f
wit and sweet desire. She often returned to Rome from Viterbo and other
places, where she had gone for her pastime and to spend the summer, for no
other reason than to see Michael Angelo; and he bore her so much love that
I remember to have heard him say: Nothing grieved him so much as that when
he went to see her after she passed away from this life he did not kiss
her on the brow or face, as he did kiss her hand. Recalling this, her
death, he often remained dazed as one bereft of sense. He made at the wish
of his lady a naked Christ, when He was taken down from the Cross, and His
dead body would have fallen at the feet of His most holy Mother, if it
were not supported by the arms of two angels; but she, seated under the
Cross with a tearful and sorrowful face, raises to heaven both hands with
her arms out-stretched, with this cry, which one reads inscribed on the
stem of the cross:

NON VI SI PENSA QUANTO SANGUE COSTA!

The Cross is like that which was carried in procession by the Bianchi at
the time of the plague of 1348, and afterwards placed in the Church of
Santa Croce, at Florence. He also made for love of her a drawing of a Jesu
Christ on the Cross, not as if dead, as is the common use, but with a
Divine gesture. Raising His face to the Father He seems to say, "Eli,
Eli." The body does not hang like a corpse but as if still living, and
contorted by the bitter agony of His death.

LXIV. And as he greatly delighted in the conversation of the learned, so
he took pleasure in the study of the writers of both prose and poetry. He
had a special admiration for Dante, delighting in the admirable genius of
that man, almost all of whose works he knew by heart; he held Petrarca in
no less esteem. He not only delighted in reading, but occasionally in
composing, too, as may be seen by some sonnets that are to be found of
his. Concerning some of them, there have been published--"Lectures and
Criticisms by Varchi." But he wrote these sonnets more for his pleasure
than because he made a profession of it, always belittling them himself,
accusing himself of ignorance in these matters.

LXV. Likewise, with deep study and attention, he read the Holy Scriptures,
both the Old and the New Testaments, and searched them diligently, as also
the writings of Savonarola, for whom he always had a great affection,
keeping always in his mind the memory of his living voice. He has also
loved the beauty of the human body, as one who