"Ego vidua": The Widowed Rome in Fourteenth-Century Literature

• In Event: La città vedova: Widowhood and the Italian City from Birgitta of Sweden to Vittoria Colonna

Abstract

In a letter dated 1350 (Rev. IV: 78), obliquely addressed to Pope Clement VI in Avignon, Birgitta of Sweden presents herself as a widow. With the voice of a widow (“ego vidua”) she describes the wretched state of the basilica Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, a description which soon turns into a harsh critique of the current situation of the Ecclesia Romana in general. Read within the context of the Avignon papacy, the personificatio of the widow has profound political connotations. It reflects the figure of the widowed Rome already adopted by Dante and Petrarch in their critique of the Avignon papacy, and lately developed by Cola di Rienzo in his extensive ideological propaganda during the revolution in Rome in 1347. As this paper will explore, in Birgitta’s case the figure came to be particular effective in her many attempts to convince the pope to move back to Rome.

Author

• Unn Falkeid, University of Oslo