Parisina Malatesta who was known as Laura Malatesta (1404 - Ferrara, May 21, 1425), daughter of Andrea Malatesta

Andrea Malatesta

Andrea Malatesta was an Italian condottiero, a member of the Malatesta family of Romagna. He is also known as Malatesta da Cesena, a city he had inherited in 1385 from his father, Galeotto, together with Cervia and Bertinoro...

, lord of Cesena

Cesena

Cesena is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, south of Ravenna and west of Rimini, on the Savio River, co-chief of the Province of Forlì-Cesena. It is at the foot of the Apennines, and about 15 km from the Adriatic Sea.-History:Cesena was originally an Umbrian...

, and his second wife Lucrezia Ordelaffi.

Biography

Parisina was few days old when her mother was poisoned by her father Cecco Ordelaffi and grew up in the court of her uncle Carlo Malatesta in Rimini

Rimini

Rimini is a medium-sized city of 142,579 inhabitants in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, and capital city of the Province of Rimini. It is located on the Adriatic Sea, on the coast between the rivers Marecchia and Ausa...

.

She married Marquis Niccolò III d'Este

Niccolò III d'Este

Niccolò III d'Este was Marquess of Ferrara from 1393 until his death. He was also a condottiero.-Biography:...

 of Ferrara

Ferrara

Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...

 in Ravenna

Ravenna

Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and the second largest comune in Italy by land area, although, at , it is little more than half the size of the largest comune, Rome...

 in 1414, whose first wife Gigliola da Carrara

Gigliola da Carrara

Gigliola da Carrara was the Marchioness of Ferrara, daughter of Francesco Novello da Carrara, lord of Padua, son of Francesco I da Carrara and Taddea d'Este....

 died a few years before and was welcomed by a Ferrara ravaged by plague. She resided in the tower of the Rigobello's in rooms under the library and reorganized her new home. Parisina's dwelling was also the Delizia di Consandolo, built by Nicholò.

During a trip in 1424 in which she intended to visit her family, Parisina was accompanied according to her husband's wishes by Ugo d'Este

Ugo d'Este

Ugo d'Este, also known as Hugh Aldobrandino , was the son of Niccolò III d'Este and his lover Stella de' Tolomei.-Infancy:...

, son of Nicholò and one of his lovers Stella de 'Tolomei. The two young people had an opportunity to get to know each other in Ravenna and became lovers. The relationship went on secretly also when they were back in Ferrara: the two lovers met in the delizie di Belfiore, Fossadalbero e Quartesana.

Other sources report that to escape the plague of 1423 she took refuge in the castello di Fossadalbero accompanied by her stepson, and there the relationship started.

Putting them under the surveillance of one of her maids, Nicholas followed the lovers and discovered the affair. Then he locked them up in the castle's prison where both of them were beheaded.

His tragic story has inspired writers and musicians: Bandello wrote the novel Ugo and Parisina, George Byron wrote the poem Parisina in 1816, a libretto by Felice Romani

Felice Romani

Felice Romani was an Italian poet and scholar of literature and mythology who wrote many librettos for the opera composers Donizetti and Bellini. Romani was considered the finest Italian librettist between Metastasio and Boito.-Biography:Born Giuseppe Felice Romani to a bourgeois family in Genoa,...

 and by same name was set to music by Gaetano Donizetti

Gaetano Donizetti

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...

 in 1833, Pietro Mascagni

Pietro Mascagni

Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...

 composed a tragic opera Parisina

Parisina

Parisina is a poem written by Byron. It was published on 13 February 1816 and probably written between 1812 and 1815.It is based on a story related by Edward Gibbon in his Miscellaneous Works about Niccolò III d'Este, one of the dukes of Ferrara who lived in the fifteenth century...

 based on the lyric tragedy written by Gabriele D'Annunzio

Gabriele D'Annunzio

Gabriele D'Annunzio or d'Annunzio was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist, and dramatist...

 in 1912, and it was performed at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 in 1913.

Descendants

Parisina had two twins and a son:

• Lucia d'Este (1419–1437), married and died young [14];
• Ginevra d'Este (1419–1440), married Sigismund Malatesta and perhaps was killed by him [15].
• Alberto (1421) died after a few months.