he temple of eternal
things--[Greek: ta aidia], _die bleibenden Verhaeltnisse_--and as the
means of maintaining self-control and self-coherence amid the
ever-shifting illusions of human life. This explains why in his
love-sonnets he rarely speaks of carnal beauty except as the
manifestation of the divine idea, which will be clearer to the soul
after death than in the body.

When his life was drawing toward its close, Michelangelo's friends
were not unnaturally anxious about his condition. Though he had a
fairly good servant in Antonio del Franzese, and was surrounded by
well-wishers like Tommaso Cavalieri, Daniele da Volterra, and Tiberio
Calcagni, yet he led a very solitary life, and they felt he ought to
be protected. Vasari tells us that he communicated privately with
Averardo Serristori, the Duke's ambassador in Rome, recommending that
some proper housekeeper should be appointed, and that due control
should be instituted over the persons who frequented his house. It was
very desirable, in case of a sudden accident, that his drawings and
works of art should not be dispersed, but that what belonged to S.
Peter's, to the Laurentian Library, and to the Sacristy should be duly
assigned. Lionardo Buonarroti must have received similar advice from
Rome, for a furious letter is extant, in which Michelangelo, impatient
to the last of interference, literally rages at him:--

"I gather from your letter that you lend credence to certain envious
and scoundrelly persons, who, since they cannot manage me or rob me,
write you a lot of lies. They are a set of sharpers, and you are so
silly as to believe what they say about my affairs, as though I were a
baby. Get rid of them, the scandalous, envious, ill-lived rascals. As
for my suffering the mismanagement you write about, I tell you that I
could not be better off, or more faithfully served and attended to in
all things. As for my being robbed, to which I think you allude, I
assure you that I have people in my house whom I can trust and repose
on. Therefore, look to your own life, and do not think about my
affairs, because I know how to take care of myself if it is needful,
and am not a baby. Keep well."

This is the last letter to Lionardo. It is singular that
Michelangelo's correspondence with his father, with Luigi del Riccio,
with Tommaso dei Cavalieri, and with his nephew, all of whom he
sincerely loved, should close upon a note of petulance and wrath. The
fact is no doubt a