ortraits he is reported to
have executed. It may here be remarked that nothing is more characteristic
of his genius than the determination to see through nature, to pass beyond
the actual to the abstract, and to use reality only as a stepping-stone to
the ideal. This artistic Platonism was the source both of his greatness
and his mannerism. As men choose to follow Blake or Ruskin, they may
praise or blame him; yet, blame and praise pronounced on such a matter
with regard to such a man are equally impertinent and insignificant. It is
enough for the critic to note with reverence that thus and thus the spirit
that was in him worked and moved.

When we read the sonnets addressed to Vittoria Colonna and Cavalieri, we
find something inexpressibly pathetic in this pure and fervent worship of
beauty, when the artist with a soul still young had reached the limit of
the years of man. Here and there we trace in them an echo of his youth.
The Platonic dialogues he heard while yet a young man at the suppers of
Lorenzo, reappear converted to the very substance of his thought and
style. At the same time Savonarola resumes ascendency over his mind; and
when he turns to Florence, it is of Dante that he speaks.

At last the moment came when this strong solitary spirit, much suffering
and much loving, had to render its account. It appears from a letter
written to Lionardo Buonarroti on February 15, 1564, that his old servant
Antonio del Francese, the successor of Urbino in his household, together
with Tommaso Cavalieri and Daniello Ricciarelli of Volterra, attended him
in his last illness. On the 18th of that month, having bequeathed his
soul to God, his body to the earth, and his worldly goods to his kinsfolk,
praying them on their death-bed to think upon Christ's passion, he
breathed his last. His corpse was transported to Florence, and buried in
the church of S. Croce, with great pomp and honour, by the Duke, the city,
and the Florentine Academy.

FOOTNOTES:

[289] See Vasari, vol. xii. p. 333, and Gotti's _Vita di Michelangelo
Buonarroti_, vol. i. p. 4, for a discussion of this claim, and for a
letter written by Alessandro Count of Canossa, in 1520, to the artist.

[290] That Michael Angelo was contemptuous to brother artists, is proved
by what Torrigiani said to Cellini: "Aveva per usanza di uccellare tutti
quelli che dissegnavano." He called Perugino _goffo_, told Francia's son
that his father made handsomer men by night than by