Pia de' Tolomei

In this canto, Dante and Virgil encounter souls who repented at the time of their violent deaths and now reside in the second division of Ante-Purgatory, which is at the base of the mountain of Purgatory.

Pia's calm symmetry in verse 134 (which translates as "Siena made me, unmade me Maremma") places her on a higher plane of understanding than her two predecessors.

[5] He repents and makes a similarly modest request to Christ to be remembered by him in Heaven, thus acquiring eternal salvation after his violent death.

[3] A transition can further be construed between the delicate nature of the body and the body-ego, more specifically from a gendered perspective as the narrative progresses from male egoism to feminine humility.

[3] Hence, it is argued that la Pia has the greatest grasp of the three souls in this canto on the ultimate return of all physical, linguistic, and rational beings through water to Mother Earth and thus the spiritual afterlife.

[6] Pia joins Francesca da Rimini and Piccarda Donati as a victim of domestic abuse whose encounter with Dante is characterized by compassion.

It has been argued that together they chart a progression to salvation: from Francesca’s passionate narrative to Pia’s concentration on her ultimate redemption, ending in Piccarda’s submission to God's will.

[5] It has been argued that Francesca, however, grieves because her death terminated her affair, not because of her damned state, which is shown by her lengthy narration of her first meeting with her lover.

[5] These views find that la Pia’s gentle narrative recovers a sense of propriety after the graphic accounts of her two predecessors.

[5] This view also claims that her account emphasizes the importance of prayers for souls in Purgatory to ascend and that her name is related to piety, both of which reinforce her spiritual understanding of divine grace.

Early commentators of the Divine Comedy noted that she was identified as a woman of the Tolomei family from Siena, the unnamed first wife of Nello dei Pannocchieschi.

It is theorized that Nello murdered Pia at his Castel di Pietra in 1297 either after she found out he was having an affair with Margherita or to clear the way for his second marriage.

[5] It has been theorized that Pia was killed by being thrown out of a window, so her crash into the earth would make her words Maremma "unmade" her literal.