CHAPTER XII

I

After the death of Clement VII. Michelangelo never returned to reside

at Florence. The rest of his life was spent in Rome. In the year 1534

he had reached the advanced age of fifty-nine, and it is possible that

he first became acquainted with the noble lady Vittoria Colonna about

1538. Recent students of his poetry and friendships have suggested

that their famous intimacy began earlier, during one of his not

infrequent visits to Rome. But we have no proof of this. On the

contrary, the only letters extant which he sent to her, two in number,

belong to the year 1545. It is certain that anything like friendship

between them grew up at some considerable time after his final

settlement in Rome.

Vittoria was the daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, Grand Constable of

Naples, by his marriage with Agnesina di Montefeltro, daughter of

Federigo, Duke of Urbino. Blood more illustrious than hers could not

be found in Italy. When she was four years old, her parents betrothed

her to Ferrante Francesco d'Avalos, a boy of the same age, the only

son of the Marchese di Pescara. In her nineteenth year the affianced

couple were married at Ischia, the fief and residence of the house of

D'Avalos. Ferrante had succeeded to his father's title early in

boyhood, and was destined for a brilliant military career. On the

young bride's side at least it was a love-match. She was tenderly

attached to her handsome husband, ignorant of his infidelities, and

blind to his fatal faults of character. Her happiness proved of short

duration. In 1512 Pescara was wounded and made prisoner at the battle

of Ravenna, and, though he returned to his wife for a short interval,

duty called him again to the field of war in Lombardy in 1515. After

this date Vittoria saw him but seldom. The last time they met was in

October 1522. As general of the Imperial forces, Pescara spent the

next years in perpetual military operations. Under his leadership the

battle of Pavia was won in 1525, and King Francis became his master's

prisoner. So far, nothing but honour, success, and glory waited on the

youthful hero. But now the tide turned. Pescara, when he again settled

down at Milan, began to plot with Girolamo Morone, Grand Chancellor of

Francesco Sforza's duchy. Morone had conceived a plan for reinstating

his former lord in Milan by the help of an Italian coalition. He

offered Pescara the crown of Naples if he would turn against the

Emperor. The Marquis seems at first to have lent a not unwilling ear

to these proposals, but seeing reason to doubt the success of the

scheme, he finally resolved to betray Morone to Charles V., and did

this with cold-blooded ingenuity. A few months afterwards, on November

25, 1525, he died, branded as a traitor, accused of double treachery,

both to his sovereign and his friend.

If suspicions of her husband's guilt crossed Vittoria's mind, as we

have some reason to believe they did, these were not able to destroy

her loyalty and love. Though left so young a widow and childless, she

determined to consecrate her whole life to his memory and to religion.

His nephew and heir, the Marchese del Vasto, became her adopted son.

The Marchioness survived Pescara two-and-twenty years, which were

spent partly in retirement at Ischia, partly in journeys, partly in

convents at Orvieto and Viterbo, and finally in a semi-monastic

seclusion at Rome. The time spared from pious exercises she devoted to

study, the composition of poetry, correspondence with illustrious men

of letters, and the society of learned persons. Her chief friends

belonged to that group of earnest thinkers who felt the influences of

the Reformation without ceasing to be loyal children of the Church.

With Vittoria's name are inseparably connected those of Gasparo

Contarini, Reginald Pole, Giovanni Morone, Jacopo Sadoleto,

Marcantonio Flaminio, Pietro Carnesecchi, and Fra Bernardino Ochino.

The last of these avowed his Lutheran principles, and was severely

criticised by Vittoria Colonna for doing so. Carnesecchi was burned

for heresy. Vittoria never adopted Protestantism, and died an orthodox

Catholic. Yet her intimacy with men of liberal opinions exposed her to

mistrust and censure in old age. The movement of the

Counter-Reformation had begun, and any kind of speculative freedom

aroused suspicion. This saintly princess was accordingly placed under

the supervision of the Holy Office, and to be her friend was slightly

dangerous. It is obvious that Vittoria's religion was of an

evangelical type, inconsistent with the dogmas developed by the

Tridentine Council; and it is probable that, like her friend

Contarini, she advocated a widening rather than a narrowing of Western

Christendom. To bring the Church back to purer morals and sincerity of

faith was their aim. They yearned for a reformation and regeneration

from within.

In all these matters, Michelangelo, the devout student of the Bible

and the disciple of Savonarola, shared Vittoria's sentiments. His

nature, profoundly and simply religious from the outset, assumed a

tone of deeper piety and habitual devotion during the advance of

years. Vittoria Colonna's influence at this period strengthened his

Christian emotions, which remained untainted by asceticism or

superstition. They were further united by another bond, which was

their common interest in poetry. The Marchioness of Pescara was justly

celebrated during her lifetime as one of the most natural writers of

Italian verse. Her poems consist principally of sonnets consecrated to

the memory of her husband, or composed on sacred and moral subjects.

Penetrated by genuine feeling, and almost wholly free from literary

affectation, they have that dignity and sweetness which belong to the

spontaneous utterances of a noble heart. Whether she treats of love or

of religion, we find the same simplicity and sincerity of style. There

is nothing in her pious meditations that a Christian of any communion

may not read with profit, as the heartfelt outpourings of a soul

athirst for God and nourished on the study of the gospel.

Michelangelo preserved a large number of her sonnets, which he kept

together in one volume. Writing to his nephew Lionardo in 1554, he

says: "Messer Giovan Francesco (Fattucci) asked me about a month ago

if I possessed any writings of the Marchioness. I have a little book

bound in parchment, which she gave me some ten years ago. It has one

hundred and three sonnets, not counting another forty she afterwards

sent on paper from Viterbo. I had these bound into the same book, and

at that time I used to lend them about to many persons, so that they

are all of them now in print. In addition to these poems I have many

letters which she wrote from Orvieto and Viterbo. These then are the

writings I possess of the Marchioness." He composed several pieces,

madrigals and sonnets, under the genial influence of this exchange of

thoughts. It was a period at which his old love of versifying revived

with singular activity. Other friends, like Tommaso Cavalieri, Luigi

del Riccio, and afterwards Vasari, enticed his Muse to frequent

utterance. Those he wrote for the Marchioness were distributed in

manuscript among his private friends, and found their way into the

first edition of his collected poems. But it is a mistake to suppose

that she was the sole or even the chief source of his poetical

inspiration.

We shall see that it was his custom to mark his feeling for particular

friends by gifts of drawings as well as of poems. He did this notably

in the case of both Vittoria Colonna and Tommaso dei Cavalieri. For

the latter he designed subjects from Greek mythology; for the former,

episodes in the Passion of our Lord. "At the request of this lady,"

says Condivi, "he made a naked Christ, at the moment when, taken from

the cross, our Lord would have fallen like an abandoned corpse at the

feet of his most holy Mother, if two angels did not support him in

their arms. She sits below the cross with a face full of tears and

sorrow, lifting both her widespread arms to heaven, while on the stem

of the tree above is written this legend, 'Non vi si pensa quanto

sangue costa.' The cross is of the same kind as that which was carried

in procession by the White Friars at the time of the plague of 1348,

and afterwards deposited in the Church of S. Croce at Florence. He

also made, for love of her, the design of a Jesus Christ upon the

cross, not with the aspect of one dead, as is the common wont, but in

a divine attitude, with face raised to the Father, seeming to exclaim,

'Eli! Eli!' In this drawing the body does not appear to fall, like an

abandoned corpse, but as though in life to writhe and quiver with the

agony it feels."

Of these two designs we have several more or less satisfactory

mementoes. The Pietà was engraved by Giulio Bonasoni and Tudius

Bononiensis (date 1546), exactly as Condivi describes it. The

Crucifixion survives in a great number of pencil-drawings, together

with one or two pictures painted by men like Venusti, and many early

engravings of the drawings. One sketch in the Taylor Museum at Oxford

is generally supposed to represent the original designed for Vittoria.

II

What remains of the correspondence between Michelangelo and the

Marchioness opens with a letter referring to their interchange of

sonnets and drawings. It is dated Rome, 1545. Vittoria had evidently

sent him poems, and he wishes to make her a return in kind: "I

desired, lady, before I accepted the things which your ladyship has

often expressed the will to give me--I desired to produce something

for you with my own hand, in order to be as little as possible

unworthy of this kindness. I have now come to recognise that the grace

of God is not to be bought, and that to keep it waiting is a grievous

sin. Therefore I acknowledge my error, and willingly accept your

favours. When I possess them, not indeed because I shall have them in

my house, but for that I myself shall dwell in them, the place will

seem to encircle me with Paradise. For which felicity I shall remain

ever more obliged to your ladyship than I am already, if that is

possible.

"The bearer of this letter will be Urbino, who lives in my service.

Your ladyship may inform him when you would like me to come and see

the head you promised to show me."

This letter is written under the autograph copy of a sonnet which must

have been sent with it, since it expresses the same thought in its

opening quatrain. My translation of the poem runs thus:

_Seeking at least to be not all unfit

For thy sublime and-boundless courtesy,

My lowly thoughts at first were fain to try

What they could yield for grace so infinite.

But now I know my unassisted wit

Is all too weak to make me soar so high,

For pardon, lady, for this fault I cry,

And wiser still I grow, remembering it.

Yea, well I see what folly 'twere to think

That largess dropped from thee like dews from heaven

Could e'er be paid by work so frail as mine!

To nothingness my art and talent sink;

He fails who from his mortal stores hath given

A thousandfold to match one gift divine_.

Michelangelo's next letter refers to the design for the Crucified

Christ, described by Condivi. It is pleasant to find that this was

sent by the hand of Cavalieri: "Lady Marchioness,--Being myself in

Rome, I thought it hardly fitting to give the Crucified Christ to

Messer Tommaso, and to make him an intermediary between your ladyship

and me, your servant; especially because it has been my earnest wish

to perform more for you than for any one I ever knew upon the world.

But absorbing occupations, which still engage me, have prevented my

informing your ladyship of this. Moreover, knowing that you know that

love needs no taskmaster, and that he who loves doth not sleep, I

thought the less of using go-betweens. And though I seemed to have

forgotten, I was doing what I did not talk about in order to effect a

thing that was not looked for. My purpose has been spoiled: _He sins

who faith like this so soon forgets._"

A sonnet which may or may not have been written at this time, but

seems certainly intended for the Marchioness, shall here be given as a

pendant to the letter:--

_Blest spirit, who with loving tenderness

Quickenest my heart, so old and near to die,

Who 'mid thy joys on me dost bend an eye,

Though many nobler men around thee press!

As thou wert erewhile wont my sight to bless,

So to console, my mind thou now dost fly;

Hope therefore stills the pangs of memory,

Which, coupled with desire, my soul distress.

So finding in thee grace to plead for me--

Thy thoughts for me sunk in so sad a case--

He who now writes returns thee thanks for these.

Lo! it were foul and monstrous usury

To send thee ugliest paintings in the place

Of thy fair spirit's living phantasies.

Unfortunately we possess no other document in prose addressed

immediately to Vittoria. But four of her letters to him exist, and

from these I will select some specimens reflecting light upon the

nature of the famous intimacy. The Marchioness writes always in the

tone and style of a great princess, adding that peculiar note of

religious affectionateness which the French call "_onction_," and

marking her strong admiration of the illustrious artist. The letters

are not dated; but this matters little, since they only turn on

literary courtesies exchanged, drawings presented, and pious interests

in common.

