Michelangelo's Poetry

Michelangelo was eminent as a poet, and his sonnets would place him in the foremost rank of the lyrical poets of his age. No painter has infused poetry into his productions in so definite a way and of so high an order. Yet the magnificence of his achievements as a visual artist often overshadow his devotion to poetry. Michelangelo used poetry to express what was too personal to display in sculpture or painting.

There have been a number of English translations of Michelangelo's poetry. John Addington Symonds translated the sonnets in the nineteenth century, and Elizabeth Jennings, a distinguished English poet, translated them in 1970. A complete translation of the poetry by Joseph Tusiani appeared in 1960. English translations of Michelangelo's sonnets can be found as part of the Gutenberg Project.

You can read selected poems by Michelangelo at

• the PoetryArchive,
• An Anthology of Italian Poems with original Italian text,
• Internet Archive