It is clear that, in dealing with Michelangelo's poetical compositions, we have to accept a mass of conventional utterances, penetrated with a few firmly grasped Platonical ideas.

It is only after long familiarity with his work that a man may venture to distinguish between the accents of the heart and the head-notes in the case of so great a master using an art he practised mainly as an amateur.

I shall have to return to these considerations when I discuss the value of his poetry taken as a whole.
The union of Michelangelo and Vittoria was beautiful and noble, based upon the sympathy of ardent and high-feeling natures.

Nevertheless we must remember that when Michelangelo lost his old servant Urbino, his letters and the sonnet written upon that occasion express an even deeper passion of grief.
Love is an all-embracing word, and may well be used to describe this exalted attachment, as also to qualify the great sculptor's affection for a faithful servant or for a charming friend.

We ought not, however, to distort the truth of biography or to corrupt criticism, from a personal wish to make more out of his feeling than fact and probability warrant.