The First Malatesta Murder

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0:34Dana Schwartz:Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Menke. Listener discretion advised. The feast was going to be extravagant. The year was 1324, and cousins Rumberto and Ferrantino and their uncle, Pandolfo Malatesta, were making the final preparations for the meal at Rumberto's estate, a castle nestled in the rolling hills of what is now the region of Emilia-Romagna in Italy, then simply called Romagna. Their sole invitee to this party? Their other cousin slash nephew, Uberto, and he was making his way toward the castle, blissfully unaware that he was riding to his death.

1:25The

1:25Dana Schwartz:three hosts had planned the murder of their kinsmen perfectly. A theatrical assassination disguised as a friendly family dinner, which would serve as revenge for sins spanning a generation. Uberto Malatesta's death at the hands of his family members is a dramatic episode in a particularly bloody era of Italian history, but not, actually, the topic of today's episode. A few decades prior to that fateful family banquet, Ramberto's father, a man named Gianciotto, actually killed Huberto's father. Remember, Ramberto and Huberto were cousins. Their fathers were brothers. And Gianciotto discovered his brother having an affair with his wife.

2:18Dana Schwartz:After catching them red-handed, he killed them both. The adulterous affair and subsequent murder of Gianciotto's brother Paolo and his wife Francesca would go on to be immortalized by the Italian writer Dante Alighiari as two of the damned characters he meets during his visit to hell. But what Dante failed to record in his Inferno were the numerous intrafamilial murders, political assassinations, revenge killings, and even an attempted mass family murder that plagued the Malatesta family for nearly 50 years after Paolo and Francesca's stories end. So let's start from the beginning. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood.

3:13Dana Schwartz:Paolo and Gianciotto Malatesta were meant to carry on a great legacy. Theirs was a family new to nobility, but their father's explosive rise to power had quickly carried the brothers to prominence. Malatesta de Verrucchio was a powerful condottieri, or commander of a mercenary company. Many condottieri became the sort of military princes who served a pope or other ruler, but often had sovereignty of their own as dukes or counts. Malatesta da Verrucchio had come into his power ruthlessly. Northern Italy during this period was embroiled in the after-effects of the investiture controversy, which resulted in conflicts between Pope-supporting Guelphs and Holy Roman Emperor-supporting Ghibellines.

4:09Dana Schwartz:Malatesta was the leader of the Guelphs in Romagna, and became Podesta, or Chief Magistrate, of Rimini in 1239. In 1295, he would go on to kill or expel the leading members of the Ghibelline faction in Rimini, making himself the city's undisputed and unchecked ruler. Between two marriages, he had seven children, each of whom he would use to expand his power, either through warfare or marriage. For our purposes, we'll focus on his four sons, Malatestino, Gianciotto, and Paolo from his first wife, and Pandolfo from his second wife. Malatestino and Pandolfo will be important in next week's episode, but for now all you really need to know about them is that they would go on to inherit, in succession, their father's lordship of Rimini.

5:10Dana Schwartz:But for now, we're focused on the brothers Paolo and Gianciotto. If anything in their early lives pointed to the roots of Paolo and Gianciotto's storied and eventually deadly rivalry, it would probably be the fact that Paolo was known throughout his life as Il Bello, Paolo the Handsome. The name Gianciotto was actually a diminutive of Giovanni, an emasculating nickname that Gianciotto still might well have preferred to his other nickname, Los Ganchato, or The Lame. Sources, many of which were written long after the fact, describe Gianciotto variously as disabled, disfigured, or simply visually unappealing.

5:58Dana Schwartz:In any case, a stark contrast to his strapping, handsome younger brother. The lives of the sons of Condottieri were often defined by war and political intrigue, and Paolo and Gianciotto were no exception. Apparently not content to rest on his handsome laurels, Paolo showed himself to be an astute politician, and he became an experienced military leader. At just 19 years old in 1265, he followed his father in fighting the Ghibellines, aiding in several decisive battles. Gianciotto, too, proved to be an asset to his father in war, becoming known as much for his bravery as for his unsavory appearance.

