Background
The daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, grand constable of the kingdom of Naples, and of Anna da Montefeltro, was born in 1492 at Marino, a fief of the Colonna family.
( The most published and lauded woman writer of early six...)
The most published and lauded woman writer of early sixteenth-century Italy, Vittoria Colonna (14901547) in effect defined what was the "acceptable" face of female authorship for her time. Hailed by the generation's leading male literati as an equal, she was praised both for her impeccable command of Petrarchan style and for the unimpeachable chastity and piety of the persona she promoted through her literary works. This book presents for the very first time a body of Colonna's verse that reveals much about her poetic aims and outlook, while also casting new light on one of the most famous friendships of the age. Sonnets for Michelangelo, originally presented in manuscript form to her close friend Michelangelo Buonarroti as a personal gift, illustrates the striking beauty and originality of Colonna's mature lyric voice and distinguishes her as a poetic innovator who would be widely imitated by female writers in Italy and Europe in the sixteenth century. After three centuries of relative neglect, this new edition promises to restore Colonna to her rightful place at the forefront of female cultural production in the Renaissance.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226113922/?tag=2022091-20
The daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, grand constable of the kingdom of Naples, and of Anna da Montefeltro, was born in 1492 at Marino, a fief of the Colonna family.
She received the highest education and gave early proof of a love of letters.
In 1511 there began the wars between Spain and France which were to keep the Marquis in the field until his death in battle in 1525.
After this event, Vittoria retired from worldly activities, living in convents, though under no vows, to devote herself to her husband's memory and the cause of religious reform.
He was taken prisoner at the battle of Ravenna (1512) and conveyed to France.
In the month of November of the same year he died of his wounds at Milan.
She refused several suitors, and began to produce those Rime spiriluali which form so distinct a feature in her works.
Upon these themes were written the lyrics that entitle her to a place among the few real poets of an age characterized by the facile production of much worthless verse.
Too close an imitation of Petrarch tends to stifle Vittoria's real sentiment under conventionalized and sometimes repetitious form.
She is at her best in her religious poems. Vittoria maintained contact with many of the most prominent personages of her day; perhaps the best known of her friendships was with Michelangelo Buonarroti.
In 1537 we find her at Ferrara, where she made many friends and helped to establish a Capuchin monastery at the instance of the reforming monk Bernardino Ochino, who afterwards became a Protestant.
Her verses in praise and memory of Francesco D'Avalos would be collected in 1538 under the title Rime de la Divina Vittoria Colonna Marchesa di Pescara.
In 1539 she was back in Rome, where, besides winning the esteem of Cardinals Reginald Pole and Contarini, she became the object of a passionate friendship on the part of Michelangelo, then in his sixty-fourth year.
Cardinal Bembo, Luigi Alamanni and Baldassare Castiglione were among her literary friends.
She was also on intimate terms with many of the Italian Protestants, such as Pietro Carne- secchi, Juan de Valdes and Ochino, but she died before the church crisis in Italy became acute, and, although she was an advocate of religious reform, there is no reason to believe that she herself became a Protestant.
Her life was a beautiful one, and goes far to counteract the impression of the universal corruption of the Italian Renaissance conveyed by such careers as those of the Borgia.
( The most published and lauded woman writer of early six...)
Grieving and determined to remain a single widow, Colonna devoted the rest of her life to the support of religious orders, the reform of the Catholic Church, and her poetry.
The wealth and prestige of her family attracted several more offers of marriage, but she met and fell in love with D'Avalos and finally married him when she was nineteen.
Her marriage to Francesco D'Avalos, the marquis of Pescara, was arranged when she was just four years old.
Shortly after the ceremony in Naples, her husband enlisted with the armies of Emperor Charles V, who was fighting the French in northern Italy.