l interests, but there seems little ground for
this suspicion beyond the fact that her devotion to the things of the
spirit and her somewhat austere ideas in regard to manners and morals
were in that day so unusual as to call forth comment. This sacred verse
was published in a volume entitled _Rime spirituali_, and Guingene is
authority for the statement that no other author before Vittoria Colonna
had ever published a volume of poetry devoted exclusively to religious
themes.

Her most faithful friend and admirer in all her long widowhood of
twenty-two years was the great artist, sculptor, and painter, Michael
Angelo, who never failed to treat her with the tenderest courtesy and
respect. No other woman had ever touched his heart, and she gave him
suggestion and inspiration for much of his work. After those first seven
years of loneliness at Ischia, Vittoria spent much time in the convents
of Orvieto and Viterbo, and later she lived in the greatest seclusion at
Rome; there it was that death overtook her. Wherever she went, Michael
Angelo's thoughtfulness followed her out, and in those last moments at
Rome he was with her, faithful to the end. He was the kindly, rugged
master-genius of his time, an intellectual giant, and she was a woman of
rare devotion and purity of soul; and the real Platonic affection which
seems to have possessed them, in that age of license and scepticism, is
touching and impressive. What this friendship meant to him, the poet has
expressed in the following sonnet addressed to Vittoria, which is here
given in Wordsworth's matchless translation:

"Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace,
And I be undeluded, unbetrayed;
For if of our affections none find grace
in sight of Heaven, then, wherefore had God made
The world which we inhabit? Better plea
Love cannot have than that in loving thee
Glory to that eternal peace is paid,
Who such divinity to thee imparts
As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts.
His hope is treacherous only whose love dies
With beauty, which is varying every hour:
But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power
Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower,
That breathes on earth the air of Paradise."

The ducal court at Ferrara became, in the latter half of the sixteenth
century, the centre of much intellectual life and brilliancy; generous
patronage was extended to the arts and to literature, and here ga