NOTES ON MICHAEL ANGELO'S SONNETS.


I. Quoted by Donato Giannotti in his Dialogue _De' giorni che Dante
consumò nel cercare l'Inferno e 'l Purgatorio._ The date of its
composition is perhaps 1545.

II. Written probably for Donato Giannotti about the same date.

III. Belonging to the year 1506, when Michael Angelo quarrelled with
Julius and left Rome in anger. The tree referred to in the last line is
the oak of the Rovere family.

IV. Same date, and same circumstances. The autograph has these words at
the foot of the sonnet: _Vostro Miccelangniolo, in Turchia._ Rome
itself, the Sacred City, has become a land of infidels.

V. Ser Giovanni da Pistoja was Chancellor of the Florentine Academy.
The date is probably 1509. The _Sonetto a Coda_ is generally humorous
or satiric.

VI. Written in one of those moments of _affanno_ or _stizzo_ to which
the sculptor was subject. For the old bitterness of feeling between
Florence and Pistoja, see Dante, _Inferno._