LETTERS
1523-1528
VITTORIA COLONNA and GIO MATTEO GIBERTI
Datarius of Pope Clement VII
Soulmate and Opponent
HER HUSBAND’S DIPLOMAT
at the Papal Curia
Portrait of Giberti (17th century)
Credit: Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan. Bridgeman image
SELF-CONSTITUTING
ON SLIPPERY POLITICAL PARQET
1523 – 1528
VITTORIA COLONNA
and
Giovan-Matteo Giberti
SOULMATE AND OPPONENT
L E T T E R S
Le scrivo e scrivero
Vittoria Colonna to Giberti
How Vittoria selected Gian Matteo Giberti
as her Soulmate in her first letter to him.
1523, 16th December
At the very outset of her correspondence with Giberti, she put the problematic aspect of their pen-friendship to the acid test, namely her abundance of leisure and his shortage of time with the consequence that her delight at writing letters to him aroused reluctance in Giberti. Had she not better reduce her epistolary activism to give him his quiet, she wonders, but says “NO!”
The first argument she discovers in favor of herself is the fact that the papal minister is used to being bothered by people, especially by Pope Clement VII, who is more obtrusive than Vittoria. Ergo: The Papal Minister is familiar with and trained in overcoming his fatigue by obtrusive human beings.
Vittoria
Colonna, the Warrior’s Wife
In need of love
It is Gian Matteo Giberti, to whom Vittoria wrote her most confidential letters. While her soulmate Giberti sublimated his amorous feelings, if he cherished them at all, Vittoria uttered her frustration by her unloving husband in a letter to him:
The ardor within me, putting up with his fame, will destroy my heart that is in need of love
Vittoria Colonna’s self-constituting in
the closed, ritualized community of
The PAPAL CURIA
Vittoria, as her husband’s diplomat at the Papal Court of Clement VII, a closed ritualized sterile community, while Pescara was waging war in Lombardy and in Provence, suffered boredom in a therapeutic job, comparable to Penelope’s boredom at her loom, missing her husband, with one endlessly lengthening day passing the other.
The fact that Vittoria left sixteen letters to Giberti in comparison to Giberti’s two letters to her, serves as an indicator of Vittoria bombarding the papal Datarius with requests about “Mio Signor” in Lombardy and Provence.
And yet, far from being boring, the sixteen letters Vittoria Colonna wrote to Giberti belong to her liveliest she had ever written, because locked in the narrow ambience of the papal Court, with Pope Clement and his Datarius getting on her sensitive nerves, she investigated their personalities intrinsically, enclosing fascinating character studies in her confidential letters to Giberti, for instance, asking the papal Datarius to complete her letter to Clement for her “liberally”:
Confirm him that I adore him with all my heart, mind, and soul. I kiss his holy feet etc.”
Again and again, however, she also unmasks Giberti, her soulmate, as a Holy Joe. Giberti’s smug self-complacency was a continuous bone of contention in their relationship and in her letters to him.
CHEEKY VITTORIA
INVENTING
SITUATION COMEDY
to dispel her boredom
at the papal curia
Vittoria’s pen friendship was not only disturbed by her husband and her relatives with messages she had to deliver to the papal Datarius. Many other persons also seem to have desired her as an advocate at the Papal Curia.
Travelling from Aquino to Rome on horseback, La Marchesa seems to have been a frequent guest in Giberti’s hospitable villa.
Giberti’s but also Clement’s faible for Vittoria Colonna had been passed round Rome. Vittoria, though enjoying her stardom, found it boring to hand over lots of letters only to get back half of them by Giberti. To get rid of her molesters, she made the fiction public, enmity had broken out between her and Giberti and she would rather write to the Turk than to him, confessing to the Datarius that she had also belied the bringer of her letter, of course, anticipating the scene with Giberti, reading her topi- cal letter, while being confronted with the deliverer to whom she had lied.
