Cardinal Bembo, Luigi Alamanni and Baldassare Castiglione were among her literary friends. She was also on intimate terms with many of the Italian Protestants, such as Pietro Carnesecchi, Juan de Valdes and Ochino, but she died before the church crisis in Italy became acute, and, although she was an advocate of religious reform, there is no reason to believe that she herself became a Protestant. Her life was a beautiful one, and goes far to counteract the impression of the universal corruption of the Italian Renaissance conveyed by such careers as those of the Borgia. Her amatory and elegiac poems, which are the fruits of a sympathetic and dainty imitative gift rather than of any strong original talent, were printed at Parma in 1538; a third edition, containing sixteen of her Rime Spirituali, in which religious themes are treated in Italian, was published at Florence soon afterwards; and a fourth, including a still larger proportion of the pious element, was issued at Venice in 1544.
A great deal has been written about Vittoria Colonna, but perhaps the best account of her life is A. Luzio’s Vittoria Colonna (Modena, 1885); A. von Reumont’s Vita di Vittoria Colonna (Italian corrected edit., Turin, 1883) is also excellent; F. le Fèvre’s Vittoria Colonna (Paris, 1856) is somewhat inaccurate, but T. Roscoe’s Vittoria Colonna (London, 1868) may be recommended to English readers; P. E. Visconti’s Le Rime di Vittoria Colonna (Rome, 1846) deals with her poems.
(L. V.*)
COLONNADE, in architecture, a range of columns (Ital. colonna) in a row. When extended so as to enclose a temple, it is called a peristyle, and the same term applies when round an open court, as in the houses at Pompeii. When projecting in front of a building, it is called a portico, as in the Pantheon at Rome and the National Gallery in London. When enclosed between wings, as in Perrault’s façade to the Louvre, it is correctly described as a colonnade. Colonnades lined the streets of the towns in Syria and Asia Minor, and they were largely employed in Rome.
COLONSAY, an island of the Inner Hebrides, Argyllshire, Scotland, 10 m. S. of the Ross of Mull. It is 7½ m. long by 3 m. broad. The highest point is Carnan Eoin (470 ft.). Towards the middle of the island lies Loch Fada, nearly 2 m. long but very narrow, and there are two other small lakes and a few streams. The coast-line, with frequent beautiful sandy reaches, is much indented, the chief bays being Kiloran, Kilchattan and Staosunaig. On the north-western coast the cliffs are particularly fine. To the south, separated by a strait that is fordable at low water, lies the isle of Oronsay, 2¼ m. long by 2¾ m. wide. Both islands contain a number of ecclesiastical remains, standing stones, and some beautiful sculptured crosses. They are named after Columba and Oran, who are said to have stopped here after they left Ireland. There is regular communication between Scalasaig and Glasgow and the Clyde ports. The golf-course at Kilchattan lends a touch of modernity to these remote islands. Near Scalasaig a granite obelisk has been erected to the memory of Sir Duncan M‘Neill (1794-1874), a distinguished Scottish lawyer, who took the title of Lord Colonsay when he became a lord of appeal. The soil of both islands is fertile, potatoes and barley being raised and cattle pastured. Population: Colonsay (1901), 301; Oronsay (1901), 12.
COLONY (Lat. colonia, from colonus, a cultivator), a term most commonly used to denote a settlement of the subjects of a sovereign state in lands beyond its boundaries, owning no allegiance to any foreign power, and retaining a greater or less degree of dependence on the mother country. The founding and the growth of such communities furnish matter for an interesting chapter in the history as well of ancient as of modern civilization; and the regulation of the relations between the parent state and its dependencies abroad gives rise to important problems alike in national policy and in international economics.
It was mainly the spirit of commercial enterprise that led the Phoenicians to plant their colonies upon the islands and along the southern coast of the Mediterranean; and even beyond the Pillars of Hercules this earliest great colonizing race left enduring traces of its maritime supremacy. Carthage, indeed, chief of the Phoenician settlements, sent forth colonies to defend her conquests and strengthen her military power; and these sub-colonies naturally remained in strict subjection to her power, whereas the other young Phoenician states assumed and asserted entire independence.