ACCORAMBONI, VITTORIA (1557-1585), an Italian lady famous for her great beauty and accomplishments and for her tragic history. She was born in Rome of a family belonging to the minor noblesse of Gubbio, which migrated to Rome. After refusing several offers of marriage for Vittoria, her father be trothed her to Francesco Peretti (1573), a nephew of Cardinal Montalto, who was regarded as likely to become pope. Vittoria, was admired by the most brilliant men in Rome, and being luxu rious and extravagant she and her husband were soon plunged in debt. Among her admirers was P. G. Orsini„ duke of Bracciano, and her brother Marcello, wishing to see her the duke's wife, had Peretti murdered (1581). The duke himself was suspected of complicity as he was believed to have murdered his first wife Isabella de' Medici. They were married shortly after. But at tempts were made to annul the marriage; Vittoria was imprisoned, and only liberated through the interference of Cardinal Carlo Borromeo. On the death of Gregory XIII., Cardinal Montalto, her first husband's uncle, was elected in his place as Sixtus V. (1585) ; he vowed vengeance on the duke of Bracciano and on Vittoria, who, warned in time, fled first to Venice and thence to Salo in Venetian territory. Here the duke died in Nov. 1585, bequeathing all his personal property to his widow. Vittoria, over whelmed with grief, went to live in retirement at Padua, where she was followed by Lodovico Orsini, a relation of her late husband and a servant of the Venetian republic, to arrange amicably for the division of the property. But Lodovico hired a band of bravos and had Vittoria assassinated (Dec. 22,1585). He himself and nearly all his accomplices were afterwards put to death by order of the republic.
About Vittoria Accoramboni much has been written and she has been greatly maligned by some biographers. Her story formed the basis of Webster's tragedy, The White Devil (1612), and of Ludwig Tieck's novel Vittoria Accoramboni (1840) ; it is told in D. Gnoli's vol. Vittoria Accoramboni (Florence, 1870), and an excellent sketch of her life is given in Countess E. Martinengo-Cesaresco's Lombard Studies (London 1902).