Chapter 18 1 love-3

Of course, this love of beauty has nothing but honesty.But this fervent turmoil In a sonnet Michelangelo will put his skin on his lover; The object of love shows no signs of madness or restlessness. After these exhausting years--in a desperate effort to deny the nothingness of his life and wreck the love he longed for--he was comforted by the stoic affection of a woman who understood the loneliness of being lost in the world. The old child in the world, in this depressed heart and soul, she reinjected some peace, confidence, reason and desolate preparation to accept life and death. In 1533 and 1534, Michelangelo's friendship with Cavalieri reached its zenith.Especially from June to October 1533, when Michelangelo returned to Florence and left with Cavalieri.In 1535 he became acquainted with Victoria Colonna.

She was born in 1492.Her father was Fabrizio Colonna, prince of Paliano, Prince Tagliacozzo.Her mother, Agnès te Montefeltro, was the daughter of the Prince of Urbino.Her family is one of the noblest families in Italy, and it is also the family that has been deeply influenced by the spirit of the Renaissance.At the age of seventeen, she married the Marquis of Pescara, General Francesco Te Avalo.She loves him; he doesn't love her.She is not beautiful.There is no basis for the assumption that many portraits were made by Michelangelo for Victoria.Her face, as seen in small reliefs, is masculine, strong-willed, and severe: high forehead, long and straight nose, short upper lip, slightly protruding lower lip, closed mouth.Filonico Ariel Canaseo, who knew her and wrote her biographer, expressed her in a graceful way, but also revealed that she was ugly: "When she married the Marquis of Pescara, she was trying to develop her thoughts; for she has no beauty, and she cultivates literature to acquire this immortal beauty, unlike other beauty that perishes."—She is a woman with a passion for spiritual things.In a sonnet, she says, "The gross senses cannot form a harmony to produce the pure love of a noble heart, they can never cause her joy or pain... Bright fire, lift my heart up so sublime that humble thoughts would embarrass it." --In truth she was not in any way worthy of the love of the voluptuous and sensual Pescara; yet the blindness of love made her love him and suffer for him.

Her husband had cheated her in his own house, and all Naples knew it, and she suffered cruelly for it.She was not comforted, however, when he died in 1525.She escaped into religion and wrote poems to amuse herself.She lived a monastic life, first in Rome and then in Naples, during which time her spiritual teacher was Bishop Matteo Ghiberti of Verona, who was the first to reform the religion.His secretary was Francesco Berni.But she didn't mean to be completely out of society earlier: her quest for solitude was only to sink fully into the memory of her love, which she sang about in poetry.She had contacts with all the great writers in Italy, Sadolete, Bembo, Castiglione, etc. Castiglione entrusted her with his book "On the Courtier", and Ariosto wrote in his " Crazy Orlando tribute to her.In 1530, her sonnets were circulated throughout Italy and gained the only honorable position among female writers at that time.Hidden on the desert island of Ischia, she sings her transformed love incessantly in the sea of ​​harmony.

But from 1534 onwards religion conquered her completely.She was agitated by the movement to clarify the question of the Reformation of the old Christian Church within the limits of avoiding sectarian schisms.We do not know whether she ever knew Juan de Valdes in Naples; Juande Valdes was the son of a close secretary to King Charles Quint of Spain, lived in Naples from 1534, and was the leader of the Reformation.Many famous ladies gathered around him.He died in 1541, and it is said that there were three thousand followers of him in Naples.But she was indeed moved by the preaching of Ochino of Siena; Bernardino Ochino, a famous preacher and vicar of the Gabsonian sect, became a friend of Valdes in 1539, and Valdes was greatly influenced by him.Despite the accusations, he continued his bold preaching in Naples, Rome, and Venice, and the crowds supported him without limiting him to the Church.In 1542, when he was about to be condemned as a Lutheran, he fled from Florence to Ferrare, and then to Geneva, where he was converted to Protestantism.He was intimate with Vittoria Colonna; on leaving Italy he informed her of his resolution in an intimate letter.She was a friend of Pietro Carnesechi, Ghiberti, Sadolete, Reginald Pollet, and the greatest of the reformers, Gaspare Contarini; Jetro Carnesechi, Clerk of Clement VII, friend and follower of Valdes, first included in the list of heretics in 1546, 1567 Burned at the stake in Rome.He was in close contact with Victoria Colonna.Gaspare Contarini was the son of a Venetian family, and he was the first ambassador to Venice, Holland, England, Spain and the Pope.In 1535, Pope Paul III was appointed Archbishop.In 1541 he was sent to the Nordic International Conference.He was not in harmony with the Protestants, and on the one hand he was suspected by the Protestants.Disappointed, he died in Bologna in August 1542.The Bishop of Contarini, who wanted to establish a proper compromise with the Protestants, had written these powerful sentences: "The law of Christ is the law of liberty . . . no government can be called It is a government; for it is inherently inclined to evil and is played upon by innumerable passions. No! All masters are masters of reason. His purpose is to lead all who obey him by right paths to their right ends: Happiness. The authority of the pope is also an authority of reason. A pope should know that his authority is exercised over free men. He should not command, or prohibit, or exonerate according to his will, but only according to reason. Act according to the law, the command of the gods, the principle of love." Said by Henry Sound.

