1. Vittoria Colonna

2. Rime della Divina Vittoria Colonna (1538) first published book of poetry by a woman
1559 Ludovico Domenichi publishes Rime diverse d'alcune nobilissime e virtuosissime donne: poems by 93 'most noble and virtuous' women poets
Noble women
Vittoria Colonna ( )
Veronica Gambara ( )
self-made women or 'honest courtesans'
Tullia d'Aragona (c )
Gaspara Stampa ( )
Veronica Franco ( )

3. Fabrizio Colonna: father

4. Vittoria Colonna's life
information incomplete, despite the poet's great fame in her own age
autobiographical readings of Colonna's poetry muddied an already unclear picture
1490 or 92: born at Marino outside Rome
highly aristocratic family( Fabrizio Colonna and Agnese di Montefeltro)
1498: betrothed to Francesco Ferrante D'Avalos (political alliance Colonna Family / Ferdinand, king of Naples)
1509: marriage on the island of Ischia
1511: D'Avalos leaves home, on military campaigns against the French, which were to occupy him for the rest of his life

5. Island of Ischia (off the coast of Naples)

6. Formative years at court on Ischia
childless marriage
D’Avalos and his war heroism becomes subject of her earliest verses
her later spiritual poetry will fuse the earthly captain with Christ
Colonna at the court on Ischia with Costanza D'Avalos a highly learned woman
formative years spent without male protagonists: space for female autonomy.

7. Widow
1520: Colonna is in Rome, audience with Pope Leo X, meets Castiglione and Bembo
: alternates Naples and her family's estates around Rome
1525: back to Ischia. Battle of Pavia, D'Avalos dies
1526: wishes to become a nun. Pope Clement VII denies permission for his political aims
Despite pressure Colonna never consideres remarrying
turns her widowed status to the service of her poetry

8. Sack of Rome 1527 1526: political turmoil in Rome
Colonna family is with the emperor
Vittoria is taken out of the city to the safety of Marino
Despite her family's antipapal stance, she preserves good relations with Clement VII
Proximity to the great seats of power of her age, both papal and imperial
1527: goes Naples and then Ischia, avoids the brutal Sack of Rome

9. 1527- early 1530s: in Ischia
Her poetry circulates in manuscripts throughout Italy
Becomes renown as a poet of chaste and devoted love for the memory of her husband
1530 sends a sonnet to Pietro Bembo, lierary friendship starts and endures until their deaths in 1547.
Becomes closely associated with Capuchin preacher Bernardino Ochino: her style and religious belief are deeply influenced by Ochino’s evangelical and mystical style of preaching
1536: in Rome again. Is visited by Emperor Charles V who wants her as an intermediary with the Pope
Starts intense friendship with English cardinal Reginald Pole

10. Matriarch of Petrarchism
1537: is hosted in Ferrara by Renee de France (wife of Duke Ercole II d'Este) who sympathizes for the Reformation and shelters French religious exiles (including Jean Calvin)
1539 : in Rome, a friendship with Michelangelo flourishes
1541: tensions between her brother Ascanio and Pope Paul III force her to Orvieto and then to Viterbo to be near her friend Pole.
1544: in very poor health returns to Rome and settles in the convent of Sant'Anna de' Funari
1547: dies and is heralded as the undisputed matriarch of Italian Petrarchism.

11. Literary Works: Rime amorose
Colonna enjoyed an unprecedented level of literary fame and success for a woman writer
never involved with any of the editions of her work: an aristocratic writer cannot work for acclaim or monetary gain
1538: first edition of Rime was published: a collection of 145 amorous sonnets (so-called rime amorose)
many subsequent editions establish the public image of Colonna as a mournful widow memorializing her lost consort
Her work was well-known to an erudite courtly audience but from a wider public began to know her
The amorous sonnets are heavily influenced by Petrarch, Dante and Bembo

12. Rime amorose
Traditional theme of the poet who suffers for an impossible love
Gender reversal is entirely new
the love that is mourned has a legitimate public face (her dead husband)
Stylistically the sonnets are carefully controlled and highly finished: Colonna was recognized as an equal to the best male poets of her age

13. Rime spirituali
1539: a small selection of spiritual sonnets were appended to the 5th edition of her work
rime spirituali were always included in editions of the poetry
Editions included woodcut illustrations of the Vittoria clad erroneously in a nun's habit and kneeling in prayer before a crucifix
early editors were as aware as she was herself of the immense marketing power of her piety and were keen to foster the link between the poet's public persona and her work.
rime spirituali were advertised as being a new de­parture but there is actually a continuity
D'Avalos in Rime amorose was prefiguring Christ
uniformity of tone and purpose show that she was finding a voice for her religious faith.

