DGR conceived a plan for this work in the early 1850s. It was to have been a three-panel work illustrating key incidents in the life of Dante: the first would have been
The choice of subjects for the triptych is extremely interesting, perhaps especially in the choice of the Cavalcanti episode. The panels clearly mean to interpret Dante and his poetry in relation to general issues of art and society—as opposed to DGR's other Beatricean treatments of Dante, which focus on art in relation to aesthetics and psychology.