6:47Dana Schwartz:By around 1275, Gianciotto also proved a useful political chess piece when his father promised him in marriage to Francesca da Polenta. Francesca was a young noblewoman from nearby Ravenna, the daughter of one of its two lords, Guido I da Polenta. Guido shared power with his relative, Guido Riccio da Polenta over Ravenna. Their balance of power was uneasy to begin with, but they both also had to contend with the powerful Traversari family opposing them within the city, as well as various threats from without, most especially the lord of Urbino. Guido, again, I'm sorry, another Guido, the first da Montefeltro.

7:37Dana Schwartz:Guido da Montefeltro had recently bested Malatesta de Verrucchio in battle. Although Ravenna and Rimini had themselves been at war, Malatesta and Guido de Polenta were united by this common enemy. And so, Guido de Polenta's daughter, Francesca became at once a reward for Malatesta's support and a means of consolidating power, which would allow Guido de Polenta not only the ability to fend off his enemies, but also to seize sole control of Ravenna. Decades later, the humanist writer Giovanni Boccaccio would write that Malatesta de Verrocchio used Paolo to trick Francesca into her marriage to Gianciotto.

8:27Dana Schwartz:By this time, Paolo had actually already been married for some six years in a political match of his own. It was not uncommon in this period for noble marriages to be executed by proxy, with someone else standing in for one or both of the marrying parties during the ceremony. Paolo, as the married brother of the groom, would have been a perfect candidate to stand in and marry Francesca by proxy. Boccaccio wrote that Malatesta deliberately misled Francesca about this arrangement, and that when she walked down the aisle and laid her eyes on a handsome, charming man waiting at the end of it, she thought it was Paolo that she was going to marry.

9:14Dana Schwartz:Of course, she was wrong. Boccaccio reasoned that Malatesta worried that she or her father, would have refused the marriage had she known that her betrothed was the uglier brother. As dramatic a tidbit that is, there is no hard evidence that this is how Paolo and Francesca's affair began. It's quite likely that Francesca already knew who Paolo and Gianciotto were, and knew that Paolo was married as well, given her family's close and long-running dealings with the Malatesta family. But however the marriage began, and whatever Paolo's role in its beginnings were, before long Francesca and Paolo would find themselves entangled in an affair that would rock the Malatesta family and define its legacy for centuries.

10:09Dana Schwartz:The poet Dante Alighieri spent the final five years of his life living in Ravenna, Famously exiled from his native Florence in 1302, he had spent over a decade living in various parts of northern Italy, hosted by sympathetic friends and supporters. In 1316, he was invited to stay in Ravenna by its recently crowned lord, Guido II da Polenta. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, so many Guidos. This Guido was the nephew of the now decades-dead Francesco da Polenta. We're fast-forwarding here. Scholars believe it was during this visit to Ravenna that Dante learned of the tragic tale of Paolo and Francesca's love affair before he would cement it in one of the most celebrated works of literature in Italian history, The Divine Comedy, completed shortly before the author's death in 1321.

11:11Dana Schwartz:It's only because of Dante that we know any of the details of what happened next in Paolo and Francesca's story. Knowing that he likely learned the story from a family member of Francesca's offers his version some credibility. However, remember this was written decades later and there is no independent historical record confirming any of it, so we will never know exactly whether or where Dante took liberties. We find Paolo and Francesca in Dante's Inferno as a pair of souls damned to hell for their illicit romance. As Dante and his imagined guide, the Roman poet Virgil, entered the second circle of hell, the one reserved for those who fell prey to their lust, they find the two lovers' spirits flying aimlessly through the air, blown about in an infernal storm, yet remaining inseparably entangled with one another, as if they were one single spirit.

