Synopsis

1046, Mantua. It all began with a dream: a battlefield, fire, hundreds of dead. And then a woman, red-haired, dressed in white armor, sword in hand, achieving victory, reclaiming her land. This is what Beatrice of Canossa dreamed of shortly before giving birth to her third daughter, Matilda. She knew the child would have a great future, but she never imagined she would become a symbol, the most feared and respected woman of her time, a fighter. Her destiny, according to tradition, was to be with a warrior of noble birth chosen by her father. Only a wife, then, even if a noble one, or an abbess of an important convent. But things turned out differently. After the premature death of her father, whose position was considered inconvenient by Emperor Henry III, and her brother, who was poisoned, Matilda found herself forced to govern as Grand Countess of all the Italian lands north of the Papal States, to fight to defend her subjects, to stand alongside the Pope during the Investiture Controversy, and to negotiate peace between Gregory VII and Henry IV. Never a single day of her life was spent for herself, yet history still sees her as a protagonist today.