A figure truly worthy of the Humanity which belonged to the Son of God, and to such a Mother; nevertheless, some there be who complain that the Mother is too young compared to the Son.

One day as I was talking to Michael Angelo of this objection, "_Do you not know_," he said, "_that chaste women retain their fresh looks much longer than those who are not chaste?
How much more, therefore, a virgin in whom not even the least unchaste desire ever arose?
And I tell you, moreover, that such freshness and flower of youth besides being maintained in her by natural causes, it may possibly be that it was ordained by the Divine Power to prove to the world the virginity and perpetual purity of the Mother.

It was not necessary in the Son; but rather the contrary; wishing to show that the Son of God took upon himself a true human body subject to all the ills of man, excepting only sin; he did not allow the divine in him to hold back the human, but let it run its course and obey its laws, as was proved in His appointed time.

Do not wonder then that I have, for all these reasons, made the most Holy Virgin, Mother of God, a great deal younger in comparison with her Son than she is usually represented.

To the Son I have allotted His full age_." Considerations worthy of any theologian, wonderful perhaps in any one else, but not in Michael Angelo, whom God and Nature have formed not only for his unique craftsmanship, but also capable of any, the most divine, conceptions, as may be seen not only in this but in very many of his arguments and writings.