The woman who wrote the history between the papacy and the empire

Strategic, reigning and with a strong character: the fight for investiture would not have been the same without Matilde di Canossa, a too often forgotten key figure of the Middle Ages.

Feudal Lady, Countess, Marquise, Imperial Vicar and Vice Queen of Italy. These are the titles that Matilde di Canossa held during her life. She was a figure who played a role of enormous importance in that period of medieval history known as the “Investiture Controversy”, and made strategic choices that changed her fate.

A strong, determined and cultured woman, Matilde di Canossa is often absent from history books or, if fortunate in some cases, she’s only casually mentioned.

According to Donizone, the Benedictine monk who wrote her biography, Matilde was born in Mantua in 1046, in the powerful Italian feudal family of Canossa. Her mother, Beatrice of Lotaringia, belonged to one of the noblest imperial families. Her father, Boniface of Canossa, known as “the Tyrant”, was the sole heir to the Canossian dynasty. Historical sources refer to him as the “inventor” of balsamic vinegar: it seems that the emperor Henry III, on his way to Rome for the coronation, stopped in Piacenza and expressly asked Matilda’s father “for the vinegar he was praised for and made in the fortress of Canossa”. Boniface made him a gift of it inside a small silver barrel. Thanks to the emperor’s appreciation, the fame of this precious condiment spread to all the regions and from here to all the European aristocracy, giving a huge boost to Matilde’s subsequent work. She loved this “black gold” and could never be missing from her table. At the age of only six, due to the premature death of her father and brothers, Matilde found herself heir to her family’s land that stretched from today’s Lazio to Lake Garda. Her mother decided to remarry with Godfrey the Bearded, Duke of Lower Lotaringia, whose son, Godfery the Hunchback, was betrothed to the young Matilde. The two of them had a baby girl in 1071, who died a few days after birth. Godfrey treated her with resentment because she had not been able to give birth to a male heir, so Matilde abandoned Godfrey and took refuge with her mother. Her husband’s apologies and promises were worthless. A few years later, in 1076, both

The body of Matilda of Canossa has found its final resting place in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the only woman together with Queen Christine of Sweden and the Polish princess Maria Clementina Sobieska.