This repartee, says our Portuguese reporter, was uttered with so much seriousness and aplomb, that Messer Lattanzio could not forbear from remarking it.
From which we are led to infer, that the great Michael was understood to have made a joke. He added, however, more seriously; "I think, that your Excellence may build the proposed convent without difficulty; and when we go out, we can, if your Excellence so please, have a look at the spot, and suggest to you some ideas."
Then, after a complimentary speech from Vittoria, in which she declares that the public, who know Michael Angelo's works only without being acquainted with his character, are ignorant of the best part of him, the lecture, to which all this is introductory begins. And when the company part at its close, an appointment is made to meet again another Sunday in the same church.
A painter in search of an unhackneyed subject might easily choose a worse one than that suggested by this notable group, making the cool and quiet church their Sunday afternoon drawing-room.
The few remaining years of Vittoria's life were spent between Rome and Viterbo, an episcopal city some thirty miles to the north of it. In this latter her home was in the convent of the nuns of St. Catherine. Her society there consisted chiefly of Cardinal Pole, the governor of Viterbo, her old friend Marco Antonio Flaminio, and Archbishop Soranzo.
HER LETTER TO CERVINO.
During these years the rapidly increasing consciousness on the part of the Church of the danger of the doctrines held by the reforming party, was speedily making it unsafe to profess those opinions, which, as we have seen, gave the colour to so large a portion of Vittoria's poetry, and which had formed her spiritual character. And these friends, in the closest intimacy with whom she lived at Viterbo, were not the sort of men calculated to support her in any daring reliance on the dictates of her own soul, when these chanced to be in opposition to the views of the Church. Pole appears to have been at this time the special director of her conscience. And we know but too well, from the lamentable sequel of his own career, the sort of counsel he would be likely to give her under the circumstances. There is an extremely interesting letter extant, written by her from Viterbo to the Cardinal Cervino, who was afterwards Pope Marcellus II., which proves clearly enough, to the great delight of her orthodox admirers, that let her opinions have been what they might, she was ready to "submit" them to the censureship of Rome. We have seen how closely her opinions agreed with those which drove Bernardino Ochino to separate himself from the Church, and fly from its vengeance. Yet under Pole's tutelage she writes as follows:—
"Most Illustrious and most Reverend Sir,
"The more opportunity I have had of observing the actions of his Eminence the Cardinal of England (Pole), the more clear has it seemed to me that he is a true and sincere servant of God. Whenever, therefore, he charitably condescends to give me his opinion on any point, I conceive myself safe from error in following his advice. And he told me that, in his opinion, I ought, in case any letter or other matter should reach me from Fra Bernardino, to send the same to your most Reverend Lordship, and return no answer, unless I should be directed to do so. I send you therefore the enclosed, which I have this day received, together with the little book attached. The whole was in a packet, which came to the post here by a courier from Bologna, without any other writing inside. And I have thought it best not to make use of any other means of sending it, than by a servant of my own." * * *
She adds in a postscript: