10 Facts About Matelda

Matelda, anglicized as Matilda in some translations, is a minor character in Dante Alighieri's Purgatorio, the second canticle of the Divine Comedy.

Matelda's first explains how the Earthly Paradise is unaffected by the weather on Earth, and that the weather found in the Earthly Paradise is created by the Primum Mobile, the part of Paradise closest to God.

Matelda's then pushes his head under the river, and he drinks from it .

Matelda informs Dante that Beatrice is seated under the now-blooming tree after he asks for her whereabouts.

Matelda's continues to watch as a ten-horned figure then emerges from the chariot, followed by a harlot and a giant.

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Matelda has been compared to a priestess, though the Roman Catholic Church forbids women from being ordained as priests.

Commentators have argued that Matelda, whose sole function is to serve as the purifier of souls in the Earthly Paradise, is a representation of the innocence that can only be regained through a belief in Jesus Christ.

The earliest commentators believed that Matelda is Countess Matilda, who supported Pope Gregory VII against Emperor Henry IV and donated numerous territories to the papacy before her death.

Dante scholar Robert Hollander has identified three issues with the idea that Matelda is Countess Matilda: she supported the papacy instead of the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV; she is typically depicted as a soldier rather than as an attractive young woman in historical accounts; and she was a human woman, which would suggest that there was no one to baptize souls before her death in 1115, which is unlikely.

Similarly, commentators have objected to Mechtildis of Hackeborn and Mechtildis of Magdeburg as options for Matelda's identity due to Matelda's association with the active life; Mechtildis of Hackeborn is a saint and Mechtildis of Magdeburg was a Christian mystic.