isabetta
and I shall know that you are here, and you shall do just as you
please; and, in short, I beg you earnestly to choose this plan.
Otherwise, come to the Borgo Nuovo, to the houses which Volterra
built, the fifth house toward S. Angelo. I have rented it to live
there, and my brother Fruosino is also going to live and keep shop in
it. There you will have a room or two, if you like, at your disposal.
Please yourself, and give the letter to Tommaso di Stefano Miniatore,
who will address it to Messer Lorenzo de' Medici, and I shall have it
quickly."

Nothing came of these proposals. But that Michelangelo did not abandon
the idea of going to Rome appears from a letter of Sebastiano's
written on the 24th of February. It was the first which passed between
the friends since the terrible events of 1527 and 1530. For once, the
jollity of the epicurean friar has deserted him. He writes as though
those awful months of the sack of Rome were still present to his
memory. "After all those trials, hardships, and perils, God Almighty
has left us alive and in health, by His mercy and piteous kindness. A
thing, in sooth, miraculous, when I reflect upon it; wherefore His
Majesty be ever held in gratitude.... Now, gossip mine, since we have
passed through fire and water, and have experienced things we never
dreamed of, let us thank God for all; and the little remnant left to
us of life, may we at least employ it in such peace as can be had. For
of a truth, what fortune does or does not do is of slight importance,
seeing how scurvy and how dolorous she is. I am brought to this, that
if the universe should crumble round me, I should not care, but laugh
at all. Menighella will inform you what my life is, how I am. I do not
yet seem to myself to be the same Bastiano I was before the Sack. I
cannot yet get back into my former frame of mind." In a postscript to
this letter, eloquent by its very naivete, Sebastiano says that he
sees no reason for Michelangelo's coming to Rome, except it be to look
after his house, which is going to ruin, and the workshop tumbling to
pieces. In another letter, of April 29, Sebastiano repeats that there
is no need for Michelangelo to come to Rome, if it be only to put
himself right with the Pope. Clement is sincerely his friend, and has
forgiven the part he played during the siege of Florence. He then
informs his gossip that, having been lately at Pesaro, he met the
painter Girolamo Genga, who promised to be