“I have something else to say to you, which I have said before.  If you will endeavour to live rightly, and to honour and revere your father, I am willing to help you like the rest, and will put it shortly within your power to open a good shop.  If you act otherwise, I shall come and settle your affairs in such a way that you will recognise what you are better than you ever did, and will know what you have to call your own, and will have it shown to you in every place where you may go.  No more.  What I lack in words I will supply with deeds.

“Michelangelo in Rome.

“I cannot refrain from adding a couple of lines.  It is as follows.  I have gone these twelve years past drudging about through Italy, borne every shame, suffered every hardship, worn my body out in every toil, put my life to a thousand hazards, and all with the sole purpose of helping the fortunes of my family.  Now that I have begun to raise it up a little, you only, you alone, choose to destroy and bring to ruin in one hour what it has cost me so many years and such labour to build up.  By Christ’s body this shall not be; for I am the man to put to the rout ten thousand of your sort, whenever it be needed.  Be wise in time, then, and do not try the patience of one who has other things to vex him.”

Even Buonarroto, who was the best of the brothers and dearest to his heart, hurt him by his graspingness and want of truth.  He had been staying at Rome on a visit, and when he returned to Florence it appears that he bragged about his wealth, as if the sums expended on the Buonarroti farms were not part of Michelangelo’s earnings.  The consequence was that he received a stinging rebuke from his elder brother.  “The said Michele told me you mentioned to him having spent about sixty ducats at Settignano.  I remember your saying here too at table that you had disbursed a large sum out of your own pocket.  I pretended not to understand, and did not feel the least surprise, because I know you.  I should like to hear from your ingratitude out of what money you gained them.  If you had enough sense to know the truth, you would not say:  ‘I spent so and so much of my own;’ also you would not have come here to push your affairs with me, seeing how I have always acted toward you in the past, but would have rather said:  ’Michelangelo remembers what he wrote to us, and if he does not now do what he promised, he must be prevented by something of which we are ignorant,’ and then have kept your peace; because it is not well to spur the horse that runs as fast as he is able, and more than he is able.  But you have never known me, and do not know me.  God pardon you; for it is He who granted me the grace to bear what I do bear and have borne, in order that you might be helped.  Well, you will know me when you have lost me.”

Michelangelo’s angry moods rapidly cooled down.  At the bottom of his heart lay a deep and abiding love for his family.  There is something caressing in the tone with which he replies to grumbling letters from his father.  “Do not vex yourself.  God did not make us to abandon us.”  “If you want me, I will take the post, and be with you in two days.  Men are worth more than money.”  His warm affection transpires even more clearly in the two following documents: