Sometimes I think about how one of the things Vittoria Colonna is best remembered for is her friendship with Michelangelo. She was from a super high-ranking family, Marcessa of Pescara, a politician/stateswoman, a celebrated poet, and highly respected by everyone. And today one of the things people remember is she loved her stinky crazy old gay friend dearly.
She called him “mio singularisimo amico” (my singular friend) and they visited each other all the time when they were near each other, at one point they met up every Sunday after church (for Renaissance brunch I assume). When he was suffering from eye strain from work, she got him glasses. She wrote a poem about the Archangel Michael and no doubt she was thinking of the guy named for him. She had a manuscript of her poetry made specially for him. She teased him about how they both had to get back to work and stop distracting each other (everyone with a best friend knows this problem). But she still took time out of her work as a politician/stateswoman to visit him and check on him.
Michelangelo. Who was notoriously cranky and hard to work with and suffered from mental illness and depression that compounded these issues. Had a best friend who loved him dearly and helped him with his emotional and spiritual struggles. In one poem he wrote how he wanted to make a piece of art so people in the future could know how beautiful she was and how much they loved each other. In another poem after she died he wrote that it was “her soul that fashioned mine”— he saw her as the person who saved him.
She didn’t have to do any of that. She could have just been a casual friend and a patron. She was far above him socially, had much more important things to do than spend the weekend with a grouchy old man, but she matched his freak and was just as weird as him and their friendship brought out so many good things in each other.
In my first semester of college my English teacher said “The most important thing in the world is how two people relate to each other” and that’s stuck with me for over a decade. It’s so moving that these two weirdos found each other and found strength in each other. And that Vittoria is remembered for being a caring friend who was there for Michelangelo when he needed support, whether it was physical assistance to deal with pain from work or someone to listen to his anxieties and remind him of God’s love.
We can only hope to be remembered in the future for being kind to those who need it.
