Michelangelo could have lent a
willing ear to the malignant babble of a man so much inferior to
himself in nobleness of nature--have listened when Sebastiano taunted
Raffaello as "Prince of the Synagogue," or boasted that a picture of
his own was superior to "the tapestries just come from Flanders." Yet
Sebastiano was not the only friend to whose idle gossip the great
sculptor indulgently stooped. Lionardo, the saddle-maker, was even
more offensive. He writes, for instance, upon New Year's Day, 1519, to
say that the Resurrection of Lazarus, for which Michelangelo had
contributed some portion of the design, was nearly finished, and adds:
"Those who understand art rank it far above Raffaello. The vault, too,
of Agostino Chigi has been exposed to view, and is a thing truly
disgraceful to a great artist, far worse than the last hall of the
Palace. Sebastiano has nothing to fear."

We gladly turn from these quarrels to what Sebastiano teaches us about
Michelangelo's personal character. The general impression in the world
was that he was very difficult to live with. Julius, for instance,
after remarking that Raffaello changed his style in imitation of
Buonarroti, continued: "'But he is terrible, as you see; one cannot
get on with him.' I answered to his Holiness that your terribleness
hurt nobody, and that you only seem to be terrible because of your
passionate devotion to the great works you have on hand." Again, he
relates Leo's estimate of his friend's character:

"I know in what esteem the Pope holds you, and when he speaks of you,
it would seem that he were talking about a brother, almost with tears
in his eyes; for he has told me you were brought up together as boys"
(Giovanni de' Medici and the sculptor were exactly of the same age),
"and shows that he knows and loves you. But you frighten everybody,
even Popes!" Michelangelo must have complained of this last remark,
for Sebastiano, in a letter dated a few days later, reverts to the
subject: "Touching what you reply to me about your terribleness, I,
for my part, do not esteem you terrible; and if I have not written on
this subject do not be surprised, seeing you do not strike me as
terrible, except only in art--that is to say, in being the greatest
master who ever lived: that is my opinion; if I am in error, the loss
is mine." Later on, he tells us what Clement VII. thought: "One letter
to your friend (the Pope) would be enough; you would soon see what
fruit it bore;