I saw no mortal beauty with these eyes When perfect peace in thy fair eyes I found; But far within, where all is holy ground, My soul felt love, her comrade of the skies; For she was born with God in Paradise; Else should we still to transient love be bound; But, finding these so false, we pass beyond, Unto the Love of loves that never dies. (Translation of J. A. Symonds.) [132] "_Tutti i componimenti di lui pieni d'amore Socratico, e di concetti Platonici._" [133] Xenophon, Memor, Vol. III, p. 10. [134] He adds: "He who wrote that painting was nobler than sculpture, if that idea is a sample of his intelligence, then my servant knows more than he does." This seems to be directed at Lionardo. See the first chapter of "Trattato della Pittura." [135] The best of artists hath no thought to show Which the rough stone in its superfluous shell Doth not include; to break the marble spell Is all the hand that serves the brain can do. (Translation of J. A. Symonds.) [136] If it is true that Michelangelo attacked the marble with the greatest fury, it was only after he had prepared his drawings and his models with the most minute care. Cellini in his "Trattati dell' oreficeria" (Florence, 1557) says that for the statues in the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo he saw him first make models of the same height as the statue was to be and then draw with charcoal on the marble the general appearance of his figure. Vasari says almost the same thing in regard to the four statues of Captives sketched in the block and not yet cut from it. [137] The science of design or drawing, said Michelangelo, according to the Dialogues of Francis of Holland, is the source and the essence of painting, of sculpture, of architecture and of all kinds of representation as well as the soul of all the sciences (Third Part of the "Dialogues sur la Peinture dans la Ville de Rome"). "Sculpture," says Francis of Holland, "is clearly bound to drawing; it comes out of it and at bottom is nothing more than the drawing itself. The great draughtsman, Michelangelo, said to me many times that he regarded it as a greater thing to make a masterly stroke with the pen than with the chisel." (_Ibid._, Second Part.) [138] Sense is not love, but lawlessness accursed; This kills the soul.... (Translation of J. A. Symonds.) [139] "Or for sluggards like Sebastiano del Piombo." He had a quarrel because of this remark with Sebastiano, who tried to persuade him to paint the Last Judgment in oils. [140] "Aborriva il fare somigliare al vivo" (Vasari).--"Michelangelo never would paint a portrait."--(Journal de Bernin, Gazette des Beaux Arts, Vol. XVII, p. 358.) "His rule," says Vasari, "was never to make any likeness of a living person unless he was of transcendent beauty." [141] "Flemish painting generally is more pleasing to the devout than Italian painting."