#francesca da rimini

[fishsticksart]

Francesca - Hozier

If someone asked me at the end, I'll tell them put me back in it

[Francesca, Hozier // The Ghosts of Paolo and Francesca Appear to Dante and Virgil, Ary Scheffer // Francesca, Hozier // Canto V, Inferno, Dante Alighieri // Francesca (Official Video), Hozier // Francesca, Hozier // Ship on Stormy Seas, Ivan Aivazovsky // Francesca, Hozier // Canto V, Inferno, Dante Alighieri // Paolo and Francesca, Mosè Bianchi // Francesca, Hozier // Paolo and Francesca da Rimini, Gustave Doré // Before Romeo and Juliet, Paolo and Francesca Were Literature’s Star-Crossed Lovers, John-Paul Heil // Paolo and Francesca, Frank Dicksee // Francesca i Paolo, Ludwik Wiesiołowski // Before Romeo and Juliet, Paolo and Francesca Were Literature’s Star-Crossed Lovers, John-Paul Heil // Paolo and Francesca da Rimini, Dante Gabriel Rossetti // Francesca, Hozier // Francesca (Later with Jools Holland), Hozier on BBC Music // Canto V, Inferno, Dante Alighieri // tumblr user @handgf // The Kiss, Auguste Rodin // Paolo e Francesca, or Morte di Paolo e Francesca, Gaetano Previati // Hozier // Hozier // Hozier]

[lionofchaeronea]

Dante and Virgil Encounter Paolo and Francesca, Giuseppe Fraschieri, 1846

[bornslippys]

paolo e francesca, mosè bianchi // francesca, hozier

[circle-7-2]

Stuff from instagram

[isabelle-primrose]

Francesca da Rimini and Paolo by Ernst Klimt (younger brother of Gustav Klimt), circa 1890

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Francesca da Rimini or Francesca da Polenta was a noblewoman of Ravenna, who was murdered by her husband, Giovanni Malatesta, upon his discovery of her affair with his brother, Paolo Malatesta. She was a contemporary of Dante Alighieri, who portrayed her as a character in the Divine Comedy.

[theantonian]

Death of Paolo and Francesca 1887 ca. | Oil painting on canvas Gaetano Previati

Dante's Inf. V tells the tragic love story of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta

Paolo Malatesta was the third son of the lord of Rimini, Malatesta da Verucchio. He was deemed by some to be a romantic sort, a man not really interested in the world around him, but there is evidence that he was indeed involved enough with the politics of the day to lend his sword arm in support of his father and his allies when needed. He was a handsome man with a winning nature. He was also married with children.

Francesca da Polenta (later Francesca da Rimini) was the beautiful young daughter of Guido, Lord of Ravenna, and as such, she was a valuable diplomatic pawn in the power games of Italian noblemen of the 13th century.

When Guido eventually found it expedient to make peace with his enemy, Malatesta da Verucchio, Paolo's father, he decided to seal the deal by marrying his daughter, Francesca, off to one of Malatesta's sons as a cunning political tie.

Unfortunately, his choice of husband had to be Malatesta's eldest son, Giovanni, who has been variously described as uncouth and deformed or crippled.

Guido realised that his romantic young daughter would not welcome such a man as her husband, so the handsome Paolo was invited to stand proxy for his brother at the wedding. Unfortunately, it would appear that no one told Francesca that Paolo was only the proxy.

Francesca had fallen instantly in love with the dashing Paolo and must have thought herself the luckiest girl in the world, so we can only imagine her feelings of horror when she awoke on the morning after her wedding night to find herself lying beside the 'deformed' Giovanni instead. Presumably it had been possible for the brothers to switch places in the darkened bedroom and the innocent Francesca had been cruelly duped.

One day the two were reading the tale of Guinevere and Lancelot, the Arthurian characters who succumb to their love for each other and engage in an extramarital affair that leads to the fall of Camelot. As Paolo and Francesca learned, how love had mastered Lancelot … they went pale, and caught each other’s glance. Coming to the part of the story where Guinevere finally gives in to Lancelot’s love for her, Paolo trembled to place his lips upon Francesca's mouth.

One day Giovanni found his wife's bedroom door locked and demanded to be admitted. He had been told of the affair by his servant and was determined to catch the lovers in flagrante. Paolo leapt towards a trapdoor in the floor as Francesca went to open the door and make her excuses for locking it.

However as she went to unlock the bedroom door she omitted to check that Paolo had actually made a clean getaway and closed the trapdoor behind him. Unfortunately his jacket had caught on the catch and he had been unable to free himself.

As soon as Giovanni came through the door he saw Paolo and ran at him with his rapier, despite the fact that it was his brother that he was about to kill. Francesca in a frenzy to save her lover threw herself in front of Giovanni's sword and was fatally stabbed. Giovanni, in his despair at inadvertently killing the woman he loved, withdrew his sword from her chest and then ran Paolo through with it, killing him instantly. It is said that the lovers were buried together.

[oscarisaacasimov]

Francesca by Hozier

This is not a song about a girl from his past. Historical & literary figure Francesca da Rimini gives her own account. Beautiful on it's own, this song is inspired by and references Dante's Inferno.

The second circle of hell is for the lustful; their restless, unreasoning nature, results in a torment of souls cast about in a restless, unreasoning wind.

The infernal hurricane that never rests...unto such a torment The carnal malefactors were condemned, Who reason subjugate to appetite.

artist - Joseph Noel Paton

Francesca is the first soul in Hell proper to be given a substantive speaking role. None of the men interrupt her; Dante & Virgil listen, and her lover Paulo weeps in the background. She describes her lust/love as a compulsive force that cannot be resisted.

Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving, Seized me with pleasure of this man so strongly, That, as you see, it still does not desert me; Love has led us into one death.

artist - Marie Philippe Coupin de la Couperie

The story of Lancelot inspired wild lust in Francesca and Paulo; she calls the author her jailer. Now the story of Francesca as told by Hozier is imprisoning us in wild lust.

One day we reading were for our delight Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthral. Alone we were and without any fear. When as we read of the much-longed-for smile Being by such a noble lover kissed, This one, who ne'er from me shall be divided, Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating.

That day no farther did we read therein.

artist - Amos Cassioli

At the end of Francesca's testimony, Dante is overcome with pity and faints, "fell as a dead body falls." He awakens in the third level of hell (gluttony).

Hozier said repeatedly that Eat Your Young features an unreliable narrator, with beliefs that the singer does not necessarily agree. This song is likely the same; Hozier like Dante is moved by Francesca's description of love, but does not agree that lust overpowers free will and agency.

Sources:

[meowyjean]

MINUTE 2:14 OF THIS HOZIER LIVE PERFORMANCE OF FRANCESCA. SEND POST.

AND THE WHOLE BAND PLAYING THE OUTRO??? ARE YOU KIDDING???

my personal fave was 0:00 to 4:39

[urmomnsuch]

Hozier: Francesca • (Song Theory)

“Francesca” is about the demise of a relationship caused by a miscarriage—hear me out…

Hozier: “When this song came around, it started from personal experience and then I allowed those themes and some of the imagery from that character (Francesca da Rimini) in and then let the two mix. It’s an example of letting the song have a life above ground and resonate with a life below ground in regard to that character.”

Taking inspiration from real life figures, Dante’s Divine Comedy reimagines an adulterous pair in the second circle of hell: Lust.

Hozier paints a tragically beautiful image—stuck in a typhoon for all of eternity alongside the person you’d give your life for.

In Dante’s Divine Comedy, Francesca blames love for her agent of sin. Francesca's persuasive power derives from her language, which echoes that of love poetry, especially from Dante's early poems. In this way, Francesca becomes a reflection of Dante himself; much like Hozier portraying Francesca’s convictions of love as his own.

On the surface, this beautiful song is simply a testament of love to a lover lost. That despite all of the trials and tribulations that led to their demise, he would do it all over again without second thought.

But just beyond the surface of Hozier’s brilliant reimagining, is a looming darkness I can’t shake.

“Do you think I’d give up?

That this might’ve shook the love from me?

Or that I was on the brink?

How could you think, darlin, I’d scare so easily?”

• The narrator professes that he is fearless to the circumstance they are faced with—that his love for her will always overcome any hardship, including this one

“Now that it’s done,

There’s not one thing that I would change,

My life was a storm, since I was born

How could I fear any hurricane?

If someone asked me at the end,

I’d tell them put me back in it”

• Although this is not something the narrator and his lover planned for, he’s prepared to endure this difficulty alongside her—admitting he has no regrets

“Darlin, I would do it again

If I could hold you for a minute

I’d go through it again

I would still be surprised,

I could find you, darlin, in any life

If I could hold you for a minute

Darlin, I would do it again”

• The narrator expresses to his lover that he would experience the hardship of that moment all over again; because she was there to experience it with him

“For all that was said,

Of where we’d end up at the end of it

When the heart would cease,

Ours never knew peace

What good would it be on the far side of things?”

• The narrator reflects on the future plans they’d made together. He goes on to state, ‘when the heart would cease, ours never knew peace,’ indicating that the loss of life had caused unsettling turmoil within the relationship—questioning where they would be if the loss had not happened

“It was too soon,

When that part of you was ripped away

A grip taking hold,

Like a cancer that grows,

Each piece of your body that it takes”

• The life they lost took a piece of the narrator’s lover with it, which ultimately leads to her resenting him for it

“Though I know my heart would break,

I’d tell them put me back in it”

• Despite the pain of her resentment, he would still do it over again, (which is a common response to a trauma bond)

“I would not change it each time,

Heaven is not fit to house a love like you and I”

• The relationship was difficult and messy; it was a far stretch from paradise. But he wouldn’t change a thing about it because of the love he felt for her, and because of the life they almost had together

Just a song interpretation/theory that gives this beautiful piece a higher power for me

…Thanks for hearing me out.

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[lautremonde1]

Ary Scheffer, Las sombras de Francesca da Rimini y Paolo Malatesta aparecen ante Dante y Virgilio (1840)

Las sombras de Francesca da Rimini y Paolo… A. Scheffer (1840) - José Asunción Silva (cervantesvirtual.com)

[doyouknowthisopera]

[opera-ghosts]

80 years ago on June 5. 1944 the Italian Composer and Conductor Riccardo Zandonai (1883-1944) died in Pesaro. His most popular Opera was “Francesca da Rimini”. The last production at the MET was 1916-18.

[the--muse]

I connect, I communicate, I dominate, therefore I am.

Suck my code, baby!

[linusjf]

Dante Alighieri: Notes

“He listens well who takes notes. ” —Dante Alighieri.

[mariodelmonaco108]

MARIO del MONACO e MAGDA OLIVERO ne ZANDONAI *Francesca da Rimini*. Teatro alla Scala di Milano. Colore per Luz Butron Soprano, LBS 23.

[oscarisaacasimov]

When Francesca said:

There is no greater sorrow Than to be mindful of the happy time In misery

When Hozier said:

Though I know my heart would break I'd tell them, "Put me back in it" And I would do it again If I could have you for a minute Then I'd go through it again

artist - Dante Gabriel Rossetti

When Francesca said:

Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving, Seized me with pleasure of this man so strongly, That, as you see, it still does not desert me; Love has led us into one death.

When Hozier said:

Now that it's done There's not one thing that I would change My life was a storm Since I was born I couldn't fear any hurricane