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Updated 12-04-08
Veronica Gambara (1485-1550)
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"WAR IS WAGED SO FIERCELY THAT REASON SWIFTLY TAKES HER
LEAVE."
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Veronica Gambara was the daughter of the Count of Brescia, in Lombardy. She had an unusually complete humanistic education: Greek as well as Latin language and literature, philosophy, and patristic theology. Her own poetry was becoming known in her late teens; when she was 17 she corresponded with the leading neo-Petrarchan, Pietro Bembo, who later became her mentor.
When Gambara was 24, she was married to Giberto X, lord of the small state of Correggio (near Parma). Giberto was a widower with teen-age daughters; he had been a condottiere (a mercenary, fighting for whoever would pay), but at his marriage to Gambara, he retired to rule Correggio. In part because of Gambara's reputation as a poet, the court at Correggio became a meeting place for literary figures and artists.
After nine years of marriage, Gambara's husband died; at 32, she was left sole guardian of her 8-year-old and 6-year-old sons and administrator of the Correggio territories. These obligations were to be the focus of the rest of her life. Her elder son, Ippolito, eventually became, like his father, a mercenary; her younger son, Girolamo, became a cardinal. Gambara stayed in Correggio: in peacetime, working to improve the literacy of her subjects; in wartime, supervising defense and coping with the famine that inevitably followed war.
Since 1498 northern Italy had been a battle ground in the sporadic wars between France and the Hapsburg rulers of Spain and Germany. In 1512, just after the birth of her second son, Gambara had gone home to Brescia for her father's funeral. While she was there, the city was sacked by the French, and she had escaped only after hiding for several days.
In 1515 a new French king, the 21-year-old Francis I, came to Italy; amid much talk of peace, he and Gambara met and became friends. But then the Hapsburg power grew greater. By 1519, the lands of the newly-elected Hapsburg Emperor Charles V almost surrounded France, and in 1521 northern Italy once more became a battlefield. In 1500s Italy, of course, a third major player was always the pope, looked to as a peacemaker but frequently drawn into siding with first the French and then the Hapsburgs.
Veronica Gambara tried --- for her own reasons --- to be a peacemaker. Her first concern were her sons and Correggio, and she had friends and relatives throughout northern Italy. She knew and liked Francis I; she admired (and came to know) Charles V; she had friends close to the pope. She addressed a number of her poems to whoever could contribute to the peace of the territories she loved.
Did Gambara believe her poems could stop a war? Probably not, yet she knew that the Renaissance princes, like the ancient Romans they patterned themselves after, did care what poets thought of them. In one poem, "Quando miro," she reminded a young Cosimo de' Medici that many rulers "live on in splendor in our memories" only because poets have praised them.
Of Gambara's writings some 80 poems and around 150 letters are extant. Most of her poems are sonnets, although she also wrote madrigals, ballads, and stanze in ottava rima. Besides her political poems, she wrote poems of love, religious devotion, and pastoral praise of Brescia and Correggio. There is no complete English translation of her poetry or correspondence, but the majority of her poems are now available online, and some poems and letters are available in print.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print:
Poetry
LettersInformation about secondary sources.
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1. Ellen Moody has put her translations of 60 of Veronica Gambara's poems online, under the title Secret Sacred Woods. This page offers links to the translations (and to the original Italian) arranged by topic. Or you can click on the "Index of first lines" near the bottom of the page; there you'll have all the poems in alphabetical order. For a taste of Gambara's style and thought, you could go directly to these:
(a) Two poems probably written before Gambara's 1509 marriage: a sonnet, "I am not and hope never to be free" (Libra non son, ne mai libra esser spero); and a madrigal, "So intense is this grief" (Cosi estrema e la doglia).
(b) To her husband: "To see you, to gaze into your serene and clear eyes" (Dal veder voi, occhi sereni, e chiari); and "The earth smiles and restores to all her lands" (Ride la terra, e d'ogni parte rende).
(c) "Now hope has died" (Or passata è la speranza); perhaps a poem mourning her husband's death in1518, but known to have been commissioned by Isabelle d' Este to be sung to an existing tune.
