Vittoria in Rome in 1530.—Antiquarian rambles.—Pyramus and Thisbe medal.—Contemporary commentary on Vittoria's poems.—Paul the Third.—Rome again in 1536.—Visit to Lucca.—To Ferrara.—Protestant tendencies.—Invitation from Giberto.—Return to Rome.

The noble rivalry of Francis I. and Charles V. was again, in 1530, making Naples a field of glory in such sort, that outraged nature appeared also on the scene with pestilence in her hand. The first infliction had driven most of the literary society in Naples to take refuge in the comparative security of Ischia. The latter calamity had reached even that retreat; and Vittoria some time in that year again visited Rome.

Life was beginning there to return to its usual conditions after the tremendous catastrophe of 1527. Pestilence had there also, as usual, followed in the train of war and military license. And many in all classes had been its victims. Great numbers fled from the city, and among these were probably most of such as were honoured by Vittoria's personal friendship. Now they were venturing back to their old haunts on the Pincian, the Quirinal, or those favourite Colonna gardens, still ornamented by the ruins of Aurelian's Temple to the Sun. The tide of modern Goths, who had threatened to make the eternal city's name a mockery, had been swept back at the word of that second and "most Catholic" Alaric, Charles V. Cardinals, poetasters, wits, Ciceronian bishops, statesmen, ambassadors, and artists, busy in the achievement of immortality, were once more forming a society, which gave the Rome of that day a fair title to be considered, in some points of view, the capital of the world. The golden Roman sunlight was still glowing over aqueduct, arch and temple; and Rome the Eternal was herself again.

By this varied and distinguished society Vittoria was received with open arms. The Colonna family had become reconciled to Pope Clement, and had had their fiefs restored to them; so that there was no cloud on the political horizon to prevent the celebrated Marchesana from receiving the homage of all parties. The Marchese del Vasto, Vittoria's former pupil, for whom she never ceased to feel the warmest affection, was also then at Rome.[187] In his company, and that of some others of the gifted knot around her, Vittoria visited the ruins and vestiges of ancient Rome with all the enthusiasm of one deeply versed in classic lore, and thoroughly imbued with the then prevailing admiration for the works and memorials of Pagan antiquity. Vittoria's sister-in-law, Donna Giovanna d'Aragona, the beautiful and accomplished wife of her brother Ascanio, in whose house she seems to have been living during this visit to Rome, was doubtless one of the party on these occasions. The poet Molza has chronicled his presence among them in more than one sonnet. His muse would seem to have "made increment of anything." For no less than four sonnets[188] were the result of the exclamation from Vittoria, "Ah happy they"—the ancients, "who lived in days so full of beauty!" Of course, various pretty things were obtainable out of this. Among others, we have the gallant Pagans responding to the lady's ejaculation, that on the contrary their time was less fortunate than the present, in that it was not blessed by the sight of her.

It would have been preferable to have had preserved for us some further scraps from the lips of Vittoria, while the little party gazed at sunset over that matchless view of the aqueduct-bestridden Campagna from the terrace at the western front of the Lateran, looked up at the Colosseum, ghostly in the moonlight, from the arch of Titus, or discoursed on the marvellous proportions of the Pantheon.

But history rarely guesses aright what the after-ages she works for would most thank her for handing down to them. And we must be content to construct for ourselves, as best we may, from the stray hints we have, the singularly pleasing picture of these sixteenth century rambles among the ruins of Rome by as remarkable a company of pilgrims as any of the thousands who have since trodden in their steps.

Vittoria's visit to Rome upon this occasion was a short one. It was probably early in the following year that she returned to Ischia. Signor Visconti attributes this journey to the restlessness arising from a heart ill at ease, vainly hoping to find relief from its misery by change of place. He assumes all the expressions of despair to be found in her sonnets of this period, to be so many reliable autobiographical documents, and builds his narrative upon them accordingly. To this period he attributes the sonnet, translated in a previous chapter, in which the poetess declares that she has no wish to conceal from the world the temptation to suicide which assails her. And in commemoration of this mood of mind, he adds, in further proof of the sad truth, a medal was struck upon this occasion, in Rome, of which he gives an engraving. It represents, on one side, the inconsolable lady as a handsome, well nourished, comfortable-looking widow, in mourning weeds, more aged in appearance, certainly, since the striking of the former medal spoken of, than the lapse of seven years would seem sufficient to account for. And, on the reverse, is a representation of the melancholy story of Pyramus and Thisbe, the former lying dead at the feet of the typical paragon, who is pointing towards her breast a sword, grasped in both hands, half-way down the blade, in a manner sure to have cut her fingers. The two sides of the medal, seen at one glance, as in Signor Visconti's engraving, are, it must be admitted, calculated to give rise to ideas the reverse of pathetic.

