Alighieri at Rossetti: passion and penitence, the Pre-Raphaelite woman between Hell and Purgatory
Abstract
This article sets our to address Dante Gabriel Rossetti's interpretation, recreation and transformation of two female figures from Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. Francesca da Rimini (.Inferno V) e Pia dei Tolomei (Purgatorio.V) are analysed in a comparative and interdisciplinary study addressing Dante's original .texts and their rebirth in Warter Colour and Oil on Canvass in Victorian London. Their central position in relation to Dante Gabriel Rossetti's artistic development and personal life is seen in relation to two of his most important Muses: Elizabeth Siddal Rossetti(1829-1862), his model for Francesca, and Jane Burden Morris (1839-1914) model for la Pia. Following the refined Romantic Medievalism of the Paolo and Francesca Triptych (1855) Rossetti in Pia de' Tolomei, through Portraiture creates a new and totally original Pre-.Raphaelite woman. Of larger proportions and of a sultry and seductive disposition, she is in contrast with Dante's poetic effects. Contemplative, and placed between the medieval and modern worlds. Rossetti's .Symbolist Decadence is the final destination of the poetic purity of Dante's othe world.
Keywords
Romantic Medievalism, Symbolist Decadence, Domestic Violence, Self-Identification, Portraiture, Muse, Watercolour, Oil PaintingReferences
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