"Unique Master Michelangelo, and my most singular friend,--I have

received your letter, and examined the crucifix, which truly hath

crucified in my memory every other picture I ever saw. Nowhere could

one find another figure of our Lord so well executed, so living, and

so exquisitely finished. Certes, I cannot express in words how subtly

and marvellously it is designed. Wherefore I am resolved to take the

work as coming from no other hand but yours, and accordingly I beg you

to assure me whether this is really yours or another's. Excuse the

question. If it is yours, I must possess it under any conditions. In

case it is not yours, and you want to have it carried out by your

assistant, we will talk the matter over first. I know how extremely

difficult it would be to copy it, and therefore I would rather let him

finish something else than this. But if it be in fact yours, rest

assured, and make the best of it, that it will never come again into

your keeping. I have examined it minutely in full light and by the

lens and mirror, and never saw anything more perfect.--Yours to

command,

"The Marchioness of Pescara."

Like many grand ladies of the highest rank, even though they are

poetesses, Vittoria Colonna did not always write grammatically or

coherently. I am not therefore sure that I have seized the exact

meaning of this diplomatical and flattering letter. It would appear,

however, that Michelangelo had sent her the drawing for a crucifix,

intimating that, if she liked it, he would intrust its execution to

one of his workmen, perhaps Urbino. This, as we know, was a common

practice adopted by him in old age, in order to avoid commissions

which interfered with his main life-work at S. Peter's. The noble

lady, fully aware that the sketch is an original, affects some doubt

upon the subject, declines the intervention of a common craftsman, and

declares her firm resolve to keep it, leaving an impression that she

would gladly possess the crucifix if executed by the same hand which

had supplied the masterly design.

Another letter refers to the drawing of a Christ upon the cross

between two angels.

"Your works forcibly stimulate the judgment of all who look at them.

My study of them made me speak of adding goodness to things perfect in

themselves, and I have seen now that 'all is possible to him who

believes.' I had the greatest faith in God that He would bestow upon

you supernatural grace for the making of this Christ. When I came to

examine it, I found it so marvellous that it surpasses all my

expectations. Wherefore, emboldened by your miracles, I conceived a

great desire for that which I now see marvellously accomplished: I

mean that the design is in all parts perfect and consummate, and one

could not desire more, nor could desire attain to demanding so much. I

tell you that I am mighty pleased that the angel on the right hand is

by far the fairer, since Michael will place you, Michelangelo, upon

the right hand of our Lord at that last day. Meanwhile, I do not know

how else to serve you than by making orisons to this sweet Christ,

whom you have drawn so well and exquisitely, and praying you to hold

me yours to command as yours in all and for all."

The admiration and the good-will of the great lady transpire in these

somewhat incoherent and studied paragraphs. Their verbiage leaves much

to be desired in the way of logic and simplicity. It is pleasanter

perhaps to read a familiar note, sent probably by the hand of a

servant to Buonarroti's house in Rome.

"I beg you to let me have the crucifix a short while in my keeping,

even though it be unfinished. I want to show it to some gentlemen who

have come from the Most Reverend the Cardinal of Mantua. If you are

not working, will you not come to-day at your leisure and talk with

me?--Yours to command,

"The Marchioness of Pescara."

It seems that Michelangelo's exchange of letters and poems became at

last too urgent. We know it was his way (as in the case of Luigi del

Riccio) to carry on an almost daily correspondence for some while, and

then to drop it altogether when his mood changed. Vittoria, writing

from Viterbo, gives him a gentle and humorous hint that he is taking

up too much of her time:

"Magnificent Messer Michelangelo,--I did not reply earlier to your

letter, because it was, as one might say, an answer to my last: for I

thought that if you and I were to go on writing without intermission

according to my obligation and your courtesy, I should have to neglect

the Chapel of S. Catherine here, and be absent at the appointed hours

for company with my sisterhood, while you would have to leave the

Chapel of S. Paul, and be absent from morning through the day from

your sweet usual colloquy with painted forms, the which with their

natural accents do not speak to you less clearly than the living

persons round me speak to me. Thus we should both of us fail in our

duty, I to the brides, you to the vicar of Christ. For these reasons,

inasmuch as I am well assured of our steadfast friendship and firm

affection, bound by knots of Christian kindness, I do not think it

necessary to obtain the proof of your good-will in letters by writing

on my side, but rather to await with well-prepared mind some

substantial occasion for serving you. Meanwhile I address my prayers

to that Lord of whom you spoke to me with so fervent and humble a

heart when I left Rome, that when I return thither I may find you with

His image renewed and enlivened by true faith in your soul, in like

measure as you have painted it with perfect art in my Samaritan.

Believe me to remain always yours and your Urbino's."

This letter must have been written when Michelangelo was still working

on the frescoes of the Cappella Paolina, and therefore before 1549.

The check to his importunacy, given with genial tact by the

Marchioness, might be taken, by those who believe their _liaison_ to

have had a touch of passion in it, as an argument in favour of that

view. The great age which Buonarroti had now reached renders this,

however, improbable; while the general tenor of their correspondence

is that of admiration for a great artist on the lady's side, and of

attraction to a noble nature on the man's side, cemented by religious

sentiment and common interests in serious topics.

III

All students of Michelangelo's biography are well acquainted with the

Dialogues on Painting, composed by the Portuguese miniature artist,

Francis of Holland. Written in the quaint style of the sixteenth

century, which curiously blent actual circumstance and fact with the

author's speculation, these essays present a vivid picture of

Buonarroti's conferences with Vittoria Colonna and her friends. The

dialogues are divided into four parts, three of which profess to give

a detailed account of three several Sunday conversations in the

Convent of S. Silvestro on Monte Cavallo. After describing the objects

which brought him to Rome, Francis says: "Above all, Michelangelo

inspired me with such esteem, that when I met him in the palace of the

Pope or on the streets, I could not make my mind up to leave him until

the stars forced us to retire." Indeed, it would seem from his frank

admissions in another place that the Portuguese painter had become a

little too attentive to the famous old man, and that Buonarroti "did

all he could to shun his company, seeing that when they once came

together, they could not separate." It happened one Sunday that

Francis paid a visit to his friend Lattanzio Tolomei, who had gone

abroad, leaving a message that he would be found in the Church of S.

Silvestro, where he was hoping to hear a lecture by Brother Ambrose of

Siena on the Epistles of S. Paul, in company with the Marchioness.

Accordingly he repaired to this place, and was graciously received by

the noble lady. She courteously remarked that he would probably enjoy

a conversation with Michelangelo more than a sermon from Brother

Ambrose, and after an interval of compliments a servant was sent to

find him. It chanced that Buonarroti was walking with the man whom

Francis of Holland calls "his old friend and colour-grinder," Urbino,

in the direction of the Thermae. So the lackey, having the good chance

to meet him, brought him at once to the convent. The Marchioness made

him sit between her and Messer Tolomei, while Francis took up his

position at a little distance. The conversation then began, but

Vittoria Colonna had to use the tact for which she was celebrated

before she could engage the wary old man on a serious treatment of his

own art.

He opened his discourse by defending painters against the common

charge of being "eccentric in their habits, difficult to deal with,

and unbearable; whereas, on the contrary, they are really most

humane." Common people do not consider, he remarked, that really

zealous artists are bound to abstain from the idle trivialities and

current compliments of society, not because they are haughty or

intolerant by nature, but because their art imperiously claims the

whole of their energies. "When such a man shall have the same leisure

as you enjoy, then I see no objection to your putting him to death if

he does not observe your rules of etiquette and ceremony. You only

seek his company and praise him in order to obtain honour through him

for yourselves, nor do you really mind what sort of man he is, so long

as kings and emperors converse with him. I dare affirm that any artist

who tries to satisfy the better vulgar rather than men of his own

craft, one who has nothing singular, eccentric, or at least reputed to

be so, in his person, will never become a superior talent. For my

part, I am bound to confess that even his Holiness sometimes annoys

and wearies me by begging for too much of my company. I am most

anxious to serve him, but, when there is nothing important going

forward, I think I can do so better by studying at home than by

dancing attendance through a whole day on my legs in his

reception-rooms. He allows me to tell him so; and I may add that the

serious occupations of my life have won for me such liberty of action

that, in talking to the Pope, I often forget where I am, and place my

hat upon my head. He does not eat me up on that account, but treats me

with indulgence, knowing that it is precisely at such times that I am

working hard to serve him. As for solitary habits, the world is right

in condemning a man who, out of pure affectation or eccentricity,

shuts himself up alone, loses his friends, and sets society against

him. Those, however, who act in this way naturally, because their

profession obliges them to lead a recluse life, or because their

character rebels against feigned politenesses and conventional usage,

ought in common justice to be tolerated. What claim by right have you

on him? Why should you force him to take part in those vain pastimes,

which his love for a quiet life induces him to shun? Do you not know

that there are sciences which demand the whole of a man, without

leaving the least portion of his spirit free for your distractions?"

This apology for his own life, couched in a vindication of the

artistic temperament, breathes an accent of sincerity, and paints

Michelangelo as he really was, with his somewhat haughty sense of

personal dignity. What he says about his absence of mind in the

presence of great princes might be illustrated by a remark attributed

to Clement VII. "When Buonarroti comes to see me, I always take a seat

and bid him to be seated, feeling sure that he will do so without

leave or license."

The conversation passed by natural degrees to a consideration of the

fine arts in general. In the course of this discussion, Michelangelo

uttered several characteristic opinions, strongly maintaining the

superiority of the Italian to the Flemish and German schools, and

asserting his belief that, while all objects are worthy of imitation

by the artist, the real touch stone of excellence lies in his power to

represent the human form. His theory of the arts in their reciprocal

relations and affinities throws interesting light upon the qualities

of his own genius and his method in practice. "The science of design,

or of line-drawing, if you like to use this term, is the source and

very essence of painting, sculpture, architecture, and of every form

of representation, as well too as of all the sciences. He who has made

himself a master in this art possesses a great treasure. Sometimes,

when I meditate upon these topics, it seems to me that I can discover

but one art or science, which is design, and that all the works of the

human brain and hand are either design itself or a branch of that

art." This theme he develops at some length, showing how a complete

mastery of drawing is necessary not only to the plastic arts of

painting and sculpture, but also to the constructive and mechanical

arts of architecture, fortification, gun-foundry, and so forth,

applying the same principle to the minutest industries.

With regard to the personal endowments of the artist, he maintained

that "a lofty style, grave and decorous, was essential to great work.

