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:—
“I write solely to assuage my inward grief, which destroys in my heart the light of this world’s sun; and not to add light to mio bel sole, to his glorified spirit. It is fit that other tongues should preserve his great name from oblivion.”
In another, perhaps her most perfect sonnet, she beseeches the winds to convey to her beloved the message she sends:—
“Ch’io di lui sempre pensi; o pianga, o parli,”—That I always think of him, or weep for him, or speak of him.
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.
