WOMAN IN ART
her domain was an era of development and progress in the nation, and its world-wide influence has been a dominating factor in the history of the nineteenth century. Victoria was the seventh queen regnant, with the added honor and responsibility, since 1877, of being Empress of India.
On January 22, 1901, Victoria passed to the spirit realm. Magnificent as was her coronation, no pageant has ever followed a sovereign indicating the love, veneration and honor expressed by the cortege that followed the oak catafalque from Osborne to Windsor. The world loved and mourned Queen Victoria.
One of those long spaces of years indicated by four figures brings us to the period of the renaissance when artists were painting their own portraits, perhaps for practice, and now and then a woman's face was seen on canvas. But not often, for women had not yet arisen to artistic, literary, professional, or political prominence on the continent. One exception, however, is of interest—Michael Angelo's portrait of Victoria Colonna. For the time in which she lived she was a remarkable character. Born when the renaissance in painting was at its height (Michael Angelo working in Rome, and Raphael as a youth painting in Florence, Bartolommeo, Purugino, the Bellini and Titian all making reputations on walls and canvas), she, too, belonged to the gifted company that brillianced Italy for all time; but her talent expressed by the pen was newer to the thought and appreciation of the time than painting.
"She was the daughter of the grand constable of the kingdom of Naples, and Anna da Montfeltre, the daughter of the "Good Duke" Frederick of Urbino was her mother, and Morino was her birthplace. In accord with the custom, she was betrothed at the age of four years to Francisco d'Avalos. She received the highest education and gave early proof of a love of letters. Her hand was sought by many suitors, but at seventeen, as she ardently desired, her marriage with d'Avalos took place. They had four happy years together in their home on the Isle of Ischia, when he offered his sword to the Holy League. During the months of exile and the long years of campaigning that followed they corresponded in most passionate terms, in prose and verse. In 1525 he died of wounds in Milan. She was hastening to him when she received news of his death. Returning to Naples, she remained for ten years. In 1538 she took up her residence in Rome, where she first met Michael Angelo, then in his sixty-fourth year. She became the object of a passionate friendship on the part of the great artist. He wrote for her some of his finest
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