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Updated: June 27, 2025
These facts account for the tone of Michelangelo's answer to Vasari's letter: "Yours has given me the greatest pleasure, because it assures me that you remember the poor old man; and more perhaps because you were present at the triumph you narrate, of seeing another Buonarroto reborn. I thank you heartily for the information. But I must say that I am displeased with so much pomp and show.
He writes thus to his brother Buonarroto: "I am remaining here as usual, and shall have finished my painting by the end of the week after next that is, the portion of it which I began; and when it is uncovered, I expect to be paid, and shall also try to get a month's leave to visit Florence." The uncovering took place upon November 1, 1509.
The old man in Rome remarked resignedly during his later years, when he heard the news of a baby born and dead, that "I am not surprised; there was never in our family more than one at a time to keep it going." Buonarroto was christened with some pomp, and Vasari wrote to Michelangelo describing the festivities. In the year 1554, Cosimo de' Medici had thrown his net round Siena.
The correspondence with Buonarroto turns to a considerable extent upon a sword-hilt which Michelangelo designed for the Florentine, Pietro Aldobrandini. It was the custom then for gentlemen to carry swords and daggers with hilt and scabbard wonderfully wrought by first-rate artists. Some of these, still extant, are among the most exquisite specimens of sixteenth-century craft.
"BUONARROTO,—I hear by one of yours how things went about the little farm; it is a great comfort to me and pleases me well, if it is a sure thing. Of the affairs of Baronciello I am well informed, and from what I understand it is a much more serious thing than you make out; and for my part, it not being to my taste, I do not ask it.
"Although, as I have told you, I am out of pocket myself, I will do my best to get money, in order that you may not have to borrow from the Monte, as Buonarroto says is possible.
The death of Lodovico and Buonarroto, happening within a space of little more than five years, profoundly affected Michelangelo's mind, and left an indelible mark of sadness on his life. One of his best poems, a capitolo, or piece of verse in terza rima stanzas, was written on the occasion of his father's decease. In it he says that Lodovico had reached the age of ninety.
I rebuked him, told him that it was not well to talk so, and begged him not to do so again to me. However, I should like Buonarroto quietly to find out how the rumour arose of my having calumniated the Medici; for if it is some one who pretends to be my friend, I ought to be upon my guard."
With this, if you see that they are diligent and do well, give it to them and make me their creditor, as I was to Buonarroto when he went away. If they are not diligent, and do badly, place it to my account at Santa Maria Nuova. It is not yet time to buy. "Your MICHAEL ANGELO, in Rome.
Probably Buonarroto tried to get some valuable equivalent; for Michelangelo writes to say that he is sorry "he behaved so scurvily toward Filippo in so trifling an affair." Nothing at all transpires in these letters regarding the company kept by Michelangelo at Bologna. The few stories related by tradition which refer to this period are not much to the sculptor's credit for courtesy.
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