From the next letter (September 18, 1532) it appears that Michelangelo was then in Rome.  There ensues a gap in the correspondence, which is not resumed until July 12, 1533.  It now appears that Buonarroti had recently left Rome at the close of another of his visits.  Angelini immediately begins to speak of Tommaso Cavalieri.  “I gave that soul you wrote of to M. Tommao, who sends you his very best regards, and begs me to communicate any letters I may receive from you to him.  Your house is watched continually every night, and I often go to visit it by day.  The hens and master cock are in fine feather, and the cats complain greatly over your absence, albeit they have plenty to eat.”  Angelini never writes now without mentioning Cavalieri.  Since this name does not occur in the correspondence before the date of July 12, 1533, it is possible that Michelangelo made the acquaintance during his residence at Rome in the preceding winter.  His letters to Angelini must have conveyed frequent expressions of anxiety concerning Cavalieri’s affection; for the replies invariably contain some reassuring words (July 26):  “Yours makes me understand how great is the love you bear him; and in truth, so far as I have seen, he does not love you less than you love him.”  Again (August 11, 1533):  “I gave your letter to M. Thomao, who sends you his kindest remembrances, and shows the very strongest desire for your return, saying that when he is with you, then he is really happy, because he possesses all that he wishes for upon this world.  So then, it seems to me that, while you are fretting to return, he is burning with desire for you to do so.  Why do you not begin in earnest to make plans for leaving Florence?  It would give peace to yourself and all of us, if you were here.  I have seen your soul, which is in good health and under good guardianship.  The body waits for your arrival.”

This mysterious reference to the soul, which Angelini gave, at Buonarroti’s request, to young Cavalieri, and which he now describes as prospering, throws some light upon the passionate phrases of the following mutilated letter, addressed to Angelini by Michelangelo upon the 11th of October.  The writer, alluding to Messer Tommao, says that, having given him his heart, he can hardly go on living in his absence:  “And so, if I yearn day and night without intermission to be in Rome, it is only in order to return again to life, which I cannot enjoy without the soul.”  This conceit is carried on for some time, and the letter winds up with the following sentence:  “My dear Bartolommeo, although you may think that I am joking with you, this is not the case.  I am talking sober sense, for I have grown twenty years older and twenty pounds lighter since I have been here.”  This epistle, as we shall see in due course, was acknowledged.  All Michelangelo’s intimates in Rome became acquainted with the details of this friendship.  Writing to Sebastiano from Florence in this year, he says:  “I beg you, if you see Messer T. Cavalieri, to recommend me to him infinitely; and when you write, tell me something about him to keep him in my memory; for if I were to lose him from my mind, I believe that I should fall down dead straightway.”  In Sebastiano’s letters there is one allusion to Cavalieri, who had come to visit him in the company of Bartolommeo Angelini, when he was ill.