understanding why Dante considered adultery, or lustfulness, to be the least hateful of the sins of incontinence is sometimes difficult. As the intellectual basis of Hell, Dante thought of Hell as a place where the sinner deliberately chose his or her sin and failed to repent. Francesca is passionate, certainly capable of sin, and certainly guilty of sin, but she represents the woman whose only concern is for the man she loves, not her immortal soul. She found her only happiness, and now her misery, in Paolo’s love. Her love was her heaven; it is now her hell.