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CATALOGUE 4 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS 75But it is heaven itself that disdains to find a place on earth
for any virtue, it asks men to go and take fruit from a withered
tree.
4 .With the right side as base, a madrigal (the first three
lines and much of the top half of the fourth line are
lost and made up in the hand of Michelangelo Buonarroti
the Younger).
Come puo esser chio no sia piu mio ̃
Oddio oddio oddio
Chi m’ha tolto a me stesso (chi mi tolse`amestesso)
Ch’am` efusse piu presso
o piu di me che mi possere[poss’essere]io
o piu di me potessi ch’o possio[interline:o potessi di me]
odioodio o dio
come mi passa elcore
chi n ̃o par che mitochi?
Ch’ cosa e questo amore
c’al Core entra per gli ochi (e s’avi ̃eche trabo chi)
per poco spatio[as usually transcribed, but incomplete]
dentro par che cres[ca]
...foco...d’acquapar che?[cancelled]nosca[below]
Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, p. 8 ; Guasti,
madrigaliXXV; Frey, VI; Girardi, no. 8 ; Residori, no. 8
Come pu`o esser ch’io non sia piu mio?`
O.dDio, o.dDio, o.dDio,
chi m’ha tolto a me stesso,
c’a me fusse pi`u presso
opiud` imepotesse che poss’io?
O.dDio, o.dDio, o.dDio,
come mi passa el core
chi non par che mi tocchi?
Che cosa`e questo, Amore
c’al core entra per gli occhi,
per poco spazio dentro par che cresca
E s’avien che trabocchi?
Ryan, no. 8
How can it be that I am no longer mine? Oh God, oh God,
oh God, who has taken me from myself, that she might be
closer to me or have more power over me than I myself?
Oh God, oh God, oh God, how can someone penetrate my
heart without seeming even to touch me? What is this, Love,
that enters the heart through the eyes, and in the small space
within seems to grow? And if it should happen to overflow?5 .With the top edge as base, a madrigal
Chi e quel che ̃p forza acte mimena
oilme oilme oilme
legato e strecto e s ̃o libero e sciolto
Se tu incateni altrui s ̃eza catena
e senza mane o braccia mai[mi hai]racolto
chimidifendera dal tuo bel voltoMichelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, p. 7 ; Guasti,
madrigaliLIII; Frey, V; Girardi, no. 7 ; Residori,
no. 7
Chi`e quel che per forza a.tte mi mena,
oimm`e, oimm`e, oimme,`
legato e stretto, e son libero e sciolto?
Se tu incateni altrui senza catena,
e senza mane o braccia m’hai raccolto,
chimidifender`a dal tuo bel volto?Ryan, no. 7
Who is this who by force of nature leads me to you, alas,
alas, alas, bound and fettered, though by nature free and
unconstrained? If you enchain people without a chain, and
without moving arm or hand have gathered me in, who will
defend me from your beautiful face?Discussion
The studies of the body and rump of a horse presumably
fall into the category of practice drawings. As so often
in his studies of the male nude, Michelangelo has here
concentrated on the body and legs and has provided no
more than an outline indication of the head. This would
no doubt have been studied in a separate drawing.
It is doubtful if Michelangelo had frequently repre-
sented horses in his previous work – although in his
Battle of the Centaurs, the Centaurs of course have equine
bodies – and in these life-drawings he was no doubt
both refreshing his memory and establishing the type
of horse that he wished to portray. It is by no means
inconceivable that Michelangelo made wax models of
horses in preparation for his fresco, as did Leonardo, but
the compiler can see no justification for Goldscheider’s
attribution to him of the wax formerly in the Volpi
Collection, which had previously been given, still less
plausibly, to Leonardo himself.
The small sketch of a combat was developed from
a drawing in London (BM W 3 recto/Corpus 36 ; pen
and ink, 186 × 183 mm), which shows a clash between
two groups of cavalrymen. Michelangelo has separated
out part of this arrangement and turned it into a grim
account of a cavalryman assailed by a group of spear-
bearing infantry; this episode was developed in Cat. 4.
For further discussion see Cat. 5.Verso
As noted previously, the poems on the verso certainly
post-date the recto drawings, but it is conjectural by how
much. In principle, it seems reasonable to think that the
sheet remained in Florence; if so, then assuming – as their
layout would suggest – that the poems were written over
arelatively short period, the summer and autumn of15 0 6,