d often red-hot with a passion like that
of Lucretius and Beethoven; but the genius of the man transports the
mind to spiritual altitudes, where the lust of the eye and the
longings of the flesh are left behind us in a lower region. Only a
soul attuned to the same chord of intellectual rapture can breathe in
that fiery atmosphere and feel the vibrations of its electricity.

XI

I have used Michelangelo's poems freely throughout this work as
documents illustrative of his opinions and sentiments, and also in
their bearing on the events of his life. I have made them reveal the
man in his personal relations to Pope Julius II., to Vittoria Colonna,
to Tommaso dei Cavalieri, to Luigi del Riccio, to Febo di Poggio. I
have let them tell their own tale, when sorrow came upon him in the
death of his father and Urbino, and when old age shook his lofty
spirit with the thought of approaching death. I have appealed to them
for lighter incidents: matters of courtesy, the completion of the
Sistine vault, the statue of Night at S. Lorenzo, the subjection of
Florence to the Medici, his heart-felt admiration for Dante's genius.
Examples of his poetic work, so far as these can be applied to the
explanation of his psychology, his theory of art, his sympathies, his
feeling under several moods of passion, will consequently be found
scattered up and down by volumes. Translation, indeed, is difficult to
the writer, and unsatisfactory to the reader. But I have been at pains
to direct an honest student to the original sources, so that he may,
if he wishes, compare my versions with the text. Therefore I do not
think it necessary to load this chapter with voluminous citations.
Still, there remains something to be said about Michelangelo as poet,
and about the place he occupies as poet in Italian literature.

The value of Michelangelo's poetry is rather psychological than purely
literary. He never claimed to be more than an amateur, writing to
amuse himself. His style is obscure, crabbed, ungrammatical.
Expression only finds a smooth and flowing outlet when the man's
nature is profoundly stirred by some powerful emotion, as in the
sonnets to Cavalieri, or the sonnets on the deaths of Vittoria Colonna
and Urbino, or the sonnets on the thought of his own death. For the
most part, it is clear that he found great difficulty in mastering his
thoughts and images. This we discover from the innumerable variants of
the same madrigal or sonnet which he m