Not the least of Vittoria's titles to fame, was the intense adoration with which she inspired Michel Angelo. Condivi says he was enamoured of her divine talents. "In particolare egli amo grandemente la Marchesana di Pescara, del cui divino spirito era inamorato:" and he makes use of a strong expression to describe the admiration and friendship she felt for him in return. She was fifteen years younger than Michel Angelo, who not only employed his pencil and his chisel for her pleasure, or at her suggestion, but has left among his poems several which are addressed to her, and which breathe that deep and fervent, yet pure and reverential love she was as worthy to inspire as he was to feel. I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of adding here one of the Sonnets, addressed by Michel Angelo to the Marchesana of Pescara, as translated by Wordsworth, in a peal of grand harmony, almost as _literally_ faithful to the expression as to the spirit of the original. SONNET. Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace, And I be undeluded, unbetrayed; For if of our affections none find grace In sight of Heaven, then, wherefore had God made The world which we inhabit? Better plea Love cannot have, than that in loving thee Glory to that eternal peace is paid, Who such divinity to thee imparts As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts. His hope is treacherous only whose love dies With beauty, which is varying every hour: But, in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower, That breathes on earth the air of Paradise. He stood by her in her last moments; and when her lofty and gentle spirit had forsaken its fair tenement, he raised her hand and kissed it with a sacred respect. He afterwards expressed to an intimate friend his regret, that being oppressed by the awful feelings of that moment, he had not, for the first and last time, pressed his lips to hers. Vittoria had another passionate admirer in Galeazzo di Tarsia, Count of Belmonte in Calabria, and an excellent poet of that time.[37] His attachment was as poetical, but apparently not quite so Platonic, as that of Michel Angelo. His beautiful Canzone beginning, A qual pietra sommiglia La mia bella Colonna, contains lines rather more impassioned than the modest and grave Vittoria could have approved: for example-- Con lei foss' io da che si parte il sole, E non ci vedesse altri che le stelle, --Solo una notte--e mai non fosse l' Alba! Marini and Bernardo Tasso were also numbered among her poets and admirers.