Virginia Cox is Senior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. Her books include Women’s Writing in Italy, 1400–1650 (2008), The Prodigious Muse: Women’s Writing in Counter-Reformation Italy (2011), Lyric Poetry by Women of the Italian Renaissance (2013) and A Short History of the Italian Renaissance (2015). Shannon McHugh is Associate Professor of Italian and French at University of Massachusetts Boston. She is co-translator of Writings on the Sisters of San Luca and Their Miraculous Madonna (Iter Press, 2015) and co-editor of Innovation in the Italian Counter-Reformation (University of Delaware Press, 2020) and Vittoria Colonna: Poetry, Religion, Art, Impact (Amsterdam University Press, 2021).

"This thematically comprehensive volume offers scholars valuable insights into Vittoria Colonna’s literary and cultural contributions, making it an essential resource for those studying early modern European history and feminist perspectives."- Marjorie Och, EMW Journal, vol. 19, no. 1, 2024 “It is thrilling to see the diverseness of Colonna’s oeuvre highlighted in the growing field of research that this volume embodies... Meticulous archival work supports the close readings of the literary texts and allows the volume’s contributors to present exciting perspectives on Colonna and her 254 book reviews circles that have not previously been discussed.” -Johanna Vernqvist, Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme, 45.4, Fall 2022

• List of Illustrations, Acknowledgements, Introduction: The Twenty-First Century Vittoria Colonna - Virginia Cox, Part 1 Literary and Spiritual Sociability, 1. The D'Avalos-Colonna Literary Circle: A 'Renewed Parnassus' - Shulamit Furstenberg-Levi, 2. Late Love: Vittoria Colonna and Reginald Pole - Ramie Targoff, Part 2 Widowhood, 3. Magistra apostolorum: The Virgin Mary in Birgitta of Sweden and Vittoria Colonna - Unn Falkeid, 4. Outdoing Colonna: Widowhood Poetry in the Late Cinquecento - Anna Wainwright, Part 3 Poetry, 5. The Epistolary Vittoria - Maria Serena Sapegno, 6. 'Ex illo mea, mi Daniel, Victoria pendet' : A Forgotten Spiritual Epigram by Vittoria Colonna - Veronica Copello, 7. Religious Desire in the Poetry of Vittoria Colonna : Insights into Early Modern Piety and Poetics - Sarah Rolfe Prodan, Part 4 Art, 8. 'Inscribed Upon Their Hearts': Copying and the Dissemination of Devotion - Jessica Maratsos, 9. Titian, Colonna, and the Gender of Pictorial Devotion - Christopher J. Nygren, 10. 'A More Loving and Constant Heart' : Vittoria Colonna, Alfonso d'Avalos, Michelangelo and the Complicated History of Pontormo's Noli me tangere - Dennis Geronimus, Part 5 Readership, 11. 'Leading Others on the Road to Salvation' : Vittoria Colonna and Her Readers - Abigail Brundin, 12. 'In Competition with and Perhaps More Felicitously Than Petrarch' : The Canonization of Vittoria Colonna in Rinaldo Corso's Tutte le rime (1558) - Humberto Gonzalez Chavez, Part 6 Impact, 13. Colonna and Petrarch in the Rime of Lucia Colao - Andrea Torre, 14. 'I Take Thee': Vittoria Colonna, Conjugal Verse and Male poeti colonnesi - Shannon McHugh, 15. 'She Showed the World a Beacon of Female Worth' : Vittoria Colonna in Arcadia - Tatiana Crivelli, Volume Bibliography, Index of Citations of Colonna's Letters and Verse, Thematic Index.