COLONNA, VITTORIA

One of the most celebrated women of the Italian Renaissance, Vittoria Co-lonna was famous for her poetry, her close friendship with Michelangelo,* and her connection with the Italian reform movement. She was a member of the illustrious Colonna family from Rome. Her father, Fabrizio Colonna, a famous military general, was one of the interlocutors in Niccolo Machiavelli's* Art of War. Her mother, Agnese de Montefeltro, was the sister of Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino, whose court was the setting for Baldesar Castiglione's* The Courtier. When Vittoria was seventeen, she was married to the marquis of Pescara, a marriage intended to ally the Colonna family to Pescara's powerful Neapolitan family.Pescara was also a military man and was away at battle during most of their marriage. Colonna passed the time in extensive traveling and writing; many of her poems focus on the loneliness of separation.

As Colonna's poetry gradually became known, she made the acquaintance of many other authors who paid tribute to her in their works. She was particularly close to Pietro Bembo,* the famous humanist and poet who later became a cardinal with Vittoria's influential help. Bembo encouraged Colonna's writing, and she dedicated a sonnet to him. Through Bembo, Colonna met Castiglione, who asked for her opinion of his manuscript of The Courtier. In her enthusiasm for the work, Colonna began to share it with her friends; fearful that a corrupt edition might be published, Castiglione quickly published the book himself in 1528. She also met Ludovico Ariosto,* who singled out her poetic talents for special praise in Orlando Furioso.

When Colonna was thirty-three, her husband was killed in battle; she lived in various convents for the rest of her life and never remarried. Colonna became interested in matters of church reform and developed many close friendships with some of the leading reformists and religious figures of the day, especially Cardinal Reginald Pole. She also continued to encourage and inspire writers and artists, especially Michelangelo. Colonna served as both muse and critic for Michelangelo during the many years of their close but platonic relationship.

Colonna's own creative output resulted in a book of poems, Rime spirituali, published in 1538. This collection of almost four hundred poems comprises sonnets on both human and spiritual love and a long poem in terza rima about Christ, the Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalene. Her great friend Michelangelo was at her side when she died in 1547.

R. Bainton, Women ofthe Reformation in Germany and Italy, 1971.

J. Gibaldi, ''Vittoria Colonna: Child, Woman, and Poet,'' in Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation, ed. K. M. Wilson, 1987.

(ca. 1492-1547)

   Italian poet, born into one of the most ancient and powerful noble families of Rome. She married the marquis of Pescara, ruler of a small principality, and lived at Naples while her husband pursued his career as a military commander. At Naples she presided over a court society that included many of the leading intellectuals of her time, and she became famous for her intellect, personal virtue, and piety. She concentrated on intellectual and spiritual matters even more strongly after her husband died in 1525. Her devoutness drew her close to a number of reformminded Catholic clerics and laity.

   These close associates were known as the spirituali, including important figures like Gasparo Contarini, Bernardino Ochino, Reginald Pole, and Juan de Valdés, two of them cardinals and all of them inclined to think of religion as essentially an inward, personal experience. Colonna also became close to the artist Michelangelo, who wrote poems addressed to her and shared with her a mutual love that remained purely spiritual. She and several of her Roman circle were attracted to the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith, though only one of the inner group (Ochino) ended by becoming a Protestant. Her spiritualizing ideas and sympathy for reform brought her under the suspicion of the Inquisition in the 1540s. Her poems have caused her to be ranked among Italy's leading female poets, and their publication (without her approval) in 1538 made her a much-admired author.

Colonna, Vittoria

• Italian poet, born at Marino, 1490; died at Rome, February 25, 1547

Catholic Encyclopedia.Kevin Knight.2006.