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Michelangelo is making for me the design of a decent sepulture in marble; and I pray you to write me the epitaph, and to send it to me with a consolatory letter, if time permits, for my grief has distraught me. Patience! I live with a thousand and a thousand deaths each hour. O God! How has Fortune changed her aspect!" Giannotti replied, enclosing three fine sonnets, the second of which, beginning
Early in the year 1557 serious illness seized Michael Angelo, and his good friends the Cardinal of Carpi, Donato Giannotti, Tomaso Cavalieri, Francesco Bandini, and Lottino ultimately succeeded in persuading him to make a model of his cupola, that the work might not be impeded or altered in the event of his death. He mentions this in a letter to his nephew, Lionardo.
While engaged in this discussion, they met Donato Giannotti taking the air with Michelangelo. The four friends joined company, and Petreo observed that it was a singular good fortune to have fallen that morning upon two such eminent Dante scholars.
He mentions this as a reason for not going to dine with Luigi del Riccio in company with Donate Giannotti and Antonio Petrejo. "If I were to do so, as all of you are adorned with talents and agreeable graces, each of you would take from me a portion of myself, and so would the dancer, and so would the lute-player, if men with distinguished gifts in those arts were present.
As in Greece the philosophers of Athens, especially Plato and Aristotle, wondered at the immobility of Sparta and idealized her institutions; so did the theorists of Florence, Savonarola, Giannotti, Guicciardini, look with envy at the state machinery which secured repose and liberty for Venice.
I must interrupt this narrative of the tomb to explain who some of the persons just mentioned were, and how they came to be connected with Buonarroti. Donato Giannotti was the famous writer upon political and literary topics, who, after playing a conspicuous part in the revolution of Florence against the Medici, now lived in exile at Rome.
The second is a contract dated May 16, in which Michelangelo assigns the architectural and ornamental portion of the monument conjointly to Giovanni de' Marchesi and Francesco d' Amadore, called Urbino, providing that differences which may arise between them shall be referred to Donato Giannotti.
In truth it is a marvellous production; and I say this not on my own judgment only, but on that of able men, especially of Messer Donato Giannotti, who is never tired of reading it. He begs to be remembered to you. About the sonnet, I know very well what that is worth.
There are others whom I leave out, so as not to be tedious, as Monsignor Claudio Toleméi, Messer Lorenzo Ridolfi, Messer Donato Giannotti, Messer Lionardo Malaspini, Il Lottino, Messer Tomaso de’ Cavalieri, and other honourable gentlemen, of whom I will not write at length. Finally, he has a great affection for Annibal Caro.
But in adopting this old simile originally the happy thought of Donato Giannotti, it is said we must not forget that the vital force of the Grand Council was felt throughout the whole of this elaborate system, and that the same individuals were constantly appearing in different capacities.
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