The inducement of the throne of Naples had been held out to Marchese di Pescara. He evidently regarded this in the nature of a dishonorable bribe, and it is this view which the Marchesa plainly shared.

After his death her first impulse was to take the vows of a cloistered nun. The Pope himself intervened to dissuade her, and she consented to enter, only temporarily, the convent of San Silvestre on the Monte Cavallo.

In the will of the Marchese di Pescara there was a clause directing that anything in his estate unlawfully acquired should be restored to the owner; and under this, Vittoria gave back to the monastery of Monte Cassino the Monte San Magno that had formerly been its property.

From the cloistered shades of the convent Vittoria removed to the family castle of the Colonna at Marino, where, on the shore of this beautiful lake (which was the scenery of Virgil’s Æneid), she passed some months, engaged in writing sonnets. Of one of these a translation runs in part:—

Again, a year later, Vittoria returned to lovely Ischia, which, as one writer has described, “rises out of the blue billows of the Mediterranean like giant towers. The immense blocks of stone are heaped one upon another, in such a supernatural manner as to give a coloring to the legend, that beneath them, in those vast volcanic caverns, dwells the giant Tifeo.” The castle where the Duchessa Francavilla and the Marchesa Pescara lived is built on a towering mass of rock joined to the island by a causeway. The castle includes the palace, a church, and other buildings for the family and their guests and dependants.

For some three years the Marchesa did not again leave Ischia. In the mean time volumes of her poems were published. She received the acclamation of all the writers of her time. The crown of immortelles, often laid but on a tomb, was continually pressed upon her brow. She was the most famous woman of her time. Her beauty, her genius, her noble majesty of character impressed the contemporary world. Her days were filled with correspondence with the most distinguished men of the day. Ariosto, Castiglione, Ludovico Dolce, Cardinal Bembo, Cardinal Contarini, and Paolo Giovio were among her nearer circle of friends.

Stormy times fell upon Italy, in all of which the Colonna family bore prominent part, and all of which affected the life of Vittoria Colonna in many ways. Her biography, if written with fulness and accuracy, would be largely a history of the Italy of that time, for her life seemed always inseparably united with great events.

In the year 1530 (Clement VII being the Pope) a full Papal pardon had been extended to all the Colonna, and their castles and estates had also been restored to them. For years past Rome had been in a state of conflict. Benvenuto Cellini, who had watched the terrible scenes from Castel San Angelo where he was immured, has described the terrors. The Eternal City, whose population under Leo X had been 90,000, was now—in 1530—reduced to half that number. Palaces and temples had been the scenes of riot and destruction, yet to this very lawlessness of the time the Roman galleries of the present owe their ancient statues, which were uncovered by these assaults. The Coliseum was left in the ruined state in which it is now seen, and by the sale of the stones taken from it the Palazzo Barberini was erected.

Vittoria, coming again to Rome and revisiting its classic greatness, exclaimed that happy were they who lived in times so full of grandeur; to which the poet Molza gallantly replied that they were less happy, as they had not known her! Everywhere was she received with the highest honors. She made a tour, visiting Bagni di Lucca, Bologna, and Ferrara, where she was the guest of the Duca and Duchessa Ercole in the ducal palace. The Duchessa was the Princesse Renée, the daughter of Louis XII of France, and an ardent friend of Calvin, who visited her in Ferrara. It was to this visit that Longfellow refers in his poem entitled “Michael Angelo,” when he pictures Vittoria as sitting for her portrait to the artist and conversing with her friend Giulia, the Duchess of Trajetto, Michael Angelo begs them to resume the conversation interrupted by his entrance, and Vittoria says:—

To which the Duchessa replies:—

The Duca and Duchessa of Ferrara invited the most distinguished persons in Venice and Bologna and Lombardy to meet their honored guest. Bishop Ghiberto of Verona besought her to visit that city. Vittoria accepted and was for some time the Bishop’s guest in his palace, and she took great interest in the historic city. With the Bishop she visited the ancient Duomo, which in 1160 had been restored by Pope Urban II, and reconsecrated. It was a strong desire of the Marchesa at this time to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; but the journey was then so perilous and so long—none too easy, indeed, at the present time—that she was dissuaded from the attempt.

