PEACE AND CONFLICT IN THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FUNERARY MONUMENT OF THE MEDIEVAL HEROINE COUNTESS MATILDA OF CANOSSA
PEACE AND CONFLICT IN THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FUNERARY MONUMENT OF THE MEDIEVAL HEROINE COUNTESS MATILDA OF CANOSSA

Summary/Abstract: In the period following the Council of Trent (1545-1563), the Catholic Church endeavored to offer a clear interpretation code of the legendary figures in the service of the Church. To eliminate certain improbable aspects of legends and to revive the legacy of these pious characters for the institution of the Church they surfaced as two crucial means of the process. While diverse passages of the collection of legends woven around one of the most charismatic female defenders of the Church such as Joan of Arc were scrutinized for heterodoxy, other female figures helped to augment the canonical repertoire of legends. In this period, the reevaluation of the munificent and military deeds of Countess Matilda of Canossa (1046-1115) led to her fashioning as a paladin of the Church. Contemporary stereotypes on gender both emphasized and marginalized female combatants as exceptional beings. The paper examines the visual representation of the martial activity of Countess Matilda in the papal milieu in the 1630’s-1640’s when Urban VIII commissioned from Benini a funerary monument in her honor.

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