"
These poems are calm and well-balanced, and differ greatly from the rest
of his poetry.
If each the other love, himself foregoing,
With such delight, such savour and so well
That both to one sole end their wills combine.
(_Transl. by_ J.A. SYMONDS.)
Michelangelo painted "Ganymede" for Tommaso, and even at a ripe old age
he addressed poems to Cechino Bracci, who died at the age of seventeen.
His contempt of woman, without which the spirit of classical Greece,
too, is unthinkable, formed a parallel to his male friendships.
In the prime of his life the Platonic element was superseded by the
other great element which stirred his soul so profoundly. Exceeding the
perfection of form of antique statuary, his later works throb with a
spiritual and passionate life quite peculiar to him; an inward fire
seems to consume his ardent figures. They are not creatures of this
earth, a breath of eternity has touched them; they are an embodiment of
the Platonic heritage which accounts all earthly things as symbols of
eternal beauty, fertilised and glorified by a deep mourning over human
destiny and a longing for deliverance.
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