XXIII. It is hardly necessary to call attention to Michael Angelo's
oft-recurring Platonism. The thought that the eye alone perceives the
celestial beauty, veiled beneath the fleshly form of the beloved, is
repeated in many sonnets--especially in XXV., XXVIII.

XXIV. Composed probably in the year 1529.

XXV. Written on the same sheet as the foregoing sonnet, and composed
probably in the same year. The thought is this: beauty passing from the
lady into the lover's soul, is there spiritualised and becomes the
object of a spiritual love.

XXVII. To escape from his lady, either by interposing another image of
beauty between the thought of her and his heart, or by flight, is
impossible.

XXVIII. Compare Madrigal VII. in illustration of lines 5 to 8. By the
analogy of that passage, I should venture to render lines 6 and 7 thus:

He made thee light, and me the eyes of art;
Nor fails my soul to find God's counterpart.


XXX. Varchi, quoting this sonnet in his _Lezione_, conjectures that it
was composed for Tommaso Cavalieri.

XXXI. Varchi asserts without qualification that this sonnet was
addressed to Tommaso Cavalieri. The pun in the last line, _Resto
prigion d'un Cavalier armato_, seems to me to decide the matter, though
Signor Guasti and Signor Gotti both will have it that a woman must have