One of the most beautiful and pathetic stories of this whole period, however, is the one which concerns the fate of Madonna Francesca, daughter of Guido the Elder, Lord of Ravenna and of Cervia. For many years, according to Boccaccio's account, Guido had waged a grievous war with the Lord Malatesta of Rimini, and finally, when peace was brought about between them through the mediation of friends, it was thought advisable to cement the friendship with as close a tie as possible. To that end, Guido agreed to give his fair young daughter, Francesca, in marriage to Gianciotto, Malatesta's son, without a thought to her own desires in the matter. When the plan was noised abroad, certain friends of Guido, knowing Gianciotto to be lame and rather rough in his manners, and considering it very doubtful whether Francesca would consent to marry him when once she had seen him, came to the father and urged him to act with discretion, so that no scandal might arise over the matter. It happened that there was a younger son of the house of Malatesta, Paolo by name, who was young and handsome and possessed of most courtly and winning manners, and it was advised that he be sent to marry Francesca by proxy in his brother's stead, and that she should be kept in ignorance regarding the real state of affairs until it was too late to withdraw her word. So Paolo came to Ravenna with a brilliant train of gentlemen to celebrate the wedding festivities; and as he crossed the courtyard of the palace on the morning of his arrival, a maid who knew him pointed him out to Francesca through the open window, saying: "That is he who is to be your husband." This Francesca believed, as she had no reason to think otherwise, so skilfully was the marriage ceremony arranged, and it was not until her arrival at Rimini that she knew her fate. For there, on the morning following her coming, as she saw Gianciotto rise from her side, when she had thought him to be Paolo, the sad truth burst upon her. What excuses Paolo could give for this strange deception we are not told, but the fact remains that Francesca still loved him, and looked with scorn upon his misshapen brother. From that time the dangerous moment slowly approached. Living together in the same palace, it was but natural that Paolo and Francesca should be much in each other's society; while Gianciotto, unloved and unlovely, busied himself with his own affairs, which sometimes took him to other cities, as he was a man of ambition and essayed by political manoeuvres to advance his own interests. It happened once that in returning from one of these journeys he saw Paolo enter Francesca's room, and then for the first time he became jealous. Hitherto he had known of their affection for each other, but it had never dawned upon him that his own brother could thus betray his trust, while under his roof and receiving his protection. Now he rushed up the broad stairway and made straight for Francesca's door, anxious to know the worst. The door was found locked before him, and his hurried knocks brought sudden terror to the lovers within. There was an open window, however, through which Paolo counted upon disappearing, and so he bade the lady make haste to open to her lord, that he might not be curious. As Francesca opened the door, Paolo found to his dismay that the edge of his cloak had caught upon a nail; so that when Gianciotto, red with anger, burst into the room, the fatal secret was disclosed. Grasping his dagger, without a moment's hesitation, he stepped quickly to the window and would have slain his brother with a single mighty blow, but Francesca, throwing herself before him, sheathed the dagger in her heart and fell dead at his feet. Gianciotto, still burning for revenge, and unmoved by his first bloody deed, again struck at Paolo, and this time he slew him. Then, following the words of the old story, "leaving them both dead, he hastily went his way and betook him to his wonted affairs; and the next morning the two lovers, with many tears, were buried together in one grave."
There is a terrible pathos about this story which has made it live during all these years. Through every line of it runs a commentary upon the barbarous customs of the time, which made such a situation possible, and its climax was so inevitable and so necessary, according to all the laws of nature, that we of a later day are inclined to shed a sympathetic tear and heave a sigh of regret.
Dante has placed the two lovers in his Inferno for their sin, but in the fifth canto, where he first sees them, he is moved to such pity for their unhappy lot that he exclaims:
"...Francesca, i tuoi martiri
A lagrimar mi fanno tristo e pio!"
[Thine agonies, Francesca, sad and compassionate to weeping make me!] And before she finished telling her tragic story, he swooned away as if he had been dying, "and fell, even as a dead body falls."
