La Pia Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 Mark Samuels Lasner La Pia Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1880 holograph fair copy (pencil) DGR verso blank The text of the verse was originally drafted in 1866 or 1867. Mark Samuels Lasner This manuscript is preserved in a folder with two others associated with pictures by DGR: a prose description of <hi rend="i">The Salutation of Beatrice</hi> and a prose description of <hi rend="i">The Day-Dream</hi> , all three of which were sold as a single lot by Anderson Galleries in the William Harris Arnold sale. white wove, ruled, smooth finish J ALLEN & SONSSUPER FINE 8 7/8 in x 7 1/16 in leaf torn from one of DGR's typical notebooks Commentary
Introduction

The manuscript gives DGR's prose ekphrasis of the picture of Dante's “La Pia”, as well as his translation of the relevant passage in Dante. This text is more complete than the draft of the verse (not the prose) that was scripted by DGR into one of his notebooks in 1866 or 1867.

This manuscript was almost certainly made in 1880, when DGR was completing the oil painting that he had begun and laid aside in 1868.

Textual History: Composition

A second text of the translation, along with the Italian original, is preserved in DGR's letter to F. G. Stephens of 2 Febriary 1881.

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception History

Iconographic

Printing History

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

<hi rend="u">La Pia</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="u"> <title level="wrk">Dante, Purgatorio . Canto 5

Dante meets Pia de' Tolommei among the souls suffering purgatory through having died a violent death & therefore without absolution. She had been done to death by a cruel husband who confined her causelessly in a fortress in the Maremma where she pined and died of malaria, or, as some say, with the help of [?poison?]. [?] the words to Dante which her spirit speaks to Dante even thus:—

“Ah! when on earth thy voice again is heard And there from the long road hast rested thee,” (After the second spirit said the third,) “Remember me who am La Pia: me From Siena sprung & by Maremma dead: This in his inmost heart well knoweth he With whose fair jewel I was ringed and wed.”