These poems are calm and well-balanced, and differ greatly from the rest of his poetry.
If each the other love, himself foregoing,
With such delight, such savour and so well
That both to one sole end their wills combine.
(Transl. by J.A. Symonds.)
Michelangelo painted "Ganymede" for Tommaso, and even at a ripe old age he addressed poems to Cechino Bracci, who died at the age of seventeen.
His contempt of woman, without which the spirit of classical Greece, too, is unthinkable, formed a parallel to his male friendships.
In the prime of his life the Platonic element was superseded by the other great element which stirred his soul so profoundly. Exceeding the perfection of form of antique statuary, his later works throb with a spiritual and passionate life quite peculiar to him; an inward fire seems to consume his ardent figures. They are not creatures of this earth, a breath of eternity has touched them; they are an embodiment of the Platonic heritage which accounts all earthly things as symbols of eternal beauty, fertilised and glorified by a deep mourning over human destiny and a longing for deliverance. And when his years were already beginning to decline, Vittoria Colonna came into his life, a semblance and symbol of divine perfection. The love which took possession of him transformed his whole life and lifted it into religion. In his tempestuous soul this first love, coming so late in life, far exceeded human limits; it became adoration and religious ecstasy. Michelangelo, who could not tolerate in friendship any other relationship than that of complete self-surrender and equality, threw himself into the very dust before his love and debased himself almost to self-destruction.
His book of poems is filled with an unspeakable longing for the perfection of earthly beauty and for eternity; and his beloved mistress is the sole symbol of this metaphysical climax. Earthly beauty is but an imperfect semblance of the divine beauty, the embodiment of which is his love. We meet all the familiar motives; he is nothing before her; he is unworthy of existence; he is like the moon receiving her light from the sun; love has raised him from his base condition and is teaching him the futility of all he had hitherto valued.
Yea, well I see what folly 'twere to think