f the marquis of Pescara, she
received the highest education and gave early proof of a love of
letters. Her hand was sought by many suitors, including the dukes of
Savoy and Braganza, but at nineteen, by her own ardent desire, she was
married to de Avalos on the island of Ischia. There the couple resided
until 1511, when her husband offered his sword to the League against the
French. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Ravenna (1512) and
conveyed to France. During the months of detention and the long years of
campaigning which followed, Vittoria and Ferrante corresponded in the
most passionate terms both in prose and verse. They saw each other but
seldom, for Ferrante was one of the most active and brilliant captains
of Charles V.; but Vittoria's influence was sufficient to keep him from
joining the projected league against the emperor after the battle of
Pavia (1525), and to make him refuse the crown of Naples offered to him
as the price of his treason. In the month of November of the same year
he died of his wounds at Milan. Vittoria, who was hastening to tend him,
received the news of his death at Viterbo; she halted and turned off to
Rome, and after a brief stay departed for Ischia, where she remained for
several years. She refused several suitors, and began to produce those
_Rime spirituali_ which form so distinct a feature in her works. In 1529
she returned to Rome, and spent the next few years between that city,
Orvieto, Ischia and other places. In 1537 we find her at Ferrara, where
she made many friends and helped to establish a Capuchin monastery at
the instance of the reforming monk Bernardino Ochino, who afterwards
became a Protestant. In 1539 she was back in Rome, where, besides
winning the esteem of Cardinals Reginald Pole and Contarini, she became
the object of a passionate friendship on the part of Michelangelo, then
in his sixty-fourth year. The great artist addressed some of his finest
sonnets to her, made drawings for her, and spent long hours in her
society. Her removal to Orvieto and Viterbo in 1541, on the occasion of
her brother Ascanio Colonna's revolt against Paul III., produced no
change in their relations, and they continued to visit and correspond as
before. She returned to Rome in 1544, staying as usual at the convent of
San Silvestro, and died there on the 25th of February 1547.

Cardinal Bembo, Luigi Alamanni and Baldassare Castiglione were among her
literary friends. She was also on inti