Journey to Matelda: Desire and Power in the Earthly Paradise

Abstract

Journey to Matelda:Desire and Power in the Earthly Paradise Danielle Callegari (bio) In 1548, Michelangelo Buonarroti sent to Florence for safekeeping several contracts among which he included "a treasured letter" from Count Alessandro of Canossa in which the count had referred to him as "parente honorando." Alessandro had indeed written to Michelangelo addressing him as a kinsman, even inviting him to Rome to see "la vostra casa," but their family relation was a complete fabrication on the part of the count and both men were aware the claim was false.1 Presumably the count was keen to draw the increasingly prominent artist into his family tree, while for Michelangelo, who had spent his life tormented by his tenuous class status, tangible evidence acknowledging him as a member of a family descended from the celebrated Countess Matilde of Canossa was invaluable.2 He took advantage of the opportunity afforded him by the count to have his personal history rewritten accordingly, in the biography composed by Ascanio Condivi but heavily influenced by the artist himself: Michelangelo Buonarroti, pittore e scultore singulare, ebbe l'origine sua da' conti da Canossa, nobile ed illustre famiglia del territorio di Reggio sì per virtù propria ed antichità, sì per aver fatto parentado col sangue imperiale. Perciocchè Beatrice, sorella d'Enrico II, fu data per moglie al conte Bonifazio [End Page 30] da Canossa, allora signor di Mantova, donde ne nacque la contessa Matilda, donna di rara e singular prudenza e religione: la quale, dopo la morte del marito Gottifredo, tenne in Italia, oltre a Mantova, Lucca, Parma e Reggio e quella parte di Toscana, che oggi si chiama il patrimonio di San Piero: ed avendo in vita fatte molte cose degne di memorie, morendo fu sepolta nella Badia di San Benedetto fuor di Mantova, la quale ella aveva fabbricata e largamente dotata.3 The Canossa name was certainly a worthy choice for Michelangelo's recreation of his origins. The Countess Matilda of Canossa, remembered as the woman who had reigned sovereign over Tuscany and brought the Holy Roman Emperor to his knees, had long been an icon for true nobility. Michelangelo was not the first to exploit a connection with her for a reinforcement of his own noble lineage. Among the others were families as famous as the Pico della Mirandola, the Pepoli family, and even the d'Este family, who made use of the chivalric romances of Ariosto and Tasso to invent a tie between their family and the ancient line of Canossa.4 But the connection no doubt had even greater significance for Michelangelo, as his sculptures of the biblical figures of Leah and Rachel that appear on the tomb of Julius II can confirm.5 Leah and Rachel, who appear in Genesis as the wives of Jacob and are interpreted as the respective representatives of the equally divine but separate "active" and "contemplative" lifestyles, also appear in the pilgrim Dante's dream in Purgatorio 27, prefiguring Matelda (Leah) and Beatrice (Rachel) who arrive in the following canto. The Condivi biography emphasizes that Michelangelo sculpted Leah not based on the biblical precedent but rather the Dantesque evocation, presuming [End Page 31] a clean line connecting the Leah and Matelda of the poem to the Countess Matilda of Canossa in life. A passionate reader of Dante Alighieri, Michelangelo frequently identified himself with the pilgrim in his poetry and even applied Dante's style of metaphor to his painting.6 He thus saw in the Canossa name bequeathed to him in the letter from the count not just an opportunity for self-awarded nobility but also a much desired connection to a specific element of the Commedia, through the woman who is foreshadowed by the active Leah in the dream of Purgatorio 27 and who then herself appears "cantando e scegliendo fior da fiore" in Purgatorio 28, arousing a powerful sexual desire in the pilgrim, despite the fact that he is fully purged. Indeed, for Michelangelo, who documented his struggle to reconcile his faith with unbridled desire in his poetry, the Leah-Matelda-Matilda of Canossa connection might well have seemed to present the resolution to everything that had kept the artist's soul unquiet...