Verona, to do her honor, had a medal struck bearing her portrait. The group of great artists—Titian, Tintoretto, and Giorgione in Venice; Fra Angelico, Bartolommeo, and others of that day—were creating their wonderful works which Vittoria must have seen and enjoyed during this tour. Raphael, whose death had occurred in 1520, Vittoria had, doubtless, known; but whether it was she who was the original of the Muse in his great picture of “Parnassus,” as is alleged, is not fully established.

wrote Vittoria Colonna in one of the sonnets to her husband’s memory, and this line is the keynote to her entire life, both as woman and poet. It was no translation of her life into another key, no reckoning by stars that flashed from different skies, when there fell upon her the baptism and crown of that immortal friendship with Michael Angelo.

The Marchesa di Pescara returned to Rome, from this notable tour in Northern Italy, in 1538. She was received with the honors that her fame inspired. Michael Angelo was then deeply absorbed in painting his “Last Judgment,” in the Capella Sistina.

“Every one in Rome took an interest in the progress of this magnificent fresco, from the Pope (who continually visited the artist) down to the humblest of the people. We may imagine Vittoria standing by the great painter to view his sublime work; but Michael Angelo did not require the patronage, even of a Colonna, and it is possible that Vittoria herself first sought out his friendship.”

In the Casa Buonarroti, in Florence, hangs that exquisite picture painted of Italy’s greatest woman poet, in her early youth; and in its rare and precious collection of manuscripts are the letters of Vittoria to the poet and sculptor. Her influence is said to have produced a great change in his religious views, influencing his mind to a more lofty and more spiritual comprehension of the divine laws that govern the universe.

Condivi, in referring to this chapter in their lives, has said:—

It was about 1535 when Michael Angelo left Florence for Rome, appointed by the Pope, Paul III, as the chief architect, sculptor, and painter of the Vatican. He was enrolled in the Pontifical household, and he at once began his work in the Sistine Chapel. Mr. Symonds believes that he must have been engaged upon the “Last Judgment” through 1536, 1537. The great artist was not without a keen wit of his own as well; for on receipt of a letter from Pietro Aretino, from Venice, in September of 1537, with praises of his work that Michael Angelo deemed extravagant, he replied that while he rejoiced in Aretino’s commendation, he also grieved; “as having finished a large part of the fresco,” he said, “I cannot realize your conception which is so complete that if the Day of Judgment had come and you had been present and seen it with your eyes, your words could not have described it better.”

Vittoria Colonna now passed some years between Rome and Orvieto, that picturesque town with its magnificent cathedral rich in mediæval art, where she lived in the convent of St. Paolo d’Orvieto. She varied this residence by remaining at times in the convent of San Caterina di Viterbo, in that city. In Rome she had lived both at the convent of Santa Anna and also at the Palazzo Cesarini, which was the home of members of the Colonna family. A sonnet of Michael Angelo’s written to Vittoria reflects the feeling that she inspired in him:—

Of this sonnet the following beautiful translation is made by John Addington Symonds:—

The correspondence between Vittoria and Michael Angelo was undated, and all that now remains is fragmentary.

The great artist, writing to his nephew, Sionardo, in 1554, says:—

In Rome, 1545, Michael Angelo thus writes to Vittoria:—

With this letter Michael Angelo sent to Vittoria a sonnet which, in the translation made by John Addington Symonds, is as follows:—

As a gift to Vittoria Colonna, Michael Angelo designed an episode from the Passion of our Lord, which Condivi describes as “a naked Christ at the moment when, taken from the cross, our Lord would have fallen at the feet of His most holy mother if two angels did not support Him in their arms. She sits below the cross with a face full of tears and sorrow, lifting both her widespread arms to heaven while on the stem of the tree above is written this legend: ‘Non vi si pensa quanto sangue costa.’ The cross is of the same kind as that which was carried by the White Friars at the time of the plague of 1348, and afterward deposited in the Church of Santa Croce at Florence.”

In presenting this cross to her he wrote:—

In reply Vittoria Colonna wrote:—

She added:—

Again Vittoria wrote to him:—

It is an interesting fact to the visitor in the Rome of to-day that the convent of San Silvestre where Vittoria Colonna lived was attached to the church of San Silvestre in Capite, now used as the English-speaking Catholic church in the Eternal City. The wing which was formerly the convent (founded in 1318) is now converted into the central post office.