To this period too belongs the sonnet, also previously alluded to, in which Vittoria speaks of the seventh year of her bereavement having arrived, without bringing with it any mitigation of her woe. Signor Visconti takes this for simple autobiographical material. It is curious, as a specimen of the modes of thought at the time, to see how the same passage is handled by Vittoria's first editor and commentator, Rinaldo Corsi, who published her works for the second time at Venice in 1558. His commentary begins as follows:—"On this sonnet, it remains for me to speak of the number Seven as I have done already of the number Four. But since Varro, Macrobius, and Aulus Gellius, together with many others, have treated largely of the subject, I will only add this,—which, perhaps, Ladies, may appear to you somewhat strange; that, according to Hippocrates, the number four enters twice into the number seven; and I find it stated by most credible authors as a certain fact, and proved by the testimony of their own observation, that a male child of seven years old has been known to cure persons afflicted by the infirmity called scrofula by no other means than by the hidden virtue of that number seven," &c., &c., &c.

In this sort, Messer Rinaldo Corso composed, and the literary ladies, to whom throughout, as in the above passage, his labours are especially dedicated, must be supposed to have read more than five hundred close-printed pages of commentary on the works of the celebrated poetess, who, in all probability, when she penned the sonnet in question, had no more intention of setting forth the reasons for her return to Ischia, than she had of alluding to the occult properties of the mysterious number seven. The natural supposition is, that as she had been driven from her home by the pestilence, she returned to it when that reason for absence was at an end.

There she seems to have remained tranquilly employed on her favourite pursuits, increasing her already great reputation, and corresponding assiduously with all the best and most distinguished men of Italy, whether laymen or ecclesiastics, till the year 1536.

In that year she again visited Rome, and resided during her stay there with Donna Giovanna d'Aragona, her sister-in-law. Paul III., Farnese, had in 1534 succeeded Clement in the chair of St. Peter; and though Paul was on many accounts very far from being a good Pope or a good priest, yet the Farnese was an improvement on the Medici. As ever, Rome began to show signs of improvement when danger to her system from without began to make itself felt. Paul seems very soon to have become convinced that the general council, which had been so haunting a dread to Clement during the whole of his pontificate, could no longer be avoided. But it was still hoped in the council chambers of the Vatican that the doctrinal difficulties of the German reformers, which threatened the Church with so fatal a schism, might be got over by conciliation and dexterous theological diplomacy. As soon as it became evident that this hope was vain, fear began to influence the papal policy, and at its bidding the ferocious persecuting bigotry of Paul IV. was contrasted with the shameless profligacy of Alexander, the epicurean indifferentism of Leo, and the pettifogging worldliness of Clement.

Between these two periods came Paul III., and the illusory hopes that the crisis might be tided over by finding some arrangement of terminology, which should satisfy the reformers, while Rome should abandon no particle of doctrine on which any vital portion of her system of temporal power was based. To meet the exigencies of this period, Paul III. signalised his accession by raising to the purple a number of the most earnest, most learned, and truly devout men in Italy. Contarini, the Venetian; Caraffa, from Naples; Sadoleto, Bishop of Carpentras; Pole, then a fugitive from England; Giberti, Bishop of Verona; and Fregoso, Archbishop of Salerno, were men chosen solely on account of their eminent merit.

With most, if not all of these, Vittoria was connected by the bonds of intimate friendship. With Contarini, Sadoleto, and Pole, especially, she corresponded; and the esteem felt for her by such men is the most undeniable testimony to the genuine worth of her character. It is easy to imagine, therefore, how warm a reception awaited her arrival on this occasion in Rome, and how delightful must have been her stay there. She had now reached the full measure of her reputation. The religious and doctrinal topics which were now occupying the best minds in Italy, and on which her thoughts were frequently busied in her correspondence with such men as those named above, had recently begun to form the subject-matter of her poems. And their superiority in vigour and earnestness to her earlier works must have been perfectly apparent to her reverend and learned friends.

Accordingly we are told that her stay in Rome on this occasion was a continued ovation; and Signor Visconti informs us, on the authority of the Neapolitan historian Gregorio Rosso, that Charles V. being then in Rome "condescended to visit in their own house the ladies Giovanna di Aragona, wife of Ascanio Colonna, and Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa di Pescara."

