Macalda di Scaletta (or Machalda; c. 1240 in Scaletta Zanclea – after October 14, 1308? in Messina) was a Sicilian baroness and lady-in-waiting during the Angevin and Aragonese periods. The daughter of Giovanni di Scaletta and a Sicilian noblewoman, Macalda was noted for her political conduct, inclination to betray marriage (political and human), and for her promiscuous sexual habits; because of this dissoluteness, even having a brush with "suspicion of incest," tended to morph into an "exhibitionism veined with nymphomania." She was the wife of the Grand Justiciar of the Kingdom of Sicily, .
Reportedly ambitious, judicious, and educated in matters of the military, Macalda deployed her influence first in the circle of Charles of Anjou and then at the court of Peter III of Aragon, whom, according to a chronicler of the time, Macalda tried to seduce, but without success. She lived in a time of upheavals in the Kingdom of Sicily, which were marked by the bloody revolt of the Sicilian Vespers, and which led to the change from Angevin to Aragonese rule.
Practicing intrigue at court, but also vying with Queen Constance of Hohenstaufen, Macalda had a role in at first favoring, and then toppling, the political fortunes of her second husband, the Alaimo da Lentini, who had been one of the major champions of the Sicilian Vespers.
Macalda's career has left behind a recognizable historical trace, though variously treated in the chronicles of her time. One of these, the Historia Sicula by the contemporaneous Messinese chronicler Bartholomaeus of Neocastro, is aggressive towards her character, but some suspect that the political motives influencing the pro-Aragonese Neocastro may not have been the only factor in his bitterness towards Macalda, and that he was "one of the victims of the woman's spell."
Besides her military education, Macalda is also noted for her ability to play chess, which was unusual for a woman of her time, and historical evidence suggests that she was probably the first person in Sicily who learned how to play it.
Her singular figure, inhabiting the pages of chronicle and history, is transfigured in the collective memory, in folklore, and in the collective imagination. Macalda became the protagonist of popular traditions, myths, and legends of Sicily, such as one in Catania about the well of Gammazita.
A distant echo of Macalda's passion for the Aragonese sovereign, which the chronicler Neocastro disseminated in caustic tones, also seems to reverberate in Boccaccio's storytelling, with an enormous difference of tones and accents, in a much more idealized and rarefied courtly and knightly context in the Decameron: the tale of Lisa Puccini's love for King Peter of Raona (Aragon).
Lineage
Her family initially experienced distressed economic conditions, from which they would be able to free themselves, due to a social rise whose apex would be reached by Macalda. Her great-grandmother led her existence exposed to the weather ("under the sun and the rain") in front of the Porta Judaeorum of Messina, where she sold food from a stall in the open. With this activity, the woman succeeded not only in making ends meet, but also in saving up some money.
Social and political rise Grandfather The son of the itinerant food vendor was Matteo Selvaggio ("who was surnamed 'savage'"). He became Macalda's grandfather. In the early 13th century, during the Swabian period, he was a servant or soldier employed by the custodian of the state palace of Scaletta, a stronghold built to control traffic on the road that led to Messina from the south, coming from Catania and Syracuse.
By 1220, after the castellan was dead, Matteo Selvaggio succeeded in being hired at his job by concession of Emperor Frederick II of Swabia. Matteo owed a further step forward to his discovery of treasure hidden inside his castle. Sloughing off the poverty in this way, he also wished to discard his surname. Claiming the noble title of Scaletta, Matteo sought to sanction his new advancement in status. His economic progress allowed him the possibility to send his son Giovanni to study law.
Giovanni di Scaletta, Macalda's father This privilege of studies, as Neocastro wrote, was able to confer great prestige upon anyone who accomplished it. Thus it was that without fail that Giovanni opened up horizons and new opportunities, including the royal road of a highly placed marriage, sealed with a Sicilian noblewoman of the house of Cottone. From this marriage, two children were born in the castle of Scaletta: the firstborn was Matteo II, followed circa 1240 by his sister Macalda.
Macalda in the contemporaneous Aragonese chronicles
Bartholomaeus of Neocastro Bartholomaeus of Neocastro, in his Historia Sicula, comes across as particularly hostile to her, inspired by political motives. After the success of the Ghibelline Vespers revolt, though being aligned with the victors, "Macalda represents the Sicilian nobles of Guelph tradition who had been prominent in the , that ephemeral political experiment of island autonomy that had preceded the arrival of the Aragonese. However, there are those who believe that this alone is not enough to justify the chronicler's rancor; his narration on Macalda became "particularly poisonous, to the point of warranting suspicion that the austere and learned Messinese historian had been a victim of the woman's spell."
Catalan Chronicles: Bernat Desclot Bernat Desclot, a Catalan chronicler who sided with Aragon, writes about her in more favorable terms. In chapter 96 of his Llibre del Rei en Pere, he describes her as "very beautiful and genteel, talented in her heart and her body, generous in giving and, at the right time and place, valorous in the use of arms on par with a knight." It has been delicately noted that Desclot in this passage had lightly corrected his draft with respect to the even more flattering tone used in a previous version of his chronicle, making a subtle sort of self-censoring for the sake of propaganda: in an early draft, indeed, Macalda was described as leyal (loyal); then, after the woman had fallen into ruin for her presumed conspiracy, this attribute was evidently no longer usable in a neutral way, so it was replaced by "beautiful."
Macalda's military virtues On her military virtues, underlined by Bernat Desclot, and her martial bearing, the tradition on Macalda is unanimous. Other authors, agree in describing her as valorous in arms and capable of acquitting herself with heroic courage amid the dangers of war.
First marriage with Guglielmo d'Amico The very young Macalda was taken as wife by Guglielmo Amico, who once had been baron of Ficarra, but was then despoiled of property and exiled in the time of the Swabians. It was just this state of reduction to misery that gave Macalda and her family the possibility of getting a marriage with a titled noble. Even Guglielmo, for his part, counted on getting some usefulness from this second marriage; his hope, having then become disappointed, was that which would allow him to gain back possession of his lost feudal holding of Ficarra.
However, his expectations were revealed to be poorly placed: Guglielmo Amico fell into disgrace and ended his existence reduced to poverty. Macalda had no remorse: without regrets she abandoned her husband dying in the Templars' Hospital, and began wandering for some time, wearing the habit of a friar minor, sojourning in various provinces between Messina and Naples, and exhibiting behavior that was not impeccable. In Naples, particularly, the widow would be entwined in an incestuous relationship with a relative. Having gone back to Messina, she slipped unrecognized into the house of another relative, with whom she committed to a new sexual relationship that verged on incestuous.
Finally Macalda, by the will of King Charles, even succeeded in getting confirmation of her ownership of the property claimed in vain by her now dead husband, Guglielmo d'Amico.
Second marriage with Alaimo da Lentini and involvement in the Vespers War Again by royal will, Macalda was given in marriage to Alaimo da Lentini, who at the time was quite influential in Angevin circles. His first marriage had been with another woman also named Macalda.
When Alaimo's splendors at the Angevin court were about to decline, it was thanks to the maneuvers of his intriguing wife that he managed to rebuild his reputation, at first with the Sicilians, becoming one of the principal instigators of the Sicilian Vespers (a revolt that his consort also adhered to), and then at the Aragonese court.
Once the revolt had broken out, in the situation that saw Alaimo leave to defend Messina from the siege, Macalda became the governor of Catania, acting in lieu of her husband.
On that occasion, Macalda made herself the leading figure in Catania by an unscrupulous betrayal of the French who had rebelled against her in the clamor of the Vespers: after having feigned a gracious welcome, she stripped them of their property instead, and then left them to the mercy of the enraged people.
The ambitious Macalda seemed to be aiming much higher to realize her designs for power. The Sicilians had besought Constance of Hohenstaufen, daughter of King Manfred, to accept the crown of Sicily, as the last of the Hohenstaufens. The queen's consort, Peter III of Aragon, supported the initiative and prepared to land on the island.
Taking aim at Peter of Aragon Still during the period of the Vespers, but following the arrival of Peter of Aragon in Sicily, rises an intrigue sketched out by her with the purpose of getting herself the role of the king's "favorite," an episode that casts further light on her unscrupulous arrivisme.
Indeed, at that time, once she learned of the Aragonese arriving in Randazzo, Macalda presented herself to them in great pomp, adorned with superb military attire, holding a silver mace in her hand, animated by intentions of sexual lust that were soon made explicit. Brought in front of the king, she addressed these words to him: Latin English I am Macalda, wife of Alaimo, a soldier of Lentini, awaiting your reign like all other Sicilians. This happy day is one of great consolation and joy for me when, by your action, the Lord has liberated Sicily from her misery. Bartholomaeus, Historia Sicula
The king was avoiding amorous adventures at the time; he feigned that he did not understand her intentions and, honoring her and treating her with courtesy, personally conducted her to the inn with an escort of knights. Peter's behavior did not make Macalda give up: by pretending not to understand, she began to follow the Aragonese in his itinerary across the island.
When the king reached Furnari, near Milazzo, it was nighttime. An old man, in a state of indigence and looking miserable, covered with rags of leather, accosted him and was granted an audience. It was the Messinese Vitale del Giudice (Vitalis de Judice), formerly a friend and crony of Manfred, then reduced to a state of begging because of the consistent fealty he had cultivated for the Swabian dynasty.
The old man warned the king of the volatility of political alliances in Sicily and, in particular, of the inconstancy of Alaimo, who had already betrayed Manfred and Charles of Anjou, but made even worse by conditioning and intrigues that, according to the white-haired beggar, he was subjected to by Macalda and by her wicked father, Giacomo Scaletta. The king did not seem to give much weight to this and gently dismissed him, saying that his desire in that land was to make friends and not to cultivate or foment suspicions over past events. The next day, however, remembering the warnings of that vindictive old man, he decided to detoxify the atmosphere, proclaiming amnesty for anyone who was tarnished by political offenses.