Artist: Arnold Bocklin
Size: 14 x 22 cm
Museum: Kupferstichkabinett (Berlin, Germany)
Technique: Drawing
From 1893 to 1895, Böcklin devoted his creative energies to material drawn from Dante’s Divine Comedy. It relates to a scene which Dante, guided through the Inferno by the poet Virgil, witnesses in the second circle of hell, resulting in the protagonist falling unconscious (an episode described in the fifth canto). This is because he recognizes two figures, weeping and holding one another in a tight embrace, as the lovers Paolo and Francesca. The events surrounding the story of this tormented couple took place in Dante’s own lifetime. Francesca was the daughter of Guido da Polenta, Lord of Ravenna. In 1275 she was married to Gianciotto Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, known to posterity for his limp. The marriage was purely political, intended to put an end to an inter-family dispute. However, Francesca was passionately in love with her husband’s younger stepbrother Paolo (called ‘the Handsome’), who had been similarly forced into marriage to further the interests of his family. On learning that they were lovers, Malatesta killed the couple in 1285. Paolo and Francesca, writes Dante (verses 127-8) confessed to their love for one another while reading Galeotto’s romance of Lancelot and Guinevere.
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