he really is the man
intended. This I will enclose in my present letter." Furthermore, we
possess an insolent letter of Pietro Aretino, which makes us imagine
that the "ignorance of the vulgar" had already begun to "murmur."
After complaining bitterly that Michelangelo refused to send him any
of his drawings, he goes on to remark that it would be better for the
artist if he did so, "inasmuch as such an act of courtesy would quiet
the insidious rumours which assert that only Gerards and Thomases can
dispose of them." We have seen from Vasari that Michelangelo executed
some famous designs for Tommaso Cavalieri. The same authority asserts
that he presented "Gherardo Perini, a Florentine gentleman, and his
very dear friend," with three splendid drawings in black chalk.
Tommaso Cavalieri and Gherardo Perini, were, therefore, the "Gerards
and Thomases" alluded to by Aretino.

Michelangelo the younger's and Cesare Guasti's method of defending
Buonarroti from a malevolence which was only too well justified by the
vicious manners of the time, seems to me so really injurious to his
character, that I feel bound to carry this investigation further.
First of all, we ought to bear in mind what Buonarroti admitted
concerning his own temperament. "You must know that I am, of all men
who were ever born, the most inclined to love persons. Whenever I
behold some one who possesses any talent or displays any dexterity of
mind, who can do or say something more appropriately than the rest of
the world, I am compelled to fall in love with him; and then I give
myself up to him so entirely that I am no longer my own property, but
wholly his." He mentions this as a reason for not going to dine with
Luigi del Riccio in company with Donate Giannotti and Antonio Petrejo.
"If I were to do so, as all of you are adorned with talents and
agreeable graces, each of you would take from me a portion of myself,
and so would the dancer, and so would the lute-player, if men with
distinguished gifts in those arts were present. Each person would
filch away a part of me, and instead of being refreshed and restored
to health and gladness, as you said, I should be utterly bewildered
and distraught, in such wise that for many days to come I should not
know in what world I was moving." This passage serves to explain the
extreme sensitiveness of the great artist to personal charm, grace,
accomplishments, and throws light upon the self-abandonment with which
he someti