Such habits and sentiments would have been painful enough to a wife, a Roman and a Colonna, if Vittoria had been sufficiently in advance of her age to have conceived patriotic ideas of Italian nationality. But though her pursuits and studies were infinitely more likely to have led her mind to such thoughts, than were those of the actors in the political drama of the time to generate any such notions in them, yet no trace of any sentiment of the kind is to be found in her writings. Considering the extent of the field over which her mind had travelled, her acquaintance with classical literature, and with the history of her own country, it may seem surprising that a nature, certainly capable of high and noble aspirations, should have remained untouched by one of the noblest. That it was so is a striking proof of the utter insensibility of the age to any feelings of the sort. It is possible too, that the tendencies and modes of thought of her husband on the subject of Italy may have exercised a repressing influence in this respect on Vittoria's mind; for who does not know how powerfully a woman's intelligence and heart may be elevated or degraded by the nature of the object of her affections; and, doubtless, to Vittoria as to so many another of every age do the admirable lines of the poet address themselves:— "Thou shalt lower to his level day by day, What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise with clay. As the husband is, the wife is; thou art mated with a clown, And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down." When we come to examine the tone of sentiment prevailing in Vittoria's poetry, other indications of this deteriorating influence will be perceptible, and if much of nobleness, purity, high aspiration be nevertheless still found in her, this partial immunity from the evil influence must be attributed to the trifling duration of that portion of her life passed in her husband's company. Pescara was not unrewarded for the infamy with which he covered himself in the service of his master. He obtained the rank of Generalissimo of the imperial forces in Italy. But he enjoyed the gratification for a very little while. In the latter end of that year, he fell into a state of health which seems to have been not well accounted for by the medical science of that day. The wounds he had received at Pavia in the previous February are specially described by Passeri as having been very slight. Some writers have supposed that either shame for the part he had acted in the Morone affair, or, with greater probability, misgiving as to the possibility of the emperor's discovering the real truth of the facts (for the fate of Gismondo Santi and his papers was not known yet), was the real cause of his illness. It seems clearly to have been of the nature of a sudden and premature decay of all the vital forces. [Sidenote: PESCARA'S DEATH.]