Categories: Dante

Paolo and Francesca


Dante spends some time talking to one couple swirling in the wind, locked together for eternity. They are Paolo and Francesca, lovers, famous even in Dante’s time. Unfortunately, Paolo was not married to Francesca, he was her brother in law and was murdered by her husband, caught in the act.

 

Dante and Virgil in Hell
Dave

Creator of Dante Explorer

View Comments

  • The canto ends with Dante weeping and fainting, overcome by sadness. This points out another aspect of the Divine Comedy, Dante’s moral growth. As he progresses through Hell, Dante learns to discern the truth from the lies that the damned actually tell him.

    O' the gift of God to give us!

    Thanks for the education :)

Recent Posts

Summary of the Terraces of Purgatory

Just as the landscape of Dante’s Purgatory is different from that of Hell, the second…

4 years ago

Botticelli’s Inferno Painting

Sandro Botticelli was a renaissance painter in Florence best known today for his works "The…

4 years ago

The Circles of Hell in Dante’s Inferno

The nine Circles of Hell, punishing progressively more serious sins,  gives the sinners what they…

4 years ago

The Gate of Hell

Although the first part of the Divine Comedy, Inferno, begins at canto one, the journey…

4 years ago

The Grafters Inferno

A devil carrying a soul of the damned in his claws runs toward Dante and…

4 years ago

Maps of the Afterlife

Dante's Paradise consists of different ascending spheres by holiness, ultimately ending in a vision of…

4 years ago