A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Matilda, Countess of Tuscany
MATILDA,
Countess of Tuscany, daughter of Boniface, Marquis of Mantua, was born in 1039. Her mother, Beatrice, sister of Henry the Third, Emperor of Germany, after the death of Boniface, married Galezo, Duke of Lorraine, and contracted Matilda to Godfrey Gibbosus, or Crookback, Duke of Spoleto and Tuscany, Galezo's son by a former marriage. This alliance alarmed Henry, who marched into Italy, took his sister prisoner, and carried her to Germany, hoping to dissolve the agreement; but he died soon after, in 1056. Matilda's husband also died, in 1076, and she was afterwards married to Azo the Fifth, Marquis of Ferrara, from whom she was divorced by the pope, as she was also from her third husband, Welpho the Fifth, Duke of Bavaria, whom she married in 1088. She parted from him in 1095. Dispossessed of her estates by the Emperor Henry the Third, she recovered them, with vast additions, by the aid of the pope, Gregory the Seventh, who was always a friend of hers, and to whose interests Matilda through life devoted herself. She died in 1115, leaving all her estates to the see of Rome.
Matilda, in her wars with the emperor, manifested an indomitable firmness, that no reverses could shake. It would be tedious to trace the various brawls—they hardly deserve the dignified name of wars—which vexed the little sovereignties of that period. Matilda was so situated as to be shaken by every swell of the storm, but she emerged with honour from all her conflicts. With rare heroism she made and sustained sieges, manoeuvred troops, and, after many disasters, proved victorious, enlarged her dominions, and exalted her fame. Dante, so severe upon every flaw, gives this lady unqualified praise in his "Purgatorio," where she is celebrated in beautiful verse.