SOURCE: Russell, Rinaldina. “Vittoria Colonna's Sonnets on the Virgin Mary.” In Maria Vergine nella Letteratura Italiana, edited by Florinda M. Iannace, pp. 125-37. Stony Brook, NY: Forum Italicum Publishing, 2000.

In the following essay, Russell examines the sonnets on the Virgin Mary found in the 1546 edition of Colonna's religious verse and finds them interesting because of their Christocentric character and sympathy to the doctrines of religious reformers.

Vittoria Colonna's sonnets celebrating the Virgin Mary are of two-fold interest. For the scholar of literature they are a significant although minor aspect of Colonna's literary production; for the historian of religion, they represent an interesting case of Marian devotion in the context of a religious meditation that is Christocentric in character and progressively more sympathetic to the doctrines of the reformers. With this double perspective in mind, I will consider the sonnets found in the Valgrisi edition of 1546, a collection considered...