The sestina is composed of six 6-line stanzas and a final 3-line stanza.

Naught else have I afforded you, madame, save very anciently a Sestina.

From Italy have come, besides the ottava rima and the sonnet, two other metrical forms, the sestina and the terza rima.

The common form of the sestina has six stanzas of six lines each, with a tercet at the end.

That it was used and admired by Dante and Petrarch, alone gives the sestina a royal precedence over all of the other forms.

The sestina, a very elaborate canzonet, was invented in Provence and borrowed by the Italians.