Contents
VITTORIA COLONNA
LA MARCHESA DE PESCARA
WARRIOR ‘S WIFE
L E T T E R S
10
HOW YOUNG VITTORIA BECAME A WARRIOR’S WIFE:
Fateful Marriage, Separation of the Couple,
Bellicose Husband goes to war
after four childless years
to command the light cavalry in the
WAR for PREDOMINANCE in EUROPE
between FRANCE and SPAIN allied with the HOLY LEAGUE;
Disastrous Defeat of Spain and the Holy League
at RAVENNA
1511
15
VITTORIA COLONNA
LETTER POEM to HER ABSENT HUSBAND
Excelso mio Signor
Questa Ti scrivo.
Renaissance-Poetess Vittoria copies
Salutation of her Husband and imitates her Lamentation
from Ovid’s Penelope in her letter to Ulysses,
but above all begs to differ.
As Self- Constituting Warrior’s Wife,
Renaissance Humanist,
she wrests the pen from Ovid’s hand to write
her own authentic letter-poem to her husband Pescara,
who never read his wife’s Pistola, but others did!
26
ViITTORA COLONNA enjoying her CENACLE of POETS in ISCHIA
Ella ha fatto del monte un novo a noi Parnaso,
un altro Athena.
27 - 34
WARFARE between FRANCE and SPAIN for
PREDOMINANCE in EUROPE
1513 -1525
Pescara’s self-sacrificing commitment to Spain,
his dominating military role
as secondary general with Charles V obstinately refusing Pescara’s nomination as
Commander -in-Chief.
32
DECISIVE BATTLE at PAVIA
1525
Pescara turning the tide thanks to his ingenious tactics:
Captivating the French King Francis I,
Catapulting the Spanish King Charles V
Into hegemony over Europe
ALAMY IY03831994 – Bild-ID JR3ONG
Battle at Pavia
SYNOPSIS
taken from PAOLO GIOVIO’S BIOGRAPHY about PESCARA,
an ASSIGNMENT by
Vittoria Colonna:
(Giovio)
„farà si degna istoria, eterna e bella“.
1525
35-42
VITTORIA COLONNA’S
SHOWDOWN WITH EMPEROR CHARLES V
EXCHANGE of LETTERS between
CHARLES V and VITTORIA COLONNA
after the Battle of Pavia
24th February 1525
35
L E T T E R
KING CHARLES of SPAIN to VITTORIA COLONNA
during the general flush of victory
Madrid, 26th March, 1525
Précis:
Instead of rewarding Pescara, the Victor of Pavia, Charles V of Spain, notoriously short of money, gave his ingenious general another berth, by writing his thanksgiving letter to Pescara’s wife Vittoria Colonna, thus postponing his reward, only praising:
“Pescara’s military expertise and commitment, which had no minor share in this great victory”, assuring his wife that “nothing is so great that il Marchese himself could not expect it from our thankfulness and liberality”.
36
1525,26thMARCH
CHARLES V of SPAIN to VITTORIA COLONNA
ILLUSTRI VICTORIAE COLUMNAE MARCHIONISSAE PISCARIAE
consanquineae nostrae carissimae
37-39
L ET T E R
VITTORIA COLONNA TO CHARLES V, KING OF SPAIN
Ischia, 1st MAY, 1525
PRÉCIS:
After waiting another month in vain for Charles V rewarding her husband for his victory over the French King and for taking his fiercest enemy prisoner, Vittoria Colonna, at first, chiming in the grandiloquence of the King’s preceding letter to her, seemingly praising in high terms, even exaggerating, his monarchical position so high lifted that “powerful kings expect their liberty from him and are forced to implore mercy from him”, even though it is only one, his rival Francis I, the French King, kept as prisoner in Madrid.
In royal grandiloquence Vittoria also anticipates Charles, as the future world-monarch, embodying “the highest climax of each perfection” and (approaching her virtual subject!) of course, distributing the world’s goods. As a matter of course, everybody’s hope of a fair share of goods is conveniently placed on the monarch alone.
