loved by the brilliant and sensual Pescara, but, as the mocking Cupid sometimes ordains, she was made to love and suffer through it.
She did, in fact, suffer cruelly through the infidelity of her husband, who deceived her in his own house to the knowledge and in the sight of all Naples. Nevertheless, on his death in 1525, she was inconsolable. She sought refuge in religion and poetry. She led a claustral life, first at Rome, then in Naples,[1] but without renouncing in the early days thoughts of the world. She sought solitude merely in order to be able to absorb herself in the recollection of her love and celebrate it in verse. She was in relations with all the great writers of Italy—with Sadoleto, Bembo, and Castiglione, who entrusted the manuscript of his "Cortegiano" to her; with Ariosto, who celebrated her in his "Orlando"; with Paul Jove, Bernardo Tasso and Lodovico Dolce. From 1530 her sonnets were read over the whole of Italy and secured her a position of unique glory among the women of her period. Having retired to Ischia, she was indefatigable, in the solitude of the beautiful island and amidst the harmonious sea, in singing of her transfigured love.
But from 1534 religion occupied her entire attention. The spirit of Catholic reform—the free religious spirit which then tended to regenerate the Church without running the risk of a schism—took possession of her. Whether she knew Juan de Valdès[2] in Naples is unknown,
- ↑ Her spiritual counsellor at that time was Matteo Giberti, Bishop of Verona, who was one of the first to attempt the renovation of the Catholic Church. Giberti’s secretary was the poet Francesco Berni.
- ↑ Juan de Valdès, the son of a private secretary of Charles V., and who established himself in Naples in 1534, was the head there of the reform party. Nobles and great ladies grouped