In a more recent time this story has been told by Silvio Pellico, who wrote a tragedy on the subject, and by Leigh Hunt in a poem. In England, Boker wrote a successful tragedy upon it many years ago, and more recently Stephen Phillips, in his Paolo and Francesca, has produced a dramatic poem of rare merit. Most recently of all, Gabriele d'Annunzio, the well-known Italian poet and novelist, has made this story the subject of a powerful drama, which was interpreted in a most wonderful way by the great Italian actress, Eleonora Duse. To show that others than poets have been inspired by Francesca's unhappy history, it may be of interest to record the fact that noted pictures illustrating the story have been painted by many of the greatest artists.
To return to that early period in Italian history, so filled with strife and discord, it should be said that in spite of this constant warfare, the richer princes, especially in the north of Italy, lived in a most sumptuous manner, and prepared the way, to a certain degree, for the splendor of Lorenzo the Magnificent, which was to appear in the century following. The women in these regal courts were clothed in the most extravagant fashion, and the precious stuffs and precious stones of all the known world were laid at their feet by their admirers. Among these affluent noblemen of the fourteenth century, Galeazzo Visconti was generally considered the handsomest man of his age. Symonds tells us that he was tall and graceful, with golden hair which he wore in long plaits, or tied up in a net, or else loose and crowned with flowers. By nature he was fond of display, liked to make a great show of his wealth, and spent much money in public entertainments and feasts and in the construction of beautiful palaces and churches. His wealth was so great and his reputation had gone so far abroad that he was able to do what other rich Italian noblemen accomplished in a somewhat later time--arrange royal marriages for some of his children. His daughter Violante was wedded with great ceremony to the Duke of Clarence, son of Edward III. of England, who is said to have received with her as a dowry the sum of two hundred thousand golden florins, and at the same time five cities on the Piedmont frontier. London was a muddy, unpaved city at this time, primitive in the extreme; the houses were still covered with thatched roofs, beds were still made upon bundles of straw cast upon the floors, and wine was so scarce that it was generally sold for medicinal purposes. It has been pointed out that it must have been a strange experience for this English nobleman to leave all that and come to a country of warmth and sunshine, where the houses were large and comfortable and made of marble, where the streets were dry and paved, where wine was as plenty as water, and where ease and luxury were seen on every hand.
This royal marriage was celebrated at Pavia, where Galeazzo held his court, and the historian Giovio has given some curious and interesting details regarding it. He says that on the completion of the ceremony Galeazzo gave rich gifts to more than two hundred Englishmen, and it was generally considered that he had shown himself more generous than the greatest kings. At the wedding feast, Gian Galeazzo, the bride's brother,--who was afterward married to Isabella, the daughter of King John of France,--at the head of a band of noble youths, brought wonderful new gifts to the table with the arrival of each new course upon the bill of fare. "At one time it was sixty most beautiful horses, adorned with gold and silver trappings; at another, silver plate, hawks, hounds, fine cuirasses, suits of armor of wrought steel, helmets decorated with crests, tunics adorned with pearls, belts, precious jewels set in gold, and great quantities of cloth of gold and crimson stuff for the making of garments. Such was the profusion at this banquet that the remnants taken from the table were more than enough to supply ten thousand men." Not every heiress in Italy could have gloried in such a wedding feast as the one given in honor of Violante Visconti, but the wealth of these petty rulers was something almost incredible, and the general prosperity of the common people passes belief. As has always been the case under such circumstances, increasing wealth has brought about increased expenditure, principally in matters of dress, and the women in particular seem to have made the most of this opportunity. Vanity and frivolity multiplied on every hand as a natural consequence; the Church was growing daily less able to cope with the moral degeneracy of the time on account of its own immoral condition; thus, the foundations were being laid for those centuries of corruption and national weakness which were soon to follow.