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Gaspara Stampa

I lived from 1523-1554. I was from Italy, and am in the European category.

Gaspara Stampa was born in Padua. By 1531, her father, a successful artisan, had died and her mother had moved the family to Venice. By the early 1540s, Gaspara's brother was a university student and earning praise as a poet. The family home became a salon for the Venetian literati, at which Gaspara and her sister presented musical performances. In 1544 Gaspara's brother died, but his fellow-poets continued to visit, and by the late 1540s Gaspara was part of one or more of the Venetian groups that met in various homes to discuss and practice the arts. At one of these she met Count Collaltino de Collato; her affair with him produced the poems for which she is best known.

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My poetry

  • Rime 104
    O night to me more splendid and more blessed
    Than the most blessed and most splendid of days,
    14 lines
  • Rime 08
    If I, who am an abject, low-born woman,
    Can bear within me such lofty fire,
    14 lines, 1 comment
  • Rime 208
    Love made me such that I live in fire
    like a new salamander on earth
    4 lines
  • Rime 28
    When before those eyes, my life and light,
    my beauty and fortune in the world, I stand,
    13 lines
  • Rime 43
    Harsh is my fortune, but harsher still is the fate
    dealt me by my count: he flees from me,
    15 lines
  • By Now So Sick Of Waiting
    By now so sick of waiting, I'm by now
    so beaten by the pain (by now the burn
    17 lines
  • "Every planet above, and every star"
    Every planet above, and every star,
    Gave my lord their powers at his birth:
    14 lines
  • "I swear to you, Love, by your arrows"
    I swear to you, Love, by your arrows,
    And by your powerful holy flame,
    14 lines
  • "O all my labours scattered uselessly"
    O all my labours scattered uselessly
    O, all my useless scattered sighs,
    14 lines

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