Vittoria Colonna’s 1538 Rime, originally issued without her permission by a small Parma press, was the first of many editions of her poetry published during her lifetime. Born into one of the most powerful families in Rome and connected to many of the great political, religious, and artistic figures of the period, Colonna was uniquely positioned to transform the landscape of women’s writing. The first woman to see her own poems appear in print in a single-author volume, she led the way for hundreds of other women of her time to publish their own works. Comprising more than one hundred and forty sonnets and two canzoni, the Rime expresses Colonna’s anguish over the loss of her husband and her struggle both to preserve his memory and secure her own future.

This volume presents the first complete English translation of the 1538 Rime and restores the original Italian texts from the blemished Parma printing and later composite editions, a boon to readers of both languages.
 

Vittoria Colonna (1490?–1547) was a significant female voice in the Italian Renaissance. Ramie Targoff is professor of English, cochair of Italian studies, and the Jehuda Reinharz Director of the Mandel Center for the Humanities at Brandeis University. She is the author of Common Prayer: The Language of Public Devotion in Early Modern England; John Donne, Body and Soul; and Posthumous Love: Eros and the Afterlife in Renaissance England, all published by the University of Chicago Press. Her most recent book is Renaissance Woman: The Life of Vittoria Colonna. Troy Tower is associate lecturer of Italian at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He has coedited the poetry of Colonna’s contemporary, Gaspara Stampa.
 

Acknowledgments

Illustrations

Introduction
The Other Voice
Publishing Vittoria Colonna: The 1538 Rime
Life and Works of Vittoria Colonna
The Amorous Verse of the 1538 Edition
Spiritual Verse in the 1538 Edition and Beyond
Posthumous Reputation and Influence
A Note on This Translation and Edition

Poems of Widowhood: The 1538 Rime
Sonetti / Sonnets
Canzoni / Songs

Critical Apparatus

Concordance of Numbering Systems

Bibliography

Index of First Lines

General Index