Victoria, was one of this group of idealisms united with the purest consciousness in all Italy.She corresponded with René te Ferrare and Margherita te Navarre; the later Protestant Pier Paolo Vergelio called her "a light of truth". —but when the counter-reformation, presided over by the cruel Caraffa, began, she sank into terrible doubts.Caraffa, bishop of Chieti, founded the Chiatine sect in 1524; in 1528 organized the Counter-Reformation group in Venice.He began as an archbishop and then, from 1555, as a pope, strictly enforced the condemnation of Protestants.She is, like Michelangelo, a fiery and timid soul; she needs faith, and she cannot resist the authority of the Church. "She fasted, fasted, and practiced penance, so that her muscles and bones were covered only with a layer of skin." In 1566, Karneseki confessed to the Pagan Inquisition Court.Her friend, the Bishop of Polet, told her to restrain her intellectual pride, to forget her own existence for the sake of God: thus she found a little peace again.Reginald Polet fled from England because of his conflict with King Henry VIII; he passed through Venice in 1532, became Contarini's companion, and was later made archbishop by Pope Paul III .Affable and mellow, he finally succumbed to the Counter-Reformation and reintroduced the Contarini freethinkers into the old religion.From 1541 to 1544 Vittoria Colonna was completely under his guidance—he returned to England in 1554, and died in 1558.She did it all with a spirit of sacrifice...but she didn't just sacrifice herself!She also sacrificed her friend with her, she sacrificed Oquino, and sent his writings to the inquisitors of Rome; like Michelangelo, the great mind was shattered by fear.She cloaked her conscience in a desperate mysticism: "You see me in the chaos of ignorance, lost in the traps of error, the body forever laboring to find rest, the soul forever turbulent to find peace .God wants me to know that I am worthless and that everything is in Christ." Letter from Victoria Colonna to Bishop Morone, December 22, 1543.

She asks for death as a kind of liberation. —February 25, 1547, she died. She knew Michelangelo at the time when she was most influenced by the mysticism of Valdes and Ochino.This woman, sad and bored, will always need someone to be her support, and at the same time, she will always need someone weaker and more unfortunate than her, so that she can vent her motherly love overflowing in her heart.She hides her confusion from Michelangelo.The appearance is very quiet and reserved, and she conveys to Michelangelo the peace she demands from others.Their friendship, which began in 1535 and grew closer in 1538, can be completely established in the realm of God.Victoria was forty-six; he was sixty-three.She lives in Rome in the monastery of San Silvestro, below the Pincio Hill.Michelangelo lived near the Cavallo Hill.Every Sunday, they met in the church of San Silvestro in Cavallo Hills.Friar Ambrogio Caterino Politi read the Gospel of St. Paul and they discussed it together.The Portuguese painter Francisco Te Oranda left vivid memories of these scenes in his four painting supplements.In his account, serious and tender friendship is described very movingly.

When Francisco Te Oranda first went to the church of San Silvestero, he saw the Marchioness of Pescara and some friends listening to the holy book.Michelangelo is not always there. After reading the holy book, the lovely lady smiled and said to the foreign painter: "Francisco Te Oranda must have liked to listen to Michelangelo's talk." Francisco, offended by this statement, replied: "Why, ma'am, do you think I only have a feeling for painting?" "Don't be so paranoid, Monsieur Francesco," said Latazio Tolomei, "the Marquise meant precisely the conviction that the painter is sensitive to everything. How much we Italians respect painting! But she said this Perhaps to give you extra pleasure listening to Michelangelo."

Francisco apologized.The Marchioness said to a servant: "Go to Michelangelo, and tell him that Monsieur Tolomei and I are staying in this church after the religious service, and it is very cool; if he will spend some time, he will use it." We are very pleased...but," she added, because she knew Michelangelo's wildness well, "don't tell him that the Portuguese Francisco de Oranda is here." While waiting for the servant's return, they talked about the method by which Michelangelo had been drawn into painting without his knowing it; for if he had discovered their intentions, he would have immediately refused to continue the conversation.