Io sono, io son ben dessa! or vedi come M' ha cangiata il dolor fiero ed atroce Ch' a fatica la voce Può di me dar la conoscenza vera. Lassa! ch' al tuo partir partì veloce Dalle guancie, dagli occhi, e dalle chiome Questa a cui davi come Tu di beltade, ed io n' andava altera, Che me 'l credea, perchè in tal pregio t' era. * * * * * Com' è ch' io viva, quando mi rimembra, Ch' empio sepolcro, e invidiosa polve Contamina e dissolve La delicate alabastrine membra? For seven years she gave up her whole heart to sorrow. Her relations, thinking her too young at the age of thirty-five to continue unmarried, pressed her to accept one of the many offers of marriage which she received. But, wedded as all her thoughts had been since her earliest infancy to one object, she felt unconquerably averse to any second nuptials. She lived in retirement either at Ischia or Naples, dedicating herself wholly to memory. Her active mind, refusing to find comfort in any sublunary blessing, had recourse to religion for consolation. She now employed herself in writing sacred poetry, and her enthusiastic disposition led her to project a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; but the marchese del Vasto opposed her putting it into execution. She now left Naples on a tour to the north of Italy, and visited Lucca and Ferrara. She afterwards took up her residence at Rome, and became the intimate friend of the cardinals Bembo, Contarini, and Pole, and various distinguished prelates. A love of yet greater retirement induced her a few years after to retreat to a convent at Orvieto; from whence she removed, after a short time, to the convent of Santa Caterina, at Viterbo. Our countryman, cardinal Pole, resided in this town, and an intimate friendship subsisted between him and Vittoria. There is a resemblance in their characters that renders this intercourse interesting; they were both singleminded, enthusiastic, and noble. Vittoria added feminine tenderness to these qualities, while religious fervour formed a bond of sympathy between them. The companions of cardinal Pole were Flaminio and Pietro Carnescecchi: the latter having afterwards become a protestant, doubts have been raised concerning the orthodoxy of Vittoria; but there is every evidence that she never fell off from her adherence to the catholic church. A short time before her death she returned to Rome, and took up her abode in the Palazzo Cesarini; where she died, in the year 1547, at the age of fifty-seven. During her last moments her attached friend, Michael Angelo, stood beside her. He was considerably her junior, and looked up to her as something superior to human nature, and entitled to his most fervent admiration. He has written many sonnets in her praise; and there is extant a letter, in which he states how he stood beside her lifeless remains, and kissed her cold hand, lamenting afterwards that the overwhelming grief and awe of the moment, had prevented him from pressing her lips for the first and last time.