Few artists understand this, and endeavour to appropriate these

qualities. Consequently we find many members of the confraternity who

are only artists in name. The world encourages this confusion of

ideas, since few are capable of distinguishing between a fellow who

has nothing but his colour-box and brushes to make him a painter, and

the really gifted natures who appear only at wide intervals." He

illustrates the position that noble qualities in the artist are

indispensable to nobility in the work of art, by a digression on

religious painting and sculpture. "In order to represent in some

degree the adored image of our Lord, it is not enough that a master

should be great and able. I maintain that he must also be a man of

good conduct and morals, if possible a saint, in order that the Holy

Ghost may rain down inspiration on his understanding. Ecclesiastical

and secular princes ought, therefore, to permit only the most

illustrious among the artists of their realm to paint the benign

sweetness of our Saviour, the purity of our Lady, and the virtues of

the saints. It often happens that ill-executed images distract the

minds of worshippers and ruin their devotion, unless it be firm and

fervent. Those, on the contrary, which are executed in the high style

I have described, excite the soul to contemplation and to tears, even

among the least devout, by inspiring reverence and fear through the

majesty of their aspect." This doctrine is indubitably sound. To our

minds, nevertheless, it rings a little hollow on the lips of the great

master who modelled the Christ of the Minerva and painted the Christ

and Madonna of the Last Judgment. Yet we must remember that, at the

exact period when these dialogues took place, Buonarroti, under the

influence of his friendship with Vittoria Colonna, was devoting his

best energies to the devout expression of the Passion of our Lord. It

is deeply to be regretted that, out of the numerous designs which

remain to us from this endeavour, all of them breathing the purest

piety, no monumental work except the Pietà at Florence emerged for

perpetuity.

Many curious points, both of minute criticism and broad opinion, might

still be gleaned from the dialogues set down by Francis of Holland. It

must suffice here to resume what Michelangelo maintained about the

artist's method. One of the interlocutors begged to be informed

whether he thought that a master ought to aim at working slowly or

quickly. "I will tell you plainly what I feel about this matter. It is

both good and useful to be able to work with promptitude and address.

We must regard it as a special gift from God to be able to do that in

a few hours which other men can only perform in many days of labour.

Consequently, artists who paint rapidly, without falling in quality

below those who paint but slowly, deserve the highest commendation.

Should this rapidity of execution, however, cause a man to transgress

the limits of sound art, it would have been better to have proceeded

with more tardiness and study. A good artist ought never to allow the

impetuosity of his nature to overcome his sense of the main end of

art, perfection. Therefore we cannot call slowness of execution a

defect, nor yet the expenditure of much time and trouble, if this be

employed with the view of attaining greater perfection. The one

unpardonable fault is bad work. And here I would remind you of a thing

essential to our art, which you will certainly not ignore, and to

which I believe you attach the full importance it deserves. In every

kind of plastic work we ought to strive with all our might at making

what has cost time and labour look as though it had been produced with

facility and swiftness. It sometimes happens, but rarely, that a

portion of our work turns out excellent with little pains bestowed

upon it. Most frequently, however, it is the expenditure of care and

trouble which conceals our toil. Plutarch relates that a bad painter

showed Apelles a picture, saying: 'This is from my hand; I have just

made it in a moment.' The other replied: 'I should have recognised the

fact without your telling me; and I marvel that you do not make a

multitude of such things every day.'" Michelangelo is reported to have

made a similar remark to Vasari when the latter took him to inspect

some frescoes he had painted, observing that they had been dashed off

quickly.

We must be grateful to Francis of Holland for this picture of the

Sunday-morning interviews at S. Silvestro. The place was cool and

tranquil. The great lady received her guests with urbanity, and led

the conversation with highbred courtesy and tact. Fra Ambrogio, having

discoursed upon the spiritual doctrines of S. Paul's Epistles, was at

liberty to turn an attentive ear to purely aesthetical speculations.

The grave and elderly Lattanzio Tolomei added the weight of philosophy

and literary culture to the dialogue. Michelangelo, expanding in the

genial atmosphere, spoke frankly on the arts which he had mastered,

not dictating _ex cathedra_ rules, but maintaining a note of modesty

and common-sense and deference to the opinion of others. Francis

engaged on equal terms in the discussion. His veneration for

Buonarroti, and the eagerness with which he noted all the great man's

utterances, did not prevent him from delivering lectures at a somewhat

superfluous length. In short, we may fairly accept his account of

these famous conferences as a truthful transcript from the refined and

witty social gatherings of which Vittoria Colonna formed the centre.

IV

This friendship with Vittoria Colonna forms a very charming episode in

the history of Michelangelo's career, and it was undoubtedly one of

the consolations of his declining years. Yet too great stress has

hitherto been laid on it by his biographers. Not content with

exaggerating its importance in his life, they have misinterpreted its

nature. The world seems unable to take interest in a man unless it can

contrive to discover a love-affair in his career. The singular thing

about Michelangelo is that, with the exception of Vittoria Colonna, no

woman is known to have influenced his heart or head in any way. In his

correspondence he never mentions women, unless they be aunts, cousins,

grand-nieces, or servants. About his mother he is silent. We have no

tradition regarding amours in youth or middle age; and only two words

dropped by Condivi lead us to conjecture that he was not wholly

insensible to the physical attractions of the female. Romancers and

legend-makers have, therefore, forced Vittoria Colonna to play the

rôle of Juliet in Michelangelo's life-drama. It has not occurred to

these critics that there is something essentially disagreeable in the

thought of an aged couple entertaining an amorous correspondence. I

use these words deliberately, because poems which breathe obvious

passion of no merely spiritual character have been assigned to the

number he composed for Vittoria Colonna. This, as we shall see, is

chiefly the fault of his first editor, who printed all the sonnets and

madrigals as though they were addressed to one woman or another. It is

also in part due to the impossibility of determining their exact date

in the majority of instances. Verses, then, which were designed for

several objects of his affection, male or female, have been

indiscriminately referred to Vittoria Colonna, whereas we can only

attribute a few poems with certainty to her series.

This mythus of Michelangelo's passion for the Marchioness of Pescara

has blossomed and brought forth fruit abundantly from a single and

pathetic passage in Condivi. "In particular, he greatly loved the

Marchioness of Pescara, of whose divine spirit he was enamoured, being

in return dearly beloved by her. He still preserves many of her

letters, breathing honourable and most tender affection, and such as

were wont to issue from a heart like hers. He also wrote to her a

great number of sonnets, full of wit and sweet longing. She frequently

removed from Viterbo and other places, whither she had gone for solace

or to pass the summer, and came to Rome with the sole object of seeing

Michelangelo. He for his part, loved her so, that I remember to have

heard him say that he regretted nothing except that when he went to

visit her upon the moment of her passage from this life, he did not

kiss her forehead or her face, as he did kiss her hand. Her death was

the cause that oftentimes he dwelt astonied, thinking of it, even as a

man bereft of sense."

Michelangelo himself, writing immediately after Vittoria's death,

speaks of her thus: "She felt the warmest affection for me, and I not

less for her. Death has robbed me of a great friend." It is curious

that he here uses the masculine gender: "un grande amico." He also

composed two sonnets, which were in all probability inspired by the

keen pain of this bereavement. To omit them here would be unjust to

the memory of their friendship:--

_When my rude hammer to the stubborn stone

Gives human shape, now that, now this, at will,

Following his hand who wields and guides it still,

It moves upon another's feet alone:_

The third illustrates in a singular manner that custom of

sixteenth-century literature which Shakespeare followed in his

sonnets, of weaving poetical images out of thoughts borrowed from law

and business. It is also remarkable in this respect, that Michelangelo

has here employed precisely the same conceit for Vittoria Colonna

which he found serviceable when at an earlier date he wished to

deplore the death of the Florentine, Cecchino dei Bracci. For both of

them he says that Heaven bestowed upon the beloved object all its

beauties, instead of scattering these broad-cast over the human race,

which, had it done so, would have entailed the bankruptcy and death of

all:--

_So that high heaven should have not to distrain

From several that vast beauty ne'er yet shown,

To one exalted dame alone

The total sum was lent in her pure self:--

Heaven had made sorry gain,

Recovering from the crowd its scattered pelf.

Now in a puff of breath,

Nay, in one second, God

Hath ta'en her back through death,

Back from the senseless folk and from our eyes.

Yet earth's oblivious sod,

Albeit her body dies,

Will bury not her live words fair and holy.

Ah, cruel mercy! Here thou showest solely

How, had heaven lent us ugly what she took,

And death the debt reclaimed, all men were broke_.

Without disputing the fact that a very sincere emotion underlay these

verses, it must be submitted that, in the words of Samuel Johnson

about "Lycidas," "he who thus grieves will excite no sympathy; he who

thus praises will confer no honour." This conviction will be enforced

when we reflect that the thought upon which the madrigal above

translated has been woven (1547) had been already used for Cecchino

dei Bracci in 1544. It is clear that, in dealing with Michelangelo's

poetical compositions, we have to accept a mass of conventional

utterances, penetrated with a few firmly grasped Platonical ideas. It

is only after long familiarity with his work that a man may venture to

distinguish between the accents of the heart and the head-notes in the

case of so great a master using an art he practised mainly as an

amateur. I shall have to return to these considerations when I discuss

the value of his poetry taken as a whole.

The union of Michelangelo and Vittoria was beautiful and noble, based

upon the sympathy of ardent and high-feeling natures. Nevertheless we

must remember that when Michelangelo lost his old servant Urbino, his

letters and the sonnet written upon that occasion express an even

deeper passion of grief.

Love is an all-embracing word, and may well be used to describe this

exalted attachment, as also to qualify the great sculptor's affection

for a faithful servant or for a charming friend. We ought not,

however, to distort the truth of biography or to corrupt criticism,

from a personal wish to make more out of his feeling than fact and

probability warrant. This is what has been done by all who approached

the study of Michelangelo's life and writings. Of late years, the

determination to see Vittoria Colonna through every line written by

him which bears the impress of strong emotion, and to suppress other

aspects of his sensibility, has been so deliberate, that I am forced

to embark upon a discussion which might otherwise have not been

brought so prominently forward. For the understanding of his

character, and for a proper estimate of his poetry, it has become

indispensable to do so.

V

Michelangelo's best friend in Rome was a young nobleman called Tommaso

Cavalieri. Speaking of his numerous allies and acquaintances, Vasari

writes: "Immeasurably more than all the rest, he loved Tommaso dei

Cavalieri, a Roman gentleman, for whom, as he was young and devoted to

the arts, Michelangelo made many stupendous drawings of superb heads

in black and red chalk, wishing him to learn the method of design.

Moreover, he drew for him a Ganymede carried up to heaven by Jove's

eagle, a Tityos with the vulture feeding on his heart, the fall of

Phaeton with the sun's chariot into the river Po, and a Bacchanal of

children; all of them things of the rarest quality, and drawings the

like of which were never seen. Michelangelo made a cartoon portrait of

Messer Tommaso, life-size, which was the only portrait that he ever

drew, since he detested to imitate the living person, unless it was

one of incomparable beauty." Several of Michelangelo's sonnets are

addressed to Tommaso Cavalieri. Benedetto Varchi, in his commentary,

introduces two of them with these words: "The first I shall present is

one addressed to M. Tommaso Cavalieri, a young Roman of very noble

birth, in whom I recognised, while I was sojourning at Rome, not only

incomparable physical beauty, but so much elegance of manners, such

excellent intelligence, and such graceful behaviour, that he well

deserved, and still deserves, to win the more love the better he is

known." Then Varchi recites the sonnet:--

Why should I seek to ease intense desire

With still more tears and windy words of grief,

When heaven, or late or soon, sends no relief

To souls whom love hath robed around with fire?

