Arranged Marriage
Guido I da Polenta had been at war with the Malatesta family. When a peace was negotiated, Guido wanted to solidify it by marrying his daughter Francesca to the Malatestan heir, Giovanni Malatesta (Gianciotto), son of Malatesta da Verucchio, lord of Rimini. Giovanni was brave but deformed. Guido knew Francesca would refuse Giovanni, so the wedding was performed by proxy through Giovanni's handsome brother, Paolo.
Francesca fell in love with Paolo and was unaware of the deception until the morning after the wedding day.
According to Dante, Francesca and Paolo were seduced by reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, and became lovers. Subsequently they were surprised and murdered by Giovanni before they were able to repent. However, it is likely that the adultery was much more calculated. Both Francesca and the also-married Paolo had their own children. Dante used the romance of Lancelot in order to fit within the scheme of lyric love poetry, which Francesca emulates in her lines of Inferno's Canto V.
Read more about this topic: Francesca Da Rimini
Famous quotes containing the words arranged and/or marriage:
“When we read of human beings behaving in certain ways, with the approval of the author, who gives his benediction to this behaviour by his attitude towards the result of the behaviour arranged by himself, we can be influenced towards behaving in the same way.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“A marriage based on full confidence, based on complete and unqualified frankness on both sides; they are not keeping anything back; there’s no deception underneath it all. If I might so put it, it’s an agreement for the mutual forgiveness of sin.”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)