He would have done this if he had not mistrusted his own power of treating such a subject with the dignity and style of a practised rhetorician.

I know well that when he reads Albert Duerer's book, it seems to him of no great value; his own conception being so far fuller and more useful.

Truth to tell, Duerer only treats of the measurements and varied aspects of the human form, making his figures straight as stakes; and, what is more important, he says nothing about the attitudes and gestures of the body.

Inasmuch as Michelangelo is now advanced in years, and does not count on bringing his ideas to light through composition, he has disclosed to me his theories in their minutest details.

He also began to discourse upon the same topic with Messer Realdo Colombo, an anatomist and surgeon of the highest eminence.