VITTORIA COLONNA and
SANCTIMONIOUS POPE CLEMENT VII
HER THANK- YOU- LETTER to GIBERTI
for the Pope’s present of an easter palm
blessed by the Pope personally for her
30th March, 1524
The palm and the benediction by HIM and the significance, and the sending of the palm to you have given me such great pleasure, offered by this glorious bliss. Regarding the glory as vain, would have had the consequence that the (easter) confession would not be valid. I can say that my spirit rejoices in our Lord, who is, and I hope, will be my salvation, with universal peace concluded through HIS glorious and holy hands.
VITTORIA COLONNA
on slippery political parquet
as her Husband’s DIPLOMAT
at Clement’s Papal Court
however not balancing
but speaking plainly
Gian Matteo Giberti and Pescara
political opponents
As a glowing Italian patriot, Gian Matteo Giberti, dreaming of a liberated Italy, was the political opponent of the pragmatist Pescara. The Spanish imperial general poured scorn over the illusory policies of the papal minister, while Giberti’s refined mannerism fascinated his wife Vittoria, with his sophistication standing in almost stark contrast to the rough toughness of Vittoria’s husband seasoned by continual warfare, while his wife’s poetical genius enthralled this refined aesthtete Giberti.
No longer does Vittoria Colonna continue her self-representation at the papal curia as Domina Ludens, displaying her wits and offering Giberti superior art criticism. But as her husband’s functionary at the papal court, La Marchesa, whose daring female self-constitution is awe-inspiring, demands the immediate payment of postponed obligations the Papal Curia had owed to her husband since the days of Pope Leo X. Not giving Giberti the chance of a counter statement, she even expresses:
a more than mediocre feeling of shame
for dilatory Giberti. In her reply (26th January, 1524) to Giberti’s information that Pope Clement fulfilled the papal obligations to her husband, Vittoria, avoiding polite circumlocutions speaks her mind bluntly, complaining that Giberti created the impression, as if not the popes were the debtors but that she she was la debitrice e obligata.”
15th June 1524
LA MARCHESA
comments on
GIBERTI’S PEACE NEGOTIATIONS
The topical political Situation
According to PAOLIO GIOVIO
While Pescara and Charles of Bourbon already had started their military campaign into Provence to realize Charles V’s secret offer of a kingdom for Charles of Bourbon, consisting of Provence and Dauphine, by which France would have been extinguished as a major power in Europe and the English King Henry VIII already invaded France to conquer Picardie, Giberti, either clueless of what was going on backstage in Europe or making a last desperate rescue attempt, initiates peace efforts by uniting Charles V, the French King Francis I, and Henry VIII in a Holy Union with Pope Clement VII,.
No wonder that Pescara poured his scorn over this illusory policy of Gian Matteo Giberti.
From VITTORIA’S COMMENT
in her letter to Giberti
(15th. June 1524)
Although Vostra Signoria, in His letter, clarifies that the desired fundament (for peace negotiations) is missing, I will ground my hope in the writer of this letter and not in those, who write to him that a heavy storm is necessary to awaken this hope for peace.
Next, she refers to the Dukes of Italy. Perhaps they will join Giberti in his peace negotiations:
Certainly, these Princes, whose financial means are exhausted, who are war-weary and have fears and bad consciences, because they foresee that future ventures will become more unjust than those of the past can be mitigated for a holy union and for the necessity of peace of the whole Christianity.
The
author’s comment
on Vittoria’s wisely weighing letter
in a confused situation
with Giberti’s belated peace efforts
only enhancing inscrutability and chaos.
In the first brilliantly formulated sentences of her letter, La Marchesa leaves no doubt about her correct assessment of the obscure situation, clarifying that she regards the realization of peace in the confused current situation as an “impossibility”, quoting Giberti’s own concession that his peace efforts are missing the necessary fundament. But, instead of deriding Giberti’s plan of a comprehensive Holy Union for its pointlessness, Vittoria, demonstrating genuine friendship, bolsters Giberti up, emphasizing that she grounds her hope in him against his critics, mitigating Henry VII’s aggressiveness in France, and encouragingly reminding him of the war-weariness of the Italian Princes.
THE END OF
LA MARCHESA’ S
MISSION at the PAPAL COURT,
1524
when Pope Clement VII and his Datarius Giberti, after the failure of their peace negotiations, already concluded the next secret coalition with Venice and with the French King Francis I, who reconquered Milan in 1524.
