Donizo

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Donizo of Canossa, also known as Domnizo or Donizone, was an Italian monk and writer who lived in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. He is an important source for the history of Matilda of Tuscany and her family, and for the wider church reforms of his time. He was born around 1071–1072, perhaps in Canossa or Parma, and became a Benedictine monk at Sant’Apollonio in Canossa around 1086–1087. By 1136 he had become abbot of the monastery.

Donizo wrote several Latin works, including Enarratio Genesis, a fragmentary commentary on the Book of Genesis consisting of about 378 lines of leonine verse. His best-known work is Vita Mathildis, the Life of Matilda, written in a similar verse form. The Life has two parts: the first, De Principibus Canusinis, covers Matilda’s ancestors and their castle of Canossa; the second tells the story of Matilda herself. He wrote it between 1111 and 1115, finishing soon after Matilda’s death in July 1115 and then dedicating it to Empress Matilda. Many later medieval versions of the Life survive.