et reached completion.
This Pope has not used the services of Michelangelo for any active
work, out of regard for his advanced age. He is fully alive to his
greatness, and appreciates it, but refrains from adding burdens beyond
those which Michelangelo himself desires; and this regard, in my
opinion, confers more honour on him than any of the great
under-takings which former pontiffs exacted from his genius. It is
true that his Holiness almost always consults him on works of painting
or of architecture he may have in progress, and very often sends the
artists to confer with him at his own house. I regret, and his
Holiness also regrets, that a certain natural shyness, or shall I say
respect or reverence, which some folk call pride, prevents him from
having recourse to the benevolence, goodness, and liberality of such a
pontiff, and one so much his friend. For the Pope, as I first heard
from the Most Rev. Monsignor of Forli, his Master of the Chamber, has
often observed that, were this possible, he, would gladly give some of
his own years and his own blood to add to Michelangelo's life, to the
end that the world should not so soon be robbed of such a man. And
this, when I had access to his Holiness, I heard with my own ears from
his mouth. Moreover, if he happens to survive him, as seems reasonable
in the course of nature, he has a mind to embalm him and keep him ever
near to his own person, so that his body in death shall be as
everlasting as his works. This he said to Michelangelo himself at the
commencement of his reign, in the presence of many persons. I know not
what could be more honourable to Michelangelo than such words, or a
greater proof of the high account in which he is held by his Holiness.

"So then Michelangelo, while he was yet a youth, devoted himself not
only to sculpture and painting, but also to all those other arts which
to them are allied or subservient, and this he did with such absorbing
energy that for a time he almost entirely cut himself off from human
society, conversing with but very few intimate friends. On this
account some folk thought him proud, others eccentric and capricious,
although he was tainted with none of these defects; but, as hath
happened to many men of great abilities, the love of study and the
perpetual practice of his art rendered him solitary, being so taken up
with the pleasure and delight of these things that society not only
afforded him no solace, but even caused him an