We have seen that Vasari worked for a short time as pupil under Michelangelo, and that during the pontificate of Paul III. they were brought into frequent contact at Rome.  With years their friendship deepened into intimacy, and after the date 1550 their correspondence forms one of our most important sources of information.  Michelangelo’s letters begin upon the 1st of August in that year.  Vasari was then living and working for the Duke at Florence; but he had designed a chapel for S. Pietro a Montorio in Rome, where Julius III. wished to erect tombs to the memory of his ancestors; and the work had been allotted to Bartolommeo Ammanati under Michelangelo’s direction.

This business, otherwise of no importance in his biography, necessitated the writing of despatches, one of which is interesting, since it acknowledges the receipt of Vasari’s celebrated book:—­

“Referring to your three letters which I have received, my pen refuses to reply to such high compliments.  I should indeed be happy if I were in some degree what you make me out to be, but I should not care for this except that then you would have a servant worth something.  However, I am not surprised that you, who resuscitate the dead, should prolong the life of the living, or that you should steal the half-dead from death for an endless period.”

It seems that on this occasion he also sent Vasari the sonnet composed upon his Lives of the Painters.  Though it cannot be called one of his poetical masterpieces, the personal interest attaching to the verses justifies their introduction here:—­

With pencil and with palette hitherto You made your art high Nature’s paragon; Nay more, from Nature her own prize you won, Making what she made fair more fair to view.

Now that your learned hand with labour new Of pen and ink a worthier work hath done, What erst you lacked, what still remained her own, The power of giving life, is gained for you.

  If men in any age with Nature vied
  In beauteous workmanship, they had to yield
  When to the fated end years brought their name.

  You, re-illuming memories that died,
  In spite of Time and Nature have revealed
  For them and for yourself eternal fame.

Vasari’s official position at the ducal court of Florence brought him into frequent and personal relations with Cosimo de’ Medici.  The Duke had long been anxious to lure the most gifted of his subjects back to Florence; but Michelangelo, though he remained a loyal servant to the Medicean family, could not approve of Cosimo’s despotic rule.  Moreover, he was now engaged by every tie of honour, interest, and artistic ambition to superintend the fabric of S. Peter’s.  He showed great tact, through delicate negotiations carried on for many years, in avoiding the Duke’s overtures without sacrificing his friendship.  Wishing to found his family in