on in which he was held vanished in smoke; and I remember
that Michelagnolo would be seized with compassion for his toil, and
would assist him with his own hand, but this profited him little. If
he had found a nature after his heart, as he told me several times, in
spite of his age he would often have made anatomical studies, and
would have written upon them, for the benefit of his fellow-craftsmen;
for he was disappointed by several. But he did not trust himself,
through not being able to express himself in writing as he would have
liked, because he was not practised in diction, although in the prose
of his letters he explained his conceptions very well in a few words.
He much delighted in readings of the poets in the vulgar tongue, and
particularly of Dante, whom he much admired, imitating him in his
conceptions and inventions; and so with Petrarca, having delighted to
make madrigals and sonnets of great weight, upon which commentaries
have been written. M. Benedetto Varchi gave a lecture in the
Florentine Academy upon that sonnet which begins--

Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto
Ch'un marmo solo in se non circonscriva.

Michelagnolo sent a vast number by his own hand--receiving answers in
rhyme and in prose--to the most illustrious Marchioness of Pescara, of
whose virtues he was enamoured, and she likewise of his; and she went
many times to Rome from Viterbo to visit him, and Michelagnolo
designed for her a Dead Christ in the lap of Our Lady, with two little
Angels, all most admirable, and a Christ fixed on the Cross, who, with
the head uplifted, is recommending His Spirit to the Father, a divine
work; and also a Christ with the Woman of Samaria at the well. He much
delighted in the sacred Scriptures, like the excellent Christian that
he was; and he held in great veneration the works written by Fra
Girolamo Savonarola, because he had heard the voice of that friar in
the pulpit. He greatly loved human beauty for the sake of imitation in
art, being able to select from the beautiful the most beautiful, for
without this imitation no perfect work can be done; but not with
lascivious and disgraceful thoughts, as he proved by his way of life,
which was very frugal. Thus, when he was young, all intent on his
work, he contented himself with a little bread and wine, and this he
continued when old until the time when he was painting the Judgment in
the Chapel, taking his refreshment in the evening when he had finished