It was in the sacristy of San Silvestre, decorated with frescoes by Domenichino, that a memorable meeting and conversation took place, one Sunday afternoon in those far-away days of nearly five hundred years ago, between Michael Angelo and Francesco d’Ollanda, a Spanish miniature artist,—the meeting brought about by Vittoria Colonna. The Spanish artist was a worshipper of Michael Angelo, who “awakened such a feeling of love,” that if d’Ollanda met him in the street “the stars would come out in the sky,” he says, “before I would let him go again.” This fervent worship was hardly enjoyed by its object, who avoided the Spanish enthusiast. One Sunday, however, d’Ollanda had gone to San Silvestre finding there Tolomei, to whom he was also devoted, and Vittoria Colonna, both of whom had gone to hear the celebrated Fra Ambrosia of Siena expound the Epistles of St. Paul. The Marchesa di Pescara observed that she felt sure their Spanish friend would far rather hear Michael Angelo discuss painting than to hear Fra Ambrosia on the wisdom of St. Paul. Summoning an attendant she directed him to find Michael Angelo and tell him how cool and delightful was the church that morning and to beg him to join Messer Tolomei and herself; but to make no mention of the presence of d’Ollanda. Her woman’s tact and her faultless courtesy were successful in procuring this inestimable privilege for the Spanish painter. Michael Angelo came, and began the conversation—which was a monologue, rather, as all three of the friends wished only to listen to the master—by defending artists from the charge of eccentric and difficult methods. With somewhat startling candor Michael Angelo proceeded:—

Another meeting of this little group was appointed for the next Sunday in the Colonna gardens behind the convent, under the shadow of the laurel trees in the air fragrant with roses and orange blossoms, where they sat with Rome spread out like a picture at their feet. That beautiful terrace of the Colonna gardens, to which the visitor in Rome to-day always makes his pilgrimage, with the ruined statues and the broken marble flights of steps, is the scene of this meeting of Vittoria Colonna, Michael Angelo, and Francesco d’Ollanda. On this second occasion the sculptor asserted his belief that while all things are worthy the artist’s attention, the real test of his art is in the representation of the human form. He extolled the art of design. He emphasized the essential nature of nobleness in the artist, and added:—

Of the relative degree of swiftness in work Michael Angelo said:—

Mr. Longfellow, in his unfinished dramatic poem, “Michael Angelo” (to which reference has already been made), has one scene laid in the convent chapel of San Silvestre, in which these passages occur:—

Vittoria tells the master that the Pope has granted her permission to build a convent, and Michael Angelo replies:—

To which Vittoria responds:—

The poet, with his characteristically delicate divination, has entered into the inner spirit of these two immortal friends.

Walter Pater, writing of Michael Angelo, truly says:—

Again we find Pater saying:—

Visconti notes that among Italian poets, Vittoria Colonna was the first to make religion a subject of poetic treatment, and the first to introduce nature’s ministry to man into poetry. Rota, her Italian biographer, states that she died in February of 1547, in the Palazzo Cesarini. This palace is in Genzano, on Lago di Nemi, and has been one of the Colonna estates; but from Visconti and other authorities it is evident that she died in Rome, either in the convent of Santa Anna or in the palace of Cesarini, the husband of her kinswoman, Giulio Colonna, which must have been near the convent in Trastevere, the old portion of Rome across the Tiber. Visconti records that on the last evening of her life when Michael Angelo was beside her, she said: “I die. Help me to repeat my last prayer. I do not now remember the words.” He clasped her hand and repeated it to her, while her own lips moved, she gazed intently on him, smiled and passed away. This translation has been made of Vittoria Colonna’s last prayer:—

It is recorded by an authority that her body, “enclosed in a casket of cypress wood, lined with embroidered velvet,” was placed in the chapel of Santa Anna which has since been destroyed. Visconti says: “She desired, with Christian humility, to be buried in the manner in which the sisters were buried when they died. And, as I suppose, her body was placed in the common sepulchre of the nuns of Santa Anna.” Grimm declares that he cannot discover the place of her burial, and Visconti declares that her tomb remains unknown.

But it is apparently a fact that the body of Vittoria Colonna is entombed in the sacristy of Santa Domenica Maggiore in Naples, the sarcophagus containing it resting by the side of the one containing the body of her husband, Francesco d’Avalos, Marchese of Pescara. This church is one of the finest in Naples, with twenty-seven chapels and twelve altars, and it is here that nearly all the great nobles of the kingdom of Naples are entombed. Here is the tomb of the learned Thomas Aquinas and here is shown, in relief, the miracle of the crucifix by Tommaso de Stefani, which—as the legend runs—thus addressed the learned doctor:—

“Bene scripsisti de me, Thoma; quam ergo mercedem recipies?”

