Matilde di Canossa

Matilde di Canossa, daughter of Bonifacio, gentleman of Verona and marquis of Tuscany and of Beatrice of Lorraine, probably born in 1046 in Mantua, was a protagonist of one of the most famous episodes of the “Fight for the Investitures”.

Her childhood was troubled by the death of her father, her brother and her sister.  Two years later her mother married Goffredo il Barbuto, duke of  Lotaringia, Goffredo il Gobbo's father. The union of the Canossa and Lotaringia families, without the approval of emperor Henry III, whom they were vassals of,  persuaded the emperor to imprison Beatrice and Matilde, while Goffredo ran away. Only in 1056 Beatrice and Matilde go back to Italy and after her stepfather’s death, Matilde marries Goffredo, nicknamed the “hunch back”. After ups and downs of a failed marriage, a daughter, Beatrice, is born but she dies soon after her birth. Matilde and her mother live on, two women, alone and  without heirs but who can rely on  Gregory VII’s support, at the time engaged in a strenuous attempt at reform of the Catholic Church through the abolition  of the simony and religious wedding.

If  Matilde on one hand, was considered a sinner, an “Eve temptress”, on the other she was allowed to operate, even though she was a woman (and in the Middle Ages women weren’t allowed  to manage in public). But Matilde shows “manly soul” and “fortitude” like men. “If a woman has worth, she can’t be a woman” at least in the Middle Ages. When Gregorio VII excludes the emperor from the elections of bishops, an irreconcilable division is created with Henry IV. It’s Matilde who welcomes the Pope in her Canossa Castle, when Henry IV, excommunicated, is going to ambush him. Matilde, Ugo from Cluny and Enrico IV agree for the emperor to humiliate himself and ask the Pope forgiveness during three freezing days of January and the Pope is obliged to forgive him and cancel the excommunication.

Due to the refinement of her studies, to the undeniable abilities in administrating her estates and to the exceptionality of her virtues, the figure of  Matilde is exalted in a wide and unfinished poem by the monk Donizone, accompanied by miniatures full of meaning.