t to the
instinct of the reader to place them. Those which were called forth by
the poet's friendship for Vittoria Colonna were undoubtedly written
towards the close of his life. While he seems to have known Vittoria
Colonna and to have been greatly attached to her for many years, it is
certain that in his old age he fell in love with her. The library of
romance that has been written about this attachment has added nothing to
Condivi's simple words:--

"He greatly loved the Marchesana of Pescara, with whose divine
spirit he fell in love, and was in return passionately beloved of
her; and he still keeps many of her letters, which are full of most
honest and tenderest love, such as used to issue from a heart like
hers; and he himself had written her many and many a sonnet full of
wit and tenderness. She often left Viterbo and other places, where
she had gone for pleasure, and to pass the summer, and came to Rome
for no other reason than to see Michael Angelo. And in return he
bore her so much love that I remember hearing him say that he
regretted nothing except that when he went to see her on her
death-bed he had not kissed her brow and her cheek as he had kissed
her hand. He was many times overwhelmed at the thought of her death,
and used to be as one out of his mind."

It seems, from reading the sonnets, that some of those which are
addressed to women must belong to a period anterior to his friendship
with Vittoria. This appears from the internal evidence of style and
feeling, as well as by references in the later sonnets.

One other fact must be mentioned,--both Vittoria and Michael Angelo
belonged to, or at least sympathized with, the Piagnoni, and were in a
sense disciples of Savonarola. Now, it is this religious element which
makes Michael Angelo seem to step out of his country and out of his
century and across time and space into our own. This religious feeling
is of a kind perfectly familiar to us; indeed, of a kind inborn and
native to us. Whether we be reading the English prayer-book or listening
to the old German Passion Music, there is a certain note of the spirit
which, when we hear it, we perfectly recognize as a part of ourselves.
What we recognize is, in fact, the Protestantism which swept over Europe
during the century of Michael Angelo's existence; which conquered
Teutonic Europe, and was conquered, but not extinguished, in Latin
Europe; and a part of which survives in oursel