(d) One of Gambara's most popular poems, praising her first home, Brescia: "With that warm, breathless eagerness" (Con quel caldo desio che nascer suole); it is often titled "Salve mia cara patria," from the first line of the second stanza.
(e) Stanzas dedicated to Cosimo de' Medici of Florence in 1532-33, describing the "golden age" that Gambara wanted to return to Italy: "When I see the earth's spring so beautiful" (Quando miro la terra ornata e bella).
(f) Two more of Gambara's political poems: one on a 1533 meeting of Pope Paul III with Emperor Charles V, "Here we are, the third time, my Italy" (Ecco che già tre vole Italia mia); another on a 1535 victory by the emperor, "He who showed himself proud and arrogant" (Quel che di tutto il bel ricco Oriente).
2. From the main page of Ellen Moody's site you can link to a 2004 biographical essay on Gambara, "Under the Sign of Dido" (which includes passages from Gambara's letters); to Moody's thoughts in1990 and in 2004 "On Translating Veronica Gambara and Vittoria Colonna"; to an engraving of Gambara in a 1759 edition of Rime e Lettere; and to a 2003 bibliography of Gambara's writings (editions and translations) and of critical and biographical studies.
3. A link to the text of Maud F. Jerrold's 1906 biography, Vittoria Colonna, With Some Account of Her Friends and Her Times; there see (about one-third of the way down the page) Chapter Six, "A Sister Poet, Veronica Gambara," which includes Jerrold's translation of five poems and eight letters (whole or in part). You can also download the work as a PDF file. (For excerpts from the letters, see below, under "In print.")
4. At this alphabetical list from the University of Chicago's
"Italian Women Writers" site, go to Gambara and click
on "Texts Available"for a link to the originals
of eleven letters written by Gambara between 1506 and 1550,
including one (# 3) announcing her husband's death to Francesco
II of Mantua and his wife Isabella d'Este; and another (# 8)
written a few months before her own death to her step-daughter,
Costanza Gonzaga, whose marriage she had arranged and to whom
she always remained close. You can also link to a 1545 Latin
ode, written by Gambara in praise of Charles V, "Auspicat,
victoria Caesari."
5. Reviews (for excerpts from Jaffe, see "In print";
for information on the other books' treatment of Gambara, see
"Secondary sources"):
(a) Maria Galli Stampino on Irma B. Jaffe's 2002 translation /study, Shining Eyes, Cruel Fortune: The Lives and Loves of Italian Renaissance Women Poets; and another review, this by Jana Byars.
(b) Fiora A. Bassanese on the 2000 essay collection, A History of Women's Writing in Italy; elsewhere, another review, by Laura A. Salsini.
(c) Deborah Parker on William J. Kennedy's 1994 study, Authorizing Petrarch.
6. Two-thirds of the way down the page, a contemporary portrait held by the museum in Correggio, longed believed to be of Gambara, but now more cautiously labeled "portrait of a gentlewoman." (It is followed by a more certain portrait of one of Gambara's sons, Girolamo, who was made a cardinal eleven years after his mother's death.)
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[Richard Poss has translated 15 of Gambara's poems for this anthology: 12 sonnets, 2 madrigals, and 1 ballad. Poss' introduction analyzes several poems in detail. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Women writers of the Renaissance and Reformation / edited
by Katharina M. Wilson. Athens: University of Georgia Press,
c1987. (xl, 638 p.)
LC#: PN6069.W65 W63 1987; ISBN: 082030865X, 0820308668
Includes bibliographies and index.
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[Irma B. Jaffe's collection of biographies includes one on Gambara, which gives both the Italian and translations by Jaffe and Gernando Colombardo of 11 poems, including all of the 27-stanza "Quando miro la terra ornata e bella." With the book is a CD that includes readings in Italian of four of Gambara's poems. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Jaffe, Irma B. Shining eyes, cruel fortune: the lives and
loves of Italian Renaissance women poets / Irma B. Jaffe with
Gernando Colombardo. New York: Fordham University Press, 2002.
