Dante and Beatrice is considered the most important painting by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Henry Holiday

The scene is based on a passage in the semi-autobiographical work of Dante Alighieri, La Vita Nuova, published in 1294. Dante wrote about his love at first sight for Beatrice, but which he tried to hide by pretending to be attracted by other women

Holiday depicts an episode in which Beatrice, having heard the gossips about Dante’s frivolity, refused to talk to him. The painting portrays Beatrice and two other women walking by the Santa Trinita Bridge in Florence. Beatrice is dressed in a white robe and walking with her friend Monna Vanna (in red); Beatrice’s maidservant follows them just a little behind, dressed in blue

Keen on adhering to historical exactitude, Holiday went to Florence in 1881 to research the locality. He found that in the 13th century, the embankment north of the Arno River between the Ponte Vecchio (the bridge in the background) and the Ponte Santa Trinita was paved with bricks, which are represented on the bottom part of the painting. He also discovered that the Ponte Vecchio had been destroyed in 1235 by a flood and was being rebuilt toward the end of the century, and so Holiday added the scaffolding detail onto the Old Bridge