"If you take care to do well, and to honor and revere your {47} father, I will aid you like the others, and will soon establish you in a good shop. ... I have gone about throughout all Italy for twelve years, leading a dog's life, bearing all manner of insults, enduring all sorts of drudgery, lacerating my body with many toils, placing my life itself under a thousand perils solely to aid my family, and now that I have commenced to raise it up a little, thou alone wishest to do that which shall confound and ruin in an hour everything that I have done in so many years and with so many fatigues." Michelangelo's letters of consolation to his brother's (Leonardo's) daughter, who was delicate and ailing, show how tender were his family affections. He has sometimes been pictured as the self-centred bachelor, occupied only with his art. Any such picture of him is but one of the many one-sided false impressions of these geniuses of the Renaissance, all of whom, when known intimately, prove to be whole-hearted human beings with all the human interests deeply developed. One of the most interesting incidents in Michelangelo's life is his association with Vittoria Colonna. This is one of the most charming episodes of platonic friendship with wonderful mutual influence for good chronicled in history. Vittoria was an inspiration to Michelangelo in his work, and his tributes to her are full of the loftiest admiration and almost saintlike worship. On the other hand, no one could have held a higher place in the esteem of Vittoria than Michelangelo. She had suggested the subjects for certain pictures and Michelangelo painted them. She wrote in thankfulness and said with regard to one of them: "I had the greatest faith in God, that He would give you a supernatural grace to paint this 'Christ'; then I saw it, so wonderful that it surpassed in every way my expectations. Being emboldened by your miracles, I desired that which I now see marvellously fulfilled--that is, that it should stand in every part in the highest perfection, and that one could not desire more nor reach forward to desire so much. And I tell you that it gave me joy that the angel on the right hand is so beautiful; for the Archangel Michael will place you, Michelangelo, on the right hand of the Lord at the Judgment Day. And, meanwhile, I know not how to serve you otherwise than to {48} pray to this sweet 'Christ,' Whom you have so well and perfectly painted, and to entreat you to command me as altogether yours in all and through all."