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Updated: May 1, 2025
Some of the drawings made by Michael Angelo for his friend, Tomaso Cavalieri, are mentioned in one of Tomaso’s letters, dated 1533. "UNIQUE MY LORD,—Some days ago I received a letter from you, which was very welcome, both because I learned by it that you are well, and also because I can now be sure that you will soon return. I was very sorry not to answer at once.
For my part, I say boldly, before Gatien, I give up Paris; I mean to stay at Sancerre and swell the number of your cavalieri serventi. I feel so young again in my native district; I have quite forgotten Paris and all its wickedness, and its bores, and its wearisome pleasures. Yes, my life seems in a way purified."
I pray you to go on loving me, and when occasion serves, to favour me; and to Signer Tomao dei Cavalieri say that I shall never be unmindful of him." It is clear, then, I think, that Leoni's model was made at Rome in 1560, cast at Milan, and sent early in the spring of 1561 to Michelangelo.
He sends a thousand messages, but only to pray you to come back. Your affectionate, "Thomao Cavaliere. "Rome, September 6." All the drawings mentioned by Vasari as having been made for Cavalieri are alluded to here, except the Bacchanal of Children. Of the Phaëthon we have two splendid examples in existence, one at Windsor, the other in the collection of M. Emile Galichon.
These "sacred actions" or plays were not performed in the church itself, but in an adjoining chamber, called in Italian "oratorio," an oratory, and the title has since then adhered to this species of sacred work. Our girls will be pleased to know that the first oratorio, set to music by Emilio del Cavalieri, was written by a lady, Laura Guidiccioni.
If you come into the Piazza, as most travellers do, from the Lung' Arno, as you turn into the Via S. Maria or out of the Borgo into the beautiful Piazza dei Cavalieri, gradually as you pass on your way life hesitates and at last deserts you.
The one epistle to Gherardo Perini, cited above, contains the following phrases: "I do not feel myself of force enough to correspond to your kind letter;" "Your most faithful and poor friend." Yet there was nothing extraordinary in Cavalieri, Cecchino, Febo, or Perini, except their singularity of youth and grace, good parts and beauty.
After complaining bitterly that Michelangelo refused to send him any of his drawings, he goes on to remark that it would be better for the artist if he did so, "inasmuch as such an act of courtesy would quiet the insidious rumours which assert that only Gerards and Thomases can dispose of them." We have seen from Vasari that Michelangelo executed some famous designs for Tommaso Cavalieri.
Not less important in their bearing on his state of feeling are the sonnets addressed to Cavalieri; and though his modern editor shrinks from putting a literal interpretation upon them, I am convinced that we must accept them simply as an expression of the artist's homage for the worth and beauty of an excellent young man.
His biographer, Aurelio Gotti, moved by the same anxiety as Michelangelo the younger and Guasti, adopted the extraordinary theory that they were really directed to Vittoria Colonna, and were meant to be shown to her by the common friend of both, Cavalieri.
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