an intrigue with one of his stewards (A. Bertolotti, in his Francesco Cenci, publishes Beatrice’s will in which she provides for this child), but there is no evidence that he tried to commit incest with her, as has been alleged. The eldest son Giacomo was a riotous, dishonest young scoundrel, who cheated his own father and even attempted to murder him (1595). Two other sons, Rocco and Cristoforo, both of them notorious rakes, were killed in brawls. Finally Francesco’s wife Lucrezia and his children Giacomo, Bernardo and Beatrice, assisted by a certain Monsignor Guerra, plotted to murder him. Two bravos were hired (one of them named Olimpio, according to Bertolotti, was probably Beatrice’s lover), and Francesco was assassinated while asleep in his castle of Petrella in the kingdom of Naples (1598). Giacomo afterwards had one of the bravos murdered, but the other was arrested by the Neapolitan authorities and confessed everything. Information having been communicated to Rome, the whole of the Cenci family were arrested early in 1599; but the story of the hardships they underwent in prison is greatly exaggerated. Guerra escaped; Lucrezia, Giacomo and Bernardo confessed the crime; and Beatrice, who at first denied everything, even under torture, also ended by confessing. Great efforts were made to obtain mercy for the accused, but the crime was considered too heinous, and the pope (Clement VIII.) refused to grant a pardon; on the 11th of September 1599, Beatrice and Lucrezia were beheaded, and Giacomo, after having been tortured with red-hot pincers, was killed with a mace, drawn and quartered. Bernardo’s penalty, on account of his youth, was commuted to perpetual imprisonment, and after a year’s confinement he was pardoned. The property of the family was confiscated.
The romantic character of the history of this family has been the subject of poems, dramas and novels. Shelley’s tragedy is well known as a magnificent piece of writing, although the author adopts a purely fictitious version of the story. Nor is F.D. Guerrazzi’s novel, Beatrice Cenci (Milan, 1872), more trustworthy. The first attempt to deal with the subject on documentary evidence is A. Bertolotti’s Francesco Cenci e la sua famiglia (2nd ed., Florence, 1879), containing a number of interesting documents which place the events in their true light; cf. Labruzzi’s article in the Nuova Antologia, 1879, vol. xiv., and another in the Edinburgh Review, January 1879.
CENOBITES (from Gr. κοινός, common, and βίος, life), monks who lived together in a convent or community under a rule and a superior,—in contrast to hermits or anchorets who live in isolation. The Basilians (q.v.) in the East and the Benedictines (q.v.) in the West are the chief cenobitical orders (see [Monasticism]).
CENOMANI, a branch of the Aulerci in Gallia Celtica, whose territory corresponded generally to Maine in the modern department of Sarthe. Their chief town was Vindinum or Suindinum (corrupted into Subdinnum), afterwards Civitas Cenomanorum (whence Le Mans), the original name of the town, as usual in the case of Gallic cities, being replaced by that of the people. According to Caesar (Bell. Gall. vii. 75. 3), they assisted Vercingetorix in the great rising (52 b.c.) with a force of 5000 men. Under Augustus they formed a civitas stipendiaria of Gallia Lugdunensis, and in the 4th century part of Gallia Lugdunensis iii. About 400 b.c., under the leadership of Elitovius (Livy v. 35), a large number of the Cenomani crossed into Italy, drove the Etruscans southwards, and occupied their territory. The statement of Cato (in Pliny, Nat. Hist. iii. 130), that some of them settled near Massilia in the territory of the Volcae, may indicate the route taken by them. The limits of their territory are not clearly defined, but were probably the Athesis (Adige or Etsch) on the east, the Ollius (Oglio, or perhaps the Addua) on the west, and the Padus on the south. Livy gives their chief towns as Brixia (Brescia) and Verona; Pliny, Brixia and Cremona. The Cenomani nearly always appear in history as loyal friends and allies of the Romans, whom they assisted in the Gallic war (225 b.c.), when the Boii and Insubres took up arms against Rome, and during the war against Hannibal. They certainly joined in the revolt of the Gauls under Hamilcar (200), but after they had been defeated by the consul Gaius Cornelius (197) they finally submitted. In 49, with the rest of Gallia Transpadana, they acquired the rights of citizenship.