Francesca

Francesca is the feminine form of Francesco, from the Latin Franciscus, meaning Frenchman, and so is often glossed as from France. In Dante’s Inferno, Francesca da Rimini tells the poet how she and her brother-in-law Paolo fell in love while reading the story of Lancelot, a scene later painted by Ingres and Rossetti and set to music by Tchaikovsky. Saint Frances of Rome, known in Italy as Francesca Romana, founded a community of Benedictine oblates. The painter Piero della Francesca carried the name as a surname. English uses Frances, French Françoise, and German Franziska.