Francesca da Rimini [lower-alpha 1] or Francesca da Polenta [lower-alpha 1] (died between 1283 and 1286) [1] was an Italian medieval noblewoman of Ravenna, who was murdered by her husband, Giovanni Malatesta, upon his discovery of her affair with his brother, Paolo Malatesta. She was a contemporary of Dante Alighieri, who portrayed her as a character in the Divine Comedy .
Daughter of Guido I da Polenta of Ravenna, Francesca was wedded in or around 1275 to the brave, yet crippled Giovanni Malatesta (also called Gianciotto or "Giovanni the Lame"), son of Malatesta da Verucchio, lord of Rimini. [2] The marriage was a political one; Guido had been at war with the Malatesta family, and the marriage of his daughter to Giovanni was a way to secure the peace that had been negotiated between the Malatesta and the Polenta families. While in Rimini, she fell in love with Giovanni's younger brother, Paolo. Though Paolo, too, was married, they managed to carry on an affair for some ten years, until Giovanni ultimately surprised them in Francesca's bedroom some time between 1283 and 1286, killing them both. [3] [4]
Francesca appears as a character in Dante's Inferno , the first part of the Divine Comedy, where she is the first soul damned in Hell proper to be given a substantive speaking role. Francesca's testimony and condemnation is the first historical record of her, laying the foundation for her remembrance and legacy. [5] Dante's knowledge of Francesca most likely stemmed from her nephew, Guido Novello da Polenta, who served as Dante's host in Ravenna at the end of his life. [6]
In Inferno 5, Dante and Virgil meet Francesca and her lover Paolo in the second circle of hell, reserved for the lustful. The couple are buffeted by violent winds in a similar manner that they allowed themselves to be swept away by their passions. Dante approaches Francesca and Paolo. Francesca takes ownership of telling their story while Paolo weeps in the background. She first introduces herself not by name, but by the city in which she was born; Francesca's self-association with the land implies a voluntary detachment from her personhood and a self-objectification.[ citation needed ]
Dante's condemnation of Francesca stems from her complete refusal of agency. In her compelling speech to Dante, Francesca blames love as the agent of her sin. Francesca explaining that Paolo loved her first and describes how "Love, which is swiftly kindled in the noble heart, seized this one for the lovely person that was taken from me; and the manner still injures me." [7] She depicts herself as a passive agent who succumbed to Paolo's love for her. Francesca's description of love "seizing" her implies that she views herself as a helpless victim of her circumstance. She continues that, "Love, which pardons no one loved from loving in return, seized me for his beauty so strongly that, as you see, it still does not abandon me." [8] Here, she affirms that her reciprocation of Paolo's affection was dictated by "Love" itself, rather than a genuine love that came from within. Again, she portrays herself as a passive victim, refusing to recognize her own agency. Finally, Francesca explains that "Love led us on to one death." [9] Francesca does not accept responsibility for the origins nor the consequences of her affair.
It is also important to underscore that Francesca and Paolo's adultery was enabled by literature. Francesca and Paolo's relationship began innocently while reading a tale about Lancelot du Lac. Francesca tells Dante that she "was kissed by so great a lover, he, who will never be separated from me, kissed my mouth, all trembling. Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it: that day we read there no further." [10] Again, Francesca refers to herself as a passive object and assigns agency to literature that she reads. Ironically, if Paolo and Francesca had finished reading, they would have learned that Guinivere and Lancelot's adultery eventually destroys King Arthur's kingdom.
Dante's literary portrayal of Francesca allows her to become a relevant example for moral agency. Dante portrays Francesca compassionately and assigns her a commanding and persuasive voice. Francesca is "never actively interrupted by any authoritative male voice, be it the pilgrim's, the narrator's or, importantly, her lover's, who is silently present at the scene of the testimony." [11] Additionally, Francesca's persuasive power derives from her language, which echoes that of love poetry, especially from Dante's early poems. In this way, Francesca becomes a reflection of Dante himself. At the end of Francesca's testimony, Dante faints and "fell as a dead body falls." [12] The pilgrim's symbolic death parallels Francesca's submission to her desires. Francesca becomes an "avatar of a persona that had been Dante's own." [13] Learning from Francesca's faults allows the pilgrim to rectify his own relationship with literature. Though Dante condemns Francesca, his compassionate literary portrayal gives her a dignity and a historical significance that she was deprived of in real life. In other words, her historical legacy transcends her literary condemnation.
