on
whose ruins now gleam afar in the Italian sunshine the white walls of
the Passionist convent of Monte Cavi, built by Cardinal York. From this
height Juno gazed upon the great conflict of contending armies, if
Virgil's topography be entitled to authority. And here, through a defile
in the hills, one may look toward Naples, "and then rising abruptly
with sheer limestone cliffs and crevasses, where transparent purple
shadows sleep all day long, towers the grand range of the Sabine
mountains, whose lofty peaks surround the Campagna to the east and north
like a curved amphitheatre.... Again, skirting the Pontine Marshes on
the east, are the Volscian mountains, closing up the Campagna at
Terracina, where they overhang the road and affront the sea with their
great barrier. Following along the Sabine hills, you will see at
intervals the towns of Palestrina and Tivoli, where the Anio tumbles in
foam, and other little mountain towns nestled here and there among the
soft airy hollows, or perched on the cliffs."

In this landscape there are three ruined villages--Colonna, Gallicano,
and Zagarda--perched on their respective hills. The castle of the
Colonna family is now restored and modernized to a degree that leaves
little trace of that former stately grandeur which is transmuted into
modern convenience and comfort.

In this scene of romantic beauty, with the vista of beauty almost
incomparable in any inland view in Italy, Vittoria passed her infancy,
until, at the age of four, her childhood was transplanted to fairy
Ischia. In all this chain of Alban towns, including Marino, Viterbo,
Ariccia, and Rocca di Papa, the great family of the Colonna owned
extensive estates, each crowning some height, while the defiles between
were filled, then as now, with the foam and blossom of riotous greenery.
Then, as now, across the mystic Campagna, the dome of St. Peter's
silhouetted itself against a golden background of western sky.

One needs not to have had privileged access to the sibylline leaves of
the Cumaean soothsayer to recognize that Vittoria Colonna was born under
the star of destiny. Her horoscope seemed to be inextricably entwined
with that of Italy; and the events which created and determined the
conditions of her life and its panoramic series of circumstances were
the events of Italy and of Europe as well--in political aspects and in
the influence on general progress, brought to bear by strong and
prominent individualities w