"Be sure, O eyes, that the time is past, that the hour approaches which will close the passage to your regards, even to your tears. Remain, in pity to me, remain open while this divine maiden deigns yet to dwell on this earth. But when the heaven shall open to receive these unique and pure beauties ..., when she shall ascend to the abode of glorified and happy souls, then close; I bid you farewell."--(_Madrigale 40._ ) It was while at Venice, at least so it is believed, that Michel Angelo learned the death of Luigia de' Medici. An expression of profound sadness and manly resignation pervades the poems which escaped from his oppressed soul, already familiarized with grief: he knew "that death and love are the two wings which bear man from earth to heaven." ... "chi ama, qual chi muore, Non ha da gire al ciel dal mondo altr'ale." (Sonnetto: _Dall' aspra piaga._) There are, in Angelo's collection, four compositions which may be regarded as dedicated to the memory of Luigia de Medici; first, the sonnet.--"Spirto ben nato," ... in which the poet deplores "the cruel law which has not spared tenderness, compassion, mercy--treasures so rare, united to so much of beauty and fidelity; then the Sonnets 27, 28, and 30, where Michel Angelo, as though emboldened by the irreparable calamity which had befallen him, raises the veil under which the circumstances and the illusions of his love had hitherto been shrouded, for every one, and almost for himself. Now he exclaims:--"Oh, fallacious hopes! where shall I now seek thee--liberated soul? Earth has received thy beauteous form, and Heaven thy holy thoughts!--(_Sonnetto 27._).... This _first love_, which fixed my wandering affections, now overwhelms my exhausted soul with an insupportable weight.--(_Sonnetto 28._) ... Yes, the brightness of the flame, which nourished while consuming my heart, is taken from me by heaven; but one teeming spark remains to me, and I would wish to be reduced to ashes only after shining in my turn." The sense of the latter triplet is very enigmatical; it is here interpreted in accordance with the known character of the poet, and the direction which he delayed not to give to his faculties. From this moment Angelo, devoted to the threefold worship of God, art, and his country, constantly refused to think of other ties. He had, he remarked, "espoused the affectionate fantasy which makes of Art a monarch, an idol; "my children," he added, "will be the works that I shall leave behind me." More than thirty years were to elapse, ere in this heart, yet youthful at the approach of age, another woman, and she the first of her era, (Vittoria Colonna,) occupied in part the place left vacant by Luigia de' Medici.