Cultural depictions of Adelaide of Italy

Historically the subject of numerous religious, artistic and scholarly works, she is now explored by modern historiography primarily as a political figure.

[6] In the 1930s, through her work Adelheid – Mutter der Königreiche, the scholar and politician Gertrud Bäumer utilized her myth – which combined political power, motherhood and charity – to promote the bourgeois feminist movement.

[11] Görich also supports Jestice in defending the position that contemporary sources reveal no misogyny and basically the Ottonian society recognized the roles and abilities (except physical strength) of women, thus the commonly deemed special status of empresses and queens actually did not stand out in this context.

[12] Buchinger points out that the Saxon tradition, that perceived the wife as having an equal role in the family, had influence too, and notes that Adelaide chose to stay at the court instead of returning to her lands as Matilda had done.

[13] Görich opines, though, that the prominent roles and visibility the Ottonian empresses attained were partly product of circumstances created by Otto III's minority, as well as the fact he and Henry II died without issue.

[15] Buchinger sees her alliance with ecclesiastic groups as her way of building a sphere of influence independent from that of the emperor as well as preserving her memory and legacy.

But this helped her to mediate across realms while creating new power bases in the process and constantly providing a stabilizing effect to the Ottonian Dynasty, especially in its moments of great crisis (such as when she mobilized her relationships with her Burgundian and Bavarian relatives to protect Otto III at the beginning of his reign).

She also played an initiating role in the development of Alsace as a hub between the Eastern Frankish kingdom, Burgundy, Italy and Upper Rhine – the latter received such a boost in traffic, politics and economy that 200 years later it would become, in the words of Otto of Freising, "the primary force of the empire" (maxima vis regni).