received worse news in ten years." Nothing justifies us in believing
that Michelangelo is not merely alluding to other family difficulties.

[10] Sermons on Amos and Zachariah.

[11] See the "Dialogues de la Peinture" of Francis of Holland, who
relates the conversations between Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna in
Rome in 1538-39.

[12] Beethoven wrote in the same way to Bettina Brentano in 1810: "most
men are moved by beauty, but that is not the nature of artists. Artists
are fashioned of fire--they do not weep."

[13] Francis of Holland _ibid._

[14] _Ibid._ The passage applies to Flemish painting in general.

[15] "Do you know," said Michelangelo to Condivi, "that chaste women
remain much more fresh than those who are not chaste. How much more,
therefore, must this be true of the Virgin who never entertained the
least immodest thought which might have troubled her body. I would put
this even more strongly. I believe that this freshness and flower of
youth which she received in a natural manner was preserved for her in a
supernatural one, so that the virginity and the eternal purity of the
Mother of God could be demonstrated to the world. Such a miracle was not
necessary for the Son. Quite the contrary, for if it had to be shown
that the Son of God was made incarnate in man and that he had suffered
all that men suffer except sin, it was not necessary to make the human
disappear behind the divine, but it was better rather to let the human
follow its nature in such a way that he should appear to have the age
that he really had. Do not be surprised, therefore, if for these reasons
I have represented the Very Holy Virgin, the Mother of God, much younger
than her years would require and if I have given the Son his real age."

[16] Contract of August 26, 1498, with the French Cardinal, Jean de
Groslaye de Villiers, Abbot of S. Denis, Ambassador of Charles VIII, who
had ordered it for the chapel of the kings of France (Chapel of S.
Petronille) at St. Peter's.

[17] This David was placed in the centre of the court of the Chateau de
Bury and moved in the sixteenth century to the Chateau de Villeroy near
Mennecy from where it afterward disappeared. The figure was life-size,
with the head of Goliath at its feet; a pen-and-ink sketch in the Louvre
is all that is left of it.

[18] Carducho saw some fragments in 1633 in the possession of the
Viceroy of Naples. Marc-Antonio engraved in 1510 the celebrated episode
of the b