12:20Dana Schwartz:Dante calls to them as they float by, and it's Francesca who regales the visitors with their tale, as her beloved Paolo weeps and wails alongside her. As she tells it, Francesca's love story with her husband's brother started out innocently enough. They spent time together in a friendly way, a pleasant outcome to her essentially political marriage. Things took a turn rather suddenly, however, when one day the pair were reading the story of Lancelot and his forbidden love with Guinevere, the story of Lancelot's brother-in-arms, King Arthur. Describing a scene that seems to predict the modern rom-com, Francesca's spirit tells Dante how, as they read, their eyes kept meeting, sparks flying between them before they looked away, blushing.

13:16Dana Schwartz:Finally, as the story they were reading came to its own climax, the tension between the readers was too much to bear. As Francesca put it, When of that smile we read, the wished smile rapturously kissed by one so deep in love, then he who ne 'er from me shall separate, at once my lips all trembling kissed. The book and writer both were love's purveyors. In its leaves that day we read no more. It's certainly possible that this is actually how the affair began, although it definitely seems a little too perfectly literary to be entirely true. We don't even really know quite when it began, although it seems to have been not long after Francesca's marriage to Gianciotto.

14:06Dana Schwartz:We also don't know the circumstances that preceded the affair. Much has been said about Gianciotto's unsavory appearance, but did Francesca feel that way about him? Was their marriage pleasant but passionless, or was he a brute? And what of Paolo and his wife? Both couples had children. Of course, we could question the paternity of Francesca's children, but certainly Paolo at least fulfilled his marital duties to his wife. We may never know these things, but however it happened, once the affair began, it seems that Paolo and Francesca, much like their spirits in Dante's story, could hardly be separated from one another.

14:52Dana Schwartz:The affair carried on, seemingly unbeknownst to everyone, or at least unbeknownst to Gianciotto, for years. Some scholars estimate over a decade, although it's impossible to know for sure. We can imagine Gianciotto carrying on in his duties, perhaps leaving for long stretches to fight on his father's behalf, leaving his wife at home and free to rendezvous with his more handsome brother. For his part, Paolo balanced his own duties, including keeping up appearances with his own wife, with his and Francesca's passionate affair. However they managed it, it worked for them. For a while. But Francesca's and Paolo's days together were numbered.

15:40Dana Schwartz:Eventually, Gianciotto would discover the dual betrayal that had been going on for years right under his nose. We don't really know how Gianciotto found out. Most retellings agree that he stumbled upon his brother's and his wife's affair sometime between 1283 and 1286. Some even say he caught them in the act. Dante doesn't offer us any details. Here again, the juiciest version of the story, and the one we can't confirm, is offered by Boccaccio. As he told it, Gianciotto suspected nothing, until one day, while he was away on business for his father, one of his servants came to him with a confession.

16:28Dana Schwartz:The servant, apparently moved by pity for his cuckolded employer, and emboldened by distance from the rest of the household, told Gianciotto that he knew his wife and brother were having an affair. Determined to get at the truth of the matter, Gianciotto insisted upon seeing for himself, and the servant promised he would help catch them in the act. The pair returned to Rimini in secret. Perhaps Gianciotto hoped he would find nothing. Perhaps he spent the ride home imagining how silly he would feel when he arrived to find his faithful wife waiting for him, but any hopes he may have harbored about his wife's fidelity were dashed when he got home and, sneaking into his own palazzo, observed Paolo entering Francesca's bedchamber.

17:20Dana Schwartz:The affair was all but confirmed. Gianciotto was enraged. His loyal servant led him to the door of the bedchamber, only to find it suspiciously locked from the inside. Gianciotto's fever hit a fever pitch. He pounded on the door, calling out to his wife, maybe calling to his brother too. On the other side of the door, chaos and panic erupted. Francesca and Paolo knew they had been found out, but they were scrambling to find some way to cover up their affair. Suddenly, Paolo had an idea. There was a narrow passage with a ladder leading from the bedchamber down to another room below. If he squeezed down it, he might be able to get away before anyone noticed.

