Chapter 16 Part 2 Abandonment: 1 Love - 1

In this broken heart, after all life was stripped away, a new life began, bright flowers bloomed again in spring, and the flame of love burned brighter.But this love is almost completely devoid of selfishness and sensuality.It was a mystical cult of Cavalieri's beauty.This is the pious friendship of Victoria Colonna,—the communion of two souls in the realm of the gods.It was love for his fatherless nephews, and pity for the lonely. Michelangelo's love for Cavalieri is indeed beyond the comprehension of ordinary thinking, whether honest or shameless.Even in Italy at the end of the Renaissance, it gave rise to embarrassing legends; the satirist LAre'tin 1492-1557 even used it as an allegory of insults.When Michelangelo's nephew first published Michelangelo's collection of poems in 1623, he did not dare to include his poems to Cavalieri in their original text.He wanted it to be believed that the poems were addressed to a woman.That is, in recent research, some people think that Cavalieri is the pseudonym of Victoria Colonna.But the Laretine-like slander—and there will always be—can never be brought against Michelangelo. "Those men made their own Michelangelo out of their own dirty hearts." Michelangelo, October 1542 (recipient unknown).

No soul is purer than Michelangelo's.No one has such a pious conception of love. Condivi once said: "I have often heard Michelangelo speak of love: all who were present said his remarks were wholly Platonic. For me I do not know Plato's views; but in my long and intimate acquaintance with him, I Only the most honorable words are heard from his mouth, words that quench the passions of youth." But this Platonic ideal has neither literary nor ruthless air: Michelangelo was always fanatically addicted to all things beautiful, and so was his Platonic ideal of love.He knew this himself, so he said one day when declining the invitation of his friend Giannotti: "When I see a person with a certain talent or thought, or a person who does what others do not do, and who speaks what others do not say, I can't help falling in love with him, I can give him my whole body, so that I am no longer mine.... You are all so rich and talented, if I accept your invitation, I will lose my freedom; Each of you shall divide a part of me. Even the dancers and the harpsichords, if they are good at their art, I shall be at their mercy! Your company will not only give me rest, refreshment, and composure , will make my soul drift with the wind; so that in a few days, I may die without knowing which world." See "Dialogues" by Donato Gianotti. (1545) If the beauty of thought, speech, and sound so seduces him, how much more will the beauty of the body attach him!

"How exciting is the power of beauty to me! There is no equal joy in the world! "Poetry volume one hundred and forty-one. To the great creator of this wonderful form, - and at the same time a man of faith - a beautiful body is godlike, a manifestation of the gods in the cloak of flesh.Like Moses to the "hot bush," he only approached it tremblingly. A "Old Testament" records that Moses saw the apparition of God in a hot bush.The object of his worship was really an idol to him, as he himself said.He prostrated himself at his feet; and the voluntary submission of a great man would not have been tolerated by the noble Cavalieri, not to mention the idols of beauty who often have very vulgar souls, like Poggio!But Michelangelo saw nothing... did he really see nothing? —he would not see anything; he would complete in his mind the contoured idol.

His first ideal lover, his first vivid dream, was Perini in 1522.Perini was especially badly attacked by Laretine.Frye published some of his rather tender letters of 1522: "... when I read your letter, I feel to be with you: it is my only wish!" He Self-proclaimed "thy son..." - a poem by Michelangelo expressing the pain of parting and forgetting seems to be dedicated to him: "Even here my love makes my heart Life rejoices. Here his beautiful eyes answer me, but soon they are elsewhere. Here he is connected to me; here he is parted from me. Here I cry with infinite sorrow, Seeing him go, he no longer cares about me." In 1533 he fell in love with Poggio again; in 1544, he fell in love with Bracci.Michelangelo did not fall in love with Poggio until he had known Cavalieri for more than a year; in December 1533 he wrote him wild letters and poems, but the bad boy Poggio asked him for money in his reply.As for Bracci, he was a friend of Luigi del Riccio, whom Michelangelo met more than ten years after he had known Cavalieri.He was the son of a vagrant from Florence, who died in Rome in 1544.Michelangelo wrote forty-eight eulogy poems for him, which can be said to be the most mournful work in Michelangelo's poetry collection.Therefore, his friendship with Cavalieri was not exclusive; but it was lasting and reaching the stage of fanaticism. Not only the beauty of this friend is worthy of his inversion, but also the nobility of his virtue is worthy of him. So respectful.

Vasari once said: "He loves Cavalieri more than all other friends. This is a middle-class man born in Rome, very young, and loves art; Michelangelo made a portrait of him,— It is the only portrait that Michele made in his life; because he hated to paint a stranger, unless the person was extremely beautiful."