Podcast Summary: Not Just the Tudors

Episode: Tudor True Crime: Murder in Renaissance Rome

Date: January 12, 2026
Host: Professor Suzannah Lipscomb
Guest: Elizabeth Fremantle (historical novelist, author of Sinners)
Theme: Revisiting the infamous murder case of Beatrice Cenci in late 16th-century Rome, exploring issues of patriarchy, justice, the agency of women, and the line between history and historical fiction.

Episode Overview

This episode centers on the true crime story of Beatrice Cenci, a young Roman noble executed in 1599 for murdering her violently abusive father. Professor Suzannah Lipscomb discusses with novelist Elizabeth Fremantle both the historical facts and the narrative freedoms taken in Fremantle's new novel, Sinners. The conversation delves into the complexities of historical source material, the power dynamics for women in Renaissance Italy, myth-making around tragic women, and recent efforts to approach these stories with greater empathy and nuance.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Intersections with Previous Work and Inspiration

• Beatrice Cenci’s Enduring Presence:
  • Fremantle first encountered Beatrice Cenci while researching for her novel on Artemisia Gentileschi; both women were shaped by violence and the oppressive power of men in Renaissance Italy.
  • The potential connection between Caravaggio’s Judith Slaying Holofernes and Beatrice Cenci is explored as an enticing, though likely spurious, literary device.

    “Beatrice just…she wouldn’t get out of my head. So, you know, I thought, okay, I’ve got to kind of exorcise her in some ways.” – Elizabeth Fremantle (07:45)

2. Setting the Scene: Rome in the Late 16th Century

• Rome was experiencing a period of artistic and social flux, with new Baroque art emerging and political control tightening under the Pope.
• The noble families, including the not-quite-elite Cenci, were involved in vendettas, duels, and intrigue.
• Brutal deaths and street violence were commonplace, while the Church tightened censorship (e.g., banned books) and imposed order.

3. Women’s Agency and Education

• Noble women received religious education, mostly aimed at virtue, not intellect; true intellectual education was discouraged.

  “The educated woman was seen as something of a threat.” – Elizabeth Fremantle (14:19)

• Chastity was paramount, with social controls resembling modern-day honor killings.
• Beatrice’s only possible agency was drastic—revolt and murder out of desperation.

4. Evidence, Myth-Making, and Fact vs. Fiction

• Most surviving evidence comes from testimonies taken under torture, making truth elusive.
• The now-iconic "portrait" of Beatrice—a young, innocent-looking girl—has long been erroneously linked to her, fueling her myth as a tragic heroine.

  “Every time I’d find a thread and think, yes, finally I’m coming to something that might be a truth… it would just fall to dust in my fingers.” – Elizabeth Fremantle (18:28)

• Literature and romanticism (e.g., Shelley’s The Cenci) have layered conflicting archetypes onto Beatrice: either abject victim or calculating killer. In truth, the record suggests complexity.

5. Depicting Violence and Female Suffering

• Fremantle intentionally omitted some real abuses from her novel, finding them too gruesome to include responsibly.

  “Sometimes the truth about the past is actually unbearable.” – Professor Suzannah Lipscomb (27:52)

• The story’s public told was shaped by her defense lawyer’s claim of rape—a charge Beatrice herself never made, possibly because a rape victim would herself be shamed.
  • The narrative reveals uncomfortable patterns of victim-blaming: “Even if you’re raped by your father, somehow you’ve tempted him into doing it.” (Elizabeth Fremantle, 28:30)

6. Fiction and Empathy: Reclaiming Women’s Humanity

• The bifurcation of tragic women in history—innocent (Virgin Mary) or monstrous (Medea)—is critiqued.
• Fremantle seeks to explore Beatrice as flawed and complex, with relatable agency as well as transgression.

  “I wanted to try and scratch down and try and find a real woman who’s flawed… she is a sinner because she does arrange the murder of her father. But, you know, she’s human.” (Elizabeth Fremantle, 25:36)

7. Other Characters and Social Issues

• Bernardo Cenci: Portrayed as neurodivergent, reflecting confusion in the records about which brother was disabled. Historical Bernardo was possibly sent as a galley slave—a fate Fremantle writes differently, offering him hope.

  “He’s condemned to watch his family being executed, and then he’s sent to the galleys... the galleons of what was then the papal navy. Like, God knows what happened to him.” – Elizabeth Fremantle (34:10)

• Giacomo Cenci: Fremantle invents a homosexual orientation for Giacomo, reflecting on persecution of homosexuality at the time, including mass executions for “sodomy.” This offers a lens on family tension and patriarchal hypocrisy.

8. Religion and Female Faith

• Beatrice’s relationship with Catholic faith is depicted as fraught—torn between inherited belief and personal suffering. Her struggle is set against the more conventionally devout fictional character Hilaria.

  “Faith is faith because it requires absolute belief. And to require absolute belief means that there is the possibility of disbelief.” – Elizabeth Fremantle (43:14)

9. Historical Fiction & Emotional Truth

• Fremantle cites Lisa Jardine:

  “Sometimes it takes something other than perfect fidelity to sharpen our senses, to focus our attention sympathetically in order to give us emotional access to the past.” (46:30)

• Truth is subjective, and fiction’s role is to “imagine other truths” and restore voices to women flattened or sensationalized by history.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "She took the only action she could have taken to give herself some agency and free herself from this. And in my mind, she paid the ultimate price."
  — Elizabeth Fremantle (09:03)

• “The common way of taking testimonies in Rome in this period was under torture. It happened to Artemisia Gentileschi. It happened to Beatrice and her family.”
  — Elizabeth Fremantle (18:50)

• "There's always the saint or the sinner....I wanted to try and scratch down and try and find a real woman who’s flawed."
  — Elizabeth Fremantle (25:36)

• “We have to treat everything with suspicion. And, of course, that opens up an enormous field of supposition, which is very exciting to me.”
  — Elizabeth Fremantle (46:59)

Important Segment Timestamps

• Introduction & Beatrice Cenci’s story: 01:39 – 05:53
• Inspiration & myth-making: 05:55 – 10:02
• Rome’s context & noble families: 10:10 – 13:53
• Education & agency of women: 13:53 – 15:45
• Patriarchy & honor killings: 15:45 – 17:49
• Evidence, portrait myths, and Shelley: 17:49 – 23:51
• Mythology of tragic women: 25:01 – 27:19
• Depicting violence and women’s stories: 27:19 – 31:13
• Neurodiversity & Bernardo’s fate: 33:51 – 37:57
• Homosexuality & family rifts: 39:25 – 42:24
• Faith in Beatrice’s life: 42:24 – 45:17
• Historical empathy & fiction: 46:30 – 49:09

Concluding Thoughts

Elizabeth Fremantle’s Sinners and this podcast episode both exemplify an evolving approach to historical women—neither demonizing nor sanctifying, but rather seeking their humanity within the constraints and mysteries of the archive. Beatrice Cenci emerges as a woman at the edge of human endurance, rendered tragic not solely by her act, but by the system that left her with so few options.

For listeners and readers, the episode challenges us to approach the past—especially the stories of women—with suspicion, empathy, and imagination.