Twelve miles from Rome, on an almost isolated knoll of the Alban range of hills, more than thirteen hundred feet above the sea, which glimmers in the distance beyond the Campagna, rises the picturesque, mediæval town of Marino. Many quiet Romans spend the villeggiatura there, to enjoy its pure air and the shady promenades and beautiful views around it; but few foreigners do more than visit, on the way, a classical spot, a deep and wooded glen at the foot of the hill, where the representatives of the Latin tribes used to meet for deliberation on public matters down to the year 340 B.C., and which is noted for the tragic end of Turnus Herdonius, an influential chief of the league, who was treacherously accused, condemned, and drowned, at the request of Tarquin the Proud, in the clear pool of water—called by Livy caput aquæ Ferentinæ—which wells up so innocently
from under a moss-covered rock overspread by an ancient, crooked beech-tree at the head of the little valley.
We do not intend to sketch the history of Marino or describe its local monuments, however interesting, but will simply remark that during the middle ages it passed successively from the Counts of Tusculum to the Frangipanis, the Orsinis, and, under Pope Martin V., to the Colonnas, in whose favor it was erected into a dukedom in 1424. The large baronial palace of the sixteenth century which stands in the middle of the town is full of curiosities and ancestral portraits of this powerful family, although the rarer and more interesting ones have long since been removed to the princely headquarters near the Santi Apostoli, in Rome. The stone-work and towers which still surround Marino and add so much to its feudal aspect, were raised in the year 1480, and
the ruins of the castle, with its battlements and proud armorial signs upon the walls, are on the most precipitous side of the town, overlooking the noisy little stream of Aqua Ferentina. It was in this castle—which, having been made by the Colonnas their principal stronghold in that part of the Roman States, was then in the pride of all its freshness and strength of portals, merlons, and machicolations—that a daughter was born in the year 1490 to Don Fabrizio Colonna and his wife, the Lady Agnes of Montefeltro. As soon as possible she was held up at a window to be seen by her father’s retainers and saluted with the discharge of artillery, peal of trumpets, and shouts of men-at-arms.
This infant was Vittoria Colonna, who became one of the most celebrated women of the sixteenth century, and who is even remembered in Italy to this day for her learning, her poetry, beauty, conjugal affection, piety, and sorrows; and yet, strange as it may seem, although hardly singular—for illustrious names of the same period have fallen into a like obscurity—no date more precise than that of the year can be assigned to her birth; and certainly one of the benefits derived by biographers from the reforms which followed the Council of Trent is the better keeping of baptismal registers, by means of which—in countries, at least, where the church was not persecuted nor war made on parochial books—sometimes the very hour, often the day of the week, always that of the month, of an individual’s birth may be found.
Vittoria was the eldest, and only female, of six children. Her father was not only a great nobleman of the States of the Church, but the
possessor of many Neapolitan fiefs; and soon after Charles VIII. of France, who had attempted the conquest of the kingdom of Naples, began to experience an evil turn of fortune, Don Fabrizio was detached from his service by Ferdinand of Spain, who succeeded in driving the French out of the southern part of Italy. Most of his life was spent in courts and camps, and but little time was passed in his castles, whither he went either to enjoy the chase or when called by domestic concerns, such as this one that gave a daughter to his house. Her mother was a child of Frederic, Duke of Urbino, head of an illustrious family which for three centuries had ranked among the lesser independent princes of Italy. Some of Vittoria’s ancestors of this line had figured in a conspicuous manner in history, especially as patrons of letters, and during a certain period the court of Urbino was the most refined and intellectual of the Italian peninsula. She felt its influence through her accomplished mother; but her father’s family was also remarkable for an hereditary genius and aptitude in every branch of learning; and a long list could be made of men of erudition, and of writers more or less distinguished, belonging to the Colonna lineage, at the head of which would stand Ægidius Romanus, or Giles of Rome, General of the Augustinians, and for his profound knowledge surnamed Doctor fundatissimus, whose work, De Regimine Principum, composed for his pupil, Philip the Fair of France, was the model in its general subject and didactic form, but without the immoral maxims, of Macchiavelli’s treatise, Del Principe.
According to the custom among
the great in that age, Vittoria, while a mere child, being only four years of age, was affianced to one not much older than herself. This was Ferdinand Francesco d’Avalos. His noble family, of Catalan origin, had come over to Italy with the Spanish invaders in 1442, and risen to considerable importance; Don Alonzo, son of Inigo, who accompanied Alphonsus I. in his expedition and died at Naples, having been created Marquis of Pescara, a fortified town of the Abruzzi at the mouth of a river that empties itself into the Adriatic. This very honorable betrothal was made at the suggestion of King Ferdinand, who hoped in this way to attach Fabrizio more strongly to himself. Except this affair, hardly anything is known of Vittoria’s early years, nor who were her instructors; but, judging from subsequent events, she must have been surrounded by whatever advantages wealth, social influence, and political position could procure; and the literary ardor which marked the fifteenth century having passed from colleges and universities into the ranks of private life, her education was such as to ensure her the highest mental culture, united with every accomplishment befitting her station. At the age of five she was transferred to the tutelage of her future husband’s family and placed in care of her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Francavila, who was castellan for the king of the fortress and island of Ischia, at the entrance of the Bay of Naples. This important charge could only have been entrusted to a woman of superior talents, and justifies the praises which Vittoria has given in several sonnets to the “magnanimous Costanza,” as she delights to call her. The duchess loved study, and cultivated
the society of the learned, being herself well acquainted with Latin, Spanish, and Italian, in which last language she wrote a work on the misfortunes and trials of the world—Degli Infortuni e Travagli del Mondo. It was in the midst of enchanting scenery, of the fame of martial deeds, and of an elegant conversation that Vittoria’s youthful happiness was passed. She grew up beautiful in person, lovely in mind, and adorned with every grace of manners. She was tall and of an easy carriage, the blood in her veins forming over her white skin a delicate cerulean tracery, while her face was set in a mass of auburn hair which has been sung—such a color being rare in Italy—by some of the best writers of her day. Of her personal appearance, those who have mentioned it can never say enough. That her charms were not the poetical exaggerations of devoted admirers we know from several sources, and particularly from the very sober prose of a curious diary[185] kept by a certain Giuliano Casseri who had occasion to see Vittoria at Naples. She was considered by all—except, of course, by her own sex—the handsomest woman of the age: