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Paolo and Francesca da Rimini by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1862). Francesca da Rimini [a] or Francesca da Polenta [a] (died between 1283 and 1286) [1] was an Italian noblewoman of Ravenna, who was murdered by her husband, Giovanni Malatesta, upon his discovery of her affair with his brother, Paolo Malatesta.
Francesca was the sister-in-law of Paolo Malatesta, and both were married, but they fell in love.Their tragic adulterous story was told by Dante in his Divine Comedy, Canto V of the Inferno, and was a popular subject with Victorian artists and sculptors, especially with followers of the Pre-Raphaelite ideology, and with other writers.
In the first volume, Inferno, of The Divine Comedy, Dante and Virgil meet Francesca and her lover Paolo in the second circle of hell, reserved for the lustful. Da Rimini's father had forced her to marry the lame Giovanni Malatesta for political reasons, but she fell in love with Giovanni's brother Paolo.
Paolo Malatesta (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpaːolo malaˈtɛsta]; c. 1246 – 1285), also known as il Bello ('the Beautiful'), 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 (Canto V).
Dante also depicts a number of historical and mythological figures within the second circle, although chief among these are Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, murdered lovers whose story was well-known in Dante's time. Malatesta and da Rimini have since been the focus of academic interpretation and the inspiration for other works of art.
The Story of Rimini describes the background of Paolo and Francesca's story from Dante's Inferno. The purpose was to describe how Francesca was still able to love Paolo even though the two were in hell. The first canto of the work discusses Ravenna and how the Duke of Ravenna wishes to marry his daughter, Francesca, to Duke Giovanni of Rimini.
Dante comes across Francesca da Rimini, who married the deformed Giovanni Malatesta (also known as "Gianciotto") for political purposes but fell in love with his younger brother Paolo Malatesta; the two began to carry on an adulterous affair. Sometime between 1283 and 1286, Giovanni surprised them together in Francesca's bedroom and violently ...
The Gates of Hell, sculpture by Rodin, where the concept for the sculpture originated.. The sculpture, The Kiss, was originally titled Francesca da Rimini, as it depicts the 13th-century Italian noblewoman immortalised in Dante's Inferno (Circle 2, Canto 5) who falls in love with her husband Giovanni Malatesta's younger brother Paolo.