Why need my aching heart to death aspire,

When all must die? Nay, death beyond belief

Unto these eyes would be both sweet and brief,

Since in my sum of woes all joys expire!

Therefore, because I cannot shun the blow

I rather seek, say who must rule my breast,

Gliding between her gladness and her woe?

If only chains and bands can make me blest,

No marvel if alone and bare I go,

An armèd KNIGHT'S captive and slave confessed.

"The other shall be what follows, written perhaps for the same person,

and worthy, in my opinion, not only of the ripest sage, but also of a

poet not unexercised in writing verse:--

With your fair eyes a charming light I see,

For which my own blind eyes would peer in vain;

Stayed by your feet, the burden I sustain

Which my lame feet find all too strong for me;

Wingless upon your pinions forth I fly;

Heavenward your sprit stirreth me to strain;

E'en as you will, I blush and blanch again,

Freeze in the sun, burn 'neath a frosty sky.

Your will includes and is the lord of mine;

Life to my thoughts within your heart is given;

My words begin to breathe upon your breath:

Like to the-moon am I, that cannot shine

Alone; for, lo! our eyes see naught in heaven

Save what the living sun illumineth."

The frank and hearty feeling for a youth of singular distinction which

is expressed in these sonnets, gave no offence to society during the

period of the earlier Renaissance; but after the Tridentine Council

social feeling altered upon this and similar topics. While morals

remained what they had been, language and manners grew more nice and

hypocritical. It happened thus that grievous wrong was done to the

text of Michelangelo's poems, with the best intentions, by their first

editor. Grotesque misconceptions, fostered by the same mistaken zeal,

are still widely prevalent.

When Michelangelo the younger arranged his grand-uncle's poems for the

press, he was perplexed by the first of the sonnets quoted by Varchi.

The last line, which runs in the Italian thus--

Resto prigion d'un Cavalier armato,

has an obvious play of words upon Cavalieri's surname. This he altered

into

Resto prigion d'un cor di virtù armato.

The reason was that, if it stood unaltered, "the ignorance of men

would have occasion to murmur." "Varchi," he adds, "did wrong in

printing it according to the text." "Remember well," he observes,

"that this sonnet, as well as the preceding number and some others,

are concerned, as is manifest, with a masculine love of the Platonic

species." Michelangelo the younger's anxiety for his granduncle's

memory induced him thus to corrupt the text of his poems. The same

anxiety has led their latest editor to explain away the obvious sense

of certain words. Signor Guasti approves of the first editor's pious

fraud, on the ground that morality has higher claims than art; but he

adds that the expedient was not necessary: "for these sonnets do not

refer to masculine love, nor yet do any others. In the first (xxxi.)

the lady is compared to an armed knight, because she carries the

weapons of her sex and beauty; and while I think on it, an example

occurs to my mind from Messer Cino in support of the argument. As

regards the second (lxii.), those who read these pages of mine will

possibly remember that Michelangelo, writing of the dead Vittoria

Colonna, called her _amico;_ and on reflection, this sounds better

than _amica,_ in the place where it occurs. Moreover, there are not

wanting in these poems instances of the term signore, or lord, applied

to the beloved lady; which is one of the many periphrastical

expressions used by the Romance poets to indicate their mistress." It

is true that Cino compares his lady in one sonnet to a knight who has

carried off the prize of beauty in the lists of love and grace by her

elegant dancing. But he never calls a lady by the name of _cavaliere._

It is also indubitable that the Tuscans occasionally addressed the

female or male object of their adoration under the title of _signore,_

lord of my heart and soul. But such instances weigh nothing against

the direct testimony of a contemporary like Varchi, into whose hands

Michelangelo's poems came at the time of their composition, and who

was well acquainted with the circumstances of their composition. There

is, moreover, a fact of singular importance bearing on this question,

to which Signor Guasti has not attached the value it deserves. In a

letter belonging to the year 1549, Michelangelo thanks Luca Martini

for a copy of Varchi's commentary on his sonnet, and begs him to

express his affectionate regards and hearty thanks to that eminent

scholar for the honour paid him. In a second letter addressed to G.F.

Fattucci, under date October 1549, he conveys "the thanks of Messer

Tomao de' Cavalieri to Varchi for a certain little book of his which

has been printed, and in which he speaks very honourably of himself,

and not less so of me." In neither of these letters does Michelangelo

take exception to Varchi's interpretation of Sonnet xxxi. Indeed, the

second proves that both he and Cavalieri were much pleased with it.

Michelangelo even proceeds to inform Fattucci that Cavalieri "has

given me a sonnet which I made for him in those same years, begging me

to send it on as a proof and witness that he really is the man

intended. This I will enclose in my present letter." Furthermore, we

possess an insolent letter of Pietro Aretino, which makes us imagine

that the "ignorance of the vulgar" had already begun to "murmur."

After complaining bitterly that Michelangelo refused to send him any

of his drawings, he goes on to remark that it would be better for the

artist if he did so, "inasmuch as such an act of courtesy would quiet

the insidious rumours which assert that only Gerards and Thomases can

dispose of them." We have seen from Vasari that Michelangelo executed

some famous designs for Tommaso Cavalieri. The same authority asserts

that he presented "Gherardo Perini, a Florentine gentleman, and his

very dear friend," with three splendid drawings in black chalk.

Tommaso Cavalieri and Gherardo Perini, were, therefore, the "Gerards

and Thomases" alluded to by Aretino.

Michelangelo the younger's and Cesare Guasti's method of defending

Buonarroti from a malevolence which was only too well justified by the

vicious manners of the time, seems to me so really injurious to his

character, that I feel bound to carry this investigation further.

First of all, we ought to bear in mind what Buonarroti admitted

concerning his own temperament. "You must know that I am, of all men

who were ever born, the most inclined to love persons. Whenever I

behold some one who possesses any talent or displays any dexterity of

mind, who can do or say something more appropriately than the rest of

the world, I am compelled to fall in love with him; and then I give

myself up to him so entirely that I am no longer my own property, but

wholly his." He mentions this as a reason for not going to dine with

Luigi del Riccio in company with Donate Giannotti and Antonio Petrejo.

"If I were to do so, as all of you are adorned with talents and

agreeable graces, each of you would take from me a portion of myself,

and so would the dancer, and so would the lute-player, if men with

distinguished gifts in those arts were present. Each person would

filch away a part of me, and instead of being refreshed and restored

to health and gladness, as you said, I should be utterly bewildered

and distraught, in such wise that for many days to come I should not

know in what world I was moving." This passage serves to explain the

extreme sensitiveness of the great artist to personal charm, grace,

accomplishments, and throws light upon the self-abandonment with which

he sometimes yielded to the attractions of delightful people.

We possess a series of Michelangelo's letters addressed to or

concerned with Tommaso Cavalieri, the tone of which is certainly

extravagant. His biographer, Aurelio Gotti, moved by the same anxiety

as Michelangelo the younger and Guasti, adopted the extraordinary

theory that they were really directed to Vittoria Colonna, and were

meant to be shown to her by the common friend of both, Cavalieri.

"There is an epistle to this young man," he says, "so studied in its

phrases, so devoid of all naturalness, that we cannot extract any

rational sense from it without supposing that Cavalieri was himself a

friend of the Marchioness, and that Michelangelo, while writing to

him, intended rather to address his words to the Colonna." Of this

letter, which bears the date of January 1, 1533, three drafts exist,

proving the great pains taken by Michelangelo in its composition.

"Without due consideration, Messer Tomao, my very dear lord, I was

moved to write to your lordship, not by way of answer to any letter

received from you, but being myself the first to make advances, as

though I felt bound to cross a little stream with dry feet, or a ford

made manifest by paucity of water. But now that I have left the shore,

instead of the trifling river I expected, the ocean with its towering

waves appears before me, so that, if it were possible, in order to

avoid drowning, I would gladly retrace my steps to the dry land whence

I started. Still, as I am here, I will e'en make of my heart a rock,

and proceed farther; and if I shall not display the art of sailing on

the sea of your powerful genius, that genius itself will excuse me,

nor will be disdainful of my inferiority in parts, nor desire from me

that which I do not possess, inasmuch as he who is unique in all

things can have peers in none. Therefore your lordship, the light of

our century without paragon upon this world, is unable to be satisfied

with the productions of other men, having no match or equal to

yourself. And if, peradventure, something of mine, such as I hope and

promise to perform, give pleasure to your mind, I shall esteem it more

fortunate than excellent; and should I be ever sure of pleasing your

lordship, as is said, in any particular, I will devote the present

time and all my future to your service; indeed, it will grieve me much

that I cannot regain the past, in order to devote a longer space to

you than the future only will allow, seeing I am now too old. I have

no more to say. Read the heart, and not the letter, because 'the pen

toils after man's good-will in vain.'

"I have to make excuses for expressing in my first letter a marvellous

astonishment at your rare genius; and thus I do so, having recognised

the error I was in; for it is much the same to wonder at God's working

miracles as to wonder at Rome producing divine men. Of this the

universe confirms us in our faith."

It is clear that Michelangelo alludes in this letter to the designs

which he is known to have made for Cavalieri, and the last paragraph

has no point except as an elaborate compliment addressed to a Roman

gentleman. It would be quite out of place if applied to Vittoria

Colonna. Gotti finds the language strained and unnatural. We cannot

deny that it differs greatly from the simple diction of the writer's

ordinary correspondence. But Michelangelo did sometimes seek to

heighten his style, when he felt that the occasion demanded a special

effort; and then he had recourse to the laboured images in vogue at

that period, employing them with something of the ceremonious

cumbrousness displayed in his poetry. The letters to Pietro Aretino,

Niccolo Martelli, Vittoria Colonna, Francis I., Luca Martini, and

Giorgio Vasari might be quoted as examples.

As a postscript to this letter, in the two drafts which were finally

rejected, the following enigmatical sentence is added:--"It would be

permissible to give the name of the things a man presents, to him who

receives them; but proper sense of what is fitting prevents it being

done in this letter."

Probably Michelangelo meant that he should have liked to call

Cavalieri his friend, since he had already given him friendship. The

next letter, July 28, 1533, begins thus:--"My dear Lord,--Had I not

believed that I had made you certain of the very great, nay,

measureless love I bear you, it would not have seemed strange to me

nor have roused astonishment to observe the great uneasiness you show

in your last letter, lest, through my not having written, I should

have forgotten you. Still it is nothing new or marvellous when so many

other things go counter, that this also should be topsy-turvy. For

what your lordship says to me, I could say to yourself: nevertheless,

you do this perhaps to try me, or to light a new and stronger flame,

if that indeed were possible: but be it as it wills: I know well that,

at this hour, I could as easily forget your name as the food by which

I live; nay, it were easier to forget the food, which only nourishes

my body miserably, than your name, which nourishes both body and soul,

filling the one and the other with such sweetness that neither

weariness nor fear of death is felt by me while memory preserves you

to my mind. Think, if the eyes could also enjoy their portion, in what

condition I should find myself."

