Page:The Life of Michael Angelo.djvu/156

 Filonico Alicarnasseo, who knew her and wrote her life, leaves one to understand, in spite of his care in the use of words, that she was ugly. "When she was married to the Marquis of Pescara," he says, "she applied herself to the development of her mental gifts; for, as she did not possess great beauty, she instructed herself in literature, in order to feel assured of that immortal beauty which, unlike the other, never fades." She was passionately intellectual. In a sonnet she herself says that "coarse senses, powerless to form the harmony which produces the pure love of noble souls, never awakened in her either pleasure or suffering. &hellip;" And she adds: "Bright flame, raise my heart so high that base thoughts offend it." She was in no way made to be