Page:The Life of Michael Angelo.djvu/238

 come to see him, “but in taking every precaution, since the roads were bad.”

“I have just left him,” he added, “a little after eight o’clock, in full possession of his faculties and tranquil in his mind, but overwhelmed by a persistent torpor. He was so inconvenienced by it this afternoon, between three and four o’clock, that he tried to go out on horseback, as he was accustomed to do every evening when it was fine. But the cold weather, combined with the weakness in his head and legs, prevented him, so he turned back and sat in an armchair—which he much preferred to his bed—near the chimney.”

The faithful Cavalieri was by his side.

It was not until the day before his death that he would consent to go to bed. Fully conscious and surrounded by his friends and servants, he dictated his will. He bequeathed “his soul to God and his body to the earth.” He requested to be allowed “to return at least dead” to his dear Florence. Then he passed

It was a Friday in February, about five o’clock in the afternoon. Evening was drawing in. … “The last day of his life, the first in the kingdom of peace! …” had come.