Monsignor di Todi (Federigo Cesi, afterwards Cardinal of S.Pancrazio) has made me a present, which Urbino will describe to you.

I think you are a friend of his lordship: will you then thank him in my name, when you find a suitable occasion, and do so with those compliments which come easily to you, and to me are very hard?
Make me too your debtor for some tartlet." The sonnet is No.

ix of Signor Guasti's edition.

I have translated it thus:-- _The sugar, candles, and the saddled mule, Together with your cask of malvoisie, So far exceed all my necessity That Michael and not I my debt must rule.
In such a glassy calm the breezes fool My sinking sails, so that amid the sea My bark hath missed her way, and seems to be A wisp of straw whirled on a weltering pool.
To yield thee gift for gift and grace for grace, For food and drink and carriage to and fro, For all my need in every time and place, O my dear lord, matched with the much I owe, All that I am were no real recompense: Paying a debt is not munificence._ In the chapter upon Michelangelo's poetry I dwelt at length upon Luigi del Riccio's passionate affection for his cousin, Cecchino dei Bracci.
This youth died at the age of sixteen, on January 8, 1545.
Michelangelo undertook to design "the modest sepulchre of marble" erected to his memory by Del Riccio in the church of Araceli.

He also began to write sonnets, madrigals, and epitaphs, which were sent from day to day.