I chose this painting for my digital archive because it shows two lovers sitting below the moon. The man is kissing the woman on the cheek, although she seems to be either coy or disinterested in this painting. Also, it is worth noting that this painting is titled "Francesca da Rimini". The story of Francesca is linked to Dante's "Inferno", which was mentioned in the page of this archive titled "Noble Suffering". She was a young woman married to an older man, yet she fell in love with his younger brother and began an affair with him. They were subsequently murdered by her husband, who is represented by the hand in the far left of this painting. In addition, the moon holds a significance to the link between love and madness, which I will explain in subsequent paragraphs.

In William Wordsworth's memorable 'Lucy poems', he speaks of his journey to see a beautiful woman who he was in love with. On the journey to see his lover, he watches the moon as it slowly descends in the sky. Ultimately, the moon sinks below the horizon, and he realizes that his beloved Lucy is dead. As he writes about the close relation of the moon dipping below the horizon and her untimely death, we can conclude that he is writing about lunacy personified as a woman. With her death, he is losing his love, his madness, and his melancholy. Especially in the first line of his first Lucy poem, we can see the link between love and madness: "Strange fits of passion have I known" (Wordsworth, Line 1). Love is an emotion that can be all encompassing, which can lead lovers to feel as if they have gone insane. When they are consumed in the love of another, it can lead to both melancholy and madness despite the typically positive emotions associated with love.

In Dancing with Ophelia: Reconnecting Madness, Creativity, and Love, the idea of being madly in love is summarized in this quote: "Anyone who has ever been in love has experienced a mild version of Mad Love: the lover experiences intense feelings of attachment, thinks about the beloved continually, feels euphoria or dread or both, may be unable to concentrate, eat, or sleep, and will feel as if the arrival of the lover on the scene of life has altered the meaning of existence" (Petrolle, 47). This quote aptly summarizes the feelings of being in love, which completely take over life as we know it. However, it is important to note that not all of the feelings are positive. Instead, there may be feelings of anxiety, dread, and worry linked to the feeling of being in love. As mentioned in the archive page titled "Love and Loss", this is bound to occur in any situation where we feel vulnerable. However, it is important to note that this kind of drastic change in life will lead to feelings of madness. These feelings may seem as though they are inexplicable, but rather they are wholly bound up in love melancholy.

Although it may be the general feeling that love is a pleasant emotion and leads to fullness of life, it is important to note that love melancholy is far more common than most people may think. It may not look like the story of Francesca da Rimini, but it can easily be the feeling of being madly in love beyond your control.