he temptations of the artist-nature,
over-sensitive to beauty. Michelangelo the younger so altered these six
lines as to destroy the autobiographical allusion.--Cp. No. XXVIII., note.

XIX. The lover's heart is like an intaglio, precious by being inscribed
with his lady's image.

XX. An early composition, written on the back of a letter sent to the
sculptor in Bologna by his brother Simone in 1507. M.A. was then
working at the bronze statue of Julius II. Who the lady of his love
was, we do not know. Notice the absence of Platonic _concetti_.

XXIII. It is hardly necessary to call attention to Michael Angelo's
oft-recurring Platonism. The thought that the eye alone perceives the
celestial beauty, veiled beneath the fleshly form of the beloved, is
repeated in many sonnets--especially in XXV., XXVIII.

XXIV. Composed probably in the year 1529.

XXV. Written on the same sheet as the foregoing sonnet, and composed
probably in the same year. The thought is this: beauty passing from the
lady into the lover's soul, is there spiritualised and becomes the
object of a spiritual love.

XXVII. To escape from his lady, either by interposing another image of
beauty between the thought of her and his heart, or by flight, is
impossible.

XXVIII. Compare Madrigal VII. in illustration of lines 5 to 8. By the
analogy of that passage, I should venture to render lines 6 and 7 thus:

He made thee light, and me the eyes of art;
Nor fails my soul to find God's counterpart.

XXX. Varchi, quoting this sonnet in his _Lezione_, conjectures that it
was composed for Tommaso Cavalieri.

XXXI. Varchi asserts without qualification that this sonnet was
addressed to Tommaso Cavalieri. The pun in the last line, _Resto
prigion d'un Cavalier armato_, seems to me to decide the matter, though
Signor Guasti and Signor Gotti both will have it that a woman must have
been intended. Michelangelo the younger has only left one line, the
second, untouched in his _rifacimento_. Instead of the last words he
gives _un cuor di virtu armato_, being over-scrupulous for his
great-uncle's reputation.

XXXII. Written at the foot of a letter addressed by Giuliano Bugiardini
the painter, from Florence, to M.A. in Rome, August 5, 1532. This then
is probably the date of the composition.

XXXIV. The metaphor of fire, flint, and mortar breaks down in the last
line, where M.A. forgets that gold cannot strike a spark from stone.

XXXV. Line 9 has the word _Signor_. I