"The reigning Pope, Julius III., holds him in no less esteem than the
princes I have mentioned. This sovereign, distinguished for rare taste
and judgment, loves and promotes all arts and sciences, but is most
particularly devoted to painting, sculpture, and architecture, as may
be clearly seen in the buildings which his Holiness has erected in the
Vatican and the Belvedere, and is now raising at his Villa Giulia (a
monument worthy of a lofty and generous nature, as indeed his own is),
where he has gathered together so many ancient and modern statues,
such a variety of the finest pictures, precious columns, works in
stucco, wall-painting, and every kind of decoration, of the which I
must reserve a more extended account for some future occasion, since
it deserves a particular study, and has not yet reached completion.
This Pope has not used the services of Michelangelo for any active
work, out of regard for his advanced age. He is fully alive to his
greatness, and appreciates it, but refrains from adding burdens beyond
those which Michelangelo himself desires; and this regard, in my
opinion, confers more honour on him than any of the great
under-takings which former pontiffs exacted from his genius. It is
true that his Holiness almost always consults him on works of painting
or of architecture he may have in progress, and very often sends the
artists to confer with him at his own house. I regret, and his
Holiness also regrets, that a certain natural shyness, or shall I say
respect or reverence, which some folk call pride, prevents him from
having recourse to the benevolence, goodness, and liberality of such a
pontiff, and one so much his friend. For the Pope, as I first heard
from the Most Rev. Monsignor of Forli, his Master of the Chamber, has
often observed that, were this possible, he, would gladly give some of
his own years and his own blood to add to Michelangelo's life, to the
end that the world should not so soon be robbed of such a man. And
this, when I had access to his Holiness, I heard with my own ears from
his mouth. Moreover, if he happens to survive him, as seems reasonable
in the course of nature, he has a mind to embalm him and keep him ever
near to his own person, so that his body in death shall be as
everlasting as his works. This he said to Michelangelo himself at the
commencement of his reign, in the presence of many persons. I know not
what could be more honourable to Michelangelo than such words, or a
greater proof of the high account in which he is held by his Holiness.
"So then Michelangelo, while he was yet a youth, devoted himself not
only to sculpture and painting, but also to all those other arts which
to them are allied or subservient, and this he did with such absorbing
energy that for a time he almost entirely cut himself off from human
society, conversing with but very few intimate friends. On this
account some folk thought him proud, others eccentric and capricious,
although he was tainted with none of these defects; but, as hath
happened to many men of great abilities, the love of study and the
perpetual practice of his art rendered him solitary, being so taken up
with the pleasure and delight of these things that society not only
afforded him no solace, but even caused him annoyance by diverting him
from meditation, being (as the great Scipio used to say) never less
alone than when he was alone. Nevertheless, he very willingly embraced
the friendship of those whose learned and cultivated conversation
could be of profit to his mind, and in whom some beams of genius shone
forth: as, for example, the most reverend and illustrious Monsignor
Pole, for his rare virtues and singular goodness; and likewise the
most reverend, my patron, Cardinal Crispo, in whom he discovered,
beside his many excellent qualities, a distinguished gift of acute
judgment; he was also warmly attached to the Cardinal of S. Croce, a
man of the utmost gravity and wisdom, whom I have often heard him name
in the highest terms; and to the most reverend Maffei, whose goodness
and learning he has always praised: indeed, he loves and honours all
the dependants of the house of Farnese, owing to the lively memory he
cherishes of Pope Paul, whom he invariably mentions with the deepest
reverence as a good and holy old man; and in like manner the most
reverend Patriarch of Jerusalem, sometime Bishop of Cesena, has lived