Vittoria Colonna

Italian noblewoman, church reformer, and poet

• Born: 1492
• Birthplace: Marino, near Rome, Papal States (now in Italy)
• Died: February 24, 1547
• Place of death: Rome, Papal States (now in Italy)

Colonna was a proponent of the early Reform movement within the Catholic Church. As an acquaintance of many of the leading ecclesiastical, artistic, and Humanist figures of her time, she was able to contribute significantly to the call for reform from various quarters. She was also a poet who wrote a number of secular sonnets in the style of Petrarch.

Early Life

Vittoria Colonna (veet-TAWR-yah koh-LOHN-nah) was part of the famous Colonna family of Rome, the daughter of Fabrizio Colonna (who would become grand constable of Naples) and Agnese di Montefeltro of Urbino. Born at Marino, Vittoria was raised primarily at the family’s Neapolitan residence.

Little is known about her early education, but her career as a successful poet and intellectual attests to a Humanist formation. She was betrothed at the age of four to Fernando Francesco de Ávalos, marquis of Pescara, a key Neapolitan military captain of the imperial forces of Charles V. The two were married in 1509 at Ischia, in Naples, but were frequently separated by his military campaigns. In 1525, he was wounded at the Battle of Pavia and died soon afterward. The two had no children.

Life’s Work

Following her husband’s death, Colonna divided her time between Ischia and Rome and traveled extensively throughout Italy. Her independence was facilitated by her position as a prominent and financially secure aristocratic widow.

Choosing to devote herself to the memory of her dead husband, she wrote a number of love sonnets mourning his death. These seem to have been widely circulated among a circle of literary acquaintances and admirers, among them Pietro Bembo and Baldassare Castiglione . Castiglione stated in the preface to his own major work, Il libro del cortegiano (1528; The Book of the Courtier , 1561), that it was Colonna’s wide circulation of the work in its initial manuscript form that prompted him to publish it as quickly as possible. Colonna was one of the initial recipients of the first printed edition of The Book of the Courtier.

Colonna assumed a kind of secular religious life, devoting herself to the evolving Reform movement within the Catholic Church. Catholic reform was prompted by Lutheran and particularly Calvinist currents in central Europe. The early Reform preoccupation with the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith called into question the ritual and performative aspects of orthodox Catholicism, focusing instead on the spiritual concerns of individual prayer and the formation of a personal relationship with God. Some beliefs within what came to be called the spirituali movement, beliefs that aligned too well with Protestantism, prompted accusations of Calvinism, and while there is no evidence that Colonna would have converted to Protestantism, her association with the Capuchin evangelical Bernardino Ochino of Naples could have prompted the interest of the Inquisition. She seems to have broken with Ochino after he fled to Geneva in 1542, and, although she did not modify her religious stance, she assumed a less public profile, retiring to a convent at Viterbo. Her personal confessor, the English cardinal Reginald Pole, was also instrumental in preventing a rupture with the Church.

Colonna wrote her love poems in the 1520’s and the early 1530’s, and then turned her attention completely to her spiritual poems, the most famous of which is “The Triumph of Christ’s Cross,” a meditation on the body of Christ as an offering for the salvation of humankind, the precise subject that preoccupied Michelangelo in his late depictions of the Pietà (1499). A complete edition of Colonna’s poems, Rime della divina Vettoria Colonna, marchesana di Pescara , was published for the first time in around 1539.

There is some evidence that Colonna was a patron of the arts, and her interest in particular religious subjects mirrored her devotional sympathies. In the early 1530’s, through the agency of her brother-in-law, Alfonso de Ávalos, marquis of Vasto, and Federigo II Gonzaga of Mantua, she obtained a painting of Mary Magdalene from Titian (now lost, but a painting of the same iconographic type is now in the Pitti collection in Florence). The Magdalene painting was the epitome of female religious devotion; her close personal relationship with Christ was embraced as an exemplar of salvation through individual spiritual devotion by women of Colonna’s sympathies.

In the late 1530’s, in Rome, Colonna’s religious sympathies brought her into contact with Michelangelo, with whom she exchanged a series of letters on religious themes. The letters can also be related to Michelangelo’s execution of two drawings for Colonna, Pietà and Crucifixion . A third drawing, Christ and the Woman of Samaria , was also inspired by this relationship. Colonna’s sonnets addressed these subjects as well. In his turn, Michelangelo also wrote sonnets dedicated to his spiritual love for Colonna. Their friendship was also documented by the Portuguese artist Francisco de Holanda, who recorded his memories of Colonna and Michelangelo in his Dialogo da pintura (1548; Four Dialogues on Painting , 1928).

After Ochino’s definitive departure from Rome in 1542, Colonna succumbed to a series of debilitating illnesses that confined her largely to various convents at Viterbo. She died February 25, 1547, with Michelangelo at her side.

Significance

Colonna was able to persuade and encourage reform-minded individuals to support changes within the Catholic faith, as she made contact with many through her friendships and through sharing her religious sonnets. Scholars, however, are just beginning to understand Colonna’s significance also as an exemplar to aristocratic widows of the Catholic reform period. The aristocratic women who shared Colonna’s interest in religious reform followed her example by using their social and financial status to contribute to the building of monasteries and to the support of reformed religious orders, particularly in Rome.

Bibliography

Gibaldi, Joseph. “Vittoria Colonna: Child, Woman, and Poet.” In Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation, edited by Katherina M. Wilson. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987. Provides a brief biographical sketch and an analysis of both secular and sacred sonnets in the broader context of other female poets of the period.

Jerrold, Maud. Vittoria Colonna: With Some Account of Her Friends and Her Times. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1906. Still the only complete biography in English, based on documentary evidence. Slightly out of date with respect to the interpretation of Colonna’s reform activities.

Och, Marjorie. “Vittoria Colonna and the Commission for a Mary Magdalene by Titian.” In Beyond Isabella: Secular Women Patrons of Art in Renaissance Italy, edited by Sheryl E. Reiss and David G. Wilkins. Kirksville, Mo.: Truman State University Press, 2001. A complete overview of the commission to Titian for a Mary Magdalene, with specific reference to the contextual interpretation of Magdalene images in artistic and religious circles of the period. Includes the complete file of documents on this commission.

Wood, Jeryldene M. “Vittoria Colonna’s Mary Magdalen.” In Visions of Holiness: Art and Devotion in Renaissance Italy, edited by Andrew Ladis and Shelley E. Zuraw. Athens: Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 2001. Examines Colonna’s interest in the image of Mary Magdalene as an expression of her Reform beliefs, and traces the specifics of her commission to Titian in light of the iconographical canons detectable in her poetry on the Magdalene. Also considers Colonna’s development of a personal iconography in her commissions and portrait medals.