n to peril by overstraining his
energies.

Signer Gotti quotes a Papal brief, issued on the 18th of September
1537, in which the history of the Tomb of Julius up to date is set
forth, and Michelangelo's obligations toward the princes of Urbino are
recited. It then proceeds to declare that Clement VII. ordered him to
paint the great wall of the Sistine, and that Paul desires this work
to be carried forward with all possible despatch. He therefore lets it
be publicly known that Michelangelo has not failed to perform his
engagements in the matter of the tomb through any fault or action of
his own, but by the express command of his Holiness. Finally, he
discharges him and his heirs from all liabilities, pecuniary or other,
to which he may appear exposed by the unfulfilled contracts.

III

While thus engaged upon his fresco, Michelangelo received a letter,
dated Venice, September 15, 1537, from that rogue of genius, Pietro
Aretino. It opens in the strain of hyperbolical compliment and florid
rhetoric which Aretino affected when he chose to flatter. The man,
however, was an admirable stylist, the inventor of a new epistolary
manner. Like a volcano, his mind blazed with wit, and buried sound
sense beneath the scoriae and ashes it belched forth. Gifted with a
natural feeling for rhetorical contrast, he knew the effect of some
simple and impressive sentence, placed like a gem of value in the
midst of gimcrack conceits. Thus: "I should not venture to address
you, had not my name, accepted by the ears of every prince in Europe,
outworn much of its native indignity. And it is but meet that that I
should approach you with this reverence; for the world has many kings,
and one only Michelangelo.

"Strange miracle, that Nature, who cannot place aught so high but that
you explore it with your art, should be impotent to stamp upon her
works that majesty which she contains within herself, the immense
power of your style and your chisel! Wherefore, when we gaze on you,
we regret no longer that we may not meet with Pheidias, Apelles, or
Vitruvius, whose spirits were the shadow of your spirit." He piles the
panegyric up to its climax, by adding it is fortunate for those great
artists of antiquity that their masterpieces cannot be compared with
Michelangelo's, since, "being arraigned before the tribunal of our
eyes, we should perforce proclaim you unique as sculptor, unique as
painter, and as architect unique." After the blare of this