This second letter has also been extremely laboured; for we have three

other turns given in its drafts to the image of food and memory. That

these two documents were really addressed to Cavalieri, without any

thought of Vittoria Colonna, is proved by three letters sent to

Michelangelo by the young man in question. One is dated August 2,

1533, another September 2, and the third bears no date. The two which

I have mentioned first belong to the summer of 1533; the third seems

to be the earliest. It was clearly written on some occasion when both

men were in Rome together, and at the very beginning of their

friendship. I will translate them in their order. The first undated

letter was sent to Michelangelo in Rome, in answer to some writing of

the illustrious sculptor which we do not possess:--

"I have received from you a letter, which is the more acceptable

because it was so wholly unexpected. I say unexpected, because I hold

myself unworthy of such condescension in a man of your eminence. With

regard to what Pierantonio spoke to you in my praise, and those things

of mine which you have seen, and which you say have aroused in you no

small affection for me, I answer that they were insufficient to impel

a man of such transcendent genius, without a second, not to speak of a

peer, upon this earth, to address a youth who was born but yesterday,

and therefore is as ignorant as it is possible to be. At the same time

I cannot call you a liar. I rather think then, nay, am certain, that

the love you bear me is due to this, that you being a man most

excellent in art, nay, art itself, are forced to love those who follow

it and love it, among whom am I; and in this, according to my

capacity, I yield to few. I promise you truly that you shall receive

from me for your kindness affection equal, and perhaps greater, in

exchange; for I never loved a man more than I do you, nor desired a

friendship more than I do yours. About this, though my judgment may

fail in other things, it is unerring; and you shall see the proof,

except only that fortune is adverse to me in that now, when I might

enjoy you, I am far from well. I hope, however, if she does not begin

to trouble me again, that within a few days I shall be cured, and

shall come to pay you my respects in person. Meanwhile I shall spend

at least two hours a day in studying two of your drawings, which

Pierantonio brought me: the more I look at them, the more they delight

me; and I shall soothe my complaint by cherishing the hope which

Pierantonio gave me, of letting me see other things of yours. In order

not to be troublesome, I will write no more. Only I beg you remember,

on occasion, to make use of me; and recommend myself in perpetuity to

you.--Your most affectionate servant.

"Thomao Cavaliere."

The next letters were addressed to Michelangelo in Florence:--"Unique,

my Lord,--I have received from you a letter, very acceptable, from

which I gather that you are not a little saddened at my having written

to you about forgetting. I answer that I did not write this for either

of the following reasons: to wit, because you have not sent me

anything, or in order to fan the flame of your affection. I only wrote

to jest with you, as certainly I think I may do. Therefore, do not be

saddened, for I am quite sure you will not be able to forget me.

Regarding what you write to me about that young Nerli, he is much my

friend, and having to leave Rome, he came to ask whether I needed

anything from Florence. I said no, and he begged me to allow him to go

in my name to pay you my respects, merely on account of his own desire

to speak with you. I have nothing more to write, except that I beg you

to return quickly. When you come you will deliver me from prison,

because I wish to avoid bad companions; and having this desire, I

cannot converse with any one but you. I recommend myself to you a

thousand times.--Yours more than his own,

"Thomao Cavaliere.

"Rome, _August 2, 1533_."

It appears from the third letter, also sent to Florence, that during

the course of the month Michelangelo had despatched some of the

drawings he made expressly for his friend:--"Unique, my Lord,--Some

days ago I received a letter from you, which was very welcome, both

because I learned from it that you were well, and also because I can

now be sure that you will soon return. I was very sorry not to be able

to answer at once. However, it consoles me to think that, when you

know the cause, you will hold me excused. On the day your letter

reached me, I was attacked with vomiting and such high fever that I

was on the point of death; and certainly I should have died, if it

(i.e., the letter) had not somewhat revived me. Since then, thank God,

I have been always well. Messer Bartolommeo (Angelini) has now brought

me a sonnet sent by you, which has made me feel it my duty to write.

Some three days since I received my Phaëthon, which is exceedingly

well done. The Pope, the Cardinal de' Medici, and every one, have seen

it; I do not know what made them want to do so. The Cardinal expressed

a wish to inspect all your drawings, and they pleased him so much that

he said he should like to have the Tityos and Ganymede done in

crystal. I could not manage to prevent him from using the Tityos, and

it is now being executed by Maestro Giovanni. Hard I struggled to save

the Ganymede. The other day I went, as you requested, to Fra

Sebastiano. He sends a thousand messages, but only to pray you to come

back.--Your affectionate,

"Thomao Cavaliere.

"Rome, _September 6_."

All the drawings mentioned by Vasari as having been made for Cavalieri

are alluded to here, except the Bacchanal of Children. Of the Phaëthon

we have two splendid examples in existence, one at Windsor, the other

in the collection of M. Emile Galichon. They differ considerably in

details, but have the same almost mathematical exactitude of pyramidal

composition. That belonging to M. Galichon must have been made in

Rome, for it has this rough scrawl in Michelangelo's hand at the

bottom, "Tomao, se questo scizzo non vi piace, ditelo a Urbino." He

then promises to make another. Perhaps Cavalieri sent word back that

he did not like something in the sketch--possibly the women writhing

into trees--and that to this circumstance we owe the Windsor drawing,

which is purer in style. There is a fine Tityos with the vulture at

Windsor, so exquisitely finished and perfectly preserved that one can

scarcely believe it passed through the hands of Maestro Giovanni.

Windsor, too, possesses a very delicate Ganymede, which seems intended

for an intaglio. The subject is repeated in an unfinished pen-design

at the Uffizi, incorrectly attributed to Michelangelo, and is

represented by several old engravings. The Infant Bacchanals again

exist at Windsor, and fragmentary jottings upon the margin of other

sketches intended for the same theme survive.

VI

A correspondence between Bartolommeo Angelini in Rome and Michelangelo

in Florence during the summers of 1532 and 1533 throws some light upon

the latter's movements, and also upon his friendship for Tommaso

Cavalieri. The first letter of this series, written on the 21st of

August 1532, shows that Michelangelo was then expected in Rome. "Fra

Sebastiano says that you wish to dismount at your own house. Knowing

then that there is nothing but the walls, I hunted up a small amount

of furniture, which I have had sent thither, in order that you may be

able to sleep and sit down and enjoy some other conveniences. For

eating, you will be able to provide yourself to your own liking in the

neighbourhood." From the next letter (September 18, 1532) it appears

that Michelangelo was then in Rome. There ensues a gap in the

correspondence, which is not resumed until July 12, 1533. It now

appears that Buonarroti had recently left Rome at the close of another

of his visits. Angelini immediately begins to speak of Tommaso

Cavalieri. "I gave that soul you wrote of to M. Tommao, who sends you

his very best regards, and begs me to communicate any letters I may

receive from you to him. Your house is watched continually every

night, and I often go to visit it by day. The hens and master cock are

in fine feather, and the cats complain greatly over your absence,

albeit they have plenty to eat." Angelini never writes now without

mentioning Cavalieri. Since this name does not occur in the

correspondence before the date of July 12, 1533, it is possible that

Michelangelo made the acquaintance during his residence at Rome in the

preceding winter. His letters to Angelini must have conveyed frequent

expressions of anxiety concerning Cavalieri's affection; for the

replies invariably contain some reassuring words (July 26): "Yours

makes me understand how great is the love you bear him; and in truth,

so far as I have seen, he does not love you less than you love him."

Again (August 11, 1533): "I gave your letter to M. Thomao, who sends

you his kindest remembrances, and shows the very strongest desire for

your return, saying that when he is with you, then he is really happy,

because he possesses all that he wishes for upon this world. So then,

it seems to me that, while you are fretting to return, he is burning

with desire for you to do so. Why do you not begin in earnest to make

plans for leaving Florence? It would give peace to yourself and all of

us, if you were here. I have seen your soul, which is in good health

and under good guardianship. The body waits for your arrival."

This mysterious reference to the soul, which Angelini gave, at

Buonarroti's request, to young Cavalieri, and which he now describes

as prospering, throws some light upon the passionate phrases of the

following mutilated letter, addressed to Angelini by Michelangelo upon

the 11th of October. The writer, alluding to Messer Tommao, says that,

having given him his heart, he can hardly go on living in his absence:

"And so, if I yearn day and night without intermission to be in Rome,

it is only in order to return again to life, which I cannot enjoy

without the soul." This conceit is carried on for some time, and the

letter winds up with the following sentence: "My dear Bartolommeo,

although you may think that I am joking with you, this is not the

case. I am talking sober sense, for I have grown twenty years older

and twenty pounds lighter since I have been here." This epistle, as we

shall see in due course, was acknowledged. All Michelangelo's

intimates in Rome became acquainted with the details of this

friendship. Writing to Sebastiano from Florence in this year, he says:

"I beg you, if you see Messer T. Cavalieri, to recommend me to him

infinitely; and when you write, tell me something about him to keep

him in my memory; for if I were to lose him from my mind, I believe

that I should fall down dead straightway." In Sebastiano's letters

there is one allusion to Cavalieri, who had come to visit him in the

company of Bartolommeo Angelini, when he was ill.

It is not necessary to follow all the references to Tommaso Cavalieri

contained in Angelini's letters. They amount to little more than kind

messages and warm wishes for Michelangelo's return. Soon, however,

Michelangelo began to send poems, which Angelini acknowledges

(September 6): "I have received the very welcome letter you wrote me,

together with your graceful and beautiful sonnet, of which I kept a

copy, and then sent it on to M. Thomao. He was delighted to possess

it, being thereby assured that God has deigned to bestow upon him the

friendship of a man endowed with so many noble gifts as you are."

Again he writes (October 18): "Yours of the 12th is to hand, together

with M. Thomao's letter and the most beautiful sonnets. I have kept

copies, and sent them on to him for whom they were intended, because I

know with what affection he regards all things that pertain to you. He

promised to send an answer which shall be enclosed in this I now am

writing. He is counting not the days merely, but the hours, till you

return." In another letter, without date, Angelini says, "I gave your

messages to M. Thomao, who replied that your presence would be dearer

to him than your writing, and that if it seems to you a thousand

years, to him it seems ten thousand, till you come. I received your

gallant (galante) and beautiful sonnet; and though you said nothing

about it, I saw at once for whom it was intended, and gave it to him.

Like everything of yours, it delighted him. The tenor of the sonnet

shows that love keeps you perpetually restless. I do not think this

ought to be the effect of love, and so I send you one of my poor

performances to prove the contrary opinion." We may perhaps assume

that this sonnet was the famous No. xxxi., from the last line of which

every one could perceive that Michelangelo meant it for Tommaso

Cavalieri.

VII

It is significant that, while Michelangelo's affection for the young

Roman was thus acquiring force, another friendship, which must have

once been very dear to him, sprang up and then declined, but not

apparently through his own fault or coldness. We hear of Febo di

Poggio in the following autumn for the first and last time. Before

proceeding to speak of him, I will wind up what has to be said about

Tommaso Cavalieri. Not long after the date of the last letter quoted

above, Michelangelo returned to Rome, and settled there for the rest

of his life. He continued to the end of his days in close friendship

with Cavalieri, who helped to nurse him during his last illness, who

took charge of his effects after his death, and who carried on the

architectural work he had begun at the Capitol.

