COLONNA, VITTORIA , marchioness of Pescara, Italian poetess, daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, grand constable of the kingdom of Naples and of Anna da Montefeltro, was born at Marino, a fief of the Colonna family. She married at 19 Ferrante de Avalos, marquis of Pescara, who was subsequently a noted captain of Charles V., and who died of wounds at Milan in 1525. During their long separation they corresponded with each other in passionate terms in prose and verse. After her husband's death, Vittoria lived at Ischia where she composed the first of the Rime spirituali that are a characteristic feature of her poetic genius. In 1539 she was living in Rome, and was the ob ject of a romantic friendship on the part of the ageing Michel angelo. Among her other friends were Cardinal Reginald Pole, Contarini, Cardinal Bembo and Baldassare Castiglione. Her amatory and elegiac poems were printed at Parma in 1 S38 ; a third edition, containing 16 of her Rime spirituali, was published at Florence soon afterwards; and a fourth was printed at Venice in BIBLIOGRAPHY. -A great deal has been written about Vittoria Bibliography. -A great deal has been written about Vittoria Colonna, but perhaps the best account of her life is A. Luzio, "Vittoria Colonna" in the Rivista Storica Mantovana, vol. i. (Mantua, i885) ; A. von Reumont, Vittoria Colonna Vita, fede e poesia, etc. (Italian corrected ed., Turin, 1883) is also excellent. J. Le Vittoria Colonna (1856), also in Celebrites italiennes: Vittoria Colonna etc. (1894) is somewhat inaccurate, but M. Roscoe, Vittoria Colonna (1868) may be recommended to English readers. P. E. Visconti, Le Rime di Vittoria Colonna (184o) deals with her poems. See also A. E. Ravina, The Romance of a Raphael (1916) ; J. J. Wyss, Vittoria Colonna (Frauenfeld, 1916).