LXV. Likewise, with deep study and attention, he read the Holy Scriptures,
both the Old and the New Testaments, and searched them diligently, as also
the writings of Savonarola, for whom he always had a great affection,
keeping always in his mind the memory of his living voice. He has also
loved the beauty of the human body, as one who best understands it; and in
such wise that certain carnal-minded men, who do not comprehend the love
of beauty, have taken occasion to think and speak evil of him, as if
Alcibiades, a youth of perfect beauty, had not been purely loved by
Socrates, from whose side he arose as from the side of his father. I have
often heard Michael Angelo reason and discourse of Love, and learned
afterwards from those who were present that he did not speak otherwise of
Love than is to be found written in the works of Plato. For myself I do
not know what Plato says of Love, but I know well that I, who have known
Michael Angelo so long and so intimately, have never heard issue from his
mouth any but the most honest of words, which had the power to extinguish
in youth every ill-regulated and unbridled desire which might arise. By
this we may know that no evil thoughts were born in him. He loved not only
human beauty, but universally every beautiful thing--a beautiful horse, a
beautiful dog, a beautiful country, a beautiful plant, a beautiful
mountain, a beautiful forest, and every place and thing beautiful and rare
after its kind, admiring them all with a marvellous love; thus choosing
the beauty in nature as the bees gather honey from the flowers, using it
afterwards in his works, as all those have done who have ever made a noise
in painting.
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