mazzoni pamphlet exhibit

main menu gallery menu

72 dpi .gif
version


150
dpi.jpeg version




Count Montesperelli and Pierina D'Addato were married in 1911. One of the per nozze dedicated to them by a close friend in this translation of a scene from the drama "Paolo and Francesca", written by an English playwright named Stephen Phillips in 1898 and performed for the first time in 1902. The medieval story of the two adulterous lovers who were murdered by Francesca's da Rimini's husband (also Paolo's brother) might be seen as an odd choice of subject for a wedding, but the theme of arranged marriages versus romantic love made it appropriate in the eyes of its modern audience. Dante used the same story in one of the most famous cantos in the "Inferno", Canto XIV, in which Paolo and Francesca's unrepentant declaration of their love for each other is heard with horrified compassion by Dante.


A project of The Digital Scriptorium, Special Collections Library, Duke University. December 1996
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/mazzoni/exhibit/