The painting is a triptych inspired by Canto V of Dante's Inferno, which describes the adulterous love between Paolo Malatesta and his sister-in-law Francesca da Rimini.

Their tragic adulterous story was told by Dante in his Divine Comedy, Canto V of the Inferno, and was a popular subject with Victorian artists and sculptors, especially with followers of the Pre-Raphaelite ideology, and with other writers.

The left-hand panel shows the adulterous kiss that condemns the lovers: staying faithful to Dante's poem, Rossetti depicts them reading about the Arthurian knight Sir Lancelot who also suffered for his forbidden love (his figure can be seen on the book's open page, dressed, like Paolo, in red and blue).

at once my lips all trembling kissed.The central panel depicts two of Rossetti's literary heroes crowned with laurel: the Roman poet Virgil and the much-revered Dante himself – they regard with concern the two lovers on the right, who appear to float like wraiths in each other's arms, amid the flames of hell.

In the final panel of the triptych, the lovers are being blown about violently with the wind, as described by Dante's verses: The infernal storm, eternal in its rage, sweeps and drives the spirits with its blast.