Chapter II
, S. Peter's.
[333] See Gotti, p. 307, or _Archivio Buonarroti_, p. 535.
[334] I have reserved my translation of the sonnets that cast most light upon Michael Angelo's thought and feeling for an Appendix, No. II.
[335] The majority of Michael Angelo's letters are written on domestic matters--about the affairs of his brothers and his father. When they vexed him, he would break out into expressions like the following: "Io son ito, da dodici anni in qua, tapinando per tutta Italia; sopportato ogni vergognia; patito ogni stento; lacerato il corpo mio in ogni fatica; messa la vita propria a mille pericoli, solo per aiutar la casa mia." They are generally full of good counsel and sound love. How he loved his father may be seen in the _terza rima_ poem on his death in 1534.
[336] Notice this expression in a letter to his father, written from Rome, about 1512, "Bastivi avere del pane, e vivete ben con Cristo e poveramente; come fo io qua, che vivo meschinamente." It does not seem that he ever altered this poor way of living. For his hiring at Bologna, in 1507, a single room with one bed in it, for himself and his three workmen, see Gotti, p. 58. His father in 1500 rebuked him for the meanness of his establishment; _ibid_. p. 23. It appears that he was always sending money home.
[337] "Io sto qua in grande afanno, e con grandissima fatica di corpo, e non ò amici di nessuna sorte, e none voglio: e non ò tanto tempo che io possa mangiare el bisognio mio." Letter to Gismondo, published by Grimm. See, too, Sebastian del Piombo's letter to him of November 9, 1520: "Ma fate paura a ognuno, insino a' papi." Compare, too, the letter of Sebastian, Oct. 15, 1512, in which Julius is reported to have said, "È terribile, come tu vedi, non se pol praticar con lui." Again, Michael Angelo writes: "Sto sempesolo, vo poco attorno e non parlo a persona e massino di fiorentini." Gotti, p. 255.
[338] When anything went wrong with him, he became moody and vehement: "Non vi maravigliate che io vi abbi scritto alle volte cosi stizosamente, che io ò alle volte di gran passione, per molte cagioni che avengono a chi è fuor di casa." So he writes to his father in 1498. A letter to Luigi del Riccio of 1545, is signed "Michelagnolo Buonarroti non pittore, nè scultore, nè architettore, ma quel che voi volete, ma none briaco, come vi dissi, in casa."
[339] See the letters of Cosimo de' Medici, Gotti, pp. 301-313, the letter of Count Alessandro da Canossa, _ibid._ p. 4, and Pier Vettori's letter to Borghini, about the visit of some German gentlemen, _ibid._ p. 315.
[340] See the story as told by Torrigiani himself in Cellini, ed. Le Monnier, p. 23.
[341] After saying that he talked of love like Plato, Condivi continues: "Non senti mai uscir di quella bocca se non parole onestissime, e che avevan forza d' estinguere nella gioventù ogni incomposto e sfrenato desiderio che in lei potesse cadere." Compare Scipione Ammirato, quoted by Guasti, "Le Rime," p. xi.
[342] Her intense affection for the Marquis of Pescara, to whom she had been betrothed by her father at the age of five, is sufficiently proved by those many sonnets and _canzoni_ in which she speaks of him as her Sun.
[343] See Grimm, vol. ii.
[344] See the Sonnets translated in my Appendix and in my _Sonnets of Michael Angelo and Campanella_, London, Smith & Elder, 1878. See also the letters to Cavalieri, quoted by Gotti, pp. 231, 232, 234. It is surely strained criticism to conjecture, as Gotti has done, that these epistles were meant for Vittoria, though written to Cavalieri. Taken together with the sonnets and the letter of Bartolommeo Angiolini (Gotti, p. 233), they seem to me to prove only Michael Angelo's warm love for this young man.
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