(xxx, 429 p., 8 p. of plates: ill. (some col.), maps; 26 cm.
+ 1 CD (4 3/4 in.)
LC#: PQ4063 .J34 2002; ISBN: 0823221806, 0823221814
Accompanying CD contains poems in Italian. Includes bibliographical
references (p. [411]-415) and indexes
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[This anthology includes 9 poems by Gambara, translated by Laura Anne Stortoni and Mary Prentice Lillie, with the Italian original on the facing page: 7 sonnets (3 are also in Poss); 1 madrigal (also in Poss); & 1 stanza in ottava rima. The introduction by Stortoni speaks as if one of Gambara's letters were included, but it is not. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Women Poets of the Italian Renaissance: Courtly Ladies &
Courtesans / Edited by Laura Anna Stortoni. Translated by Laura
Anna Stortoni & Mary Prentice Lillie. NY:Italica Press, 1997.
LC#: PQ4225 .E8 S838 1997; ISBN: 0934977437
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"...sweet effects---bitter and wild---"
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[First, a frequently anthologized madrigal, "Occhi lucenti e belli," a love poem probably addressed to Gambara's husband. (Click on the highlighted Italian of the opening line to see the original online.):]
Brilliant and lovely eyes
How can it be that in one single instant
You give birth to so many varied moods?
Happy and sad, exalted, humble, proud---
You shine forth in a flash, in which, with hope
And fear you fill me full,
And many other sweet effects---bitter and wild---
All come together in a heart on fire
With you, when you desire.
Now that you are both life and death to me,
O joyful eyes, O blessed eyes and dear,
Be evermore serene, happy and clear. [Stortoni
& Lillie, p.33]
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"...where stand in battle formation the thoughts and the
desires."
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["Ne la secreta e più profounda parte," perhaps a later poem, on the conflict between reason and desire:]
In the heart's secret and most profound place
where stand in battle formation the thoughts
and the desires, where war is waged so fiercely
that reason swiftly takes her leave,
The interior man reasons, and uses every art
to bring her back, and make her know the damage,
but out in the exterior go the senses;
without spirit they take part unaware.
I am made of flesh, am therefore weak and infirm.
They cannot grasp the beautiful high concepts
which spirit sends to those in whom the spirit lives.
Therefore guide, O Lord, my affections,
which without your help are evil, to the sacred shores,
before my soul grows further into error. [Poss,
pp.62-63]
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"...united so much anxious discord in so much peace."
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["Quella felice stella e in ciel fatale," comparing Charles V to the first Roman emperor. In 1525, he had defeated Francis I; Here Gambara praises his easy peace terms (which, nevertheless, Francis violated almost immediately):]
That happy star is in the fateful heaven
which was companion to the high birth
of great Augustus Caesar, who held the empire
of the world, and was noble, and immortal.
That, but more benign, to the wonderful birth
of the great Charles was guide, so that I hope more
to see him, to say better the truth:
A god is made among us from mortal man.
So that, if in conquering the Indians, the Medes, the Scythians,
the Cantabrians, the Britons, and the ferocious Gauls,
the first one merited having such high honors,
Then this one who has already conquered two worlds
and united so much anxious discord in so much peace
now merits even more praise and greater honor.
[Poss, p.60]
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"Liberate me; make yourselves free and peaceful."
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["La bella flora, che da voi sol spera"; Gambara speaks in the voice of the city of Florence, besieged by the army of Pope Clement VIII in 1529-30:]
Beautiful Flora, who has put her trust
In you, brave heroes, for her peace and freedom,
Is now undone between her hopes and fears,
And often speaks to you, mildly or fiercely:
"O first and wisest of my throng of children,
Why will you never follow in the footsteps
Of those who with audacious hand and steel
Have made an open roadway to my aid?
Why are you slow in coming to my aid?
I did not bear you to be free and happy
For you to leave me as a grieving slave.
