The Via del Portico Ottavia remains the principal thoroughfare of the Ghetto area. Along its route is the 15th century house, Casa di Lorenzo Manilio #1 (Aedes Manliana), with ancient Roman funerary fragments from Via Appia embedded in its walls. His name, abbreviated in Latin (LAVR MANLIUS) and a date (MMCCXXI) are inscribed on the building’s wall in marble lettering. The number 2221 (MMCCXXI) signifies 2221 AUC (from the founding of the City indicating the year 1476 AD (2221-753 = 1478) and indicates the date of construction. Lorenzo Manilius, a prosperous merchant of pharmaceuticals, claimed, fictitiously, connection to the ancient, 4th BC, Manlian family of soldiers, politicians, and statesmen.
Inscriptions appear as well on other parts of the structure: his name on the
lintels above the doors and the epigram, ‘Ave Roma’, on the windows.
Piazza Cinque Scuole is a relatively new public square built in the 19th century when the Ghetto was demolished and named after the five synagogues (two Italian, two Spanish and one Sicilian). These were housed in one building in this area when it was called Piazza della Giudia. This ghetto structure remained until 1910 when it was partially destroyed by fire. The fountain in the middle of the square was relocated here from Piazza Giudia by Giacomo della Porta.
Bordering on Piazza delle Cinque Scole and located in the area of the ancient Circus of Flaminius and once a part of a larger family complex stands Palazzo Cenci, the 16th century home of Beatrice Cenci beheaded for parricide in 1559. The Cencis, a large family engaged in trading and banking activities, engaged in commercial enterprises involving the Roman Curia. Beatrice lived in the back side of the palace.
Her aristocratic father, Francesco, a descendent of the Byzantine Empress Theodora, but a brutal man, regularly abused his wives (two) and all his children. Beatrice, her step-mother and her two brothers, took their revenge and murdered him at one of their estates outside the City. Despite the great sympathy they aroused among the general population of the City which requested for them a pardon, they went to trial in 1599. Found guilty, three of them executed in the piazza outside of Castel Sant’Angelo. While the youngest brother (Bernardo) was spared from death, he was, nonetheless, forced to witness the executions (the women by beheading, the older brother by drawing and quartering) and sentenced to twenty years in prison. Pope Paul V (Borghese) confiscated the Cenci properties and distributed them among his nephews. The Villa Borghese, built by this Pope’s nephew, Cardinal Scipio Borghese, represents one such property. Remains of the Cenci house (Casa Cenci) still stand in the gardens of the Villa.
Beatrice’s execution at the Sant’Angelo bridge which her twelve-year-old brother was forced to witness, has been the source of much controversy then and now. Beatrice became a symbol of popular outrage toward the privileged aristocracy. In legend she returns to the bridge annually on the anniversary of her death.
