SOURCE: McAuliffe, Dennis J. “Neoplatonism in Vittoria Colonna's Poetry: From the Secular to the Divine.” In Ficino and Renaissance Platonism, pp. 101-12. Ottawa, Canada: Dovehouse Editions, 1986.

In the following essay, McAuliffe examines the cultural, intellectual, and emotional environment in which Colonna wrote her poetry, maintaining that Colonna's Neoplatonic theological and philosophical preoccupations were the media through which she filtered her experiences.

In this discussion of Neoplatonism in Vittoria Colonna's poetry I describe, first of all, the cultural, intellectual, and emotional circumstances in which these influences first manifest themselves. I then discuss some of the sonnets from her early Canzoniere¹ (I prefer this designation, taken in its strict sense, to the more commonly used one, ‘secular sonnets’), along with an example from a contemporary (1540s) commentary which makes explicit reference to Vittoria's Neoplatonism. Finally, I discuss the change that takes place later in Vittoria's life and in her writing...