In the years following Dante's portrayal of Francesca, legends about Francesca began to appear. Chief among them was one put forth by poet Giovanni Boccaccio in his commentary on the Divine Comedy, Esposizioni sopra la Comedia di Dante. Boccaccio stated that Francesca had been tricked into marrying Giovanni through the use of Paolo as a proxy. Guido, fearing that Francesca would never agree to marry the crippled Giovanni, had supposedly sent for the much more handsome Paolo in Giovanni's stead. It wasn't until the morning after the wedding that Francesca discovered the deception. This version of events, however, is very likely a fabrication. It would have been nearly impossible for Francesca not to know who both Giovanni and Paolo were, and that Paolo was already married, given the dealings the brothers had had with Ravenna and Francesca's family. Also, Boccaccio was born in 1313, some 27 years after Francesca's death, and while many Dante commentators after Boccaccio echoed his version of events, none before him had mentioned anything similar. [14]
In the 19th century, the story of Paolo and Francesca inspired numerous theatrical, operatic, and symphonic adaptations.
In 2023, the musician Hozier released the single "Francesca" as part of his 2023 album Unreal Unearth .
Malatesta da Verucchio (1212–1312) was the founder of the powerful Italian Malatesta family and a notable condottiero. He was born in Verucchio. He was the son of Malatesta della Penna (1183-1248).
Giovanni Malatesta, known, from his lameness, as Gianciotto, or Giovanni, lo Sciancato, was the eldest son of Malatesta da Verucchio of Rimini.
Francesca da Rimini: Symphonic Fantasy after Dante, Op. 32, is a symphonic poem by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It is a symphonic interpretation of the tragic tale of Francesca da Rimini, a beauty immortalized in Dante's Divine Comedy.
Francesca da Rimini, Op. 25, is an opera in a prologue, two tableaux and an epilogue by Sergei Rachmaninoff to a Russian libretto by Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It is based on the story of Francesca da Rimini in the fifth canto of Dante's epic poem The Inferno. The fifth canto is the part about the Second Circle of Hell (Lust). Rachmaninoff had composed the love duet for Francesca and Paolo in 1900, but did not resume work on the opera until 1904. The first performance was on 24 January 1906 at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, with the composer himself conducting, in a double-bill performance with another Rachmaninoff opera written contemporaneously, The Miserly Knight.
The House of Malatesta was an Italian family that ruled over Rimini from 1295 until 1500, as well as other lands and towns in Romagna and holding high positions in the government of cities in present-day Tuscany, Lombardy and Marche. The dynasty is considered among the most important and influential of the Late Middle Ages. In the period of maximum influence, they extended their domains along the Marche coast, up to Ascoli Piceno, Senigallia, Sansepolcro and Citerna, and to the north, on the territories of Bergamo and Brescia.
The Gates of Hell is a monumental bronze sculptural group work by French artist Auguste Rodin that depicts a scene from the Inferno, the first section of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. It stands at 6 metres high, 4 metres wide and 1 metre deep (19.7×13.1×3.3 ft) and contains 180 figures.
The Divine Comedy has been a source of inspiration for artists, musicians, and authors since its appearance in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Works are included here if they have been described by scholars as relating substantially in their structure or content to the Divine Comedy.
Francesca da Rimini, Op. 4, is an opera in four acts, composed by Riccardo Zandonai, with a libretto by Tito Ricordi II, after D'Annunzio's play Francesca da Rimini. It was premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin on 19 February 1914 and is still staged occasionally.
Paolo Malatesta, also known as il Bello, was the third son of Malatesta da Verucchio, Lord of Rimini. He is best known for the story of his affair with Francesca da Polenta, portrayed by Dante in a famous episode of his Inferno. He was the brother of Giovanni (Gianciotto) and Malatestino Malatesta.
