The model of that nobler self, whereto
Schooled by your pity, lady, I shall grow.
Each overplus and each deficiency
You will make good. What penance then is due
For my fierce heat, chastened and taught by you?"

The correspondence between Vittoria and Michael Angelo was undated, and
all that now remains is fragmentary.

The great artist, writing to his nephew, Sionardo, in 1554, says:--

"Messer Giovan Francisco 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 afterward
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."

In Rome, 1545, Michael Angelo thus writes to Vittoria:--

"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 recognize
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 favors. 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."

With this letter Michael Angelo sent to Vittoria a sonnet which, in the
translation made by John Addington Symonds, is as follows:--

"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,