Author’s introductory note about this book

It contributed a lot to Vittoria’s lively appearance in this book that the representation of her astonishing epistolary activism has been exclusively grounded on meticulous empirical research of her letters to the potentates of the Renaissance Wars in Italy from 1511 to 1530 without diverting the reader’s attention with references to rightly called “Secondary Literature”.

Paolo Giovio, eye-witness and reporter of dramatical events, constantly at her side, enhanced her live presence by scenic presentation in his Dialogues.

The synopsis of the warfare between Spain and France for hegemony over Europe from 1511 to 1530 has exclusively been taken from the Latin original of Paolo Giovio’s biography about Pescara, Vittoria’s husband, the Victor of Pavia, who, through his ingenious tactics, even succeeded in capturing the French King Francis I, thus catapulting Spain and the emperor into the hegemony over Europe.

It was Vittoria herself, who in 1525, shortly after the premature death of her husband, assigned his biography to Paolo Giovio, her frequent visitor in Ischia, because “farà si degna istoria eterna e bella”, which was already completed by the famous biographer and eyewitness of the warfare in Italy in 1530.

As Vittoria prophesied, Giovio’s biography of Pescara excels in sharp observation, objective judgement, superb style and empathetic characterization of the main actors.