At first, it is by a generalizing mode, uttered with admirable sarcasm, that Vittoria Colonna is presenting the Spanish King’s shabby demeanor towards her husband:
“If Sua Majestà in his Grandeur grants (to others) his own fruition of each desired good, and the whole world wants to have a share, and he cannot grant it, His Majesty, in his immense benevolence must take the fruition for already granted, so that he satisfies himself by supplying the deficiency of the Universe, which he will make worthier by his imperial rule.
41
Frontal attack against the emperor
Abruptly, Vittoria Colonna is getting straight with Charles V, however, without mentioning Pescara’s secular victory at Pavia. Instead, she emphasizes the loyalty of her husband to the Spanish King. She desires the promised commodity, but she desires it as the King’s acknowledgement for her husband’s singular services and not from cupidity, which is alien to her.
After giving him a piece of her mind, Vittoria Colonna concludes her eulogy of her husband with a bon mot paying Charles V back for disregarding Pescara, demonstrating her superior intellectuality:
“Although Majesty’s thankfulness and generosity anticipate each justified question, I do not know what to estimate more:
RECEIVING THE REWARD OF SUCH A GREAT LORD OR THE GLORY OF HAVING HIM AS A DEBTOR.
Commenting Charles’s self-complacent wordplay with her name Vittoria, as if it were synonymous with the King’s “God-GIVEN VICTORY “at Pavia, she confronts Charles V with her own authentic interpretation of her name “Victoria” as self-conquest imposed on her by His Majesty, coercing her to renounce her marital bliss as the undignified sacrifice of the Warrior’s Wife for the Future Emperor:
“While Marchese served you under such great threatening diverse dangers, I have been longing for him to come and to rest with me.”
43
THE TEMPTATION OF PESCARA and
HIS DEATH
3rd December 1525
46
VITTORIA COLONNA
TWO SONNETS
In honor of her husband
FERRANTE D’AVALOS
MARCHESE DE PESCARA
as
WAR HERO
MYTH
QUI FECE IL MIO BEL LUME A NOI RITORNO
PORTRAIT
:A LE VITTORIE TUE
PESCARA, VICTOR of PAVIA
Fotographie und Digital Image: KHM-Museumsverband. Reproduction . By courtesy of KHM
1523 -1528
VITTORIA COLONNA and MATTEO GIBERTI
Datarius of Pope Clement VII
Soulmate and Opponent
HER HUSBAND’S DIPLOMAT
at the PAPAL CURIA of POPE CLEMENT VII
SELF-CONSTITUTING
ON SLIPPERY POLITICAL PARQET
Portrait (17th century) Pinacoteca Ambrosiana Milan; Bridgeman Image.
63
FOREWORD
65
L E T T E R S
69
1523, 16th December
VITTORIA to GIBERTI
Her First letter
Le scrivo e scrivero
Masterdom at Scholastic Arguing
72
1523, 19th December
VITTORIA
STAGING SITUATION COMEDY
at the PAPAL CURIA
Involving Giberti
75
1524, 4th January
La Marchesa as her Husband’s Diplomat
SELF-CONSTITUTING
in confrontation with
Pope Clement and Giberti
78
1524, 30th March
News about her husband’s indisposition;
“Her vice of ingratitude intensifying
Giberti’s virtue of humility”
VITTORIA COLONNA
A female Rebel in the Papal Curia’s
Closed Society?
81
1524, 3rd May
Furious Vittoria is teaching Giberti a lesson.
His unfair complaints
about un-commissioned requests:
a veritable outbreak of temper
in a highly emotional letter:
a SANCTIMONIOUS POPE
and HIS HOLY JOE
in Vittoria’s view
84
1524, 26th May
Vittoria’s judgement about PIETRO ARETINO,
Scandalous Condottiere of the Pen:
“The author (=Aretino) disposes of a vivacious mind that is in no need of support and Giberti is in no need of being magnified by somebody like Aretino!
86
1524, 15th June
VITTORIA COLONNA COMMENTS ON
GIBERTI’S PEACE NEGOTIATIONS
A wisely weighing letter in a confused situation with Giberti’s belated peace efforts only enhancing inscrutability and chaos
“The more welcome the hope for peace, much longed for, was to me,
the more the war was raging, so that this hope led me to wish an impossibility.”
