Parisina Malatesta

Laura Malatesta (1404 – 21 May 1425), better known as Parisina Malatesta, was the daughter of Andrea Malatesta, lord of Cesena, and his second wife, Lucrezia Ordelaffi. She had an affair with her bastard stepson Ugo d'Este, and both were beheaded by her husband, Marquis Niccolò III d'Este of Ferrara.

After Edward Gibbon's mention of this story, Byron wrote the poem Parisina, that was followed by operas of the same name by Donizetti and Mascagni.

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.

She married Niccolò III d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara, in Ravenna in 1418, whose first wife Gigliola da Carrara 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, 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.

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