18:08Dana Schwartz:He told Francesca to let her husband in. He would escape through the passage, and Gianciotto would be none the wiser. Unfortunately, as Francesca went to open the door and Paolo went to hide, his clothes got caught on an iron bar sticking out of one of the wooden beams at the top of the passage. He got stuck in plain sight, just as Gianciotto burst into the room. Blinded by rage at the sight of his brother, Gianciotto immediately went for the kill. Francesca moved to stop her husband, unable to bear the thought of losing her love, but it was too late. Right as she stood between them, Gianciotto thrust his sword forward, stabbing her in the chest instead of Paolo.

18:56Dana Schwartz:Francesca sank to the floor, dying. For a moment, Gianciotto stood frozen, disturbed at what he had done. Then he saw Paolo, still caught on the iron bar, crying out in grief for Francesca, for his wife. He saw how deeply his own brother had loved Francesca, and it quelled any thoughts he might have had of regret or of mercy. Gianciotto pulled the sword from his dying wife's body and struck out again, this time landing a blow squarely on his brother's head. His vengeance complete, he fled, sneaking out of the city quietly as he had arrived. The lovers' bodies were discovered the next day, and, Boccaccio tells us, buried in a shared tomb, united eternally in both their love and their betrayal.

19:53Dana Schwartz:Is that how it happened? Boccaccio's version of the story certainly has a theatrical air to it, though we can find many verified stories of affairs gone wrong throughout history that have all of this drama and then some. Dante gives us the basic contours of the story and points to Gianciotto's guilt. In The Inferno, Gianciotto was said to be condemned to the ninth circle of hell, the lowest circle reserved for traitors. Given his access to the family, we can reasonably expect the basic facts of Dante's version to be true. Gianciotto discovered them, Gianciotto killed them. But for the rest, we're left to fill in the blanks.

20:41Dana Schwartz:However it happened, the bloody murder of Paolo and Francesca did little to soothe the growing rivalries among the members of the Malatesta family. Malatesta de Verrucchio had many children, who themselves had many children, and when he died in 1312, they were all left with the fractured inheritance of the lands and titles that their patriarch had once held as his own. And as the children of Paolo Gianciotto and their brothers grew up and realized that only one of them would eventually rule Rimini, it wouldn't be long before the kinsmen turned on each other again. That's the end of the story of the first and most famous of the many murders plaguing the Malatesta family, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear about the long legacy of Paolo and Francesca's story.

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23:54Dana Schwartz:For Dante, the story of Paolo and Francesca was a cautionary tale. He lived in a world where adultery was a crime punishable by death, and where desire was seen by many as the first step to damnation. As he imagined his journey through hell, he found Francesca and Paolo's story a powerful warning to his readers about the dangers of giving in to one's passions, even as he sympathized with their love. As with any story that endures over time, however, Paolo and Francesca's story has continued to resonate, but not necessarily for the reasons that Dante intended. Particularly in the 19th century, Francesca and her lover became a focus for the imaginations of romantic writers and artists.

24:48Dana Schwartz:As historian John Paul Heil puts it, where in Dante's era it was important to control one's passions, the Romantics believed that, quote, subsuming reason to the passions was the goal of a life well lived. They began to reimagine Dante's encounter with Paolo and Francesca in hell, no longer as symbols of the danger of succumbing to one's passions, but rather the tragedy of star-crossed lovers. Some interpretations even changed the endings of their story. In one opera, Ambrose Thomas' 1882, François de Rimini, the lovers are pitied by God and their spirits allowed to ascend to heaven, triumphing over the punishment meted out to them in hell, and in our world, by Dante.

25:43Dana Schwartz:In the 20th century, Francesca in particular became a symbol for yet something else, female agency. As a character who not only made her own choices in life, disastrous as the outcome may have been, but also took control of her own story in death, she presents a striking and complex lens through which authors and artists have wrestled with memory, pain, betrayal, and yes, love.

26:19Dana Schwartz:Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Height, and Julia Milani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Rima Ilkayali, and executive producers Aaron Menke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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