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The elder sister of Vittoria’s affianced husband, Constance d’Avalos, the widowed Duchess of Francavilla, was the “châtelaine” of Ischia during her brother’s minority, so that it was but natural that his Colonna bride-elect should be sent to dwell with Constance in this castle.
By her expressed wish the body of the poetess was buried in San Domenico Maggiore at Naples, the finest and least spoiled of all the Neapolitan churches, where a velvet-covered coffin containing the ashes of the Divine Vittoria and her “Bel Sole,” and surmounted by the sword, banner and portrait of Fernando d’Avalos, is still pointed out to the stranger, resting on a shelf in the sacristy of the church.
But however hard were the things said of the deceased Fernando d’Avalos by the outside world, no breath of suspicion seems ever to have penetrated to the heart of the faithful if placid Vittoria, who mourned bitterly if somewhat theatrically over her departed hero.
Born in the old Castle of Marino, near Rome, one of the strongholds of the great feudal house of Colonna, the poetess, who was great-great-niece to Pope Martin V., was betrothed in her infancy at the instigation of King Ferdinand of Naples to the youthful heir of the d’Avalos family, hereditary governors of the island of Ischia.
Meanwhile, unblest with offspring of her own and ever separated by the cruel circumstance of war from the husband she seemed perfectly content to admire from a distance, Vittoria did not expend all her time at Ischia in sacrificing to Apollo and the Muses, for she now undertook the education of her husband’s young cousin and heir, Alphonso d’Avalos, Marchese del Vasto, whose manhood certainly did credit to his instructress, for del Vasto under her influence grew up to be a brave soldier and a tolerable scholar.
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