Their friendship seems to have been uninterrupted by any disagreement,

except on one occasion when Michelangelo gave way to his suspicious

irritability, quite at the close of his long life. This drew forth

from Cavalieri the following manly and touching letter:--

"Very magnificent, my Lord,--I have noticed during several days past

that you have some grievance--what, I do not know--against me.

Yesterday I became certain of it when I went to your house. As I

cannot imagine the cause, I have thought it best to write this, in

order that, if you like, you may inform me. I am more than positive

that I never offended you. But you lend easy credence to those whom

perhaps you ought least to trust; and some one has possibly told you

some lie, for fear I should one day reveal the many knaveries done

under your name, the which do you little honour; and if you desire to

know about them, you shall. Only I cannot, nor, if I could, should I

wish to force myself--but I tell you frankly that if you do not want

me for a friend, you can do as you like, but you cannot compel me not

to be a friend to you. I shall always try to do you service; and only

yesterday I came to show you a letter written by the Duke of Florence,

and to lighten your burdens, as I have ever done until now. Be sure

you have no better friend than me; but on this I will not dwell.

Still, if you think otherwise, I hope that in a short time you will

explain matters; and I know that you know I have always been your

friend without the least interest of my own. Now I will say no more,

lest I should seem to be excusing myself for something which does not

exist, and which I am utterly unable to imagine. I pray and conjure

you, by the love you bear to God, that you tell me what you have

against me, in order that I may disabuse you. Not having more to

write, I remain your servant,

"Thomao De' Cavalieri.

"From my house, November 15, 1561."

It is clear from this letter, and from the relations which subsisted

between Michelangelo and Cavalieri up to the day of his death, that

the latter was a gentleman of good repute and honour, whose affection

did credit to his friend. I am unable to see that anything but an

injury to both is done by explaining away the obvious meaning of the

letters and the sonnets I have quoted. The supposition that

Michelangelo intended the Cavalieri letters to reach Vittoria Colonna

through that friend's hands does not, indeed, deserve the complete

refutation which I have given it. I am glad, however, to be able to

adduce the opinion of a caustic Florentine scholar upon this topic,

which agrees with my own, and which was formed without access to the

original documents which I have been enabled to make use of. Fanfani

says: "I have searched, but in vain, for documentary proofs of the

passion which Michelangelo is supposed to have felt for Vittoria

Colonna, and which she returned with ardour according to the assertion

of some critics. My own belief, concurring with that of better judges

than myself, is that we have here to deal with one of the many

baseless stories told about him. Omitting the difficulties presented

by his advanced age, it is wholly contrary to all we know about the

Marchioness, and not a little damaging to her reputation for

austerity, to suppose that this admirable matron, who, after the death

of her husband, gave herself up to God, and abjured the commerce of

the world, should, later in life, have carried on an intrigue, as the

saying is, upon the sly, particularly when a third person is imposed

on our credulity, acting the part of go-between and cloak in the

transaction, as certain biographers of the great artist, and certain

commentators of his poetry, are pleased to assert, with how much

common-sense and what seriousness I will not ask."

VIII

The history of Luigi del Riccio's affection for a lad of Florence

called Cecchino dei Bracci, since this is interwoven with

Michelangelo's own biography and the criticism of his poems, may be

adduced in support of the argument I am developing. Cecchino was a

youth of singular promise and personal charm. His relative, the

Florentine merchant, Luigi del Riccio, one of Buonarroti's most

intimate friends and advisers, became devotedly attached to the boy.

Michelangelo, after his return to Rome in 1534, shared this friend

Luigi's admiration for Cecchino; and the close intimacy into which the

two elder men were drawn, at a somewhat later period of Buonarroti's

life, seems to have been cemented by their common interest in poetry

and their common feeling for a charming personality. We have a letter

of uncertain date, in which Michelangelo tells Del Riccio that he has

sent him a madrigal, begging him, if he thinks fit, to commit the

verses "to the fire--that is, to what consumes me." Then he asks him

to resolve a certain problem which has occurred to his mind during the

night, "for while I was saluting _our idol_ in a dream, it seemed to

me that he laughed, and in the same instant threatened me; and not

knowing which of these two moods I have to abide by, I beg you to find

out from him; and on Sunday, when we meet again, you will inform me."

Cecchino, who is probably alluded to in this letter, died at Rome on

the 8th of January 1542, and was buried in the Church of Araceli.

Luigi felt the blow acutely. Upon the 12th of January he wrote to his

friend Donate Giannotti, then at Vicenza, in the following words:--

"Alas, my friend Donato! Our Cecchino is dead. All Rome weeps.

Michelangelo is making for me the design of a decent sepulture in

marble; and I pray you to write me the epitaph, and to send it to me

with a consolatory letter, if time permits, for my grief has

distraught me. Patience! I live with a thousand and a thousand deaths

each hour. O God! How has Fortune changed her aspect!" Giannotti

replied, enclosing three fine sonnets, the second of which,

beginning--

_Messer Luigi mio, di noi che fia

Che sian restati senza il nostro sole?_

seems to have taken Michelangelo's fancy. Many good pens in Italy

poured forth laments on this occasion. We have verses written by

Giovanni Aldobrandini, Carlo Gondi, Fra Paolo del Rosso, and Anton

Francesco Grazzini, called Il Lasca. Not the least touching is Luigi's

own threnody, which starts upon this note:--

_Idol mio, che la tua leggiadra spoglia

Mi lasciasti anzi tempo._

Michelangelo, seeking to indulge his own grief and to soothe that of

his friend Luigi, composed no fewer than forty-two epigrams of four

lines each, in which he celebrated the beauty and rare personal

sweetness of Cecchino in laboured philosophical conceits. They rank

but low among his poems, having too much of scholastic trifling and

too little of the accent of strong feeling in them. Certainly these

pieces did not deserve the pains which Michelangelo the younger

bestowed, when he altered the text of a selection from them so as to

adapt their Platonic compliments to some female. Far superior is a

sonnet written to Del Riccio upon the death of the youth, showing how

recent had been Michelangelo's acquaintance with Cecchino, and

containing an unfulfilled promise to carve his portrait:--

_Scarce had I seen for the first time his eyes,

Which to your living eyes were life and light,

When, closed at last in death's injurious night,

He opened them on God in Paradise.

I know it, and I weep--too late made wise:

Yet was the fault not mine; for death's fell spite

Robbed my desire of that supreme delight

Which in your better memory never dies.

Therefore, Luigi, if the task be mine

To make unique Cecchino smile in stone

For ever, now that earth hath made him dim,

If the beloved within the lover shine,

Since art without him cannot work alone,

You must I carve to tell the world of him._

The strange blending of artificial conceits with spontaneous feeling

in these poetical effusions, the deep interest taken in a mere lad

like Cecchino by so many eminent personages, and the frank publicity

given to a friendship based apparently upon the beauty of its object,

strike us now as almost unintelligible. Yet we have the history of

Shakespeare's Sonnets, and the letters addressed by Languet to young

Sidney, in evidence that fashion at the end of the sixteenth century

differed widely from that which prevails at the close of the

nineteenth.

IX

Some further light may here be thrown upon Michelangelo's intimacy

with young men by two fragments extracted independently from the

Buonarroti Archives by Milanesi and Guasti. In the collection of the

letters we find the following sorrowful epistle, written in December

1533, upon the eve of Michelangelo's departure from Florence. It is

addressed to a certain Febo:--

"Febo,--Albeit you bear the greatest hatred toward my person--I know

not why--I scarcely believe, because of the love I cherish for you,

but probably through the words of others, to which you ought to give

no credence, having proved me--yet I cannot do otherwise than write to

you this letter. I am leaving Florence to-morrow, and am going to

Pescia to meet the Cardinal di Cesis and Messer Baldassare. I shall

journey with them to Pisa, and thence to Rome, and I shall never

return again to Florence. I wish you to understand that, so long as I

live, wherever I may be, I shall always remain at your service with

loyalty and love, in a measure unequalled by any other friend whom you

may have upon this world.

"I pray God to open your eyes from some other quarter, in order that

you may come to comprehend that he who desires your good more than his

own welfare, is able to love, not to hate like an enemy."

Milanesi prints no more of the manuscript in his edition of the

Letters. But Guasti, conscientiously collecting fragments of

Michelangelo's verses, gives six lines, which he found at the foot of

the epistle:--

_Vo' sol del mie morir contento veggio:

La terra piange, e'l ciel per me si muove;

E vo' men pietà stringe ov' io sto peggio._

_O sol che scaldi il mondo in ogni dove,

O Febo, o luce eterna de' mortali,

Perchè a me sol ti scuri e non altrove?

* * * * *

Naught comforts you, I see, unless I die:

Earth weeps, the heavens for me are moved to woe;

You feel of grief the less, the more grieve I.

O sun that warms the world where'er you go,

O Febo, light eterne for mortal eyes!

Why dark to me alone, elsewhere not so?_

These verses seem to have been written as part of a long Capitolo

which Michelangelo himself, the elder, used indifferently in

addressing Febo and his abstract "donna." Who Febo was, we do not

know. But the sincere accent of the letter and the lyric cry of the

rough lines leave us to imagine that he was some one for whom

Michelangelo felt very tenderly in Florence.

Milanesi prints this letter to Febo with the following title, "_A Febo

(di Poggio)_." This proves that he at any rate knew it had been

answered by some one signing "Febo di Poggio." The autograph, in an

illiterate hand and badly spelt, is preserved among the Buonarroti

Archives, and bears date January 14, 1534. Febo excuses himself for

not having been able to call on Michelangelo the night before he left

Florence, and professes to have come the next day and found him

already gone. He adds that he is in want of money, both to buy clothes

and to go to see the games upon the Monte. He prays for a gratuity,

and winds up: "Vostro da figliuolo (yours like a son), Febo di

Poggio." I will add a full translation here:--

"Magnificent M. Michelangelo, to be honoured as a father,--I came back

yesterday from Pisa, whither I had gone to see my father. Immediately

upon my arrival, that friend of yours at the bank put a letter from

you into my hands, which I received with the greatest pleasure, having

heard of your well-being. God be praised, I may say the same about

myself. Afterwards I learned what you say about my being angry with

you. You know well I could not be angry with you, since I regard you

in the place of a father. Besides, your conduct toward me has not been

of the sort to cause in me any such effect. That evening when you left

Florence, in the morning I could not get away from M. Vincenzo, though

I had the greatest desire to speak with you. Next morning I came to

your house, and you were already gone, and great was my disappointment

at your leaving Florence without my seeing you.

"I am here in Florence; and when you left, you told me that if I

wanted anything, I might ask it of that friend of yours; and now that

M. Vincenzo is away, I am in want of money, both to clothe myself, and

also to go to the Monte, to see those people fighting, for M. Vincenzo

is there. Accordingly, I went to visit that friend at the bank, and he

told me that he had no commission whatsoever from you; but that a

messenger was starting to-night for Rome, and that an answer could

come back within five days. So then, if you give him orders, he will

not fail, I beseech you, then, to provide and assist me with any sum

you think fit, and do not fail to answer.

"I will not write more, except that with all my heart and power I

recommend myself to you, praying God to keep you from harm.--Yours in

the place of a son,

"Febo Di Poggio.

"Florence, _January 4, 154_."

