The Complete Poems of Michelangelo

This important new edition reintroduces Joseph Tusiani's classic translation of Michelangelo's poetry.

Though known primarily as a sculptor and painter, Michelangelo was also a poet. In his lifetime, Michelangelo wrote over 300 poems, many of which were works of devotion and love poems of a spiritual and mystical nature.

In 1961, Joseph Tusiani offered the first English translations of the complete corpus of Michelangelo's poems. These translations illuminated the subtleties of both the source and target language, giving Michelangelo's verse a freshness, a depth, and an inventiveness that time has not been able to obscure.

The Complete Poems of Michelangelo reproduces Tusiani's masterful translation. In addition to Tusiani's introduction and translations, this new edition contains Michelangelo's original Italian poetry, a chronology of his life and works, a biographical profile of Tusiani, and an interview with Tusiani exploring his musings on classic literature and the subtle art of translation. The Complete Poems of Michelangelo sheds light on Tusiani's many exceptional accomplishments during his long and prolific life as a scholar, poet, translator, and artist.

" The Complete Poems of Michelangelo takes the reader on a unique journey to the tormented soul of 'the greatest poet of the Cinquecento.' In this elegant new edition, Joseph Tusiani's classic version lines up in the great tradition of Wordsworth, Emerson, Longfellow, Symonds, Santayana, and Newell, against which the translator claims his special right to give Michelangelo an authentic English voice."

--Igor Candido, Head of Italian, Trinity College Dublin
"What a wonderful service Gianluca Rizzo has rendered by re-issuing Joseph Tusiani's classic translations! Michelangelo's brilliant sonnets, odes, and madrigals are now available to a much wider readership. It is a joy to read and reread the remarkable literary oeuvre of the sculptor of David and the painter of the Sistine Chapel!"--Marjorie Perloff, Author of Infrathin: An Experiment in Micropoetic

"Tusiani's masterful, invaluable translations of the complete poems of Michelangelo, which have finally been updated and reprinted in this prestigious new edition, constitute the most compelling Anglophone version of these important compositions to date."

--Philip Balma, Associate Professor of Italian Literary and Cultural Studies, University of Connecticut

Michelangelo Buonarroti was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance.

Gianluca Rizzo is the Paul D. and Marilyn Paganucci assistant professor of Italian at Colby College.

Joseph Tusiani was a professor emeritus at the Herbert H. Lehman College of the City University of New York.

This important new edition reintroduces Joseph Tusiani's classic translation of Michelangelo's poetry. Though known primarily as a sculptor and painter, Michelangelo was also a poet. In his lifetime, Michelangelo wrote over 300 poems, many of which were works of devotion and love poems of a spiritual and mystical nature. In 1961, Joseph Tusiani offered the first English translations of the complete corpus of Michelangelo's poems. These translations illuminated the subtleties of both the source and target language, giving Michelangelo's verse a freshness, a depth, and an inventiveness that time has not been able to obscure. The Complete Poems of Michelangelo reproduces Tusiani's masterful translation. In addition to Tusiani's introduction and translations, this new edition contains Michelangelo's original Italian poetry, a chronology of his life and works, a biographical profile of Tusiani, and an interview with Tusiani exploring his musings on classic literature and the subtle art of translation. The Complete Poems of Michelangelo sheds light on Tusiani's many exceptional accomplishments during his long and prolific life as a scholar, poet, translator, and artist.

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