of his mass
in D. It is the expression of those long nights when he was alone face
to face with his sorrow and spoke only to himself. He represents himself
in the form of an old man, in a monk's cowl, bending with infinite
sadness and tenderness to support the sinking body of the dead Christ.

In this piece of stone hardly blocked out smoulders deep sorrow and an
agony of pain. But what great love is in that suffering, in the scarcely
modelled face of the mother with closed eyes and parted lips, and in the
tender movement of the hand which rests on the naked breast of her son,
whose head has sunk against her shoulder. How much Michelangelo has
softened since his early work, how far this feeling is from the
implacable heroism of his youth, how far it is indeed from the lovely
Pieta of St. Peter's, where serene beauty rises above the sorrow. Here
he suffers and abandons himself to the suffering. What matters a lack of
proportion and an uncertain composition?[107] The work is unique in its
intimacy. It is his whole soul laid bare.

Michelangelo never lacked illustrious friends. From the time of his
early youth, when he talked in the gardens of San Marco with Lorenzo de'
Medici and Poliziano, he was always in close touch with the best among
the nobles and princes, prelates and poets and artists of Italy.[108] He
had a peculiarly close friendship with Francesco Berni and Sebastiano
del Piombo[109] under Clement VII and with Luigi del Riccio, Donato
Giannotti and Benedetto Varchi[110] under Paul III, and at the close of
his life he was surrounded by the pious worship of pupils and admirers
like Benvenuto Cellini, Bronzino, Daniele da Volterra, Leone Leoni,
Vasari and his biographer, almost his hagiographer, Condivi, whose book
begins with these words:

"Since the hour when our Lord God by special mercy judged me worthy to
not only see Michelangelo, which I could hardly have dared to hope for,
but to enjoy his affection, his conversation and his confidence--grateful
for such a great blessing, I have made all possible effort not only to
collect and write down the instructions which he gave me on art, but all
his words, actions and habits and all things in his life which seemed to
me worthy of praise, admiration or emulation. This I do to pay back a
little of the infinite obligation which I owe to him no less than to be
useful to others by giving them the example of such a man."[111]

The artists were not the only ones who lo