other forenoon at S. Spirito, and to-day, it struck me as extremely strange, especially in the presence of Piloto and so many others.  I cannot help thinking that you must have some grudge against me; but I marvel that you do not open out your mind to me, because it may be something which is wholly false.”  The letter winds up with an earnest protest that he has always been a true and faithful friend.  He begs to be allowed to come and clear the matter up in conversation, adding that he would rather lose the good-will of the whole world than Michelangelo’s.

The third letter is somewhat different in tone, and not so personally interesting.  Still it illustrates the nervousness and apprehension under which Michelangelo’s acquaintances continually lived.  The painter commonly known as Rosso Fiorentino was on a visit to Rome, where he studied the Sistine frescoes.  They do not appear to have altogether pleased him, and he uttered his opinion somewhat too freely in public.  Now he pens a long elaborate epistle, full of adulation, to purge himself of having depreciated Michelangelo’s works.  People said that “when I reached Rome, and entered the chapel painted by your hand, I exclaimed that I was not going to adopt that manner.”  One of Buonarroti’s pupils had been particularly offended.  Rosso protests that he rather likes the man for his loyalty; but he wishes to remove any impression which Michelangelo may have received of his own irreverence or want of admiration.  The one thing he is most solicitous about is not to lose the great man’s good-will.

It must be added, at the close of this investigation, that however hot and hasty Michelangelo may have been, and however readily he lent his ear to rumours, he contrived to renew the broken threads of friendship with the persons he had hurt by his irritability.

CHAPTER XV

I

During the winter of 1563-64 Michelangelo’s friends in Rome became extremely anxious about his health, and kept Lionardo Buonarroti from time to time informed of his proceedings.  After New Year it was clear that he could not long maintain his former ways of life.  Though within a few months of ninety, he persisted in going abroad in all weathers, and refused to surround himself with the comforts befitting a man of his eminence and venerable age.  On the 14th of February he seems to have had a kind of seizure.  Tiberio Calcagni, writing that day to Lionardo, gives expression to his grave anxiety:  “Walking through Rome to-day, I heard from many persons that Messer Michelangelo was ill.  Accordingly I went at once to visit him, and although it was raining I found him out of doors on foot.  When I saw him, I said that I did not think it right and seemly for him to be going about in such weather ‘What do you want?’ he answered; ’I am ill, and cannot find rest anywhere.’  The uncertainty