As we were reading the fifth canto of Dante's Inferno the other day, I was describing to you the castle of Gradara, where the ill-fated lovers Paolo and Francesca were supposedly murdered by her husband and his brother, Giovanni (known as Gianciotto for his ugliness) Malatesta. In terms of reliable historical evidence almost nothing is known of Francesca's life or fate after her marriage to Gianciotto, but most historians follow the gossip that must have informed the creation of the Commedia's most famous passage.
This is what Gradara looked like in the Middle Ages when, not only Francesca lived here, but also another well-known Early Modern woman, the infamous Lucrezia Borgia. Here's what the castle looks like today.
It really hasn't changed all that much. It's a great example of a typical medieval fortification turned into a defensible, noble residence. The castle's immediate vicinity becomes occupied by shops, hostelries, stables, that both serve the manor as well as the neighborhood. These small towns ringing castles were then enclosed in a circle of crenelated walls known as a borgo from which we get the word bourgeoisie meaning an urban merchant class. (We also get the English word borough from borgo--like the 5 boroughs that make up New York City.)
Since Giovanni Malatesta was the future duke of the city of Rimini, and Gradara was part of its city state, judging from the crenelations, we can tell to which political party Rimini belonged, right? Guelph or Ghibelline, you tell me.
Since Giovanni Malatesta was the future duke of the city of Rimini, and Gradara was part of its city state, judging from the crenelations, we can tell to which political party Rimini belonged, right? Guelph or Ghibelline, you tell me.
The most vivid commentary on Inferno V comes from Giovanni Boccaccio, author of the Decameron and an avid reader of Dante's poem. He copied the Commedia in his own hand several times, making certain emmendations that included adding the word "Divina" to the title--bad boy! Boccaccio gave lectures in S. Stefano church near the Ponte Veccio in Florence in 1374 on the first five canti of the Inferno. (The Universita' degli Studi di Firenze marks these lectures as its first ever course.)
This is Santo Stefano today--sadly reduced to a hall for cheesy tourist exhibits.
At any rate, Boccaccio's version of Paolo and Francesca's demise is much more like one of the bawdy novellae from the Decameron than the poignant moral dilemma presented in the Inferno. To explain the Dantesque line "Love... lead us to a single death," Boccaccio declares that, alerted of Giovanni's presence at the door, Paolo, seeking to flee Francesca's bedroom in only his nightshirt, got caught up on a nail about the trap door in the floor. Francesca, assuming her lover had escaped, turned her back on him and opened the door to her husband. When Giovanni went towards the struggling Paolo, still half in the room, with his sword drawn Francesca threw herself between the two brothers and Giovanni's sword killed the lovers in a single lunge. Below is the room where the tragedy supposedly occurred--note that there is a trapdoor on the far right of the picture!
And, lastly, for a hoot, here's an incredibly bad snippet from the Travel Channel completely garbling history with legend proclaiming that Francesca's ghost still haunts Gradara castle--note that it mentions neither Dante nor Boccaccio!
