They are at many points in startling contradiction to the legend, which is founded on MS.

accounts compiled at no distant period after the events.
One of these was translated by Shelley; another, differing in some particulars, was translated by De Stendhal.

Both agree in painting that lurid portrait of Francesco Cenci which Shelley has animated with the force of a great dramatist.[201] Unluckily, no copy of the legal instructions upon which the trial was conducted is now extant.

In the absence of this all-important source of information, it would be unsafe to adopt Bertolotti's argument, that the legend calumniates Francesco in order to exculpate Beatrice, without some reservation.

There is room for the belief that facts adduced in evidence may have partly justified the prevalent opinion of Beatrice's infamous persecution by her father.
[Footnote 199: De Stendhal's MS.