Francesca da Rimini (historical person)

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Francesca da Rimini or Francesca da Polenta (* in Ravenna ; † between 1283 and 1286, according to other information between 1285 and 1289) was the daughter of Guido da Polenta (called Guido Minore), the Lord ( signore ) of Ravenna. She was a contemporary of Dante Alighieris and one of the characters in his Divine Comedy . She became famous for the fact that she was murdered by her husband, Giovanni Malatesta, for adultery with his younger stepbrother Paolo.

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The information available today about Francesca's life comes from Dante's Divina commedia , from comments on this work and from a brief note in the Chronicle Marcha by the historian Marco Battagli. Battagli came from Rimini , where Francesca had lived as a wife. He does not give her name, but only says that her husband killed his brother "because of debauchery" ( causa luxurie ). The relevant part of the Chronicle was written in 1352, three decades after Dante's death, and may therefore be influenced by Dante's work. It is therefore uncertain whether the message in the chronicle is an independent confirmation of Dante's statements. It is not excluded that Dante invented the story, or at least heavily reshaped it; some details of which he could not have been informed are obviously poetic embellishments. The fact that Francesca's family apparently did not protest against Dante's portrayal speaks for a real core. Francesca's nephew Guido Novello da Polenta hosted Dante's in Ravenna. What is striking, however, is the silence of contemporary chroniclers. Francesca is attested as a historical figure in only one document, namely only with her baptismal name: in the will of her father-in-law drawn up in 1311, which mentions her dowry and her daughter Concordia, but not her origin.

Life

Francesca's family sought control in their hometown of Ravenna, which they gained in 1275; in Rimini the condottiere Malatesta da Verucchio tried to come to power, which he succeeded in 1295. These two families were the most important families in Romagna at the time . They are believed to have been in rivalry, but Dante commentators' claim that they were feuding is not borne out by history. In any case, the polenta and the Malatesta formed an alliance around the mid-1970s that was sealed by a dynastic marriage. Guido da Polenta married his daughter Francesca around 1275 to Giovanni ("Gianciotto"), the eldest son of Malatesta da Verucchio. Giovanni never came to power in Rimini because he died before his father; he was murdered in 1304. In Ottimo commento , a Dante commentary written in Florence around 1333, Giovanni is described as warlike and cruel, Francesca as very beautiful and cheerful. For Guido the alliance paid off; when he took control of Ravenna in a military coup in September 1275, he was supported by auxiliary troops of the Malatesta.

Dante's sparse information can be inferred only little about Francesca's biography. Although he was a bitter opponent of the Malatesta family, he does not even mention their names in this context. He only mentions Francesca's birthplace (without naming him; the reader has to deduce that it is Ravenna), her first name and the fact that she and her lover, with whom she was related by marriage, were murdered by a brother (of the lover's) . We do not find out the name of the murderer or the fact that he was her husband. Further information is handed down in the Dante Commentaries, the reports of which have been embellished like legend over time. In the Dante commentary by Jacopo Alighieri, written around 1322, it is only stated that Francesca had entered into an adulterous relationship with Giovanni's younger brother Paolo "il Bello" . When Giovanni, who was crippled or lame ( "sciancato" ), discovered this, he killed both of them. In the commentary by Jacopo della Lana, written only a few years later, further details are given: Giovanni caught the adulterous couple in the act and stabbed both of them with his sword at the same time. The dating of the deed results from the fact that Paolo was last attested to be alive on February 28, 1283 and that Giovanni had a new marriage at the latest in 1286.

The murder did not change the alliance between the Malatesta and da Polenta families; in the years that followed they acted in harmony.

Legend

Dante has Francesca, who he meets in the Divine Comedy as deceased in Hell , report that the initiative for the relationship came from her lover, who was moved by her beauty. She said that reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere ( Lancelot du Lac ) together led to her being kissed and surrendered to him.