Dante's Inferno is a 2007 comedy film performed with hand-drawn paper puppets on a theater stage. The film was adapted from the book "Dante's Inferno" by Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders, a modern update of the canticle Inferno from Dante Alighieri's epic poem Divine Comedy. The film chronicles Dante's journeys through the underworld, guided by Virgil. The head puppeteer was Paul Zaloom and the puppets were designed by Elyse Pignolet and drawn by Sandow Birk. The film premiered January 20, 2007 at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival. The film has also been shown at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Sarasota Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, Newport Beach Film Festival, Maryland Film Festival, Silver Lake Film Festival, the Boston Underground Film Festival, and on the Ovation TV cable network.
The Traversari are a noble Italian family. The dynasty's history was mostly connected to Ravenna, which it ruled between the 12th and 13th centuries. St. Romuald was the son of Duke Sergio degli Onesti of Ravenna and of Traversara Traversari, daughter of Teodoro Traversari, son of Paolo I Traversari.
Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta appraised by Dante and Virgil is a composition painted in at least six very similar versions by Ary Scheffer between 1822 and 1855; all are in oils on canvas. The paintings show a scene from Dante's Inferno, of Dante and Virgil in the shadows to the right viewing the murdered lovers Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta in Hell. It "could be described as Scheffer's best work".
Jacopo Alighieri was an Italian poet, the son of Dante Alighieri, whom he followed in his exile. Jacopo's most famous work is his sixty-chapter Dottrinale. He is represented by his father in the Paradiso of the Divine Comedy as Saint James along with Saint Peter and Saint John the Evangelist, representing his brothers Pietro and Giovanni.
Paolo and Francesca da Rimini is a watercolour by British artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painted in 1855 and now in Tate Britain. The painting is a triptych inspired by Canto V of Dante's Inferno, which describes the adulterous love between Paolo Malatesta and his sister-in-law Francesca da Rimini. The left- and right-hand panels both show the lovers together; the central panel shows Dante and the Roman poet Virgil, who guides Dante through hell in the poem.
The Gradara Castle is a medieval fortress that is located in the town of Gradara, Marche, in Italy. It is protected by two walls, the outermost of which extends for almost 800 metres, making it an imposing structure. Particularly striking is the view of the fortress and the underlying historical village at night. The castle is one of the most visited monuments in the region and is the scene of museum events, musical and artistic. Gradara was, by geographical position, since ancient times a crossroads of traffic and people: during the Middle Ages, the fortress was one of the main theatres of clashes between militias loyal to the papacy and the turbulent families Romagna and Marche.
Fugitive Love is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin made between 1886 and 1887, both sculpted in marble and cast in bronze. It represents a man and a woman embracing each other on top of a rock. More specifically, the author was inspired by the story of Francesca da Rimini's love affair with Paolo Malatesta, an allusion to Dante Alighieri's depiction of lust on the second circle of Hell in his Inferno.
Françoise de Rimini is an opera in four acts with a prologue and an epilogue. The last opera composed by Ambroise Thomas, it sets a French libretto by Michel Carré and Jules Barbier which is based on an episode from Dante's Divine Comedy. The opera was first performed by the Paris Opera on 14 April 1882 but fell into relative obscurity until its revival in 2011.
Francesca da Rimini is an 1831 opera by Saverio Mercadante to a libretto by Felice Romani based on Silvio Pellico's play which had already been set twice and ultimately was set by fifteen composers. It was to be premiered in Madrid in 1831, but the premiere was cancelled and the opera lost.
The second circle of hell is depicted in Dante Alighieri's 14th-century poem Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy. Inferno tells the story of Dante's journey through a vision of the Christian hell ordered into nine circles corresponding to classifications of sin; the second circle represents the sin of lust, where the lustful are punished by being buffeted within an endless tempest.
Dante: Inferno to Paradise is a 2024 American two-part documentary directed by Ric Burns, following the life and career of Dante Alighieri, and his poem Divine Comedy. It was broadcast by PBS on March 18 and 19, 2024.
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