d show you
how far wrong you are, and teach you to waste your substance, and set
fire to houses and farms you have not earned. Indeed you are not where
you think yourself to be. If I come, I will open your eyes to what
will make you weep hot tears, and recognise on what false grounds you
base your arrogance.

"I have something else to say to you, which I have said before. If you
will endeavour to live rightly, and to honour and revere your father,
I am willing to help you like the rest, and will put it shortly within
your power to open a good shop. If you act otherwise, I shall come and
settle your affairs in such a way that you will recognise what you are
better than you ever did, and will know what you have to call your
own, and will have it shown to you in every place where you may go. No
more. What I lack in words I will supply with deeds.

"Michelangelo _in Rome_.

"I cannot refrain from adding a couple of lines. It is as follows. I
have gone these twelve years past drudging about through Italy, borne
every shame, suffered every hardship, worn my body out in every toil,
put my life to a thousand hazards, and all with the sole purpose of
helping the fortunes of my family. Now that I have begun to raise it
up a little, you only, you alone, choose to destroy and bring to ruin
in one hour what it has cost me so many years and such labour to build
up. By Christ's body this shall not be; for I am the man to put to the
rout ten thousand of your sort, whenever it be needed. Be wise in
time, then, and do not try the patience of one who has other things to
vex him."

Even Buonarroto, who was the best of the brothers and dearest to his
heart, hurt him by his graspingness and want of truth. He had been
staying at Rome on a visit, and when he returned to Florence it
appears that he bragged about his wealth, as if the sums expended on
the Buonarroti farms were not part of Michelangelo's earnings. The
consequence was that he received a stinging rebuke from his elder
brother. "The said Michele told me you mentioned to him having spent
about sixty ducats at Settignano. I remember your saying here too at
table that you had disbursed a large sum out of your own pocket. I
pretended not to understand, and did not feel the least surprise,
because I know you. I should like to hear from your ingratitude out of
what money you gained them. If you had enough sense to know the truth,
you would not say: 'I spent so and so much of my own;'