SOURCE: Bassanese, Fiora A. “Vittoria Colonna, Christ and Gender.” Il Veltro 40, nos. 1-2 (1996): 53-57.

In this essay, published in an abridged version in 1996, but never before published in the complete version below, Bassanese explores the influence of cultural and literary gender norms on Colonna's interpretation of herself in her poems on love and spirituality.

Vittoria Colonna, woman and poet, ideally suited Renaissance taste. Her unimpeachable virtue, talent, noble blood, and equally noble spirit distinguished her from other great ladies, making her the living embodiment of a cultural ideal. This elevation of Colonna to a paragon of femininity is in keeping with the Cinquecento's penchant for establishing exemplary models. She too is a primum and an optimum, the best of women: put forward as the model to imitate, she is declared inimitable. Colonna's poetry achieved similar approbation. Like the woman, it too was noble, virtuous, and elegant. The first...