90
1524,25th July
VITTORIA COLONNA to GIBERTI
THE LETTER with the
Ink-Stain
93
1524, 13th August
VITTORIA’S OMINENT SILENCE
INSTEAD OF DIPLOMACY
Giberti, Italian Nationalist,
Tactician
of Secret Alliance with France;
His Nomination as Bishop of Verona;
Vittoria extensively on her Cholera
94
1524, 20th September
VITTORIA COLONNA
Eulogy of Giberti, Papal Datarius
as Finale of her diplomatic mission
as Representative of her husband Pescara,
95
1526, 22nd August
Gian Matteo Giberti to Vittoria Colonna,
His first letter to her
The beautiful text Giberti dedicated to Vittoria Colonna in this letter, proves that their relationship did not only consist in diplomacy, sophisticated scholasticism, witticism, gossiping, of mutual eulogies, of reproaches, mostly fast delivered by emotional Vittoria in a hasty style and sometimes in offensive language.
Their conversations, as exemplified by Giberti in this letter, also consisted of contemplations of the Divine, with Vittoria – at Giberti’s astonishment, anticipating him, as if the divinity of her mind, was driven by her own inner strength, without intervention. So, he could content himself with listening to her, that is to say, he still listened, after Vittoria had already finished, with great poetical talent unfolding this comparison:
“Like having listened to music, when one’s ears are still indulging in melodies, after the music has already finished.”
September 1526
The WAR
getting out of joint
engulfing the Papal Curia,
Pope Clement VII
and
his Datarius Gian Matteo Giberti.
During the night of 19th/20th September 1526 Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, loyal adherent of Emperor Charles V, invaded Rome with the private army of the Colonna and sacked the papal palace. Pope Clement VII had to flee into Saint Angel’s Castle from the aggressive Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church.
Sacco di Roma
May 6th, 1527
Giberti
in Life-Threatening Imprisonment
99
26th November, 1527
Giberti’s Second letter to Vittoria Colonna
Out of his Spanish-Imperial Prison
Giberti, imprisoned as a hostage, asks to be accom-modated in a place, where he can stay in some quiet,
because,
when I am kept here, I will not have liberal choice of occupations, which is agreeable, because the imprisonment will be combined
with leisure and delectation of the mind….
Di Vostra Eccellentia
affettionatissimo servitor
Gio. Matteo Gibertus, Datarius
In 1528, Giovan Matteo Giberti escaped from his infamous captivity by flight into his diocese Verona, where he carried through exemplary reforms, leaving Verona only sporadically, because he was done with politics and intrigue.
Se talor il vento del desio
ritenta nova Guerra.
Vittoria Colonna
104
1528, 27th – 28th April
Sea Battle of Capo d’Orso
In the Golf of Salerno
According to PaoloGiovio
TURNING OF TH TIDE
Destruction of the Imperial Fleet
by the Genuese Fleet:
FILIPPINO DORIA
Hugo de Moncada, the Spanish Viceroy of Naples, ordered an immediate attack against the Genoese ships at Capo d’Orso.
By only one cannonade, the Genoese killed forty Spaniards. The imperial fleet was destroyed with the exception of two ships.
On the Eve of the battle, the Viceroy had organized a glamorous banquet in the gardens of Capri between sparkling fountains. With trumpet fanfares he made his certainty of victory resound across the Gulf.
Then he fell into the stern cabin, perforated with musket balls.
Alfonso d’Avalos, the successor of Pescara as marchese and Imperial commander, as well as Ascanio Colonna, Vittoria’s brother, were captured by Filipino Doria. They had a narrow escape in the sea battle.
Admiral DORIA, secretly entertaining the idea of changing sides, handed Del Vasto’s GOLDEN ARMOR, which he intended to show to the public in a church at Genua, over to the proprietor.
As a prisoner, Del Vasto talked Doria round to serving the emperor as an admiral instead of the Pope.
Giovio:
Fortuna continued to shower
her unforeseeable favors on Charles V.
The last military expedition of the French in Italy ended with a catastrophic defeat of France and the victory of Charles V.
Pope Clement VII surrendered and crowned Charles V of Spain Emperor at Bologna in 1530.