Author

Michelangelo Buonarroti(1475–1564)

Michelangelo Buonarroti is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, published essays, reading notebooks, and manuscripts (1840–1850). 4 distinct works are named, most often in Letter to James Nathan, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “excerpted”.

Engagement: ExcerptedAnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned
Present in: Letters · Books · Essays · Notebooks · Manuscripts
Documented: 1840–1850

Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this author is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

Confirmed reading

Passages where the evidence goes beyond allusion to indicate that Fuller had Michelangelo Buonarroti’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.

undatedSonnetsAttested
“To-day, on reading over some of the sonnets of Michel Angelo, I felt them more than usual.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth
MERGED 2026-10-11: absorbed duplicate witness(es) re504 (Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (sections), Mem-2-05, line 10342; tier A; same passage) — counted once here. "To-day, on reading over some of the sonnets of Michel Angelo" is an explicit reading statement.

In Fuller’s words

“Poeta, / Dimmi di grazia Amor se gli / occhi miei / veggono 'l ver della beltà / ch'io miro [...] Poscia ch'appresso ha / l'arte intera e diva [...] Molto diletta al gusto intero e sano [...] Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto / Ch'un marmo solo in sé non circonscriva [...] Non vider gli occhi miei cosa mortale [...] Giunto è già il corso della vita mia, / Con tempestoso mar per fragil barca”

Rime · Notebook: Artists

When Fuller engaged with Michelangelo Buonarroti

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist2records

V. New York1record

VI. Europe3records

✦. Memoirs (1852)1record

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.

Buonarroti in Fuller’s reading world

Documentary evidence

Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.

1840—

Letter to Caroline Sturgis

p120

excerpted · read

“I am not sure whether I can see you on Wednesday, but if I do will read you two letters one from Charles Newcomb and one from Michel Angelo!!”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

Fuller proposes to read aloud to Caroline a letter "from Michel Angelo" alongside one from Charles Newcomb, suggesting she had obtained a copy or transcription of a historical letter by Michelangelo from a published collection.

1843—

On Beethoven

mentionedManuscript page

“The infinite Shakspeare, the stern Angelo, Dante bitter sweet like thee, are no longer clear in thy presence”

Fuller, Margaret. "On Beethoven." Houghton Library, Harvard University.

1845—

Letter to James Nathan

p158

analyzed · read

“Michel Angelo alone was true to his ideas of love, even when he could not hope the possession of its object.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. IV. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.

1845—

Letter to James Nathan

p159

analyzed · read

“Michelangelo alone was true to his idea of love, even when he could not hope the possession of its object.”

Fuller, Margaret. Love-Letters of Margaret Fuller, 1845-1846. With an introduction by Julia Ward Howe. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1903.

Inferred Michelangelo’s sonic and madrigals were first published in 1623 in a heavily edited posthumous edition by his great-nephew Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger. Fuller would have known the sonnets through various nineteenth-century editions or translations.

1846—

Consecration of Grace Church.

“Consecration of Grace Church.”

mentioned

“think that Michael Angelo himself could have advised no more suitable monument to Washington than a house devoted to the instruction of the people”

Fuller, Margaret. "Consecration of Grace Church." New-York Daily Tribune, 11 March 1846. · 11 March 1846

1846—

Allston's Pictures

“Allston's Pictures”

mentioned

“The Prophets and Sibyls are for the Michael Angelos. The Beautiful is Mr. Allston's dominion.”

Fuller, Margaret. Papers on Literature and Art. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846. · p292

Also printed in Art, Literature, and the Drama (1869), p292; page given is to the 1869 reprint.

1850—

Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XXXV.

“Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XXXV.”

mentioned

“Yet it is sad to think that the cloud which darkened even the soul of Michel Angelo is not lifted yet.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XXXV." New-York Daily Tribune, 9 January 1850. · 9 January 1850

Undated

Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.

n.d.—

Letter to Unknown

p142

analyzed · read

“To-day, on reading over some of the sonnets of Michel Angelo, I felt them more than usual.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. VI. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.

n.d.—

Notebook: Artists

p97–p108

excerpted · analyzed · quoted · read2 selected passagesManuscript page

“Poeta, / Dimmi di grazia Amor se gli / occhi miei / veggono 'l ver della beltà / ch'io miro [...] Poscia ch'appresso ha / l'arte intera e diva [...] Molto diletta al gusto intero e sano [...] Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto / Ch'un marmo solo in sé non circonscriva [...] Non vider gli occhi miei cosa mortale [...] Giunto è già il corso della vita mia, / Con tempestoso mar per fragil barca”

Fuller transcribes five sonnets or poems by Michelangelo across pp. 98–108: (1) p. 98–99: 'Dimmi di grazia Amor…' (a madrigal on the beauty seen in the beloved's eyes); (2) p. 100: 'Poscia ch'appresso ha / l'arte intera e diva…' (sonnet on the artist and his muse, with editorial note identifying it as 'Michelangelo Buonarroti's sonnet to Vittoria Colonna'); (3) p. 102: 'Molto diletta al gusto intero e sano…' (sonnet on the work of art and its survival in memory); (4) p. 104: 'Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto…' (famous sonnet on the sculptor and the ideal form hidden in marble, addressed to a noble lady — likely Vittoria Colonna); (5) p. 106: 'Non vider gli occhi miei cosa mortale…' (spiritual sonnet on celestial love); and (6) p. 108: 'Giunto è già il corso della vita mia…' (Michelangelo's late penitential sonnet, identified in context as his last written, said to Vasari). Also transcribed is a letter by Michelangelo to Benedetto Varchi (pp. 93–96) and references to his dissertation on love before the Accademia della Crusca (p. 97).

“Original letter of M. Angelo / a M.”

Inferred Fuller transcribes the letter and notes it is an original letter; the prose letter to Varchi on painting vs. sculpture is distinct from the poems.

Fuller, Margaret. "Notebook: Artists." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (94); Box 6.

n.d.—

Woman-Her Sphere and Education.

“Woman-Her Sphere and Education.”

mentioned

“No one thinks of Michael Angelo’s Persiean Sibyl, or St.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Woman-Her Sphere and Education." New-York Daily Tribune, .

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

Passages surviving only in the posthumous Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, compiled by Emerson, Channing, and Clarke.

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p12

analyzed · read2 selected passages

“To-day, on reading over some of the sonnets of Michel Angelo, I felt them more than usual.”

Inferred Margaret Fuller reflects on her recent engagement with the sonnets of Michelangelo Buonarroti, noting that she "felt them more than usual." She attributes this heightened emotional response to experiencing the beauty of the poems independently rather than through external guidance.

“How high is Michel Angelo's love, for instance, compared with Petrarch's! Petrarch longs, languishes; and it is only after the death of Laura that his muse puts on celestial plumage.”

Inferred Fuller reflects on the soaring quality of Michelangelo's love, contrasting it with Petrarch's more earthly affections and noting how Michelangelo's muse "always soars; his love is a stairway to the heavens." This passage engages with Michelangelo as a poet, particularly his Neoplatonic explorations of love in his sonnets, echoed in one sonnet's image of earth's loveliness providing the soul's stair to heaven.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.