SOURCE: Russell, Rinaldina. “The Mind's Pursuit of the Divine: A Survey of Secular and Religious Themes in Vittoria Colonna's Sonnets.” Forum Italicum 26, No. 1 (Spring, 1992): 14-27.

In the following essay, Russell considers a pattern in Colonna's poems of moving upward from a sorrowful condition towards a sublime state of peace, understanding, and connection with the divine.

Since the earliest publications Vittoria Colonna's poetry was organized in two distinct groups: the Pirogallo's edition of 1538, which gathered he poems in remembrance and praise of her husband, Ferrante d'Avalos, and the Valgrisi edition of 1547, which brought to light the poetry expressing the theological concerns and the devotion that became Vittoria's from about 1534 until her death in 1546. This separation between love and religious poems reflects a fundamental shift in the poet's interest and thematic choices and has, therefore, been kept ever since.

Vittoria's contemporary readers were also aware of the presence in her...