The following year, 1537 that is, she went, Visconti says, to Lucca, from which city she passed to Ferrara, arriving there on the 8th of April "in humble guise, with six waiting women only."[189] Ercole d'Este, the second of the name, was then the reigning duke, having succeeded to his father Alphonso in 1534. And the court of Ferrara, which had been for several years preeminent among the principalities of Italy for its love of literature and its patronage of literary men, became yet more notably so in consequence of the marriage of Hercules II. with RenÉe of France, the daughter of Louis XII. The Protestant tendencies and sympathies of this Princess had rendered Ferrara also the resort, and in some instances the refuge, of many professors and favourers of the new ideas which were beginning to stir the mind of Italy. And though Vittoria's orthodox Catholic biographers are above all things anxious to clear her from all suspicion of having ever held opinions eventually condemned by the Church, there is every reason to believe that her journey to Ferrara was prompted by the wish to exchange ideas upon these subjects with some of those leading minds which were known to have imbibed Protestant tendencies, if not to have acquired fully formed Protestant convictions. It is abundantly clear, from the character of her friendships, from her correspondence, and from the tone of her poetry at this period, and during the remainder of her life, that her mind was absorbingly occupied with topics of this nature. And the short examination of the latter division of her works, which it is proposed to attempt in the next chapter, will probably convince such as have no partisan Catholic feelings on the subject, that Vittoria's mind had made very considerable progress in the Protestant direction.

No reason is assigned for her stay at Lucca. Visconti, with unusual brevity and dryness, merely states that she visited that city.[190] And it is probable that he has not been able to discover any documents directly accounting for the motives of her visit. But he forbears to mention that the new opinions had gained so much ground there that that Republic was very near declaring Protestantism the religion of their state. After her totally unaccounted-for visit to the heresy-stricken city, she proceeds to another almost equally tainted with suspicion.

It is no doubt perfectly true that Duke Hercules and his court received her with every possible distinction on the score of her poetical celebrity, and deemed his city honoured by her presence. He invited, we are told, the most distinguished poets and men of letters of Venice and Lombardy to meet her at Ferrara. And so much was her visit prized that when Cardinal Giberto sent thither his secretary, Francesco della Torre, to persuade her to visit his episcopal city Verona, that ambassador wrote to his friend Bembo, at Venice, that he "had like to have been banished by the Duke, and stoned by the people for coming there with the intention of robbing Ferrara of its most precious treasure, for the purpose of enriching Verona." Vittoria, however, seems to have held out some hope that she might be induced to visit Verona. For the secretary, continuing his letter to the literary Venetian cardinal, says, "Who knows but what we may succeed in making reprisal on them? And if that should come to pass, I should hope to see your Lordship more frequently in Verona, as I should see Verona the most honoured as well as the most envied city in Italy."[191]

It is impossible to have more striking testimony to the fame our poetess had achieved by her pen; and it is a feature of the age and clime well worth noting, that a number of small states, divided by hostilities and torn by warfare, should have, nevertheless, possessed among them a republic of letters capable of conferring a celebrity so cordially acknowledged throughout the whole extent of Italy.

From a letter[192] written by Vittoria to Giangiorgio Trissino of Vicenza, the author of an almost forgotten epic, entitled "Italia liberata da Goti," bearing date the 10th of January (1537), we learn that she found the climate of Ferrara "unfavourable to her indisposition;" which would seem to imply a continuance of ill-health. Yet it was at this time that she conceived the idea of undertaking a journey to the Holy Land.[193] Her old pupil, and nearly life-long friend, the Marchese del Vasto, came from Milan to Ferrara, to dissuade her from the project. And with this view, as well as to remove her from the air of Ferrara, he induced her to return to Rome, where her arrival was again made a matter of almost public rejoicing.

The date of this journey was probably about the end of 1537. The society of the Eternal City, especially of that particular section of it which made the the world of Vittoria, was in a happy and hopeful mood. The excellent Contarini had not yet departed[194] thence on his mission of conciliation to the Conference, which had been arranged with the Protestant leaders at Ratisbon. The brightest and most cheering hopes were based on a total misconception of the nature, or rather on an entire ignorance of the existence of that under current of social change, which, to the north of the Alps, made the reformatory movement something infinitely greater, more fruitful of vast results, and more inevitable, than any scholastic dispute on points of theologic doctrine. And at the time of Vittoria's arrival, that little band of pure, amiable, and high-minded, but not large-minded men, who fondly hoped that, by the amendment of some practical abuses, and a mutually forbearing give-and-take arrangement of some nice questions of metaphysical theology, peace on earth and good-will among men, might be yet made compatible with the undiminished pretensions and theory of an universal and infallible Church, were still lapped in the happiness of their day-dream. Of this knot of excellent men, which comprised all that was best, most amiable, and most learned in Italy, Vittoria was the disciple, the friend, and the inspired Muse. The short examination of her religious poetry, therefore, which will be the subject of the next chapter, will not only open to us the deepest and most earnest part of her own mind, but will, in a measure, illustrate the extent and nature of the Protestantising tendencies then manifesting themselves in Italy.