Distant and near and low and loud the bells,
Dominican, Benedictine, and Franciscan,
Jangle and wrangle in their airy towers,
Discordant as the brotherhoods themselves
In their dim cloisters.  The descending sun
Seems to caress the city that he loves,
And crowns it with the aureole of a saint. 
I will go forth and breathe the air a while.

II.

SAN SILVESTRO

A Chapel in the Church of San Silvestra on Monte Cavallo.

VITTORIA COLONNA, CLAUDIO TOLOMMEI, and others.

VITTORIA. 
Here let us rest a while, until the crowd
Has left the church.  I have already sent
For Michael Angelo to join us here.

MESSER CLAUDIO. 
After Fra Bernardino’s wise discourse
On the Pauline Epistles, certainly
Some words of Michael Angelo on Art
Were not amiss, to bring us back to earth.

MICHAEL ANGELO, at the door. 
How like a Saint or Goddess she appears;
Diana or Madonna, which I know not! 
In attitude and aspect formed to be
At once the artist’s worship and despair!

VITTORIA. 
Welcome, Maestro.  We were waiting for you.

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
I met your messenger upon the way,
And hastened hither.

VITTORIA. 
                     It is kind of you
To come to us, who linger here like gossips
Wasting the afternoon in idle talk. 
These are all friends of mine and friends of yours.

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
If friends of yours, then are they friends of mine. 
Pardon me, gentlemen.  But when I entered
I saw but the Marchesa.

VITTORIA. 
                       Take this seat
Between me and Ser Claudio Tolommei,
Who still maintains that our Italian tongue
Should be called Tuscan.  But for that offence
We will not quarrel with him.

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
                         Eccellenza—­

VITTORIA. 
Ser Claudio has banished Eccellenza
And all such titles from the Tuscan tongue.

MESSER CLAUDIO. 
’T is the abuse of them and not the use
I deprecate.

MICHAEL ANGELO. 
            The use or the abuse
It matters not.  Let them all go together,
As empty phrases and frivolities,
And common as gold-lace upon the collar
Of an obsequious lackey.

VITTORIA. 
                        That may be,
But something of politeness would go with them;
We should lose something of the stately manners
Of the old school.

MESSER CLAUDIO. 
                 Undoubtedly.

VITTORlA. 
                              But that
Is not what occupies my thoughts at present,
Nor why I sent for you, Messer Michele. 
It was to counsel me.  His Holiness
Has granted me permission, long desired,
To build a convent in this neighborhood,
Where the old tower is standing, from whose top
Nero looked down upon the burning city.