standing committees exist to take a collective view of such matters as contracts, concessions, mineral and other leases, and patronage.
COLONNA, a noble Roman family, second only to the Gaetani
di Sermoneta in antiquity, and first of all the Roman houses in
importance. The popes Marcellinus, Sixtus III., Stephen IV.
and Adrian III. are said to have been members of it, but the
authentic pedigree of the family begins with Pietro, lord of
Columna, Palestrina and Paliano (about 1100), probably a
brother of Pope Benedict IX. His great grandson Giovanni had
two sons, respectively the founders of the Colonna di Paliano
and Colonna di Sciarra lines. The third, or Colonna-Romano
line, is descended from Federigo Colonna (1223). In the 12th
century we find the Colonna as counts of Tusculum, and the
family was then famous as one of the most powerful and turbulent
of the great Roman clans; its feuds with the Orsini and the
Gaetani are a characteristic feature of medieval Rome and the
Campagna; like the other great nobles of the Campagna the
Colonna plundered travellers and cities, and did not even spare
the pope himself if they felt themselves injured by him.
Boniface VIII. attempted to break their power, excommunicated
them in 1297, and confiscated their estates. He proclaimed a
crusade against them and captured Palestrina, but they afterwards
revenged themselves by besieging him at Anagni, and
Sciarra Colonna laid violent hands on His Holiness, being with
difficulty restrained from actually murdering him (1303). In
1347 the Colonna, at that time almost an independent power,
were defeated by Cola di Rienzi, but soon recovered. Pope
Martin V. (1417–1431) was a Colonna, and conferred immense
estates on his family, including Marino, Frascati, Rocca di Papa,
Nettuno, Palinao, &c., in the Campagna, and other fiefs in
Romagna and Umbria. Their goods were frequently confiscated
and frequently given back, and the house was subject to many
changes of fortune; during the reign of Pope Alexander VI.
they were again humbled, but they always remained powerful
and important, and members of the family rose to eminence as
generals, prelates and statesmen in the service of the Church
or other powers. In the war of 1522 between France and Spain
there were Colonna on both sides, and at the battle of Lepanto
(1571) Marc Antonio Colonna, who commanded the papal
contingent, greatly distinguished himself. A detailed record
of the Colonna family would be a history of Rome. To-day
there are three lines of Colonna: (1) Colonna di Paliano, with
two branches, the princes and dukes of Paliano, and the princes
of Stigliano; (2) Colonna di Sciarra, with two branches, Colonna
di Sciarra, princes of Carbagnano, and Barberini-Colonna,
princes of Palestrina; and (3) Colonna-Romano. The Colonna
palace, one of the finest in Rome, was begun by Martin V. and
contains a valuable picture and sculpture gallery.
See A. von Reumont, Geschichte der Stadt Rom (Berlin, 1868), containing an elaborate account of the family; F. Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Rom (Stuttgart, 1872); Almanach de Gotha. (L. V.*)
COLONNA, GIOVANNI PAOLO (circa 1637–1695), Italian
musician, was born in Bologna about 1637 and died in the
same city on the 28th of November 1695. He was a pupil of
Filippuzzi in Bologna, and of Abbatini and Benevoli in Rome,
where for a time he held the post of organist at S. Apollinare.
A dated poem in praise of his music shows that he began to
distinguish himself as a composer in 1659. In that year he was
chosen organist at S. Petronio in Bologna, where on the 1st of
November 1674 he was made chapel-master. He also became
president of the Philharmonic Academy of Bologna. Most of
Colonna’s works are for the church, including settings of the
psalms for three, four, five and eight voices, and several masses
and motets. He also composed an opera, under the title Amilcare,
and an oratorio, La Profezia d’ Eliseo. The emperor Leopold
I. received a copy of every composition of Colonna, so that
the imperial library in Vienna possesses upwards of 83
church compositions by him. Colonna’s style is for the most
part dignified, but is not free from the inequalities of style
and taste almost unavoidable at a period when church music
was in a state of transition, and had hardly learnt to combine
the gravity of the old style with the brilliance of the new.
