Gianciotto Malatesta

Married to Gianciotto Malatesta (called “the Lame”) for reasons of state, she was murdered by him when he discovered her in an adulterous affair with his brother Paolo (called “the Fair”), whom he also killed.

Possibly the best-known episode in Malatesta history centers on his son Gianciotto (d. 1304), who killed his wife, Francesca da Polenta, and his brother Paolo for adultery, an event recorded by Dante in the Inferno section of his 14th-century poem The Divine Comedy.

Guido’s political alliance with the Malatesta family led him to marry his daughter Francesca to Gianciotto Malatesta about 1275. In 1283 or 1284 Gianciotto murdered both Francesca and his brother Paolo when he discovered they were lovers. The adulterous Francesca and Paolo are among the sinners described in Dante’s The…