It was Giovanni Boccaccio who first turned the material into a romantic story that shaped Francesca's image for the subsequent period. He added fictitious details to the traditional news. According to his portrayal, Guido da Polenta was warned by a friend that Francesca would never agree to her planned marriage if she saw her future husband, who was ugly and misshapen, before the wedding. But Guido wanted to make Giovanni his son-in-law, because he expected that he would gain rule over Rimini in the future. So the handsome Paolo was sent to Ravenna, where he married on behalf of his brother. Francesca immediately fell in love with Paolo and was initially made to believe that he was now her husband. It wasn't until the morning after the wedding night that she discovered her mistake. She held onto her love for Paolo and thus became an adulteress. When Giovanni caught the two of them, he just wanted to kill his brother because he loved his wife, but because Francesca stood between the two men, she too had to die.

In contrast to the older tradition, Boccaccio assigned Francesca a very active role. With him she is not a seduced adulteress, she just sticks to her initial decision for Paolo, since she rightly sees in him the man she has decided on from the start and whom she believed she would marry on the wedding day. Boccaccio turns Francesca into an innocent and strong-willed heroine. In doing so, he contradicts Dante's version. He also expressly states that he considers Dante's account of the beginning of the love story to be untrustworthy, and suggests that he himself has access to an oral tradition that is more reliable than Dante's source. He was successful with this, posterity believed him and linked his version with Dante's.

The Francesca legend keeps silent about the fact that Paolo was married. He and his wife Orabile Beatrice, the daughter and heiress of Count Uberto of Ghiaggiolo, had two children, the son Uberto, who inherited Ghiaggiolo, and the daughter Margharita. In modern research it is believed that the antagonism between the brothers Giovanni and Paolo that led to Paolo's death resulted not only, and perhaps not primarily, from adultery, but that the dispute over the future inheritance of the two, particularly Ghiaggiolo, resulted , played an important role.

Effect in art

poetry

Visual arts

  • Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

  • Anselm Feuerbach

  • Ary Scheffer

  • Gustave Doré

  • Alexandre Cabanel

  • Auguste Rodin

music

See also

literature

  • Teodolinda Barolini: Dante and Francesca da Rimini: Realpolitik, Romance, Gender . In: Speculum 75, 2000, pp. 1-28
  • Anna Falcioni: Malatesta, Paolo . In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Vol. 68, Rome 2007, pp. 101-103

Web links

Commons : Francesca da Rimini  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ Meyer's Large Conversational Lexicon . 6th edition, Volume 6, Leipzig / Vienna 1906, p. 817 ( online )
  2. ↑ Teodolinda Barolini: Dante and Francesca da Rimini: Realpolitik, Romance, gender . In: Speculum 75, 2000, pp. 1–28, here: 1f., 25f.
  3. ↑ Teodolinda Barolini: Dante and Francesca da Rimini: Realpolitik, Romance, gender . In: Speculum 75, 2000, pp. 1–28, here: 3f.
  4. ^ Anna Falcioni: Malatesta detto Malatesta da Verucchio . In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani vol. 68, Rome 2007, pp. 68–71, here: 69.
  5. ↑ Teodolinda Barolini: Dante and Francesca da Rimini: Realpolitik, Romance, gender . In: Speculum 75, 2000, pp. 1–28, here: 5f.
  6. ^ Anna Falcioni: Malatesta detto Malatesta da Verucchio . In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani vol. 68, Rome 2007, pp. 68–71, here: 70.
  7. ↑ Teodolinda Barolini: Dante and Francesca da Rimini: Realpolitik, Romance, gender . In: Speculum 75, 2000, pp. 1–28, here: 13–18.
  8. ^ Anna Falcioni: Malatesta, Giovanni . In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani vol. 68, Rome 2007, pp. 53–56, here: 54; Anna Falcioni: Malatesta, Paolo . In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani vol. 68, Rome 2007, pp. 101-103, here: 102.
personal data
SURNAME Francesca da Rimini
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Francesca da Polenta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Daughter of Guido da Polenta (Ravenna)
DATE OF BIRTH 12th century or 13th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Ravenna
DATE OF DEATH around 1283