up his residence at Rome during the autumn of 1533.  A definite rupture at some subsequent period separated the old friends.  These letters are a mine of curious information respecting artistic life at Rome.  They prove, beyond the possibility of doubt, that, whatever Buonarroti and Sanzio may have felt, their flatterers, dependants, and creatures cherished the liveliest hostility and lived in continual rivalry.  It is somewhat painful to think that Michelangelo could have lent a willing ear to the malignant babble of a man so much inferior to himself in nobleness of nature—­have listened when Sebastiano taunted Raffaello as “Prince of the Synagogue,” or boasted that a picture of his own was superior to “the tapestries just come from Flanders.”  Yet Sebastiano was not the only friend to whose idle gossip the great sculptor indulgently stooped.  Lionardo, the saddle-maker, was even more offensive.  He writes, for instance, upon New Year’s Day, 1519, to say that the Resurrection of Lazarus, for which Michelangelo had contributed some portion of the design, was nearly finished, and adds:  “Those who understand art rank it far above Raffaello.  The vault, too, of Agostino Chigi has been exposed to view, and is a thing truly disgraceful to a great artist, far worse than the last hall of the Palace.  Sebastiano has nothing to fear.”

We gladly turn from these quarrels to what Sebastiano teaches us about Michelangelo’s personal character.  The general impression in the world was that he was very difficult to live with.  Julius, for instance, after remarking that Raffaello changed his style in imitation of Buonarroti, continued:  “’But he is terrible, as you see; one cannot get on with him.’  I answered to his Holiness that your terribleness hurt nobody, and that you only seem to be terrible because of your passionate devotion to the great works you have on hand.”  Again, he relates Leo’s estimate of his friend’s character: 

“I know in what esteem the Pope holds you, and when he speaks of you, it would seem that he were talking about a brother, almost with tears in his eyes; for he has told me you were brought up together as boys” (Giovanni de’ Medici and the sculptor were exactly of the same age), “and shows that he knows and loves you.  But you frighten everybody, even Popes!” Michelangelo must have complained of this last remark, for Sebastiano, in a letter dated a few days later, reverts to the subject:  “Touching what you reply to me about your terribleness, I, for my part, do not esteem you terrible; and if I have not written on this subject do not be surprised, seeing you do not strike me as terrible, except only in art—­that is to say, in being the greatest master who ever lived:  that is my opinion; if I am in error, the loss is mine.”  Later on, he tells us what Clement VII. thought:  “One letter to your friend (the Pope) would be enough; you would soon see what fruit it bore; because I know how he values you.  He loves you, knows your nature,