pious fraud, on the ground that morality has higher claims than art; but he adds that the expedient was not necessary:  “for these sonnets do not refer to masculine love, nor yet do any others.  In the first (xxxi.) the lady is compared to an armed knight, because she carries the weapons of her sex and beauty; and while I think on it, an example occurs to my mind from Messer Cino in support of the argument.  As regards the second (lxii.), those who read these pages of mine will possibly remember that Michelangelo, writing of the dead Vittoria Colonna, called her amico; and on reflection, this sounds better than amica, in the place where it occurs.  Moreover, there are not wanting in these poems instances of the term signore, or lord, applied to the beloved lady; which is one of the many periphrastical expressions used by the Romance poets to indicate their mistress.”  It is true that Cino compares his lady in one sonnet to a knight who has carried off the prize of beauty in the lists of love and grace by her elegant dancing.  But he never calls a lady by the name of cavaliere. It is also indubitable that the Tuscans occasionally addressed the female or male object of their adoration under the title of signore, lord of my heart and soul.  But such instances weigh nothing against the direct testimony of a contemporary like Varchi, into whose hands Michelangelo’s poems came at the time of their composition, and who was well acquainted with the circumstances of their composition.  There is, moreover, a fact of singular importance bearing on this question, to which Signor Guasti has not attached the value it deserves.  In a letter belonging to the year 1549, Michelangelo thanks Luca Martini for a copy of Varchi’s commentary on his sonnet, and begs him to express his affectionate regards and hearty thanks to that eminent scholar for the honour paid him.  In a second letter addressed to G.F.  Fattucci, under date October 1549, he conveys “the thanks of Messer Tomao de’ Cavalieri to Varchi for a certain little book of his which has been printed, and in which he speaks very honourably of himself, and not less so of me.”  In neither of these letters does Michelangelo take exception to Varchi’s interpretation of Sonnet xxxi.  Indeed, the second proves that both he and Cavalieri were much pleased with it.  Michelangelo even proceeds to inform Fattucci that Cavalieri “has given me a sonnet which I made for him in those same years, begging me to send it on as a proof and witness that he really is the man intended.  This I will enclose in my present letter.”  Furthermore, we possess an insolent letter of Pietro Aretino, which makes us imagine that the “ignorance of the vulgar” had already begun to “murmur.”  After complaining bitterly that Michelangelo refused to send him any of his drawings, he goes on to remark that it would be better for the artist if he did so, “inasmuch as such an act of courtesy would quiet the insidious rumours which assert that only Gerards and Thomases can dispose of them.”  We have seen from Vasari that Michelangelo executed some famous designs for Tommaso Cavalieri.  The same authority asserts that he presented “Gherardo Perini, a Florentine gentleman, and his very dear friend,” with three splendid drawings in black chalk.  Tommaso Cavalieri and Gherardo Perini, were, therefore, the “Gerards and Thomases” alluded to by Aretino.