16th century AD

In 1500, Lucrezia Pico della Mirandola, sister of the humanist Giovanni and wife of Count Gherardo d'Appiano, bequeathed her estates to S. Benedetto Polirone near Mantua for the construction of a new abbey church. Her donation was made possible by her possession of substantial wealth, which she disposed independently and without a supervisory agent. [1] Contrary to some recent models of Renaissance female patronage, Lucrezia did not act on behalf of a father, husband, or son; she was not a nun nor, at the time of the bequest, a widow. [2] Nor was S. Benedetto a convent, the locus for many studies of women's architectural patronage in Renaissance Italy. [3] Although tombs and churches were traditional realms of female patronage, often as expressions of familial piety and dynastic ambition, [4] these motives do not seem to have determined Lucrezia's testamentary act. Indeed, she commissioned a tomb (Fig. 1) utterly distinct from those of her family, contemporary or ancestral. Lucrezia's tomb is patterned after that of Matilda of Canossa, countess of Tuscany (Fig. 2), one of the most mythologized female patrons of medieval Italy. Matilda was buried at Polirone, an abbey that she had richly endowed. In her will, Lucrezia cited Matilda as an exemplum for prayers of suffrage.

Lucrezia would owe the survival of her reputation as Polirone's patron to her status as imitatrix of Matilda. [5] Initially, the early documents concerning the project for the new church named a contemporary male patron, Cesare Arsago, more prominently and more often. Only after the renovation, not replacement, of the old basilica by Giulio Romano did the balance of credit shift. Subsequently, and in counterpoint to the more commonly cited neglect of women, Lucrezia's role was aggrandized at the expense of her male counterpart, whose contribution has been largely underestimated or overlooked. Lucrezia's sponsorship of Giulio's church (Figs. 3, 4) has been secured in the annals of the abbey and of history at large because the monks of Polirone promoted her as a "new Matilda." The patron lineage at Polirone was transformed into a female genealogy of generosity.

Exemplum: Countess Matilda of Canossa

Matilda of Canossa (1046-1115), the ruler of vast territories in central and northeastern Italy, is best known for her donation of lands known as the Patrimony of St. Peter's and for her defense of the papacy. [6] Immediately upon her accession as countess of Tuscany in 1076 and throughout her reign, she was embroiled in the Investiture Strife between pope and emperor. In one of its climactic moments, Emperor Henry IV was humbled at Matilda's family stronghold of Canossa. The emperor stood penitent and barefoot in the snow outside her castle for three days in 1077, until Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073-85) agreed to a reconciliation. This dramatic episode remains a touchstone in Italian medieval history and an enduring image of victory for the Church and its "soldiers of Christ."

Before her death in 1115, the countess's life and deeds were celebrated in an epic poem by the monk Donizone of Canossa. His work provided the basis for new biographies that proliferated in the Renaissance, including Battista Panetti's "De Rebus Gestis Comitissae Matildis" (ca. 1497), Silvano Razzi's La vita, ovvero azzioni della Contessa Matilde (1587), Domenico Mellini's Dell'origine, fatti, costumi, e lodi di Matelda, la gran Contessa d'Italia (1589), and Benedetto Luchino's Cronica della vera origine, et attioni della illustrissima, et famosissima Contessa Matilda (1592). [7] Matilda also appears in numerous city and family chronicles. More than a few noble houses traced their political ascent to and even their lineal descent from the countess, who married without issue. [8]

It would be hard to name another secular Italian woman of the Middle Ages who enjoyed a reputation so comparable to the heroines of biblical and classical history or Christian hagiography. Chaste, pious, generous, and wise, Matilda was considered an exemplum of her sex. In his chronicle, the thirteenth-century friar Salimbene cited Matilda as one of the three paragons of womankind--along with Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, and the fifth-century Empress Galla Placida, supporter of Pope Leo I. [9] Matilda also offered a rare medieval exception to the pervasive literary view of women as incapable of or even dangerous when attempting manly deeds. [10] Donizone considered her superlative among women because of her "virile" character, likening her to the biblical heroines Deborah, Jael, and Judith. [11] The monk praised her vigilance and strength ("pervigil et fortis") and, in a narrative punctuated by her many battles ("waging war night and day"), he described Matilda as a "terror" to all her enemies ("te rror fuit omnibus illis"). [12] In the fourteenth century, Benvenuto Rambaldi praised the countess for her "male virtues and mores." [13]