(c) 2014 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Vittoria Colonna

Marino, about 1490 - 1547, Rome

BiographyColonna, Vittoria, Marchesa di Pescara
(b ?Marino, ?1490; d Rome, Feb 1547).
Italian writer. She was the granddaughter of Federigo II da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and her accomplishments suggest that she received a strong humanist education. In 1509 she married Ferrante Francesco d’Avalos, the Marchese di Pescara, a soldier in the service of Emperor Charles V. Her husband died, disgraced, in 1525, suspected of plotting against the Emperor. After his death, Vittoria wrote sonnets to commemorate him and probably to vindicate his name. She continued to write poetry and was praised by Pietro Bembo and Baldassare Castiglione for her contribution to vernacular literature. From the 1520s she was involved with Catholic reformers, including Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500–58), whose beliefs emphasizing justification through faith and direct personal communion informed her spiritual sonnets.

In Rome in the late 1530s the Marchesa became a close friend of Michelangelo and introduced him to reformist circles. Their friendship is known from their correspondence as well as through such contemporary accounts as Francisco de Holanda’s Diálogo da Pintura (see HOLANDA, (2)), which purports to record their conversations on art, especially its religious dimensions. Their correspondence often took the form of sonnets, and Michelangelo made several highly finished presentation drawings for her, including a Pietà (Boston, MA, Isabella Stewart Gardner Mus.), a Crucifixion (London, BM) and a Christ and the Woman of Samaria (untraced; engraving (c. 1540) by Nicolas Beatrizet), which seem to reflect reformist ideas. Their friendship strengthened the spiritual commitment of Michelangelo’s later years and perhaps influenced his conception of the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel (Rome, Vatican, Sistine Chapel). A portrait (1552–68; Florence, Uffizi) of Vittoria Colonna was painted by Cristofano dell’Altissimo; another thought to be of her (mid-16th century; Rome, Gal. Colonna) is by Bartolomeo Cancellieri. She is also portrayed on several medals (e.g. 1525–35; Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.).

Bibliography

DBI

F. de Holanda: Diálogo da Pintura (Lisbon, 1548); Eng. trans. as Four Dialogues on Painting (London, 1928) ( OPENURL )

C. de Tolnay: Michelangelo: The Final Period (Princeton, 1960) ( OPENURL )

D. J. McAuliffe: ‘Vittoria Colonna and Renaissance Poetics, Convention and Society’, Il Rinascimento: Aspetti e problemi attuali, ed. V. Branca (Florence, 1982), pp. 531–42 ( OPENURL )

V. Evangelidis: ‘Michelangelo and Nicodemism’, A. Bull., lxxi (1989), pp. 58–66 ( OPENURL )

S. Deswarte: ‘Vittoria Colonna et Michel-Ange dans les Dialogues de Francisco de Holande’, Atti del congresso internazionale. Vittoria Colonna e Michelangelo: Ischia, 1990 ( OPENURL )

M. A. Och: Vittoria Colonna: Art Patronage and Religious Reform in Sixteenth-century Rome (PhD diss., Bryn Mawr Coll., PA, 1993) ( OPENURL )

V. De Laurentiis: ‘Vittoria Colonna e le arti figurative’, Atti & Mem. Accad. Clementina Bologna, xxx (1992), pp. 83–101 ( OPENURL )

E. Campi: Michelangelo e Vittoria Colonna: Un dialogo artistico-teologico ispirato da Bernardino Ochino: E altri saggi di storia della Riforma (Turin, 1994) ( OPENURL )

S. Ferino-Pagden: Vittoria Colonna: Dichterin und Muse Michelangelos (Vienna, 1997) ( OPENURL )

A. Nagel: ‘Gifts for Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna’, A. Bull., lxxix (Dec 1997), pp. 647–68 ( OPENURL )

J. M. Wood: ‘Vittoria Colonna’s Mary Magdalen’, Visions of Holiness: Art and Devotion in Renaissance Italy, ed. A. Ladis and S. E. Zuraw (Athens, GA, 2001), pp. 194–212 ( OPENURL )

C.-E. Schurr: Vittoria Colonna und Michelangelo Buonarroti: Künstler- und Liebespaar der Renaissance (Tübingen, 2001) ( OPENURL )

M. Och: ‘Vittoria Colonna and the Commission for a Mary Magdalene by Titian’, Beyond Isabella: Secular Women Patrons of Art in Renaissance Italy (Kirksville, MO, 2001), pp. 193–223 ( OPENURL )

A. Prosperi: ‘Michelangelo: Una devozione erotica?’, Atti Accad. N. Lincei, xii (2001), pp. 701–15 ( OPENURL )

L. C. Agoston: ‘Male/Female, Italy/Flanders. Michelangelo/Vittoria Colonna’, Ren. Q., lviii (Winter 2005), pp. 1175–1219 ( OPENURL )

U. R. D’Elia: ‘Drawing Christ’s Blood: Michelangelo, Vittoria Colonna, and the Aesthetics of Reform’, Ren. Q., lix (Spring 2006), pp. 90–129 ( OPENURL )

Vittoria Colonna e Michelangelo (exh. cat., ed. P. Ragionieri; Florence, Casa Buonarroti, 2005) ( OPENURL )

Sonnets for Michelangelo: a bilingual edition,ed. A. Brundin (Chicago, 2005) ( OPENURL )

Marjorie A. Och
Marjorie A. Och. "Colonna, Vittoria." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 2 Jun. 2014. .

Comment: Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara and poet. 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. At the age of 46, in 1536, 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 61-year-old Michelangelo. The great artist addressed some of his finest sonnets to her, made drawings for her, and spent long hours in her company. Her removal to Orvieto and Viterbo in 1541, on the occasion of her brother Ascanio Colonna's revolt against Paul III, produced no change in their relations, and they continued to visit and correspond as before. She returned to Rome in 1544, staying as usual at the convent of San Silvestro, and died there on 25 February 1547.
Pietro Bembo, Luigi Alamanni and Baldassare Castiglione were among her literary friends

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Last Updated8/7/24

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