X

In all the compositions I have quoted as illustrative of

Michelangelo's relations with young men, there is a singular humility

which gives umbrage to his editors. The one epistle to Gherardo

Perini, cited above, contains the following phrases: "I do not feel

myself of force enough to correspond to your kind letter;" "Your most

faithful and poor friend."

Yet there was nothing extraordinary in Cavalieri, Cecchino, Febo, or

Perini, except their singularity of youth and grace, good parts and

beauty. The vulgar are offended when an illustrious man pays homage to

these qualities, forgetful of Shakespeare's self-abasement before Mr.

W.H. and of Languet's prostration at the feet of Sidney. In the case

of Michelangelo, we may find a solution of this problem, I think, in

one of his sonnets. He says, writing a poem belonging very probably to

the series which inspires Michelangelo the younger with alarm:--

_As one who will re-seek her home of light,

Thy form immortal to this prison-house

Descended, like an angel-piteous,

To heal all hearts and make the whole world bright,

'Tis this that thralls my soul in love's delight,

Not thy clear face of beauty glorious;

For he who harbours virtue still will choose

To love what neither years nor death can blight.

So fares it ever with things high and rare

Wrought in the sweat of nature; heaven above

Showers on their birth the blessings of her prime:

Nor hath God deigned to show Himself elsewhere

More clearly than in human forms sublime,

Which, since they image Him, alone I love._

It was not, then, to this or that young man, to this or that woman,

that Michelangelo paid homage, but to the eternal beauty revealed in

the mortal image of divinity before his eyes. The attitude of the

mind, the quality of passion, implied in these poems, and conveyed

more clumsily through the prose of the letters, may be difficult to

comprehend. But until we have arrived at seizing them we shall fail to

understand the psychology of natures like Michelangelo. No language of

admiration is too strong, no self-humiliation too complete, for a soul

which has recognised deity made manifest in one of its main

attributes, beauty. In the sight of a philosopher, a poet, and an

artist, what are kings, popes, people of importance, compared with a

really perfect piece of God's handiwork?

_From thy fair face I learn, O my loved lord,

That which no mortal tongue can rightly say;

The soul imprisoned in her house of clay,

Holpen by thee, to God hath often soared.

And though the vulgar, vain, malignant horde

Attribute what their grosser wills obey,

Yet shall this fervent homage that I pay,

This love, this faith, pure joys for us afford.

Lo, all the lovely things we find on earth,

Resemble for the soul that rightly sees

That source of bliss divine which gave us birth:

Nor have we first-fruits or remembrances

Of heaven elsewhere. Thus, loving loyally,

I rise to God, and make death sweet by thee._

We know that, in some way or other, perhaps during those early years

at Florence among the members of the Platonic Academy, Michelangelo

absorbed the doctrines of the _Phoedrus_ and _Symposium_. His poems

abound in references to the contrast between Uranian and Pandemic,

celestial and vulgar, Eros. We have even one sonnet in which he

distinctly states the Greek opinion that the love of women is unworthy

of a soul bent upon high thoughts and virile actions. It reads like a

verse transcript from the main argument of the _Symposium_:--

_Love is not always harsh and deadly sin,

When love for boundless beauty makes us pine;

The heart, by love left soft and infantine,

Will let the shafts of God's grace enter in.

Love wings and wakes the soul, stirs her to win

Her flight aloft, nor e'er to earth decline;

'Tis the first step that leads her to the shrine

Of Him who slakes the thirst that burns within._

_The love of that whereof I speak ascends:

Woman is different far; the love of her

But ill befits a heart manly and wise.

The one love soars, the other earthward tends;

The soul lights this, while that the senses stir;

And still lust's arrow at base quarry flies._

The same exalted Platonism finds obscure but impassioned expression in

this fragment of a sonnet (No. lxxix.):----

_For Love's fierce wound, and for the shafts that harm,

True medicine 'twould have been to pierce my heart;

But my soul's Lord owns only one strong charm,

Which makes life grow where grows life's mortal smart.

My Lord dealt death, when with his-powerful arm

He bent Love's bow. Winged with that shaft, from Love

An angel flew, cried, "Love, nay Burn! Who dies,

Hath but Love's plumes whereby to soar above!

Lo, I am He who from thine earliest years

Toward, heaven-born Beauty raised thy faltering eyes.

Beauty alone lifts live man to heaven's spheres."_

Feeling like this, Michelangelo would have been justly indignant with

officious relatives and critics, who turned his _amici_ into _animi_,

redirected his Cavalieri letters to the address of Vittoria Colonna,

discovered Florence in Febo di Poggio, and ascribed all his emotional

poems to some woman.

There is no doubt that both the actions and the writings of

contemporaries justified a considerable amount of scepticism regarding

the purity of Platonic affections. The words and lives of many

illustrious persons gave colour to what Segni stated in his History of

Florence, and what Savonarola found it necessary to urge upon the

people from his pulpit.

But we have every reason to feel certain that, in a malicious age,

surrounded by jealous rivals, with the fierce light of his

transcendent glory beating round his throne, Buonarroti suffered from

no scandalous reports, and maintained an untarnished character for

sobriety of conduct and purity of morals.

The general opinion regarding him may be gathered from Scipione

Ammirati's History (under the year 1564). This annalist records the

fact that "Buonarotti having lived for ninety years, there was never

found through all that length of time, and with all that liberty to

sin, any one who could with right and justice impute to him a stain or

any ugliness of manners."

How he appeared to one who lived and worked with him for a long period

of intimacy, could not be better set forth than in the warm and

ingenuous words of Condivi: "He has loved the beauty of the human body

with particular devotion, as is natural with one who knows that beauty

so completely; and has loved it in such wise that certain carnally

minded men, who do not comprehend the love of beauty, except it be

lascivious and indecorous, have been led thereby to think and to speak

evil of him: just as though Alcibiades, that comeliest young man, had

not been loved in all purity by Socrates, from whose side, when they

reposed together, he was wont to say that he arose not otherwise than

from the side of his own father. Oftentimes have I heard Michelangelo

discoursing and expounding on the theme of love, and have afterwards

gathered from those who were present upon these occasions that he

spoke precisely as Plato wrote, and as we may read in Plato's works

upon this subject. I, for myself, do not know what Plato says; but I

know full well that, having so long and so intimately conversed with

Michelangelo, I never once heard issue from that mouth words that were

not of the truest honesty, and such as had virtue to extinguish in the

heart of youth any disordered and uncurbed desire which might assail

it. I am sure, too, that no vile thoughts were born in him, by this

token, that he loved not only the beauty of human beings, but in

general all fair things, as a beautiful horse, a beautiful dog, a

beautiful piece of country, a beautiful plant, a beautiful mountain, a

beautiful wood, and every site or thing in its kind fair and rare,

admiring them with marvellous affection. This was his way; to choose

what is beautiful from nature, as bees collect the honey from flowers,

and use it for their purpose in their workings: which indeed was

always the method of those masters who have acquired any fame in

painting. That old Greek artist, when he wanted to depict a Venus, was

not satisfied with the sight of one maiden only. On the contrary, he

sought to study many; and culling from each the particular in which

she was most perfect, to make use of these details in his Venus. Of a

truth, he who imagines to arrive at any excellence without following

this system (which is the source of a true theory in the arts), shoots

very wide indeed of his mark."

Condivi perhaps exaggerated the influence of lovely nature, horses,

dogs, flowers, hills, woods, &c., on Michelangelo's genius. His work,

as we know, is singularly deficient in motives drawn from any province

but human beauty; and his poems and letters contain hardly a trace of

sympathy with the external world. Yet, in the main contention, Condivi

told the truth. Michelangelo's poems and letters, and the whole series

of his works in fresco and marble, suggest no single detail which is

sensuous, seductive, enfeebling to the moral principles. Their tone

may be passionate; it is indeed often red-hot with a passion like that

of Lucretius and Beethoven; but the genius of the man transports the

mind to spiritual altitudes, where the lust of the eye and the

longings of the flesh are left behind us in a lower region. Only a

soul attuned to the same chord of intellectual rapture can breathe in

that fiery atmosphere and feel the vibrations of its electricity.

XI

I have used Michelangelo's poems freely throughout this work as

documents illustrative of his opinions and sentiments, and also in

their bearing on the events of his life. I have made them reveal the

man in his personal relations to Pope Julius II., to Vittoria Colonna,

to Tommaso dei Cavalieri, to Luigi del Riccio, to Febo di Poggio. I

have let them tell their own tale, when sorrow came upon him in the

death of his father and Urbino, and when old age shook his lofty

spirit with the thought of approaching death. I have appealed to them

for lighter incidents: matters of courtesy, the completion of the

Sistine vault, the statue of Night at S. Lorenzo, the subjection of

Florence to the Medici, his heart-felt admiration for Dante's genius.

Examples of his poetic work, so far as these can be applied to the

explanation of his psychology, his theory of art, his sympathies, his

feeling under several moods of passion, will consequently be found

scattered up and down by volumes. Translation, indeed, is difficult to

the writer, and unsatisfactory to the reader. But I have been at pains

to direct an honest student to the original sources, so that he may,

if he wishes, compare my versions with the text. Therefore I do not

think it necessary to load this chapter with voluminous citations.

Still, there remains something to be said about Michelangelo as poet,

and about the place he occupies as poet in Italian literature.

The value of Michelangelo's poetry is rather psychological than purely

literary. He never claimed to be more than an amateur, writing to

amuse himself. His style is obscure, crabbed, ungrammatical.

Expression only finds a smooth and flowing outlet when the man's

nature is profoundly stirred by some powerful emotion, as in the

sonnets to Cavalieri, or the sonnets on the deaths of Vittoria Colonna

and Urbino, or the sonnets on the thought of his own death. For the

most part, it is clear that he found great difficulty in mastering his

thoughts and images. This we discover from the innumerable variants of

the same madrigal or sonnet which he made, and his habit of returning

to them at intervals long after their composition. A good fourth of

the Codex Vaticanus consists of repetitions and _rifacimenti_. He was

also wont to submit what he wrote to the judgment of his friends,

requesting them to alter and improve. He often had recourse to Luigi

del Riccio's assistance in such matters. I may here adduce an inedited

letter from two friends in Rome, Giovanni Francesco Bini and Giovanni

Francesco Stella, who returned a poem they had handled in this manner:

"We have done our best to alter some things in your sonnet, but not to

set it all to rights, since there was not much wanting. Now that it is

changed or put in order, according as the kindness of your nature

wished, the result will be more due to your own judgment than to ours,

since you have the true conception of the subject in your mind. We

shall be greatly pleased if you find yourself as well served as we

earnestly desire that you should command us." It was the custom of

amateur poets to have recourse to literary craftsmen before they

ventured to circulate their compositions. An amusing instance of this

will be found in Professor Biagi's monograph upon Tullia d'Aragona,

all of whose verses passed through the crucible of Benedetto Varchi's

revision.