Now show me how much valor you can muster,
And with your wisdom and your powerful hands
Liberate me; make yourselves free and peaceful." [Stortoni
& Lillie, p.31]
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"See how she wanders from this side to that...."
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["Mira, Signor, la stanca navicella," written in 1534, as the Catholic Church waited for the election of a new (and hopefully more peaceful) pope:]
Look, Lord, upon this weary little bark
Of Peter which goes wandering on the sea,
Driven by violent winds; she seems to mourn
Because of this tempestuous, evil storm!
See how she wanders from this side to that,
Bewildered, and with pitiful laments
She begs for succor. And will you allow
This evil star forever to pursue her?
A ship without a pilot, with no guide,
A flock without a shepherd, cannot last,
One is pursued by waves, the other, wolves.
O Lord, provide for her, send down Your favor
On him who knows, against the worst ill fortune,
To lead this bark into a happy harbor.
[Stortoni & Lillie, p.39]
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"...now that both kings have turned all their regard and
zeal to you."
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["Tu che di Pietro il glorioso manto," addressed in later 1534 to the newly elected Pope Paul III, who was trying to effect a peace between Francis and Charles. The "savage wolf" and "enemies of Christ" were the Turks; Vienna had withstood a 1529 Turkish siege, but no one knew if that would end the Turkish incursions:]
O happy wearer of the glorious mantle
Of holy Peter, you who hold the keys
To heaven's kingdom, with great worthiness,
Servant of God, wise and most holy pastor:
Look on the flock under your care, see how
The savage wolf preys on it; and make sure
That by your sacred aid one side is heartened,
While pain and just lament fall on the other.
Drive with decisive force from this rich nest
The enemies of Christ, now that both kings
Have turned all their regard and zeal to you.
If you do this, the cry will ring out clear
Of your most gracious works and noble deeds,
Worthy of him whose great name you have taken.
[Stortoni & Lillie, p.31]
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"Be stronger in piety than in hatred, O royal pair."
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["Vinca gli sdegni e l'odio vostro antico," addressed in 1538 to Charles V and Francis I. Pope Paul III was still trying to get them to a permanent peace; Gambara once again recommends warring against the Turks instead of each other:]
Conquer your wrath and your ancient hatred,
Charles and Francis, in the holy and blessed name
of Christ, and in His faith, who more than any other
has been your friend: Be at peace.
Let your weapons be ready to tame
His irreverent enemy, not just for Italy
but for all of Europe, and for all lands washed by the sea,
where the sun touches upon hills and valleys.
The great Shepherd to whom the keys of Heaven
were given, turns to you and prays that you
be taken with pity for his flock.
Be stronger in piety than in hatred, O royal pair,
and let a single desire ignite you both:
to vanquish those who hate Christ, and deny Him. [Poss,
pp.59-60]
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"How many... have lost their names together with their lives!
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[In 1532-33, Gambara had addressed her longest poem, "Quando miro la terra ornata e bella," to the 13-year-old Cosimo de' Medici of Florence. After describing the dangers of the world and the golden age of the past, Gambara tells the descendant of "the noble Laurel" (Lorenzo de' Medici) that only virtue could give him the praise of writers and with it earthly immortality:]
How many beloved and revered Princes
have lost their names together with their lives!
How many, born poor, live on, gloriously shining
because for their noble and precious gifts
they are happily crowned with the sacred laurel,
and now, like bright stars, blessed, they sparkle above us,
while here in the world they will be forever honored.
I could go on giving examples
of the endless pages that heaven has inspired
throughout history, generously crowning
now this, now that one;
but how many of them have been forgotten
and how many now are neglected?
I speak of one who shines among other lights
as the sun shines among other brilliant stars.
I speak of you, favored branch of that stately tree,
the noble Laurel,
in which one sees at a glance
the virtue that spreads its luster from sea to sea;
and under its glorious and sacred shadow
one learns to love not gems or gold
but greatness crowned with virtue,
which leaves the whole world speechless. [Jaffe
& Columbardo, pp. 21-22]
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Letters
[In her 1906 biography of Vittoria Colonna, Maud F. Jerrold
includes a chapter on Gambara, in which she translates eight
letters (whole or in part) and gives both the translation and
original of five poems. (The book is also available online.):]
Jerrold, Maud F. Vittoria Colonna, with some account of her
friends and her times (Select bibliographies reprint series).