COLONNA, VITTORIA (1490–1547), marchioness of Pescara,
Italian poet, daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, grand constable of
the kingdom of Naples, and of Anna da Montefeltro, was born at
Marino, a fief of the Colonna family. Betrothed when four years
old at the instance of Ferdinand, king of Naples, to Ferrante
de Avalos, son of the marquis of Pescara, she received the
highest education and gave early proof of a love of letters. Her
hand was sought by many suitors, including the dukes of Savoy
and Braganza, but at nineteen, by her own ardent desire, she
was married to de Avalos on the island of Ischia. There the
couple resided until 1511, when her husband offered his sword
to the League against the French. He was taken prisoner at
the battle of Ravenna (1512) and conveyed to France. During
the months of detention and the long years of campaigning
which followed, Vittoria and Ferrante corresponded in the most
passionate terms both in prose and verse. They saw each other
but seldom, for Ferrante was one of the most active and brilliant
captains of Charles V.; but Vittoria’s influence was sufficient
to keep him from joining the projected league against the
emperor after the battle of Pavia (1525), and to make him refuse
the crown of Naples offered to him as the price of his treason.
In the month of November of the same year he died of his
wounds at Milan. Vittoria, who was hastening to tend him,
received the news of his death at Viterbo; she halted and turned
off to Rome, and after a brief stay departed for Ischia, where she
remained for several years. She refused several suitors, and
began to produce those Rime spirituali which form so distinct
a feature in her works. In 1529 she returned to Rome, and spent
the next few years between that city, Orvieto, Ischia and other
places. In 1537 we find her at Ferrara, where she made many
friends and helped to establish a Capuchin monastery at the
instance of the reforming monk Bernardino Ochino, who afterwards
became a Protestant. In 1539 she was back in Rome,
where, besides winning the esteem of Cardinals Reginald Pole
and Contarini, she became the object of a passionate friendship
on the part of Michelangelo, then in his sixty-fourth year. The
great artist addressed some of his finest sonnets to her, made
drawings for her, and spent long hours in her society. Her
removal to Orvieto and Viterbo in 1541, on the occasion of her
brother Ascanio Colonna’s revolt against Paul III., produced
no change in their relations, and they continued to visit and
correspond as before. She returned to Rome in 1544, staying
as usual at the convent of San Silvestro, and died there on the 25th of February 1547.
Cardinal Bembo, Luigi Alamanni and Baldassare Castiglione were among her literary friends. She was also on intimate terms with many of the Italian Protestants, such as Pietro Carnesecchi, Juan de Valdes and Ochino, but she died before the church crisis in Italy became acute, and, although she was an advocate of religious reform, there is no reason to believe that she herself became a Protestant. Her life was a beautiful one, and goes far to counteract the impression of the universal corruption of the Italian Renaissance conveyed by such careers as those of the Borgia. Her amatory and elegiac poems, which are the fruits of a sympathetic and dainty imitative gift rather than of any strong original talent, were printed at Parma in 1538; a third edition, containing sixteen of her Rime Spirituali, in which religious themes are treated in Italian, was published at Florence soon afterwards; and a fourth, including a still larger proportion of the pious element, was issued at Venice in 1544.
A great deal has been written about Vittoria Colonna, but perhaps the best account of her life is A. Luzio’s Vittoria Colonna (Modena, 1885); A. von Reumont’s Vita di Vittoria Colonna (Italian corrected edit., Turin, 1883) is also excellent; F. le Fèvre’s Vittoria Colonna (Paris, 1856) is somewhat inaccurate, but T. Roscoe’s Vittoria Colonna (London, 1868) may be recommended to English readers; P. E. Visconti’s Le Rime di Vittoria Colonna (Rome, 1846) deals with her poems. (L. V.*)
COLONNADE, in architecture, a range of columns (Ital. colonna) in a row. When extended so as to enclose a temple,
