VITTORIA COLONNA.

Questa è la gloriosa e gran Madonna,
Che senza pari al mondo, è del suo sesso
L'honor sovran Vittoria Colonna ;

Che'l nome fuo sopra le stelle ha messo ;
Vittoria che celeste ò mortal donna
Dubita il mondo di nomarla spesso;
Vittoria che piangendo il suo marito
Non men ella di lui si mostra à dito.

BERNARDINO MARTIRANO.

DIVINE Colonna! boast of Leo's days!
Rival of Petrarch in thy gentle lays!
Pride of a princely house, unmatch'd for fame!
Pescara's noble wife! most glorious dame!
These were thy titles, fair Vittoria, thine
A heart Devotion deem'd its purest shrine:
Thou sang'st (instead of culling fancy's wreath)
Thy husband's virtues, and thy Saviour's death.
When fair Ausonia's sons were bathed in slaughter,
And Christian blood o'erflow'd the land like water;
When poets, mindless of their glorious trust,
Deck'd with gay flowers the hoary head of Lust,

Thy pious Muse look'd heaven-ward, or with zeal Urged warring states their mutual wounds to heal.

Vittoria, like a heaven-descended spright,
Wander'd on Arno's banks at hush of night
With Him, the master-spirit of an age
Fertile in great ones,-Poet, Sculptor, Sage!
And pointing upwards to the deep blue sky,
(How beautiful thy star-light, Italy!)
"There is stability alone," she said;

"There, Buonarotti, when thy glories fade,
When e'en thy works shall perish, thou shalt live;
The bent to genius let Religion give.

What thy vast mind has imaged, that thy hand Has bodied forth in sculpture truly grand.

"Owondrous Man! adore th' eternal Source
Of genius with thy soul's intensest force!
Should such a mind from its Creator turn,
Devils might well rejoice, and angels mourn.
Let truths tremendous on thy canvas dwell,
Or joys celestial, or the woes of hell;
Thus may'st thou fortify the good, and make
The wicked at thy painted terrors quake.
Masterly done! thy giant forms o'erawe
The soul!-the Jewish Leader's look is law:
Trembling I gazed upon that look; I felt
Such inward veneration that I knelt;

The Persian feels such awe-commixt delight,

When sunbursts 'mid the storms break out so bright.
Many will strive to copy (vain their will!)
This great exemplar of creative skill.

God's mightiest prophet lives in marble! View
Thy work, grand Architect, and own it true."

ROME, November, 1818.

NOTES ON "VITTORIA COLONNA."

66

P. 308, 1. 1.

Vittoria Colonna.

Vittoria Colonna was the daughter of the celebrated commander Patrizio Colonna, grand constable of the kingdom of Naples, by Anna di Montefeltro, the daughter of Frederico, Duke of Urbino. She married Ferdinando d'Avalos, Marquis of Pescara, who died at Milan of his military fatigues, after a short but glorious life. "This fatal event," (says the learned and elegant biographer of Leo the Tenth) blighted all the hopes of his consort; nor did her sorrow admit of any alleviation, except such as she found in celebrating the character and virtues of her husband, and recording their mutual affections in her tender and exquisite verse. She was a warm admirer of the great artist Michael Agnolo (Angelo,) who executed for her several excellent pieces of sculpture. She devoted her poetical talents chiefly to sacred subjects. Her exemplary conduct, and the uncommon merit of her writings, rendered her the general theme of applause among the most distinguished poets and learned men of the time, with many of whom she maintained a friendly epistolary correspondence. Michael Agnolo addressed to her several sonnets. Among the Italian writers who have revived in their works the style of Petrarca, Vittoria Colonna is entitled to the first rank; and her sonnets, many of which are addressed to the shade of her departed husband, or relate to the state of her own mind, possess more vigour of thought, vivacity of colouring and natural pathos, than are generally to be found among the disciples of that school. Her verses in ottava rima excel the productions of any of her cotemporaries, excepting those only of the inimitable Ariosto. In one of his

poems Michael Agnolo laments the fluctuating state of his religious sentiments, and calls upon the Marchesana to direct him in his spiritual concerns."-Roscoe's Life of Leo the Tenth, quarto edition, vol. iii. pp. 217-22.

P. 308, 1. 13.

Pride of a princely house, unmatch'd for fame.

For the splendid origin, illustrious actions, &c. of the Colonna family, see Gibbon, vol. xii. p. 317, octavo edition. Marco Antonio Colonna commanded the Pope's galleys at the naval victory of Lepanto. -" Actium, Lepanto, fatal Trafalgar."-Childe Harold.

Prospero Colonna was a very great general, (see Guicciardini Ist. lib. xiv.) Petrarca calls the Colonna, "the column on which Rome rests her hopes."

P. 308, 1. 21.

When poets, mindless of their glorious trust.

"The Muses are seen in the company of Passion, and there is almost no affection so depraved and vile which is not soothed by some kind of learning; and herein the indulgence and arrogance of wits doth exceedingly derogate from the Majesty of the Muses; that whereas they should be the leaders and ancient-bearers of life, they are become the footpages and buffoons to lust and vanity."-BACON's Advancement of Learning.

Many of the Italian poets have sullied their genius by the licentiousness of their writings; among them was "Il divino Pietro Aretino," who made a mockery of religion, by alternately composing the most pious and the most licentious works; even the secretary of Leo the Tenth, the celebrated Bembo, is not exempt from the charge of writing obscene poems. "Quod poema merito vocare possis obscenissimam elegantiam, aut elegantissimam obscenitatem."-See Bayle, art. Bembo, Aretino.

"O gracious God! how far have we

Profaned thy heavenly gift of poesy !
Made prostitute and profligate the Muse,
Debased to each obscene and impious use,
Whose harmony was first ordain'd above
For tongues of angels, and for hymns of love!"
DRYDEN.