Amalasuintha. Massimiliano Vitiello

      Introduction

      In 1733 Carlo Goldoni presented his first play in Milan, a tragedy with the title Amalasunta. The work was critiqued so harshly that the author, despairing, finally threw it into the fireplace, and Amalasunta turned out to be the tragedy of a tragedy.¹ Popular legends about Amalasuintha’s fate in beautiful Lake Bolsena are plentiful. Still today, the fishermen claim that during the windy days of the tramontana they can hear the wailing of the Gothic queen, her desperate cries coming from the small lake island of Martana, where she is believed to have spent the last days of her life.² The northern wind that encourages the little waves whispers this melancholy story over and over again to the people of Marta, the small village that lies just southeast of the island. Almost fifteen hundred years after her death, Amalasuintha’s last days still echo on Lake Bolsena, between the little island and the still waters that surround it.

      If much of this tragic, literary Amalasuintha is the stuff of legend, the woman herself was certainly real. Queen Amalasuintha was one of the most significant women of power in her day. She was the daughter of Theoderic the Great, the Gothic king and hero who defeated Odovacer and made Italy his kingdom. Her portrait is preserved not on mosaics but rather in some letters of Cassiodorus and in the histories of Procopius of Caesarea. Over the past century, the queen has become the object of scholarly interest as a political figure. More recently, her life story has attracted the attention of gender historians. But direct evidence is sparse, so she has usually been discussed in single entries in encyclopedias and occasionally in articles.³ While some scholars have attempted more comprehensive studies, no scholarly monograph has been devoted to Amalasuintha. Ginetti’s 1901 study focused on religious policy and the administration