or female, have been
indiscriminately referred to Vittoria Colonna, whereas we can only
attribute a few poems with certainty to her series.

This mythus of Michelangelo's passion for the Marchioness of Pescara
has blossomed and brought forth fruit abundantly from a single and
pathetic passage in Condivi. "In particular, he greatly loved the
Marchioness of Pescara, of whose divine spirit he was enamoured, being
in return dearly beloved by her. He still preserves many of her
letters, breathing honourable and most tender affection, and such as
were wont to issue from a heart like hers. He also wrote to her a
great number of sonnets, full of wit and sweet longing. She frequently
removed from Viterbo and other places, whither she had gone for solace
or to pass the summer, and came to Rome with the sole object of seeing
Michelangelo. He for his part, loved her so, that I remember to have
heard him say that he regretted nothing except that when he went to
visit her upon the moment of her passage from this life, he did not
kiss her forehead or her face, as he did kiss her hand. Her death was
the cause that oftentimes he dwelt astonied, thinking of it, even as a
man bereft of sense."

Michelangelo himself, writing immediately after Vittoria's death,
speaks of her thus: "She felt the warmest affection for me, and I not
less for her. Death has robbed me of a great friend." It is curious
that he here uses the masculine gender: "un grande amico." He also
composed two sonnets, which were in all probability inspired by the
keen pain of this bereavement. To omit them here would be unjust to
the memory of their friendship:--

_When my rude hammer to the stubborn stone
Gives human shape, now that, now this, at will,
Following his hand who wields and guides it still,
It moves upon another's feet alone:_

The third illustrates in a singular manner that custom of
sixteenth-century literature which Shakespeare followed in his
sonnets, of weaving poetical images out of thoughts borrowed from law
and business. It is also remarkable in this respect, that Michelangelo
has here employed precisely the same conceit for Vittoria Colonna
which he found serviceable when at an earlier date he wished to
deplore the death of the Florentine, Cecchino dei Bracci. For both of
them he says that Heaven bestowed upon the beloved object all its
beauties, instead of scattering these broad-cast over the human race,
which, had it done so, wo