Freeport, N.Y., Books for Libraries Press [1969] (336 p. geneal.
tables, ports.)
LC#: DG540.8.C8 J5; ISBN: 836951530
Reprint of the 1906 ed. Bibliography: p. 322-326
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"...letting the world go as it pleases."
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[In a letter to a Bolognese friend, Lodovico Rossi, undated but apparently written in the 1520's, Gambara shows both the ideal behind her praises of rural life and the reality of her day-to-day obligations:]
I will not say how many days or months it is since I wrote to you, my Signor Lodovico, and certainly it is not from failure of memory or from want of love, but on account of the numberless cares that have occupied me and still occupy me.
I am engrossed with everything that is contrary to my natural inclination, so I have come to the conclusion that there is not a happier or quieter way of life than that of a little country-girl, who, taking care of her sheep, remains under the shade of a chestnut-tree, letting the world go as it pleases, content with her solitary life, eating poor food which yet is sweeter and more agreeable to her than ambrosia or Jove's nectar would be. O most happy lot! How often have I desired to be one of these!
However, here we are, and here we must remain.... [pp.162-63]
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"I have the affairs of my friends and patrons at heart."
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[And then to business: asking favor and promising future favor:]
The time of the election to the ruota is drawing near. I very much want a place in it for Messer Giberto Gatti, and so I should like you to leave no stone unturned for him to obtain it. You know how much I have the affairs of my friends and patrons at heart, so, without ceremony, do all that is in your power, and more if it be possible, so that he and I may be gratified. Then let me know what your hopes are. [p.163]
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"...the desire that I have had for many years."
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[In 1528 Gambara's brother was appointed governor of Bologna, during a brief period of peace. With her sons ready to move out into the world, this was an opportunity for Gambara (despite her expressed desire to be a little country-girl) to spend some time in a milieu more cosmopolitan than that of Correggio. She did stay at Bologna for almost a year, and participated in the (much-delayed) coronation of Charles V as Emperor. From a letter to Rossi:]
I understand... all the gladness that your mind feels at the coming of Monsignore my brother to the government of Bologna. I see that your joy is very great, and almost like to mine; only, with mine there is mixed a little discontent. Nor does that surprise me at all, knowing that fortune is wont never to give me anything that completely satisfies me. And the discontent is this, that the said Signor, my brother, warns me that he shall only remain in this post as long as will suffice to allay the suspicions of the Germans, which are very great....
The fear, then, that the time will be short, does not let me enjoy my satisfaction in giving effect to the desire that I have had for many years of staying some months in that delightful city with an occasion of this kind.... Yet I will not entirely despair considering the instability of fortune. You, my Messer Lodovico, will offer devout prayers to God that He will inspire the mind of the Pope to keep him at least a year....
Signor Girolamo, my [16-year-old] son, is coming, as happy as it is possible to say, and will reside with Monsignore.... My [18-year-old] Ippolito will go in a week to Milan, with a good and honorable salary. I wanted to give you this news, knowing that you would care to hear it. [pp.158-59]
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"I fear he will have a very short life, because...."
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[From a 1534 letter to another Bolognese friend, Agostino Ercolani, on the death of Pope Clement VII; in the unsettled condition of Italy, any change was watched closely by every faction:]
I saw by your letter that, after so many trials and labours, Pope Clement has had to die, destroying so many plans and hopes. Now we must have patience. As for me, I will laugh at this ill-fortune and enjoy life. God preserve all our friends, and then let the world go as it pleases. As soon as a pope has been made, and the affairs of Bologna have been settled, I shall expect you at once; it seems five years until I see you. [p.164]
[And a few weeks later, on the election of Pope Paul III:]
Now that we know for certain of the creation of Pope Paul, I think that arms will be laid down at Bologna, and that everything will be quiet.... This pontiff pleases me from every point of view, and particularly because he is, as you write me word, a friend of the Cardinal [Pietro Bembo]. I wish him all good; but I fear he will have a very short life, because I would like him to have a very long one. [p.164]
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"I, being rather proud about such things...."
