“I pray God to open your eyes from some other quarter, in order that you may come to comprehend that he who desires your good more than his own welfare, is able to love, not to hate like an enemy.”

Milanesi prints no more of the manuscript in his edition of the Letters.  But Guasti, conscientiously collecting fragments of Michelangelo’s verses, gives six lines, which he found at the foot of the epistle:—­

  Vo’ sol del mie morir contento veggio: 
    La terra piange, e’l ciel per me si muove;
    E vo’ men pieta stringe ov’ io sto peggio.
  O sol che scaldi il mondo in ogni dove,
    O Febo, o luce eterna de’ mortali,
  Perche a me sol ti scuri e non altrove?

* * * * *

  Naught comforts you, I see, unless I die: 
    Earth weeps, the heavens for me are moved to woe;
    You feel of grief the less, the more grieve I.
  O sun that warms the world where’er you go,
    O Febo, light eterne for mortal eyes! 
    Why dark to me alone, elsewhere not so?_

These verses seem to have been written as part of a long Capitolo which Michelangelo himself, the elder, used indifferently in addressing Febo and his abstract “donna.”  Who Febo was, we do not know.  But the sincere accent of the letter and the lyric cry of the rough lines leave us to imagine that he was some one for whom Michelangelo felt very tenderly in Florence.

Milanesi prints this letter to Febo with the following title, “A Febo (di Poggio).”  This proves that he at any rate knew it had been answered by some one signing “Febo di Poggio.”  The autograph, in an illiterate hand and badly spelt, is preserved among the Buonarroti Archives, and bears date January 14, 1534.  Febo excuses himself for not having been able to call on Michelangelo the night before he left Florence, and professes to have come the next day and found him already gone.  He adds that he is in want of money, both to buy clothes and to go to see the games upon the Monte.  He prays for a gratuity, and winds up:  “Vostro da figliuolo (yours like a son), Febo di Poggio.”  I will add a full translation here:—­

“Magnificent M. Michelangelo, to be honoured as a father,—­I came back yesterday from Pisa, whither I had gone to see my father.  Immediately upon my arrival, that friend of yours at the bank put a letter from you into my hands, which I received with the greatest pleasure, having heard of your well-being.  God be praised, I may say the same about myself.  Afterwards I learned what you say about my being angry with you.  You know well I could not be angry with you, since I regard you in the place of a father.  Besides, your conduct toward me has not been of the sort to cause in me any such effect.  That evening when you left Florence, in the morning I could not get away from M. Vincenzo, though I had the greatest desire to speak with you.  Next morning I came to your house, and you were already gone, and great was my disappointment at your leaving Florence without my seeing you.