In 1868, Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted Jane Morris as La Pia de Tolomei. Pia appears in Canto V of Purgatorio in the Divine Comedy. Pia’s story is a…
Early Death by Elizabeth Siddal Oh grieve not with thy bitter tears The life that passes fast; The gates of heaven will open wide And…
Sometimes my reading life is haphazard and I dip into whatever strikes me fancy. (The right book, more often than not, seems to find me…
The works of John William Waterhouse often blend feminine beauty and mystery. Above is Circe Invidiosa, his depiction of the goddess Circe. With a sumptuous blend…
“In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself in a dark wood, for the straight path was lost” So begins Dante’s…
In reality, Dante loved Beatrice from a distance and they had little to no contact with one another. The real Beatrice Portinari probably never had…
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Victorian poet, painter and co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, grew up in the shadow of Dante Alighieri. Although he lived several centuries…
Scottish author James Hannay once described his wife Margaret as the ‘sugarplum of the universe’. Dante Gabriel Rossetti captured the sugarplum’s beauty in the…
Although Rossetti painted Jane Morris repeatedly, it is a bit unusual to see her painted as Beatrice. Beatrice, Dante Alighieri’s unrequited love, is a character…
Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted La Pia de Tolomei at the beginning of his affair with Jane Morris, the wife of his friend William Morris. In…