The thoughts and images out of which Michelangelo's poetry is woven

are characteristically abstract and arid. He borrows no illustrations

from external nature. The beauty of the world and all that lives in it

might have been non-existent so far as he was concerned. Nor do his

octave stanzas in praise of rural life form an exception to this

statement; for these are imitated from Poliziano, so far as they

attempt pictures of the country, and their chief poetical feature is

the masque of vices belonging to human nature in the city. His

stock-in-trade consists of a few Platonic notions and a few Petrarchan

antitheses. In the very large number of compositions which are devoted

to love, this one idea predominates: that physical beauty is a direct

beam sent from the eternal source of all reality, in order to elevate

the lover's soul and lead him on the upward path toward heaven. Carnal

passion he regards with the aversion of an ascetic. It is impossible

to say for certain to whom these mystical love-poems were addressed.

Whether a man or a woman is in the case (for both were probably the

objects of his aesthetical admiration), the tone of feeling, the

language, and the philosophy do not vary. He uses the same imagery,

the same conceits, the same abstract ideas for both sexes, and adapts

the leading motive which he had invented for a person of one sex to a

person of the other when it suits his purpose. In our absolute

incapacity to fix any amative connection upon Michelangelo, or to link

his name with that of any contemporary beauty, we arrive at the

conclusion, strange as this may be, that the greater part of his

love-poetry is a scholastic exercise upon emotions transmuted into

metaphysical and mystical conceptions. Only two pieces in the long

series break this monotony by a touch of realism. They are divided by

a period of more than thirty years. The first seems to date from an

early epoch of his life:--

_What joy hath yon glad wreath of flowers that is

Around her golden hair so deftly twined,

Each blossom pressing forward from behind,

As though to be the first her brows to kiss!

The livelong day her dress hath perfect bliss,

That now reveals her breast, now seems to bind:

And that fair woven net of gold refined

Rests on her cheek and throat in happiness!

Yet still more blissful seems to me the band,

Gilt at the tips, so sweetly doth it ring,

And clasp the bosom that it serves to lace:

Yea, and the belt, to such as understand,

Bound round her waist, saith: Here I'd ever cling!

What would my arms do in that girdle's place?_

The second can be ascribed with probability to the year 1534 or 1535.

It is written upon the back of a rather singular letter addressed to

him by a certain Pierantonio, when both men were in Rome together:--

_Kind to the world, but to itself unkind,

A worm is born, that, dying noiselessly,

Despoils itself to clothe fair limbs, and be

In its true worth alone by death divined.

Would I might die for my dear lord to find

Raiment in my outworn mortality;

That, changing like the snake, I might be free

To cast the slough wherein I dwell confined!

Nay, were it mine, that shaggy fleece that stays,

Woven and wrought into a vestment fair,

Around yon breast so beauteous in such bliss!

All through the day thou'd have me! Would I were

The shoes that bear that burden! when the ways

Were wet with rain, thy feet I then should kiss!_

I have already alluded to the fact that we can trace two widely

different styles of writing in Michelangelo's poetry. Some of his

sonnets, like the two just quoted, and those we can refer with

certainty to the Cavalieri series, together with occasional

compositions upon the deaths of Cecchino and Urbino, seem to come

straight from the heart, and their manuscripts offer few variants to

the editor. Others, of a different quality, where he is dealing with

Platonic subtleties or Petrarchan conceits, have been twisted into so

many forms, and tortured by such frequent re-handlings, that it is

difficult now to settle a final text. The Codex Vaticanus is

peculiarly rich in examples of these compositions. Madrigal lvii. and

Sonnet lx., for example, recur with wearisome reiteration. These

laboured and scholastic exercises, unlike the more spontaneous

utterances of his feelings, are worked up into different forms, and

the same conceits are not seldom used for various persons and on

divers occasions.

One of the great difficulties under which a critic labours in

discussing these personal poems is that their chronology cannot be

ascertained in the majority of instances. Another is that we are

continually hampered by the false traditions invented by Michelangelo

the younger. Books like Lannan Rolland's "Michel-Ange et Vittoria

Colonna" have no value whatsoever, because they are based upon that

unlucky grand-nephew's deliberately corrupted text. Even Wadsworth's

translations, fine as they are, have lost a large portion of their

interest since the publication of the autographs by Cesare Guasti in

1863. It is certain that the younger Michelangelo meant well to his

illustrious ancestor. He was anxious to give his rugged compositions

the elegance and suavity of academical versification. He wished also

to defend his character from the imputation of immorality. Therefore

he rearranged the order of stanzas in the longer poems, pieced

fragments together, changed whole lines, ideas, images, amplified and

mutilated, altered phrases which seemed to him suspicious. Only one

who has examined the manuscripts of the Buonarroti Archives knows what

pains he bestowed upon this ungrateful and disastrous task. But the

net result of his meddlesome benevolence is that now for nearly three

centuries the greatest genius of the Italian Renaissance has worn a

mask concealing the real nature of his emotion, and that a false

legend concerning his relations to Vittoria Colonna has become

inextricably interwoven with the story of his life.

The extraordinary importance attached by Michelangelo in old age to

the passions of his youth is almost sufficient to justify those

psychological investigators who regard him as the subject of a nervous

disorder. It does not seem to be accounted for by anything known to us

regarding his stern and solitary life, his aloofness from the vulgar,

and his self-dedication to study. In addition to the splendid

devotional sonnets addressed to Vasari, which will appear in their

proper place, I may corroborate these remarks by the translation of a

set of three madrigals bearing on the topic.

_Ah me, ah me! how have I been betrayed

By my swift-flitting years, and by the glass,

Which yet tells truth to those who firmly gaze!

Thus happens it when one too long delays,

As I have done, nor feels time fleet and, fade:--

One morn he finds himself grown old, alas!

To gird my loins, repent, my path repass,

Sound counsel take, I cannot, now death's near;

Foe to myself, each tear,

Each sigh, is idly to the light wind sent,

For there's no loss to equal time ill-spent.

Ah me, ah me! I wander telling o'er

Past years, and yet in all I cannot view

One day that might be rightly reckoned mine.

Delusive hopes and vain desires entwine

My soul that loves, weeps, burns, and sighs full sore.

Too well I know and prove that this is true,

Since of man's passions none to me are new.

Far from the truth my steps have gone astray,

In peril now I stay,

For, lo! the brief span of my life is o'er.

Yet, were it lengthened, I should love once more.

Ah me! I wander tired, and know not whither:

I fear to sight my goal, the years gone by

Point it too plain; nor will closed eyes avail.

Now Time hath changed and gnawed this mortal veil,

Death and the soul in conflict strive together

About my future fate that looms so nigh.

Unless my judgment greatly goes awry,

Which God in mercy grant, I can but see

Eternal penalty

Waiting my wasted will, my misused mind,

And know not, Lord, where health and hope to find._

After reading these lamentations, it is well to remember that

Michelangelo at times indulged a sense of humour. As examples of his

lighter vein, we might allude to the sonnet on the Sistine and the

capitolo in answer to Francesco Berni, written in the name of Fra

Sebastiano. Sometimes his satire becomes malignant, as in the sonnet

against the people of Pistoja, which breathes the spirit of Dantesque

invective. Sometimes the fierceness of it is turned against himself,

as in the capitolo upon old age and its infirmities. The grotesqueness

of this lurid descant on senility and death is marked by something

rather Teutonic than Italian, a "Danse Macabre" intensity of loathing;

and it winds up with the bitter reflections, peculiar to him in his

latest years, upon the vanity of art. "My much-prized art, on which I

relied and which brought me fame, has now reduced me to this. I am

poor and old, the slave of others. To the dogs I must go, unless I die

quickly."

A proper conclusion to this chapter may be borrowed from the

peroration of Varchi's discourse upon the philosophical love-poetry of

Michelangelo. This time he chooses for his text the second of those

sonnets (No. lii.) which caused the poet's grand-nephew so much

perplexity, inducing him to alter the word _amici_ in the last line

into _animi_. It runs as follows:--

_I saw no mortal beauty with these eyes

When perfect peace in thy fair eyes I found;

But far within, where all is holy ground,

My soul felt Love, her comrade of the skies:

For she was born with God in Paradise;

Else should we still to transient love be bound;

But, finding these so false, we pass beyond

Unto the Love of loves that never dies.

Nay, things that die cannot assuage the thirst

Of souls undying; nor Eternity

Serves Time, where all must fade that flourisheth

_Sense is not love, but lawlessness accurst:

This kills the soul; while our love lifts on high

Our friends on earth--higher in heaven through death._

"From this sonnet," says Varchi, "I think that any man possessed of

judgment will be able to discern to what extent this angel, or rather

archangel, in addition to his three first and most noble professions

of architecture, sculpture, and painting, wherein without dispute he

not only eclipses all the moderns, but even surpasses the ancients,

proves himself also excellent, nay singular, in poetry, and in the

true art of loving; the which art is neither less fair nor less

difficult, albeit it be more necessary and more profitable than the

other four. Whereof no one ought to wonder: for this reason; that,

over and above what is manifest to everybody, namely that nature,

desirous of exhibiting her utmost power, chose to fashion a complete

man, and (as the Latins say) one furnished in all proper parts; he, in

addition to the gifts of nature, of such sort and so liberally

scattered, added such study and a diligence so great that, even had he

been by birth most rugged, he might through these means have become

consummate in all virtue: and supposing he were born, I do not say in

Florence and of a very noble family, in the time too of Lorenzo the

Magnificent, who recognised, willed, knew, and had the power to

elevate so vast a genius; but in Scythia, of any stock or stem you

like, under some commonplace barbarian chief, a fellow not disdainful

merely, but furiously hostile to all intellectual ability; still, in

all circumstances, under any star, he would have been Michelangelo,

that is to say, the unique painter, the singular sculptor, the most

perfect architect, the most excellent poet, and a lover of the most

divinest. For the which reasons I (it is now many years ago), holding

his name not only in admiration, but also in veneration, before I knew

that he was architect already, made a sonnet; with which (although it

be as much below the supreme greatness of his worth as it is unworthy

of your most refined and chastened ears) I mean to close this present

conference; reserving the discussion on the arts (in obedience to our

Consul's orders) for another lecture.

_Illustrious sculptor, 'twas enough and more,

Not with the chisel-and bruised bronze alone,

But also with brush, colour, pencil, tone,

To rival, nay, surpass that fame of yore.

But now, transcending what those laurels bore

Of pride and beauty for our age and zone.

You climb of poetry the third high throne,

Singing love's strife and-peace, love's sweet and sore.

O wise, and dear to God, old man well born,

Who in so many, so fair ways, make fair

This world, how shall your dues be dully paid?

Doomed by eternal charters to adorn

Nature and art, yourself their mirror are,

None, first before, nor second after, made."_

In the above translation of Varchi's peroration I have endeavoured to

sustain those long-winded periods of which he was so perfect and

professed a master. We must remember that he actually read this

dissertation before the Florentine Academy on the second Sunday in

Lent, in the year 1546, when Michelangelo was still alive and hearty.

He afterwards sent it to the press; and the studied trumpet-tones of

eulogy, conferring upon Michelangelo the quintuple crown of

pre-eminence in painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and loving,

sounded from Venice down to Naples. The style of the oration may

strike us as _rococo_ now, but the accent of praise and appreciation

is surely genuine. Varchi's enthusiastic comment on the sonnets xxx,

xxxi, and lii, published to men of letters, taste, and learning in

Florence and all Italy, is the strongest vindication of their

innocence against editors and scholars who in various ways have

attempted to disfigure or to misconstrue them.