Vittoria Colonna and the Virgin Mary

Abstract

Various works by Vittoria Colonna display a notable interest in the Virgin Mary as a potentially powerful and positive female role model. Colonna's gift manuscript for the French queen, Marguerite de Navarre, contains a large number of sonnets exploring Mary's role, and this interest is backed up by the correspondence between the two women, which focuses on the need for female role models in society. In addition, various of Colonna's published letters and prose works develop further Mary's potential as an assertive figure in a Reformation context. The Marian model is shown to be applicable to the lives of both Colonna and Navarre, in their own careful fashioning of an acceptable public persona.