Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/327

Rh bones of my father, as you exhort me to; but if I departed hence I should cause great injury to the fabric of St. Peter, which would be a shame as well as heavy sin; yet when all is so far completed that nothing can be changed, I hope still to do as you desire, if indeed it be not sinful to disappoint a set of rogues who are expecting me daily to leave the world.” With this letter there came the following sonnet:—

“Now in frail bark, and on the storm-tossed wave,
 * Doth this my life approach the common port.
 * Whither all haste to render up account
 * Of every act,—the erring and the just.

Wherefore I now do see, that by the love
 * Which rendered Art mine idol and my lord,
 * I did much err. Vain are the loves of man,
 * And error lurks within his every thought.

Light hours of this my life, where are ye now.
 * When towards a twofold death my foot draws near?
 * The one well-known, the other threatening loud.

Not the erst worshipped Art can now give peace
 * To him whose soul turns to that love divine.
 * Whose arms shall lift him from the Cross to Heaven.”

From this we see that Michelagnolo was drawing towards God and casting from him the cares of art, persecuted as he was by those malignant rivals, and by certain among the Commissioners for San Pietro, who would fain, as he said himself, be making themselves more than rightfully busy in the matter. Vasari replied to Michelagnolo’s letter, by order of Duke Cosimo, in few words, but still encouraging him to return to his own country; to hi^ verses Giorgio replied by a sonnet of similar character. And Michelagnolo would now without doubt have left Rome very gladly, but he had become so weak, that although he had determined on doing so, as will be related hereafter, yet the spirit was more willing than the frame, and his debility kept him in Rome. Now it happened in June, 1557, that in the construction of the vaulting over the apsis (which was in travertine, and after Michelagnolo’s own designs), there was found to be an error, he not being able to visit San Pietro so frequently as before, and the principal builder having constructed the entire vaulting on one centre, instead of using several, as he ought to have done. Thereupon Michelagnolo, as being the friend and confidant of Vasari, sent him the designs for the