It is in the sacristy in which lie all the Princes of the House of Aragon that the sarcophagi of the Marchese and the Marchesa di Pescara are placed side by side in the high gallery near the ceiling. The altar has a fine Annunciation ascribed to Andrea da Salerno. The ceiling (whose coloring is as fresh and vivid as if painted yesterday) is by Solimena. Around the walls near the ceiling are two balconies or galleries, filled with very large wooden sarcophagi, whose scarlet velvet covers have faded into yellow browns with pink shades, many of which are tattered and are falling to pieces. The casket containing the body of Fernando Francesco d’Avalos, Marchese of Pescara (the husband of Vittoria Colonna), has on it an inscription by Ariosto; and his portrait (showing in profile a young face with blonde hair and a full reddish brown beard) and a banner, also, is suspended above the casket. That containing the body of the Marchesa, his wife (Vittoria Colonna), has an aperture at the top where the wood is worn away and the embalmed form, partly crumbled, may be seen. This seems strange to the verge of fantasy, but it is, apparently, true. The writer of this volume visited the Church of Santa Domenica Maggiore in Naples in December of 1906, and was assured by the sacristan that this sarcophagus contains the body of the Marchesa. Inquiries were then made of other prelates and of the Archbishop, who gave the same assurance. Later, learned archæologists in Rome were appealed to, regarding this assertion made in Naples, and the consensus of opinion obtained declares their assertion true. Professor Lanciani has himself publicly expressed this conviction. Still, it remains a curious question as to when this sarcophagus was placed in the sacristy, for the date goes back into long-buried centuries.

Adjoining Santa Domenica Maggiore is the monastery in which Thomas Aquinas lived and lectured (in 1272), and the cell of the great doctor of philosophy is now made into a chapel. His lectures called together men of the highest rank and learning and were attended by the king and the members of the royal family. The entire locality of this church is replete with historic association. The most distinguished of the nobility of Naples have, for centuries, held their chapels in this church, and in these are many notable examples of Renaissance sculpture.

The Accadémia des Arcades of Rome, founded in the seventeenth century to do honor to lyric art, celebrated the placing of a bust of Vittoria Colonna in a gallery of the Capitoline, in May of 1865, by a resplendent poetic festa. According to the gentle, leisurely customs of the land, where it is always afternoon and time has no value, thirty-two poets read their songs, written in Latin or in Italian, for this occasion, which were published in a sumptuous volume to be preserved in the archives of the Arcadians, who take themselves more seriously than the world outside quite realizes. This bust of Vittoria Colonna was the gift of the Duca and Duchessa of Torlonia of that period. It was crowned with laurel, as that of Petrarca had been, and the government took official recognition of the event.

Goethe was made a member of this Accadémia that regarded itself as reflecting the glories of the Golden Age of Greece, and which was a century old at the time of his visit to Italy. “No stranger of any consequence was readily permitted to leave Rome without being invited to join this body,” he recorded, and he wrote a humorous description of the formalities of his initiation.

Mrs. Horatio Greenough was honored by being made a member of this Accadémia in recognition of her musical accomplishments, and the record of it is placed on the memorial marble over her grave in the Protestant cemetery in Rome. Every year, on Tasso’s birthday (April 25), the Accadémia holds a festa in a little amphitheatre near “Tasso’s oak,” on the Janiculum, at which his bust is crowned with laurel. The gardens in which the seventeenth-century Arcadians disported themselves are now known among the Romans as il Bosco Parrasio degli Arcadi.

Throughout Italy the fame of Vittoria Colonna only deepens with every succeeding century. Her nobility of character, her lofty spirituality of life, fitly crowned and perfected her intellectual force and brilliant gifts. Although from the customs of the time the Marchesa lived much in convents, she never, in any sense, save that of her fervent piety, lived the conventual life. Her noble gifts linked her always to the larger activities, and her gifts and rank invested her with certain demands and responsibilities that she could not evade. She was one of the messengers of life, and her place as a brilliant and distinguished figure in the contemporary world was one that the line of destiny, which pervades all circumstances and which, in her case, was so marked, absolutely constrained her to fill. She had that supreme gift of the lofty nature, the power of personal influence. Her exquisite courtesy and graciousness of manner, her simple dignity and unaffected sincerity, her delicacy of divination and her power of tender sympathy and liberal comprehension all combined to make her the ideal companion, counsellor, and friend, as well as the celebrity of letters and lyric art.

No poet has more exquisitely touched the friendship between Vittoria Colonna and Michael Angelo than has Margaret J. Preston, in a poem supposed to be addressed to the sculptor by Vittoria, in which occur the lines:—

This is the Page de Conti that one reads in the air as he sails past Ischia on the violet sea; and the chant d’amour of the sirens catches the echo of lines far down the centuries:—