Question: Which one of Dante's works was used by Giacomo Puccini to create his famous comic opera?

Context articles: Jacopo Puccini
Gianni Schicchi
Cesira Ferrani
Giacomo Puccini
Gianni Schicchi discography
Ron Bottcher
La fanciulla del West
Pauline Duchambge
Festival Puccini
Anselmo Colzani

Jacopo (Giacomo) Puccini (] ; 26 January 1712 16 May 1781) was an 18th-century Italian composer who lived and worked primarily in Lucca, Tuscany.
 He was the first of five generations of composers, the most famous of whom was his great-great-grandson, the opera composer Giacomo Puccini.
Gianni Schicchi (] ) is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18.
 The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's "Divine Comedy".
 The work is the third and final part of Puccini's "Il trittico" (The Triptych)—three one-act operas with contrasting themes, originally written to be presented together.
 Although it continues to be performed with one or both of the other "trittico" operas, "Gianni Schicchi" is now more frequently staged either alone or with short operas by other composers.
 The aria "O mio babbino caro" is one of Puccini's best known, and one of the most popular arias in opera.
Cesira Ferrani (May 8, 1863 in Turin – May 4, 1943 in Pollone) was an Italian operatic soprano who is best known for debuting two of the most iconic roles in opera history, Mimì in the original 1896 production of Giacomo Puccini's "La bohème" and the title role in Puccini's "Manon Lescaut" in its 1893 world premiere.
 Ferrani sang a wide repertoire that encompassed not only verismo opera but the works of composers like Verdi, Gounod, Wagner, and Debussy.
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (] ; 22 December 1858 29 November 1924) was an Italian opera composer who has been called "the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi".
This is a list of the recordings of Gianni Schicchi, the third of a group of three one-act operas by Giacomo Puccini collectively known as "Il trittico"; the other operas are "Il tabarro" and "Suor Angelica".
 The three were premiered at the Metropolitan Opera on 14 December 1918, and for the next three years were always played together.
 After 1921, however, Puccini agreed that the operas could be performed separately. "
Gianni Schicchi" became the most popular and most frequently performed of the three, often paired with other works such as Maurice Ravel's "L'heure espagnole" and Richard Strauss's "Salome".
Ron Bottcher (11 May 1940 – 12 April 1991) was an American operatic baritone who was actively performing with both the New York City Opera (NYCO) and the Metropolitan Opera during the 1960s.
 A native of Sandpoint, Idaho, he earned music degrees from the University of Montana and the Curtis Institute of Music.
 He made his debut at the Santa Fe Opera in the summer of 1961, where he portrayed the roles of Leopold in Richard Strauss' "Der Rosenkavalier", Marcello in Giacomo Puccini's "La bohème", and the Head waiter in Paul Hindemith's "Neues vom Tage".
 His roles at the NYCO included Escamillo in Georges Bizet's "Carmen" and Sharpless in Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" among others.
 At the Met he created roles in the world premieres of Samuel Barber's "Antony and Cleopatra" and Marvin David Levy's "Mourning Becomes Electra".
 He died at the age of 50 at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan of AIDS related illness.
La fanciulla del West ("The Girl of the West") is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by and , based on the play "The Girl of the Golden West" by the American author David Belasco.
 "Fanciulla" followed "Madama Butterfly", which was also based on a Belasco play.
 The opera has fewer of the show-stopping highlights that are characteristic of other Puccini works, but is admired for its impressive orchestration and for a score that is more melodically integrated than is typical of his previous work.
 "Fanciulla" displays influences from composers Claude Debussy and Richard Strauss, without being in any way imitative.
 Similarities between the libretto and the work of Richard Wagner have also been found, though some attribute this more to the original plot of the play, and have asserted that the opera remains quintessentially Italian.
Pauline Duchambge née de Montet (1778 – 23 April 1858) was a French Creole pianist, singer, and composer.
 Duchambdge (Montet) was born in Martinique, West Indies and was the daughter of a noble family.
 She was taken to Paris, where she received a convent education and studied the piano from composer and author Jean Baptiste Desormery, son of the famous comic opera actor and composer Léopold-Bastien Desormery.
 Pauline composed and performed as a singer and a pianist.
 She studied harmony and composition with Daniel Auber and with Luigi Cherubini, who wrote several compositions for her.
 She also studied piano and composition with Jan Ladislav Dussek.
 Pauline left the convent in 1792 and married Baron Duchambge in 1796.
 In 1798 at the age of 20, she lost both her parents and with them the family fortune.
 Soon afterwards she was later divorced.
 It was after these events that Duchamge musical education began in earnest.
 She studied church music with Jan Dussek, Luigi Cherubini and D.F.E Auber.
 In 1815, Duchambge met the French poet and novelist, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore beginning a lifelong friendship and collaboration.
 Their friendship is documented by a lengthy correspondence and a number of songs by Duchambge on Debordes-Valmore’s texts including L’adieu tout bas, La fiancée del marin, Je pense à lui, La jeune Châtelaine, Rêve du mousse, La sincère and La valse et l’automne.
 Duchambge also composed music to texts and romances of other female authors such as Mme Amble Tastu and Mme Emile De Girardin.
 Pauline Duchambge wrote over three hundred romances, a very popular genre in the nineteenth century.
 Auber deposited three hundred of Duchambge’s songs in the Bibliothèque du Conservatoire in Paris.
 Eleven of Duchambge's individual songs and albums of songs were published between 1827 and 1841 by some of the leading Parisian publishers: Jean Antoine Meissonnier, Jacques-Joseph Frey, A. Petibon, and Ignace Pleyel.
 Her works reached a German audience through the Berlin publisher Maurice Schlesinger and the Schott firm in Mainz.
 In addition to songs, Duchambge wrote a few piano pieces.
 Duchambge had a difficult life, struggling with poverty, delicate health, and the disenchantments of love; her music expresses her emotions.
 She commented: "Love, it is life!
 but a life full of troubles, illusions, deceptions, repentance, discouragements…. "
The Festival Puccini (Puccini Festival) is an annual summer opera festival held in July and August to present the operas of the famous Italian composer Giacomo Puccini.
Anselmo Colzani (March 28, 1918, Budrio – March 19, 2006, Milan) was an Italian operatic baritone who had an international opera career from the late 1940s through 1980.
 He particularly excelled in the Italian repertory and was most associated with the works of Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini.
 He began his career in Italy in 1947 where he quickly became a regular presence at that country's best opera houses, including La Scala.
 In the mid-1950s he began appearing at major opera houses throughout Europe and the United States.
 In 1960 he joined the roster at the Metropolitan Opera where he spent most of his time through 1978. "
Opera News" commented that while his voice may have "lacked the sheer beauty [of other baritones], his performances had an Italianate urgency and forthright thrust that were unique, which established himself as a powerful, striking presence."