GAMBARA, VERONICA. - Poet, born at Pratalboino in the Bresciano on 30 Nov. 1485, died on 13 June 1550 in a suburban villa which she had enriched with paintings by Antonio Allegri. At the age of twenty-three she married Gilberto X di Correggio, who died very young; she successfully repelled the army of Galeotto Pico. For her two sons, Geronimo and Ippolito, she obtained considerable privileges from Carlo V. She was a friend of V. Colonna, P. Bembo, B. Varchi, I. Sannazzaro, P. Arctino.
She composed Rime (Brescia 1759; Firenze 1870) of a Petrarchan character, among which some significance attaches to those of a religious nature dedicated to the Virgin, to the Nativity of Christ, to the mystery of predestination, and to the necessary concord among Christian peoples in the struggle against the Turks. Her Lettere (Firenze 1879) are of considerable importance; in them her intelligence reveals itself as capable in the arts of government, highly sensitive to family affections and to the wholly literary taste of poetry.