I Am Still Learning

The Italian phrase ancora imparo ("I am still learning") is traditionally associated with Michelangelo in old age, but scholars have identified serious problems with this attribution. Research traces the motto to a drawing by the Renaissance artist Domenico Giuntalodi, which was misidentified as Michelangelo's work in Richard Duppa's The Lives and Works of Michael Angelo and Raphael (1806). The phrase then entered popular culture under Michelangelo's name through Isaac Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature (1823) and Ralph Waldo Emerson's writings. The sentiment is consistent with Michelangelo's documented humility, but the attribution is historically dubious.