Vittoria Colonna: A Woman’s Renaissance by Maria Musiol (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Vittoria Colonna: A Woman’s Renaissance by Maria Musiol Roberta Giubilini Maria Musiol, Vittoria Colonna: A Woman’s Renaissance ( Berlin: Epubli 2013) 332 pp. With this book Maria Musiol wants to offer the first exhaustive biography of the noblewoman and poetess Vittoria Colonna based on primary sources which have been collected by the author during her earlier PhD research in history and, more recently, in years of further investigations into Vittoria Colonna’s life. This information can be found on the publisher’s website’s dedicated page, but it is nowhere to be found in the book, a fact which makes difficult to identify its genre and its target audience. The tone and style of the writing, since the very beginning and throughout the entire book, with the frequent use of hyperboles, superlatives, emphatic sentences, colorful adjectives, and colloquial expressions, seems to suggest that we are in front of a work of fiction. The constant reference to primary sources, on the other hand, seems to indicate something different. Other elements, however, of both form and content, seem to deny it the status of academic work. To begin with, the structure of the book and how the material is organized within it are quite confusing. The first problem arises in the identification of the title as, the one given on the cover (Spurs and Reins. Vittoria Colonna: A Woman’s Renaissance), differs from that on the title page (Vittoria Colonna: A Female Genius) which, again, is different from the one on top of the table of content (Vittoria Colonna: Princess and Poetess Live). A difference occurs also [End Page 270] between the titles of some chapters as it appears in the table of contents and at the beginning of the actual chapters. For example, chapter 2, listed in the table of content as “Vittoria Colonna and her Husband Ferrante d’Avalos,” later becomes “Vittoria Colonna and Ferrante d’Avalos,” and “Vittoria Colonna and her Husband” in the footnotes placed at the end of the book. Moving on to the analysis of the content of the book, it has, first of all, to be reported about the extensive use of primary sources—as is evident from the frequent direct quotations—which are, however, in most of the cases, not specified. Moreover, quotations in their original language are often accompanied by an English translations which it is never said from where there are taken or if they are the author’s own translations. Even less acceptable for a book which is the result of a scientific investigation, are the misuses or misunderstandings of crucial concepts like Evangelism (137) or Volgata (161). Of the former it is said that it was a religious movement granting more scope to women; but this is hardly the case. Evangelism, as it is correctly described by Paul Grendler (“Religious Restlessness in Sixteenth-century Italy,” CCHA, Study Sessions 33 [1966] 25–38), was “the most useful term for the religious concern of Italians in the first half of the century… an admittedly imprecise term for a phenomenon that was more an attitude than a movement. Evangelism included a desire to reform abuses, emphasis on Scripture, and the primacy of justification through faith without the omission of good works. Erasmus’s concern for individual moral reform, the understanding of Scripture rather than commentaries, and the hope for union between all Christians influences it.” So, no mention of granting more scope to women. To be sure, Grendler includes Vittoria Colonna and Giulia Gonzaga among the people who could be termed Evangelicals at least part of the time, but this temporary adherence of two women to a religious movement which was not really even a proper, coherent movement, does not imply a specific agenda about promotion of women. To the term Volgata, on the other hand, is given the meaning of “a language enforced on the natives of Italy by barbarian conquerors” (161) which is distinguished from the Etrusca, “a sublime variety of Volgata” (161), and the Toscana, “elevated Italian” (162). The last two definitions are mildly incorrect whereas the use itself of the term Volgata in this context is absolutely wrong. The only possible meaning of Volgata (or Vulgata...