La Pia
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Production Description
Document Title: La Pia
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of composition: 1880
Type of Manuscript: holograph fair copy (pencil)
Person to Whom the Manuscript was Assigned: DGR
Collation: verso blank
Note: The text of the verse was originally drafted in 1866 or 1867.
Provenance
Current Location: Mark Samuels Lasner
Physical Description
Paper: white wove, ruled, smooth finish
Watermark: J ALLEN & SONS
SUPER FINE
Dimensions of Document: 8 7/8 in x 7 1/16 in
Other Physical Features: leaf torn from one of DGR's typical notebooks
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Copyright: Mark Samuels Lasner
page images | transcript
Scholarly 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.