In presenting this cross to her he wrote:—
“Lady Marchioness, being myself in Rome, I thought it hardly fitting to give the Crucified Christ to Messer Tommaso, and to make him an intermediary between your ladyship and me, especially because it has been my earnest wish to perform more for you than for any one I ever knew upon the world. But absorbing occupations, which still engage me, have prevented my informing your ladyship of this. Moreover, knowing that you know love needs no taskmaster, and that he who loves doth not sleep, I thought the less of using go-betweens. And though I seemed to have forgotten, I was doing what I did not talk about, in order to effect a thing that was not looked for, my purpose has been spoiled. He sins who faith like this so soon forgets.”
In reply Vittoria Colonna wrote:—
“Unique Master Angelo and my most singular friend: I have received your letter and examined the crucifix which truly hath crucified in my memory every other picture I ever saw. Nowhere could one find another figure of our Lord so well executed, so living, and so exquisitely finished. I cannot express in words how subtly and marvellously it is designed. Wherefore I am resolved to take the work as coming from no other hand but yours. . . . I have examined it minutely in full light and by the lens and mirror, and never saw anything more perfect.”
She added:—
“. . . Your works forcibly stimulate the judgment of all who would look at them. My study of them made me speak of adding goodness to things perfect in themselves, and I have seen now that ‘all is possible to him who believes.’ I had the greatest faith in God that He would bestow upon you supernatural grace for the making of this Christ. When I came to examine it I found it so marvellous that it surpasses all my expectations. Wherefore, emboldened by your miracles I conceived a great desire for that which I now see marvellously accomplished: I mean that the design is in all parts perfect and consummate. I tell you that I am pleased that the angel on the right hand is by far the fairer, since Michael will place you, with all angels, upon the right hand of the Lord some day. Meanwhile I do not know how else to serve you, than by making orisons to this sweet Christ, whom you have drawn so well and exquisitely, and praying you to hold me yours to command as yours in all and for all.”
Again Vittoria wrote to him:—
“I beg you to let me have the crucifix a short while in my keeping, even though it be unfinished. I want to show it to some gentlemen who have come from the most reverend, the Cardinal of Mantua. If you are not working will you not come at your leisure to-day and talk with me?”
It is an interesting fact to the visitor in the Rome of to-day that the convent of San Silvestre where Vittoria Colonna lived was attached to the church of San Silvestre in Capite, now used as the English-speaking Catholic church in the Eternal City. The wing which was formerly the convent (founded in 1318) is now converted into the central post office.
It was in the sacristy of San Silvestre, decorated with frescoes by Domenichino, that a memorable meeting and conversation took place, one Sunday afternoon in those far-away days of nearly five hundred years ago, between Michael Angelo and Francesco d’Ollanda, a Spanish miniature artist,—the meeting brought about by Vittoria Colonna. The Spanish artist was a worshipper of Michael Angelo, who “awakened such a feeling of love,” that if d’Ollanda met him in the street “the stars would come out in the sky,” he says, “before I would let him go again.” This fervent worship was hardly enjoyed by its object, who avoided the Spanish enthusiast. One Sunday, however, d’Ollanda had gone to San Silvestre finding there Tolomei, to whom he was also devoted, and Vittoria Colonna, both of whom had gone to hear the celebrated Fra Ambrosia of Siena expound the Epistles of St. Paul. The Marchesa di Pescara observed that she felt sure their Spanish friend would far rather hear Michael Angelo discuss painting than to hear Fra Ambrosia on the wisdom of St. Paul. Summoning an attendant she directed him to find Michael Angelo and tell him how cool and delightful was the church that morning and to beg him to join Messer Tolomei and herself; but to make no mention of the presence of d’Ollanda. Her woman’s tact and her faultless courtesy were successful in procuring this inestimable privilege for the Spanish painter. Michael Angelo came, and began the conversation—which was a monologue, rather, as all three of the friends wished only to listen to the master—by defending artists from the charge of eccentric and difficult methods. With somewhat startling candor Michael Angelo proceeded:—