accused of sodomy with Bernardino Rocchi, a sixteen-year-old page in the Palazzo Altemps, the house of his benefactor. He was excused of the crime by Pope Clement VIII, who famously made a pun on Farinacci's name (which alludes to "flour" in Italian) by claiming that "The flour is good, it's the bag that's bad."

Farinacci was perhaps most famous as the advocate in the scandalous trial for