(179)
"MESSER GIORGIO, DEAR FRIEND,--Although I write but badly, yet will
I say a few words in reply to yours. You know that Urbino is dead,
for which I owe the greatest thanks to God; at the same time my
loss is heavy and sorrow infinite. The grace is this, that while
Urbino living kept me alive, in dying he has taught me to die not
unwillingly, but rather with a desire for death. I had him with me
twenty-six years, and always found him faithful and true. Now that
I had made him rich, and thought to keep him as the staff and rest
of my old age, he has departed, and the only hope left to me is
that of seeing him again in Paradise, and of this God has given a
sign in his most happy death. Even more than dying, it grieved him
to leave me alive in this treacherous world, with so many
troubles; the better part of me went with him, nothing is left to
me but endless sorrow. I commend myself to you, and beg you, if it
is not a trouble to you, to make my excuses to Messer
Benvenuto(180) for not answering his letter, for grief abounds in
such thoughts as these, so that I cannot write. Commend me to him,
and I commend myself to you.
"Your MICHAEL ANGELO BUONARROTA, in Rome.
"The 23 day of February, 1556."
Was ever servant loved after this fashion by his master?
Urbino appointed Michael Angelo as one of his executors, and the old man
fulfilled his irksome duties with fidelity.
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