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Michelangelo - Sonnet XIV - To Gandolfo Porrino on his mistress Faustina Mancina
Identifier
024463
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Michelangelo – Sonnets [translated by Elizabeth Jennings]
Sonnet XIV
Whenever perfect works of art are planned,
The craftsman always makes a model to
Be the first simple part from which shall grow
The finished object underneath his hand.
Later, in living stone, more perfect still,
A lovelier thing is shaped; beneath the blows
Of the fierce hammer, he can feel the thrill
Of art emerging from its own birth throes.
So was I born as my own model first,
The model of myself; later would I
Be made more perfect, born of one so high.
If all my roughness, then, should be so blest
By your compassion, then what penance ought
My feverish ardour by your rules be taught?