25th July, 1524
THE LETTER WITH THE INKSTAIN
Vittoria to Giberti
As your benevolence towards me is founded in your own virtue, and not in my merit, I always fear that my imperfection, could partly well impair Your Virtue. Therefore, the less I hope, and the more effects I see, the greater is my joy!
I do not want to thank you in order not to begin what has no end, but if I burden new strain on you, then endure it well, as thanks from me. Il Marchese,
Mio Signor, is much obliged to????? INK STAIN!
Da Marino, XXV di luglio, 1524
What a sarcastic letter to a soulmate!
The aim of Vittoria’s aggressiveness is again Giberti’s smug self-complacency! She is in no mood of thanking him, because her thankfulness always has fallen short of his expectations.
At last, she apparently quoted a bold remark of her husband Pescara and immediately makes it unrecognizable by means of an ink-stain!
Vittoria Colonna
saving her intimate penpal-friendship
with Giberti
in spite of political and personal controversies
Although Giberti, the glowing Italian Nationalist, who would have driven the Spaniards out of Italy better today than tomorrow, was on the enemy side as her opponent, because Vittoria fiercely supported Ferrante d’Avalos, the Spanish General, who was Mio Signor, her Spanish husband, Giberti, in spite of these political tensions, remained such a familiar friend of hers that sh did not only talk to him about her cholera in her letter, but even confided intimacies to him:
From
her Letter to Giberti
da Marino, 13th August, 1524
What regards my indisposition, I assure you that, if you had seen me, you would have judged me as not being ill: And as Maestro Hieronymo can assure you, I have not been disobedient nor disorderly. What they blame me for that I have caught cholera, is not accurate what regards the cause: il Marchese is out of question, because we have not been two in one flesh- Non fossemo doi in carne una.
The fact that La Vostra Signoria appreciates so much that I am healthy, I offset with greater diligence to serve you. I stay rather well on every day.
La Marchesa de Pescara
Al servitio di Vostra Signoria
Gian Matteo Giberti
22nd August 1526
His first letter to Vittoria Colonna Written,
after she had concluded her diplomatic service
at the Papal Curia
as representative of her husband Pescara,
who died in Milan
on 3rd December 1525
Gian Matteo Giberti:
“Like having listened to a perfect piece of music, when one’s ears are still indulging in melodies, though the music has ceased, but one still seems
to listen to the same intense euphony for some time, I am imbued with long lasting astonishment that you, after persisting in meditation of the divine, speak to me in such accomplished manner of God that I can be content with confirming the way the divinity of your spirit made you choose from inherent strength.
This beautiful text, dedicated to Vittoria in his letter, proves that their relationship did not only exist in diplomacy, sophisticated scholasticism, witticisms, gossiping, mutual eulogies, not only of reproaches, mostly fast delivered by emotionalized Vittoria in a hasty style, sometimes, even in offensive language.
Their conversations, as suggested 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” had spontaneously drawn her to the desired end, driven by her own inner strength, without his intervention. So, he could content himself with listening to her and he still listened, after Vittoria had already finished, thanks to his great poetical gift unfolding his comparison:
“Like having listened to music, when one’s ears are still indulging in melodies, after the music has already finished.”
Pope Clement VII did not only honor Vittoria Colonna with an Easter palm blessed by himself in 1524. In October 1525, he nominated Vittoria Colonna as governor of Benevent acting for her war-waging husband, who, “on virtue of his singular efficiency, his authority, and his merits” had been assigned governor of this papal town. Pope Clement conceded to his wife, as his representative, freedom of decision and full scope action.
Clement VII justified his extraordinary selection of this woman for such a difficult assignment with her female genius,
because we are aware of your great abilities, owing to which you stand out of the female sex, and because you have not only united yourself with your husband physically, but also in mind, valor, and energy.”
Carteggio. 22nd letter, 14th October, 1525. Il Papa Clemente to Vittoria Colonna.
Paolo Giovio wrote:
she performed this male task so well that the city council of this rebellious town thanked the pope for the assignment of this woman, who by her serious, incorruptible attitude had a moderating influence on the people and, as a governor, excelling any man, saved the town from anarchy.