The Image of Francesca Da Rimini in Nineteenth-Century Opera. An Analysis of the Dantesque Character in the Libretto Written by Paolo Pola

Abstract

This essay examines the figure of Francesca da Rimini as she appears in nineteenth-century Italian opera, focusing on the libretto written by Cavalier Paolo Pola in 1829 for the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. Rather than tracing the character back exclusively to Dante's Inferno, the analysis argues that the Francesca staged by Pola and his contemporaries is a fundamentally new creation - shaped by Jacobin ideology, Romantic sensibility, and Risorgimento politics. Through close reading of selected passages from the libretto, the essay explores two competing interpretations of the character: a moral absolution, which presents her as a victim of circumstance faithful to duty despite the pull of love, and a revolutionary condemnation, which reads her passivity as an allegory for an Italy unable to rise against foreign domination. The essay also traces the onomastic shift from Francesca da Polenta to Francesca da Rimini, arguing that this renaming reflects a broader cultural appropriation of the character by patriotic authors. The conclusion situates Francesca within the wider context of proto-feminist discourse and the Risorgimento canon, proposing that her enduring relevance lies in her capacity to be reinterpreted by every generation