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Michelangelo - Sonnet X - To Gandolfo Porrino on his mistress Faustina Mancina
Identifier
024462
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Michelangelo – Sonnets [translated by Elizabeth Jennings]
Sonnet X
TO GANDOLFO PORRINO
ON HIS MISTRESS FAUSTINA MANCINA
Unique in heaven as on this wicked earth
(Though cheaply by the vulgar crowd is she
Named - that crowd, too blind to see her worth),
This new high beauty was designed to be
For you alone. Neither with tools nor pen
Would I know how to fashion her or trace
The radiant beauty of her living face.
For that, you must return to life again.
And if she overwhelms imagination
As the great sun outshines the other stars,
Still you may rate her at her real price.
To calm your pining and your desolation
God moulds her beauty which can far surpass
All I can make. My art will not suffice.