ABSTRACT
Michelangelo Buonarroti endowed his poetic expression with 'things' more than with 'words', as the sixteenth-century poet Francesco Berni pointed out in a poem to Sebastiano del Piombo. This chapter highlights those 'things' in Michelangelo's poetry that should be acknowledged as religious res inspired by the quest for the 'true' faith. It presents a religious reading, and undertakes a poetic journey initially animated by the influence of Marsilio Ficino's Neo-Platonism and by the religious fervour of Girolamo Savonarola that were later increasingly enlivened by an intense evangelical spirituality. In perfect Neo-Platonic verses, Michelangelo proposes Ficino's concept whereby 'beauty is splendour of the divine light' and 'honest' love is 'borne of God's beauty. In late fifteenth century Italy, Florentine culture was not influenced exclusively by Neo-Platonism. Concerns about spiritual salvation begin to be present in Michelangelo's poetry around the early 1520s and became central from 1536, the year that marks the beginning of his firm friendship with Vittoria Colonna.