14. Poetic innovator
After 1539 un-Petrarchan poetic voice: highly sensual and mystical, reflecting the influence of the evangelical religious circles in which Colonna was moving from the 1530s
pushes the Petrarchan format in new direction, in both style and theme
Links poetry to a contemporary religious movement and gives it relevance and immediacy (versus traditional Petrarchism known for its courtliness and isolationism
 this new spiritual direction to her Petrarchism was Colonna's response to and a reflection of the lyrical language of the Italian reform movement, as in the Beneficio di Cristo.

15. Lucas Cranach il vecchio, Ritratto di Martin Lutero, Galleria degli Uffizi

16. Luther’s Reformation
1517: Martin Luther nails 95 theses in Latin on the door of the castle church in Wittenburg.
popular attack on the venality of Rome
doubts as to the Pope's right to remit punishment inflicted by God
contrition could remit spiritual guilt and nothing else was necessary
1520 Luther publishes 3 treatises defining his position and calling for action
appeals to the German ruling classes to throw off the yoke of Rome
each believer is their own priest
Breaks the power of the Church over secular authorities--the power to give or withhold the means of salvation
denies four of the traditional sacraments, and keeps only Baptism, the Eucharist, and, a revised Penance
Marriage was a civil affair Ordination and confirmation were rites not sacraments. Extreme unction was unscriptural
doctrine of justification by faith, free gift of God
good works have no heavenly merit

17. Colonna’s Reformed Spirituality
late 1520s and early 1530s, Colonna comes into contact with a the group of aristocrats around Juan de Valdes (among them Bernardino Ochino)
Valdes's theology is a direct challenge to the authority of the church
Bible as the only source for spiritual understanding
no need of the church fathers and institutions
no more money to the church to purchase indulgences for salvation
It is only a short step from this position to an acceptance of the Lutheran doctrine of sola fide, or justification by faith without good works

18. Sola Fide People can do nothing to change their fate
They are either saved (justified) or lost only through the power of God's love and the working of their own faith
Good works, prayer, fasting, indulgences, and all the apparatus of Catholicism are therefore meaningless
all that matters is abandoning oneself to the word of God contained in the Bible
in the early 1530s the Council of Trent had not yet been convened and a clear line between heresy and orthodoxy was yet to be drawn
Vittoria Colonna arrived at a belief in sola fide via a quite orthodox and non-Lutheran route
implications of such a doctrine for the individual Christian (poet)
she is handed the responsibility for developing a pure faith through a direct relationship with Christ and his gospels

19. Colonna’s reformed spirituality
the intimate and loving relationship with D'Avalos of the Rime amorose is superseded by an equally intimate and loving relationship with Christ,
a sensuous and mystical language that reflects the influence of Valdes and Ochino
Frequent allusions to justification by faith
Calvinist concept of predestination ( the elect are born already destined to be saved and equipped with the capacity for faith)
Spirituals or spirituali, around Pole, discussed The Beneficio di Cristo (condemned by the Council of Trent in 1546)
jubilant call to arms to the new faith, expressed in a highly evocative and lyrical language
Vittoria Colonna and her mentor Cardinal Pole wanted to retain a belief in sola fide and remain Catholic
Colonna's death in 1547 meant that she was spared the ignominy of the Inquisition's attentions 

20. Colonna and Michelangelo
were introduced to one another in Rome in 1536 or 1538.
Relationship Reginald Pole/Colonna: guide and mentor
Between Michelangelo and Colonna a very different relationship existed
Colonna: well read, knowledge of Latin, some classical sources, understanding of the scriptures through contact the spirituali, already recognized a skilled poet
Michelangelo was less knowledgeable regarding questions of faith, was of a far lower social status
Colonna assumed the role of spiritual guide and source for poetic and artistic inspiration for Michelangelo

21. Manuscript of Sonnets for Michelangelo
1540: Colonna compiles as a gift for Michelangelo
mutual poetic and spiritual exploration
reflects very clearly the influence of the ecclesia viterbiensis
Many allusions to the doctrinal ideas of the reform (sola fide)
exclusive concentration on the poet's relationship with a loving and forgiving Christ is in line with the Christocentrism of The Beneficio di Cristo

22. Structure of Sonnets for Michelangelo
All sonnets are rime spirituali
Organization differs from earlier canzonieri that conformed to Petrarch’ s model
a development from the concerns of an earthly love, through a gradual spiritual awakening, to a final prayer to the Virgin Mary (Petrarch’s model)
Here there is no chronological development of the soul, but rather a universal contemplation of the mystery of faith that leads full circle, culminating and beginning in the inevitable fact of the individual and her relationship with Christ.
no aspiration toward escape from earthly love (as in most Petrarchan canzonieri)
Celebration of confinement within a dominating and eternal need for spiritual love
The poet no longer bemoans, but rather celebrates her powerlessness faced by the might and wonder of God and abandons herself to his will
willful self-abandonment is in line with the call of the reformers to devote oneself to faith instead of striving to expunge sin through good works