266 THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS. 



summer with his family, three children and a second wife, and 

 where lie indulged in every species of wanton cruelty with im- 

 punity. Here the surpassing beauty of Beatrice excited his 

 unnatural desires ; and to violence and barbarity was added the 

 crime of incest. These accumulated villainies finally aroused his 

 wife to conspire with the steward and others to destroy their 

 common tyrant. He was assassinated and his bod} 7 thrown from 

 the wall. Suspicions were excited ; the family were thrown into 

 prison ; Beatrice was particularly persecuted, was hung up by 

 the hair, and finally forced to say that she committed the murder. 

 Family rivalries and property considerations incited the persecu- 

 tion. She was condemned to death by Pope Clement VIII, was 

 beheaded, and buried in San Petro-in-Montorio, in Rome, before 

 the High Altar. Her portrait was taken by Guido Eeni just 

 before her execution. 



THE SAMIAN SIBYL. 



By GUERCINO (born 1590, died 1666). In an open book, on 

 which the Sibyl places her hands, one reads this Latin verse : 

 "Salve casta syon perrnulta que passa puella" welcome, Virgin 

 divine, who hast passed through many trials ! The Sibyls were 

 ancient Greek prophetesses, who, as the early Fathers claimed, 

 foretold the coming of Christ to the Gentiles, as the prophets 

 did to the Jews. They were consulted as oracles, were regarded 

 as holy virgins, and lived in caves and grottoes. Varro, a Latin 

 author, B. C. 100, mentions ten of them, named from the locali- 

 ties of their habitations, of whom the Samian Sibyl was the 

 sixth. She is supposed to have lived about the time of Isaiah, 

 and to have prophesied to the Greeks who came to see her on 

 the Island of Samos. 



CUM-ffiAN SIBYL. 



By ROMANELLI, a. painter of the Bolognese School, and of the 

 17th century. Original in the National Museum at Naples. The 

 Sibyl has in her left hand a book with the inscription, " Ut non 

 confundar" Let me not be confounded, or misunderstood. 



The Cumaean is the most ancient and most celebrated of all 

 the Sibyls. The legend is that Apollo fell in love with her, and 



