My Last Duchess

The poem is preceded by the epigraph "Ferrara:", indicating that the speaker is Alfonso II d'Este, the fifth Duke of Ferrara (1533–1598), who, in 1558 (at the age of 24), had married Lucrezia di Cosimo de' Medici, the 13-year-old daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Eleonora di Toledo.

[4] The count was in charge of arranging the marriage; the chief of his entourage, Nikolaus Madruz, a native of Innsbruck, was his courier.

[5] The speaker (presumably the Duke Alfonso of Ferrara) is giving the emissary of the family of his prospective new wife a tour of the artworks in his home.

As they look at the portrait of the late Duchess, the Duke describes her happy, cheerful, appreciative and kind nature, which had displeased him.

It is written in iambic pentameter, employing rhyming couplets and the enjambment technique of not always concluding the sentences at the ends of lines.