The Other Woman (Collation)

This chapter investigates the significance of Dante’s decision to include his desires for another woman, whom he calls the ‘donna gentile’. Beginning with Kirkup’s discovery of a fresco in the Florentine Bargello that depicts a young Dante, the chapter explores how later readers have dealt with Dante’s introduction of this conflict of desires, which begins with Dante’s own reconsideration of the episode in the Convivio. While some have claimed that Dante later revised the work, this conflict of desires is crucial to the logic of his work. Although less widely adapted than his encounter with Beatrice, the ‘donna gentile’ episode has attracted some of Dante’s most attentive readers, from contemporaries such as Cino da Pistoia and Cecco d’Ascoli to the modernist poets W. B. Yeats and Eugenio Montale. Arguing for the profound significance of this episode, this chapter highlights Dante as not only the lover of Beatrice, but also the poet of multiple loves.