Lavinia

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Lavinia is the daughter of King Latinus, promised to Turnus and destined to marry Aeneas, progenitor of the Romans. In Dante's Limbo she is recalled alongside her father, according to the Virgilian image of Aeneid VII 72 («et iuxta genitorem adstat Lavinia virgo»). In Purgatorio XVII she is evoked by Lavinia herself, mother of Amata, as the involuntary cause of the queen's death, who kills herself rather than see her married to a foreigner. The form «Lavina», with the fall of the semivocalic i after n, is common among the ancients, as recalled by the critical-linguistic note of Parodi.