South Tyrol. The Other Italy. Elizaveta Ebner
this Margaret! The clumsy figure!
Margaret of Tyrol, nicknamed Margarete Maultasch, could hardly imagine that she would get the not so very flattering title of “the ugliest woman in history”. The picture by the 16th century Flemish painter Quentin Massys invariably gathers crowds of visitors in the National Gallery of London. His portrait of the grotesque Ugly Duchess is often referred to as a portrait of Margaret of Tyrol, but that is not true. The caricature image created by Massys is a pseudoportrait having nothing in common with the historical figure. But what did the countess of Tyrol really look like?
This question is difficult to answer. The only portrait made during her lifetime and available today is scarce in details: one can only see the full-length figure of a slender woman, though her facial features are rather vague. Written comments by contemporaries of Margaret of Tyrol are contradictory: in some sources she is described as an ugly, wicked and dissolute woman, while in others she is called a very beautiful lady.
In the Spanish Hall of Ambras Castle in Innsbruck, among portraits of Tyrolean rulers, you can see a full-length picture of Margaret, portrayed against the background of nature. The Countess of Tyrol looks rather attractive in this picture of mid-16th century. This slender, tall woman with harmonious facial features and her eyes modestly cast down cannot be called ugly. Margaret appears as the same attractive woman in the album of engravings Tirolensium Principum Comitum of late 16th century. The author of the album, the Flemish painter and engraver Dominique Kustos, who served at the court of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, depicts Countess of Tyrol among 28 Counts of Tyrol, from Albert IV (1190—1253) to Rudolf II (1552—1612). In the engraving by Kustos, Margaret looks obviously similar to the portrait from the Ambras Castle Spanish Hall, though the countess’s lower lip seems intentionally exaggerated. Most likely, the artist wanted to emphasize the connection of the nickname Maultasch with one of the meanings of this word – “big-mouthed”. However, even with the disproportionally big lower lip, Margaret doesn’t look unattractive in Kustos’s engraving.
Actually, it is not only Maragaret’s appearance that is veiled in mystery, but also the origin of her nickname – Maultasch. This word can be translated in various ways, from “big-mouthed” and “mouthpocket” to “dumpling”, to “dissolute woman” and even “whore”. If the former three meanings could point to the unattractive appearance of the Countess of Tyrol, the latter two must characterise her behaviour. One version says that Margaret was first called wanton by the family of her first husband, John Henry, with whom, by her own admission, she never was in actual marital relationship. Their marriage was purely political in nature: at the age of 11, the Countess of Tyrol was married off to the 7-year-old son of the Czech king John of Luxembourg. Margaret and John Henry disliked each other at first sight, and as years passed, their attitude to each other turned from neutral to explicitly negatve. Having solicited the support of the Tyrolean nobility and secretely made an alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor Ludwig IV the Bavarian, the Countess expelled her husband from her lands. The emperor announced her marriage to John Henry void, which made it possible for her to marry the senior son of Ludwig the Bavarian – Ludwig V of the House of Wittelsbach, Margrave of Brandenburg in Meran.
The Countess of Tyrol and her new spouse, who got married illegally from the point of view of the church, were immediately excommunicated by Pope Clement VI, who was a political opponent of Ludwig of Bavaria. Tyrol was placed under interdict; church services and ceremonies were banned throughout its territory. The Catholic Church did not approve of Margaret’s actions, and did not hesitate to express its opinion about the Countess, including in the form of diatribes. It is easy to guess that the ruler of Tyrol was portrayed in them as vicious, depraved, and unpleasant both in her appearance and character.
The flow of unflattering epithets used by the church in relation to Margaret was strongly supported by the relatives of her former husband, John Henry. The latter, six years after the marriage of his ex-wife with Ludwig V Wittelsbach, nevertheless decided to marry again, for which he asked the Pope for permission to divorce, recognizing that their union with the Countess of Tyrol was not consummated, but rejecting in advance all the possible charges of impotence. The divorce was approved, and the excommunication of Margaret and Ludwig from the church continued to be in effect for another ten years; only after that, with the support of Albrecht II, who had already petitioned to Pope Innocent VI on behalf of the spouses, it was completely removed.
The identity of Margaret Maultasch, the Countess of Tyrol, remains shrouded in legends. It is impossible to call any information about her absolutely reliable. Therefore, any materials related to the life of the ruler of Tyrol have always aroused great interest. Needless to say, the historical novel of the German writer of Jewish origin Lion Feuchtwanger, The Ugly Duchess, first published in 1923, did not only attract the attention of several generations of readers to the story of the countess and of Tyrol at her time, but also made them believe in the reality of the image of the ugly but intelligent woman with an unfortunate fate whom the author described in his book. But was Feuchtwanger’s Margaret similar to her historical prototype? Was Tyrol at the time of her ruling the way the writer presented it? Can The Ugly Duschess be believed, and if so, to what extent?
In a historical novel, the historical truth is always combined with fiction, and the real historical figures coexist in the text with fictional persons. This is a difficult genre to write in, and it has always been chosen by very few writers. The Ugly Duchess was the first historical novel by Lion Feuchtwanger, but fortunately not the last one.
Any historical novel needs to be based on reliable historical sources. While working on The Ugly Duchess, Lion Feuchtwanger definitely used the three-volume work by Josef Egger Geschichte Tirols von ältesten Zeiten bis in die Neuzeit, published in Innsbruck in 1872. This is proved not only by the same order of the events described, but also by the fact that the writer borrowed some episodes from Egger’s story word-for-word.
The writer uses Margaret’s image to show the advent of a new age in Tyrol, the gradual transition from medieval way of living to early Renessaince. It is Margaret that Feuchtwanger credits with everything which is good and progressive in this mountain land. The author of The Ugly Duchess exaggerates the ugliness of his heroine’s appearance, endowing her with extraordinary intelligence instead, and showing her as a champion of progress and humanity. This is how Margaret is first presented in Feuchtwanger’s novel: “She looked older than her twelve years. Her thick-set body with its short limbs supported a massive misshapen head. The forehead, indeed, was clear and candid, the eyes quick and shrewd, penetrating and sagacious; but below the small flat nose an ape-like mouth thrust forward its enormous jaws and pendulous underlip. Her copper-coloured hair was coarse, wiry and dull, her skin patchy and of a dull greyish pallor.” A bit later in the book, the author says the following on the Tyrolean ruler: “God had deprived her of feminine charm so that she might sink all the woman in the ruler.” Feuchtwanger’ Margaret is a strong-willed person, who fought all her life against her own ugliness, the greed of her subjects, and takeover attempts of her neighbors; who fought for the happiness of her people, her Tyrol, and for her own happiness as a woman.
And now let us turn to the historical source – the three-volume work by Egger Geschichte Tirols von ältesten Zeiten bis in die Neuzeit, which the author of The Ugly Duchess resorted to when he was writing his book, and see what the historian says about Margaret Maultasch: “As time went by, Margaret more and more often expressed her dissatisfaction with her spouse, and the Tyrolean barons – with the domination of Luxembourg. Both the legends and the writings of historians portrayed Margaret as very unattractive, both physically and spiritually. While