When considering the friendship of Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo, scholars have emphasized their involvement with the radical religious group, the Spirituali. The problem with the focus on Vittoria Colonna’s and Michelangelo’s “reformist” theologies is that it has been entirely too narrow — ignoring their engagement with orthodox theology and personal devotion, particularly meditation. Examining Colonna’s poetry and prose, principally the Pianto Sopra la Passione di Cristo, this paper will argue for the critical importance of meditation in Colonna’s devotional practice. Moreover, I will consider how Michelangelo’s late work – including his drawings for Colonna – bears witness to the artist’s understanding of meditation. The Florentine Pietà, in particular, is a testimony to the lasting influence of Colonna’s meditation on the artist, even after her death. Far from being a failure, the Florentine Pietà demonstrates the artist’s innovative combination of creation and meditation following the example of his spiritual guide and friend.

Michelangelo frescoes in the Cappella Paolina, the pope’s private chapel in the Vatican, were planned and painted by him during the 1540s. This was a time when the intellectual, theological and emotional relationship between the artist and Vittoria Colonna were critically important influences. Michelangelo shared with Vittoria the beliefs of the group of influential churchmen and academics, the Spirituali, who gathered around Cardinal Reginald Pole, Vittoria’s close friend and mentor. The frescoes of the Cappella Paolina: The Conversion of St Paul and The Crucifixion of St Peter, are suffused with the influences of the Spirituali. This paper will demonstrate that the relationship between Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna had a profound influence upon the creation, narrative and theological intentions of Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Cappella Paolina.

Scholarship on Francisco de Hollanda’s Four Dialogues on Painting has concentrated on Michelangelo’s comparison of poetry and painting and his observations on Flemish painting. But Vittoria Colonna initiates this conversation by sharing with Michelangelo that she wished to build a convent on Colonna property on the Quirinal Hill, “… where stands the broken portico from which Nero is said to have watched Rome burning….” My paper will argue that this comment is significant because Colonna’s proposal offered Michelangelo his first opportunity to incorporate ancient Roman structures into a new edifice for Christian worship, an idea that was at the heart of his work at St. Peter’s and his project to convert the Baths of Diocletian into the church of Sta. Maria degli Angeli. Vittoria Colonna was thus instrumental in Michelangelo’s creation of monumental architecture that directly references the struggle and faith of the early Christian Church in Rome.