Last comes the so-called Adonis of the Bargello Palace, which not improbably was designed for one of the figures prostrate below the feet of a victorious Genius.  It bears, indeed, much resemblance to a roughly indicated nude at the extreme right of the sketch for the tomb.  Upon this supposition, Michelangelo must have left it in a very unfinished state, with an unshaped block beneath the raised right thigh.  This block has now been converted into a boar.  Extremely beautiful as the Adonis undoubtedly is, the strained, distorted attitude seems to require some explanation.  That might have been given by the trampling form and robes of a Genius.  Still it is difficult to comprehend why the left arm and hand, finished, I feel almost sure, by Michelangelo, should have been so carefully executed.  The Genius, if draped, would have hidden nearly the whole of that part of the statue.  The face of this Adonis displays exactly the same type as that of the so-called Victory and of Giuliano de’ Medici.  Here the type assumes singular loveliness.

CHAPTER XII

I

After the death of Clement VII.  Michelangelo never returned to reside at Florence.  The rest of his life was spent in Rome.  In the year 1534 he had reached the advanced age of fifty-nine, and it is possible that he first became acquainted with the noble lady Vittoria Colonna about 1538.  Recent students of his poetry and friendships have suggested that their famous intimacy began earlier, during one of his not infrequent visits to Rome.  But we have no proof of this.  On the contrary, the only letters extant which he sent to her, two in number, belong to the year 1545.  It is certain that anything like friendship between them grew up at some considerable time after his final settlement in Rome.

Vittoria was the daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, Grand Constable of Naples, by his marriage with Agnesina di Montefeltro, daughter of Federigo, Duke of Urbino.  Blood more illustrious than hers could not be found in Italy.  When she was four years old, her parents betrothed her to Ferrante Francesco d’Avalos, a boy of the same age, the only son of the Marchese di Pescara.  In her nineteenth year the affianced couple were married at Ischia, the fief and residence of the house of D’Avalos.  Ferrante had succeeded to his father’s title early in boyhood, and was destined for a brilliant military career.  On the young bride’s side at least it was a love-match.  She was tenderly attached to her handsome husband, ignorant of his infidelities, and blind to his fatal faults of character.  Her happiness proved of short duration.  In 1512 Pescara was wounded and made prisoner at the battle of Ravenna, and, though he returned to his wife for a short interval, duty called him again to the field of war in Lombardy in 1515.  After this date Vittoria saw him but seldom.  The last time they met was in October