Vittoria Accoramboni (15 February 1557 - 22 December 1585) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
lady famous for her great beauty and accomplishments and for her untimely end, a story that was later the basis for a play and a novel.
She was born in
GubbioGubbio is a town and comune in the far northeastern part of the Italian province of Perugia It is located on the lowest slope of Mt...
, the tenth child in a family belonging to the minor nobility of Gubbio, which migrated to
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
with a view to bettering their fortunes. After refusing several offers of marriage for Vittoria, her father betrothed her to Francesco Peretti, a man of no position, but a nephew of Cardinal Montalto, who was regarded as likely to become pope.
Vittoria was admired and worshipped by all the cleverest and most brilliant men in Rome, and being luxurious and extravagant although poor, she and her husband were soon plunged in debt.
Vittoria Accoramboni (15 February 1557 - 22 December 1585) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
lady famous for her great beauty and accomplishments and for her untimely end, a story that was later the basis for a play and a novel.
Biography
She was born in
GubbioGubbio is a town and comune in the far northeastern part of the Italian province of Perugia It is located on the lowest slope of Mt...
, the tenth child in a family belonging to the minor nobility of Gubbio, which migrated to
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
with a view to bettering their fortunes. After refusing several offers of marriage for Vittoria, her father betrothed her to Francesco Peretti, a man of no position, but a nephew of Cardinal Montalto, who was regarded as likely to become pope.
Vittoria was admired and worshipped by all the cleverest and most brilliant men in Rome, and being luxurious and extravagant although poor, she and her husband were soon plunged in debt. Among her most fervent admirers was
Paolo Giordano I OrsiniPaolo Giordano I Orsini was the first duke of Bracciano from 1560. He was a member of the Rome family of the Orsini.-Biography:...
, duke of Bracciano, one of the most powerful men in Rome. Her brother Marcello, wishing to see her the duke's wife, had Peretti murdered (1581). The duke himself was suspected of complicity, inasmuch as he was believed to have murdered his first wife,
Isabella de' MediciIsabella Romola de' Medici was the daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici, first Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Eleonora di Toledo.-Biography:...
. Now that Vittoria was free he made her an offer of marriage, which she willingly accepted, and they were married shortly after.
But her good fortune aroused much jealousy, and attempts were made to annul the marriage; she was even imprisoned, and only liberated through the intervention of Cardinal Carlo Borromeo. On the death of
Pope Gregory XIIIPope Gregory XIII , born Ugo Boncompagni, was Pope from 1572 to 1585.-Youth:He was born in the city of Bologna, where he studied law and graduated
in 1530...
, Cardinal Montalto, her first husband's uncle, was elected in his place as
Sixtus VPope Sixtus V , born Felice Peretti di Montalto, was Pope from 1585 to 1590.-Biography:Felice Peretti was born at Grottammare, in the Papal States, son of Piergentile di Giacomo, nicknamed "Peretto", and Marianna da Frontillo. He took the surname "Peretti" in 1551 and was more generally known as...
(1585); he vowed vengeance on the duke of Bracciano and Vittoria, who, warned in time, fled first to
VeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy, the capital of the region Veneto, a population of 271,367 . Together with Padua, the city is included in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area . The city historically was an independent nation...
and thence to
SalòSalò is a town and commune in the Province of Brescia in the region of Lombardy on the banks of Lake Garda.-History:Salò was founded in the Roman period as Pagus Salodium and in the Middle Ages became a stronghold of the Milanese Visconti family. From 1440 the town came under the control of the...
in Venetian territory. Here the duke died in November 1585, bequeathing to his widow all his personal property. The duchy of Bracciano passed to his son by his first wife.
Vittoria, overwhelmed with grief, went to live in retirement at
PaduaPadua is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice , in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area, having a population of c...
, where she was followed by Lodovico Orsini, a relation of her late husband and a servant of the Venetian republic, to arrange amicably for the division of the property. But a quarrel having arisen in this connection, Lodovico hired a band of bravos and had Vittoria assassinated at the end of 1585. He himself and nearly all his accomplices were afterwards put to death by order of the republic.
Popular culture
Her story formed the basis of
John WebsterJohn Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.- Biography :Webster's life is obscure, and the dates of his...
's drama,
The White DevilThe White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona is a revenge tragedy from 1612 by English playwright John Webster . A notorious failure when it premiered onstage, Webster complained the play was acted in the dead of winter before an unreceptive audience...
, or
The Tragedy of Paolo Giordano Ursini, Duke of Brachiano (1612), of
StendhalMarie-Henri Beyle , better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme...
's novella
Vittoria Accoramboni (1837-1839), of
Ludwig TieckJohann Ludwig Tieck was a German poet, translator, editor, novelist, writer of 'Novellen', and critic, who was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.-Early life:...
's novel,
Vittoria Accoramboni (1840) and of Robert Merle's novel
l'Idole (1987) published in English translation as
Vittoria.