this pedigree, for which there is, however, no foundation in fact, and
no heraldic corroboration. According to his friend and biographer
Condivi, the sculptor's first Florentine ancestor was a Messer Simone
dei Conti di Canossa, who came in 1250 as Podestà to Florence. "The
eminent qualities of this man gained for him admission into the
burghership of the city, and he was appointed captain of a Sestiere;
for Florence in those days was divided into Sestieri, instead of
Quartieri, as according to the present usage." Michelangelo's
contemporary, the Count Alessandro da Canossa, acknowledged this
relationship. Writing on the 9th of October 1520, he addresses the
then famous sculptor as "honoured kinsman," and gives the following
piece of information: "Turning over my old papers, I have discovered
that a Messere Simone da Canossa was Podestà of Florence, as I have
already mentioned to the above-named Giovanni da Reggio."
Nevertheless, it appears now certain that no Simone da Canossa held
the office of Podestà at Florence in the thirteenth century. The
family can be traced up to one Bernardo, who died before the year
1228. His grandson was called Buonarrota, and the fourth in descent
was Simone. These names recur frequently in the next generations.
Michelangelo always addressed his father as "Lodovico di Lionardo di
Buonarrota Simoni," or "Louis, the son of Leonard, son of Buonarrota
Simoni;" and he used the family surname of Simoni in writing to his
brothers and his nephew Lionardo. Yet he preferred to call himself
Michelangelo Buonarroti; and after his lifetime Buonarroti became
fixed for the posterity of his younger brother. "The reason," says
Condivi, "why the family in Florence changed its name from Canossa to
Buonarroti was this: Buonarroto continued for many generations to be
repeated in their house, down to the time of Michelangelo, who had a
brother of that name; and inasmuch as several of these Buonarroti held
rank in the supreme magistracy of the republic, especially the brother