X. Michael Angelo, when asked to make a portrait of his friend's mistress, declares that he is unable to do justice to her beauty. The name Mancina is a pun upon the Italian word for the left arm, Mancino. This lady was a famous and venal beauty, mentioned among the loves of the poet Molsa.
XI. Date, 1550.
XII. This and the three next sonnets may with tolerable certainty be referred to the series written on various occasions for Vittoria Colonna.
XIII. Sent together with a letter, in which we read: l'aportatore di questa sarà Urbino, che sta meco. Urbino was M. A.'s old servant, workman, and friend. See No. LXVIII. and note.
XIV. The thought is that, as the sculptor carves a statue from a rough model by addition and subtraction of the marble, so the lady of his heart refines and perfects his rude native character.
XV. This sonnet is the theme of Varchi's Lezione. There is nothing to prove that it was addressed to Vittoria Colonna. Varchi calls it 'un suo altissimo sonetto pieno di quella antica purezza e dantesca gravità.'
XVI. The thought of the fifteenth is repeated with some variations. His lady's heart holds for the lover good and evil things, according as he has the art to draw them forth.
XVIII. In the terzets he describes the temptations of the artist-nature, over-sensitive to beauty. Michelangelo the younger so altered these six lines as to destroy the autobiographical allusion.—Cp. No. XXVIII., note.
XIX. The lover's heart is like an intaglio, precious by being inscribed with his lady's image.
XX. An early composition, written on the back of a letter sent to the sculptor in Bologna by his brother Simone in 1507. M.A. was then working at the bronze statue of Julius II. Who the lady of his love was, we do not know. Notice the absence of Platonic concetti.