DONIZONE di CANOSSA. - A Benedictine, who lived between the 11th and 12th centuries. Around 1090 he entered the monastery of Canossa, of which he later became abbot.
Besides a mediocre Enarratio Genesis, in 1114 he composed, in Latin hexameters, a poem on the life of Countess Matilde, in two books. Crude in style and awkward in its classical imitation, the work nevertheless has an interest as a document of the customs and mentality of the time. D. made use of earlier sources, such as Rangerio, the author of the De anulo et baculo. - Vedi tav. CXV.
BIBL.: Vita Mathildis a D. scripta, ed. Luigi Simeoni, in BIS, new ed., V, II, Bologna 1940. Studies: L. Simeoni, La «Vita Mathildis» di D. e il suo valore storico, in Atti e mem. d. dep. st. patria p. le prov. mod., 7th series, 4 (1927), pp. 18-64; N. Grimaldi, D. il cantore di Canossa e dei principi Canosini, Reggio 1928; id., La contessa Matilde e la sua stirpe feudale, Firenze 1929; F. Ermini, La memoria di Virgilio e l'alteratio fra Canossa e Mantova nel poema di D., in Studi mediev., 3rd series, 5 (1932), pp. 187-97; N. Ferraro, D. il cantore di Matilde, in Convivium, 10 (1938), pp. 643-61.