even the time for eating and sleeping. In his letters we are continually coming across the following lamentable refrain:
“I have hardly time to eat … I have no time to eat … For the past twelve years I have been ruining my body with fatigue. I stand in need of necessaries … I am without a penny. I am naked. I suffer a thousand ills … I live in a state of poverty and suffering … I struggle with poverty.”[1]
Michael Angelo’s poverty was imaginary. He was wealthy—he became, indeed, very wealthy.[2] But what use did he make of his riches? He lived like a poor man, harnessed to his task like a horse to a millstone. No one could understand why he thus tortured himself. No one could understand that it was out of his power not to torture himself—that it was a necessity for him. Even his father—who had many of his son’s traits—reproached him.
“Your brother tells me that you live with great economy and even in a wretched manner. Economy is good, but poverty is bad—it is a vice which displeases both God and man and will do harm to your soul and
- ↑ Letters of 1507, 1509, 1512, 1513, 1525, and 1547.
- ↑ After his death, there was found, at his house in Rome, from 7000 to 8000 gold ducats, equivalent to £16,000 to £20,000 of our money. Moreover, Vasari says that he had already given his nephew 7000 crowns, and his servant, Urbino, 2000. He had large sums invested in Florence. The Denunzia de’ beni for 1534 shows that he then possessed six houses and seven estates in Florence, Settignano, Rovezzano, Stradello, San Stefano de Pozzolatico, and other places. He had a mania for possessing land, and was continually buying, as in 1505, 1506, 1512, 1515, 1517, 1518, 1519, 1520, &c. A trait this, transmitted from peasant ancestors. However, though he amassed wealth, it was not for himself that he did it; he spent his riches on others and deprived himself of everything.