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[Finally, a personal note. From another letter to Rossi, written in 1549, in the year before her death. Ruling Correggio had not made Gambara wealthy; in order to equip her elder son's wife to attend a wedding, she had to borrow:]
My Messer Lodovico, I am obliged to go to Mantua, summoned by the Signora Duchessa, and to take my daughter-in-law there.... You know well that I should not take this trouble for myself, as I belong to the world no longer. But I was born to please others and to help in every situation.
My daughter-in-law is very well provided with jewels and gold ornaments, but, because at this wedding there will be great doings and the ornaments will be wonderful, I, being rather proud about such things, should like the jewelry of this girl to surpass that of all the others.
Wherefore I beg you with your usual fidelity and trustworthiness to ask Count Girolamo Pepoli and the Signora his wife if they would do me the favour of lending me a pearl necklace, which I hear is very beautiful, promising them that it shall be kept with such care as is due to beautiful things, and that I will return it in a fortnight. And if, besides, they have a garland of pearls or of jewels, or even another necklace, it would be most acceptable to me, in order to be able to change frequently.
...I shall remain greatly obliged to these lords and others if they will comply with my request, as I hope. Let me know, then, when I may send to fetch the ornaments; and, if they require a receipt or anything else, whatever is wanted shall be done. [pp. 164-65]
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[Janet Levarie Smarr's article on the ways that women poets of the 1500s adapted to their own use Petrarch's themes includes a analysis of three of Gambara's poems that are addressed to her original home and to Corregggio; Smarr shows Gambara redirecting the earlier poet's love for the human Laura to those places and using Petrarch's own phrases to do it. Smarr gives her own translation of quoted passages. (See the issue's table of contents online.):]
Smarr, Janet Levarie. Substituting for Laura: Objects of desire
for Renaissance women poets. Comparative Literature Studies,
38: 1 (2001), 1-30.
LC#: PN851 .C63; ISSN: 0010-4132
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[William J. Kennedy's study includes a section on Gambara (pp.134-46) which gives a close reading of three sonnets in order to demonstrate that although Gambara used Petrarchan devices, she was able to go beyond imitation to create her own style for her own purpose. The sonnets discussed are given in both the original and in Kennedy's translation:]
Kennedy, William J. Authorizing Petrarch. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1994. (xiii, 301 p.)
LC#: PQ4535 .K46 1994; ISBN: 0801429749
Includes bibliographical references (p. 289-294) and index
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[Giovanni Rabitti's essay in this history compares Gambara's poetry to that of Vittoria Colonna. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
A history of women's writing in Italy
/ edited by Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood. Cambridge [England]
; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2000. (xvi, 361 p.)
LC#: PQ4055.W6 H57 2000; ISBN: 0521570883, 0521578132
Includes bibliographical references (p. 282-350) and index
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[Rinaldina Russell's 9-page entry on Gambara in this reference work discusses the themes of the poetry and summarizes the letters, most of which are still untranslated. (See the book's table of contents online.) :]
Italian women writers: a bio-bibliographical sourcebook /
edited by Rinaldina Russell. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,
1994. (xxxi, 476 p.)
LC#: PQ4063 .I88 1994: ISBN: 0313283478
Includes bibliographical references (p. [447]-452) and index
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[Katherine A. McIver's article focuses on Gambara and the other female members of her husband's family as patrons of the arts, but it also gives useful background information on life in Correggio and on the history of the period. (See the issue's table of contents online.):]
McIver, Katherine A. The "Ladies of Correggio":
Veronica Gambara and her matriarchal heritage. Explorations
in Renaissance Culture, 26:1 (Summer 2000), 25-44.
LC#: CB361 .E96; ISSN: 0098-2474
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Updated 12-04-08