XLI., XLII., XLIII., XLIV.  There is nothing to prove that these four sonnets on Night were composed in sequence.  On the contrary, the personal tone of XLI. seems to separate this from the other three.  XLIV. may be accepted as a palinode for XLIII.

XLV., XLVI.  Both sonnets deal half humorously with a thought very prominent in M.A.’s compositions—­the effect of love on one who is old in years.  Cp.  XLVIII., L.

XLVII.  The Platonic conception that the pure form of Beauty or of Truth, if seen, would be overwhelming in its brilliancy.

XLIX.  The dolcie pianto and eterna pace are the tears and peace of piety.  The doloroso riso and corta pace are the smiles and happiness of earthly love.

LII.  Here is another version of this very beautiful sonnet.

  No mortal thing enthralled these longing eyes
      When perfect peace in thy fair face I found;
      But far within, where all is holy ground,
      My soul felt Love, her comrade of the skies: 
  For she was born with God in Paradise;
      Nor all the shows of beauty shed around
      This fair false world her wings to earth have bound;
      Unto the Love of Loves aloft she flies. 
  Nay, things that suffer death, quench not the fire
      Of deathless spirits; nor eternity
      Serves sordid Time, that withers all things rare. 
  Not love but lawless impulse is desire: 
      That slays the soul; our love makes still more fair
      Our friends on earth, fairer in death on high.

LIII.  This is the doctrine of the Symposium; the scorn of merely sexual love is also Platonic.

LIV.  Another sonnet on the theme of the Uranian as distinguished from the Vulgar love.  See below, LVL., for a parallel to the second terzet.

LV.  The date maybe 1532.  The play on words in the first quatrain and the first terzet is Shakespearian.

LIX.  Two notes, appended to the two autographs of this sonnet, show that M.A. regarded it as a jeu d’esprit, ’Per carnovale par lecito far qualche pazzia a chi non va in maschera.’  ’Questo non e fuoco da carnovale, pero vel mando di quaresima; e a voi mi rachomando.  Vostro Michelagniolo.’

LXL.  Date 1547.  No sonnet presents more difficulties than this, in which M.A. has availed himself of a passage in the Cratylus of Plato.  The divine hammer spoken of in the second couplet is the ideal pattern after which the souls of men are fashioned; and this in the first terzet seems to be identified with Vittoria Colonna.  In the second terzet he regards his own soul as imperfect, lacking the final touches which it might have received from hers.  See XIV. for a somewhat similar conceit.

LXIV.  The image is that of a glowing wood coal smouldering away to embers amid its own ashes.

LXV.  Date 1554.  Addressed A messer Giorgio Vasari, amico e pittor singulare, with this letter:  Messer Giorgio, amico caro, voi direte ben ch’ io sie vecchio e pazzo a voler far sonetti; ma perche molti dicono ch’ io son rimbambito, ho voluto far l’uficio mio, ec.  A di 19 di settembre 1554.  Vostro Michelagniolo Buonarroti in Roma.