But grows in radiance as it soars on high.
(J.A. Symonds.)
It is indescribably tragic to watch Michelangelo slowly despairing of his own genius and art, and becoming more and more dominated by the thought of the futility of all earthly things and all earthly beauty. The religious conception of eternity and transcendent beauty, the forma universale became his last refuge. After Vittoria's death Michelangelo said to Condivi: "I have only one regret and that is that I never kissed Vittoria's brow or lips when she lay dying." More and more he brooded on sin and salvation, incarnation and crucifixion. The beloved mistress had become the sole herald of eternal truths. Melancholy and mourning took possession of his soul with an iron grip; he could conceive of only one happiness, death closely following on birth. But the thought of death again was seized and symbolised with the old artistic passion:
And cleansed by fire, I shall live for ever.
And as the flames are soaring to the sky,
I, changed and purified, shall soar to heaven.
Oh, blissful day! When in a single flash
Time slips away into eternity—
The sun no longer rides across the skies. . . .
Michelangelo was conscious of his near kinship with Dante; he illustrated a copy of the Divine Comedy which, unfortunately, is lost, and wrote a poem on Dante in which the following lines occur: