coming from no other hand but yours.... I have examined it
minutely in full light and by the lens and mirror, and never saw
anything more perfect."

She added:--

"... Your works forcibly stimulate the judgment of all who would
look at them. My study of them made me speak of adding goodness to
things perfect in themselves, and I have seen now that 'all is
possible to him who believes.' I had the greatest faith in God that
He would bestow upon you supernatural grace for the making of this
Christ. When I came to examine it I found it so marvellous that it
surpasses all my expectations. Wherefore, emboldened by your
miracles I conceived a great desire for that which I now see
marvellously accomplished: I mean that the design is in all parts
perfect and consummate. I tell you that I am pleased that the angel
on the right hand is by far the fairer, since Michael will place
you, with all angels, upon the right hand of the Lord some day.
Meanwhile I do not know how else to serve you, than by making
orisons to this sweet Christ, whom you have drawn so well and
exquisitely, and praying you to hold me yours to command as yours
in all and for all."

Again Vittoria wrote to him:--

"I beg you to let me have the crucifix a short while in my keeping,
even though it be unfinished. I want to show it to some gentlemen
who have come from the most reverend, the Cardinal of Mantua. If
you are not working will you not come at your leisure to-day and
talk with me?"

It is an interesting fact to the visitor in the Rome of to-day that the
convent of San Silvestre where Vittoria Colonna lived was attached to
the church of San Silvestre in Capite, now used as the English-speaking
Catholic church in the Eternal City. The wing which was formerly the
convent (founded in 1318) is now converted into the central post office.

It was in the sacristy of San Silvestre, decorated with frescoes by
Domenichino, that a memorable meeting and conversation took place, one
Sunday afternoon in those far-away days of nearly five hundred years
ago, between Michael Angelo and Francesco d'Ollanda, a Spanish miniature
artist,--the meeting brought about by Vittoria Colonna. The Spanish
artist was a worshipper of Michael Angelo, who "awakened such a feeling
of love," that if d'Ollanda met him in the street "the stars would come
out in the sky," he s