Excerpt from Matilda of Tuscany: La Gran Donna D'italia

Of its former greatness, a visit to it to-day must serve to strengthen the conviction that Matilda of Tuscany and Matilda of the Earthly Paradise are one and the same person. Canossa uprears its rugged outlines on a height at the outskirts of the Reggian Apennines, a huge mass of rock superimposed upon a hill. Frequent landslips and ill-treatment at the hands of man have left but a remnant of the castle; even that remnant is of a building raised there some centuries after Matilda's time. As the traveller approaches from the Ciano d'enza side, through a region bare and terrible, along the narrow track with gloomy depths beneath it, suggestive of the balze of the Inferno, he too has a Vision of a sunlit hill. The massive rock with the ruins of fortified, encircling walls grows clearer before his eyes, and with each step forward, the Similarity between this hill and the mount of Purgatory emphasises itself to his mind, the old walls seeming to mount upwards in circles, as do the terraces in Purgatory. And his imagination at once reverts to the lady who dwelt at the summit, even as Matilda in the Earthly Paradise. He feels that Dante may have travelled along this very track in visiting Canossa. What more likely, since the poet seems to know so well the Pietra Bismantova only some few miles away? More of Matilda's citadel doubtless remained in Dante's day, more traditions were current of her - traditions handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation, containing, nevertheless, the germs of truth, since spoken words were more carefully cherished in the old times, and memories more tenacious before the know ledge of a written language grew common. To this day.

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