Daughter of Guido da Polenta the Elder, Lord of Ravenna. The little historical information available on Francesca indicate that she was married, around 1275-1282, to Gianciotto Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, with whom she had a daughter, Concordia. She would have maintained a love affair with the brother of her husband, Paolo Malatesta, himself married and father of two children. Once their adulterous relationship was discovered, the two lovers were killed by Gianciotto.
Dante, who might have known Paolo Malatesta personally when he held the office of Captain of the people in Florence (from February 1282 and February 1283), situates Francesca and Paolo in the second circle of Inferno, where they are punished for their lust (Inf. 5, 82-143). Dante’s account remains the only testimony we have of this dramatic episode of adultery and homicide that took place at the court of the Malatesta, as the chronicles and the local documentation does not mention it.
The data of the first exegetes of the Comedy on the story of Paolo and Francesca seem to be based mainly on Dante’s version and relies on fantastic deductions. In this case, neither Pietro Alighieri (who stayed in Ravenna) nor the Bolognese Graziolo Bambagliolo or Jacopo della Lana, commentators of the Comedy, go beyond the historical attestation of the adulterous protagonists who appear in this infernal representation.
The legendary tradition, which freely takes up the Dantean assertions and reworks the thin and rare existing historical data, seems to come from the Florentine writings of the Ottimo Commento. Transforming the story into a pious novella, the Ottimo tries to provide some modest details: the matrimonial union between Francesca and Gianciotto would have served political interests, that is to say, the appeasement of the rivalries between the Polenta family and the Malatesta; the affair would have been revealed to Gianciotto by a member of his family. Jean Boccace takes up the history in his Esposizioni sopra la Commedia di Dante and, by means of literary devices typical of novelistic cycles of Brittany, multiplies the details and increases the pathetic strength of the story. In this later version, not only did Francesca marry a dirty man for political reasons, but she was fooled by the promise of a marriage that she thought was contracted with the “beautiful Paolo,” with whom she was in love. The latter was, however, only the matrimonial “prosecutor” of his brother. In this narrative framework, reminiscent of the narrative of Tristan’s novels, the scene of adultery and murder is colored with a melodramatic pity.
Consult the entry of the Enciclopedia Dantesca in Italian.
Entry taken from the Enciclopedia Dantesca published by the Istituto Treccani — Texts revised by the Centre d’études médiévales of the Université de Montréal.
Editing: Gabrielle Hamelin, Martyna Kander.
English translation: Brittany Buscio.
