“I have received your letter, together with a little book containing a commentary on a sonnet of mine.  The sonnet does indeed proceed from me, but the commentary comes from heaven.  In truth it is a marvellous production; and I say this not on my own judgment only, but on that of able men, especially of Messer Donato Giannotti, who is never tired of reading it.  He begs to be remembered to you.  About the sonnet, I know very well what that is worth.  Yet be it what it may, I cannot refrain from piquing myself a little on having been the cause of so beautiful and learned a commentary.  The author of it, by his words and praises, shows clearly that he thinks me to be other than I am; so I beg you to express me to him in terms corresponding to so much love, affection, and courtesy.  I entreat you to do this, because I feel myself inadequate, and one who has gained golden opinions ought not to tempt fortune; it is better to keep silence than to fall from that height.  I am old, and death has robbed me of the thoughts of my youth.  He who knows not what old age is, let him wait till it arrives:  he cannot know beforehand.  Remember me, as I said, to Varchi, with deep affection for his fine qualities, and as his servant wherever I may be.”

Three other letters belonging to the same year show how deeply Michelangelo was touched and gratified by the distinguished honour Varchi paid him.  In an earlier chapter of this book I have already pointed out how this correspondence bears upon the question of his friendship with Tommaso dei Cavalieri, and also upon an untenable hypothesis advanced by recent Florentine students of his biography.  The incident is notable in other ways because Buonarroti was now adopted as a poet by the Florentine Academy.  With a width of sympathy rare in such bodies, they condoned the ruggedness of his style and the uncouthness of his versification in their admiration for the high quality of his meditative inspiration.  To the triple crown of sculptor, painter, architect, he now added the laurels of the bard; and this public recognition of his genius as a writer gave him well-merited pleasure in his declining years.

While gathering up these scattered fragments of Buonarroti’s later life, I may here introduce a letter addressed to Benvenuto Cellini, which illustrates his glad acceptance of all good work in fellow-craftsmen:—­

“My Benvenuto,—­I have known you all these years as the greatest goldsmith of whom the world ever heard, and now I am to know you for a sculptor of the same quality.  Messer Bindo Altoviti took me to see his portrait bust in bronze, and told me it was by your hand.  I admired it much, but was sorry to see that it has been placed in a bad light.  If it had a proper illumination, it would show itself to be the fine work it is.”

VI