Italy, the Magic Land

by Lilian Whiting

In this scene of romantic beauty, with the vista of beauty almost incomparable in any inland view in Italy, Vittoria passed her infancy, until, at the age of four, her childhood was transplanted to fairy Ischia. In all this chain of Alban towns, including Marino, Viterbo, Ariccia, and Rocca di Papa, the great family of the Colonna owned extensive estates, each crowning some height, while the defiles between were filled, then as now, with the foam and blossom of riotous greenery. Then, as now, across the mystic Campagna, the dome of St. Peter’s silhouetted itself against a golden background of western sky.

One needs not to have had privileged access to the sibylline leaves of the Cumæan soothsayer to recognize that Vittoria Colonna was born under the star of destiny. Her horoscope seemed to be inextricably entwined with that of Italy; and the events which created and determined the conditions of her life and its panoramic series of circumstances were the events of Italy and of Europe as well—in political aspects and in the influence on general progress, brought to bear by strong and prominent individualities whose gifts, genius, or force dominated the movements of the day.

To her father’s change of political allegiance, from the French to the Spanish side, in the war raging between those countries in 1494, Vittoria owed all her life in Ischia; and her marriage, and all that resulted from her becoming a member of the d’Avalos family, was due to this espousal of a new political faith on the part of Fabrizio Colonna. To the fact that in 1425 the war with France again broke out was due the loss of her husband and the conditions that consecrated her life to poetry, to learning, and that made possible the beautiful and sympathetic friendship between herself and Michael Angelo. Her life presents the most forcible illustration of the overruling power on human life and destiny.

It was the political change of faith on the part of Fabrizio Colonna that initiated an unforeseen and undreamed-of drama of life for his infant daughter, the first act of which included the command of the King of Naples that the little Vittoria should be betrothed to Francesco d’Avalos, the son of Alphonso, Marchese di Pescara, of Ischia, one of the nobles who stood nearest to the king in those troubled days. Francesco was born in the castle on Ischia in 1489, and was one year older than Vittoria. Fabrizio exchanged his castle at Marino for one in Naples, which city made him the Grand Constable. The d’Avalos castle in Ischia had at this time for its chatelaine the Duchessa di Francavilla, who is said by some authorities to have been the elder sister and by others to have been the aunt of Francesco. Donna Constanza d’Avalos, later the Duchessa di Francavilla, had been made the Castellana of the island for her courage in refusing to capitulate to the French troops when, after the death of her father, she was left in sole charge of the d’Avalos estates, and Emperor Charles V elevated her rank to that of Principessa. The Duchessa was one of the most remarkable women of the day. She was a classical scholar, and herself a writer, the author of a book entitled “Degli Infortuni e Travagli del Mondo.” To the care of this learned and brilliant woman, a great lady in the social life of the time, the care of the little Vittoria was committed, and she studied and played and grew up with Francesco, her future husband. The d’Avalos family ranked among the highest nobility of the Court of Naples, and the Principessa reigned as a queen of letters and society in her island kingdom. It was under her care that the two children, Francesco and Vittoria, pursued their studies together and acquired every grace of scholarship and accomplishment of society. The circles which the Duchessa drew around her included many gentlewomen from Sicily and from Naples; and “the life at Castel d’Ischia was synonymous with everything glorious and elegant,” recorded Visconti, “and its fame has been immortalized.” Although Francesco (the future Marchese di Pescara) was born in Italian dominions, yet the d’Avalos family were of Spanish ancestry and traditions. The musical Castilian was the language of the household. The race ideals of Spain—the poetic, the impassioned, the joy in color and movement—pervaded the very atmosphere of Castel d’Ischia. Vittoria’s earliest girlhood revealed her exceptional beauty and charm, and gave evidence that the gods loved her and had dowered her with their immortal gifts and genius, which flowered, under the sympathetic guidance and stimulus of such a woman as the Principessa (the Duchessa di Francavilla) and the society she drew around her, as the orange and the myrtle flower under the southern sunshine.

The literature of biography presents no chapter that can rival this in the idyllic beauty of the lives of those two children on the lovely island in the violet sea. The perpetual conflicts that were waged in both Rome and Naples awakened no echoes in this romantic and isolated spot, whose atmosphere was that of the peace of scholarly pursuits and lofty thought that is found where the arts and the muses hold their sway.

But in 1496 came the tragedy of the death of the young king and queen of Naples; four years later Rome celebrated a jubilee in which Naples took part, sending a splendid procession as escort to the famous Madonna that was carried from Naples to Rome and back, working miracles, it is said, on both journeys, as a Madonna should. A year later Frederick of Naples and the queen, and two of the king’s sisters,—ladies of high nobility,—came as guests to the castle in Ischia,—royal exiles seeking shelter. Five years later the new king and queen were welcomed with gorgeous parade and acclamation. A pier was thrown out over one hundred feet into the sea; on this a tent of gold was erected, and all the nobility of Naples, in the richest costumes of velvet and jewels, thronged to meet the royal guests. Over the sunlit Bay of Naples resounded the thunder of the guns in military salute and the cheers of the people. Among the distinguished nobility present, Costanza, Duchessa and Principessa di Francavilla, was a marked figure with her young charge, Vittoria Colonna, at her side. She made a deep reverence and kissed the hand of the king as he passed, as did many of the ladies of highest rank, and at the fête of that evening Vittoria’s beauty charmed all eyes. Although it was well understood that she had been betrothed since childhood to Francesco d’Avalos, yet many princes and nobles sued for her hand and were refused by her father, who was at this time established magnificently in Naples. Pope Julius II refused the pleadings of two dukes, both of whom wished to seek Vittoria in marriage, as he considered the love of the young girl for her betrothed a matter to be held sacred. Three years later, when Vittoria was nineteen and Francesco twenty, their marriage was celebrated in Castel d’Ischia with the richest state and beauty of ceremonial observance. A few months previous to this time she had returned to her father’s country home in the family castle at Marino, whither both Fabrizio and Agnese Colonna accompanied their daughter. When the time appointed for her bridal came, Vittoria was escorted to Ischia by princes, and dukes, and ladies of honor, and the marriage gifts to the bride included a chain of rubies, diamonds, and emeralds, linked with gold; a writing desk of solid gold; wonderful bracelets; costumes of velvets, and brocades and rich embroideries, and a portion of fourteen thousand ducats.

LA ROCCA, ISCHIA

“The noted pair had not their equals in Italy at this time,” writes a contemporary historian. “Their life in Naples was all magnificence and festivity, and when they desired to exchange it for the country they left Naples for Pietralba on Monte Emo, where they assembled pleasant parties of ladies and gentlemen. Much time was passed in their beloved Ischia, where the Duchessa, as Castellana, was obliged to receive much company. And here were found the flower of chivalry and the men most noted in letters. . . . They listened to the poets Sanazzaro, il Rota, and Bernardo Tasso; or they heard the admirable discourses on letters of Musefico, il Giovio, and il Minturno. It was an agreeable school for the youthful minds of Vittoria and Pescara. Thus passed in great happiness the first three years of their married life.”

It is not strange that to the young Marchesa di Pescara, Ischia had become an enchanted island. The scene of her happy childhood, of her studies, of her first efforts in lyric art, of her stately and resplendent bridal; the home, too, of her early married life,—it is little wonder that in after years she translated into song its scenic loveliness and the thoughts and visions it had inspired.