Page:The Life of Michael Angelo.djvu/161

 She welcomed death as a deliverance. She died on February 25, 1547.

It was at the time she was most profoundly penetrated by the free mysticism of Valdès and Ochino that she made Michael Angelo’s acquaintance. This woman, sad and tormented, who had ever need of a guide on whom to lean, had no less need of a weaker and more unfortunate being than herself on whom to expend the maternal love with which her heart was full. She endeavoured to hide her trouble from Michael Angelo. Serene in appearance, reserved, somewhat cold, she transmitted to him the peace which she demanded from others. Their friendship, which began about 1535, was intimate from the autumn of 1538, and entirely based on God. Vittoria was forty-six years of age; he was sixty-three. She lived in Rome, at the cloisters of San Silvestro in Capite, below Monte-Pincio. Michael Angelo lived near Monte Cavallo. They met on Sundays in the Church of San Silvestro on Monte Cavallo. Friar Ambrogio Caterino Politi read to them the Epistles of St. Paul, which they discussed together. The Portuguese painter, Francis of Holland, has handed down to us the recollection of these conversations in his four "Dialogues on Painting." They form a living picture of this grave and tender friendship.

The first time that Francis of Holland went to the Church of San Silvestro he found the Marchesa di Pescara