AB VII, 139 Letter from Caterina de' Medici to Michelangelo

Caterina de’ Medici, the only rightful heir of Lorenzo Duke of Urbino, was gifted in marriage to Enrico Duke of Orleans, second-born of Francesco I of France. After her husband’s death, Caterina addressed this heartfelt letter to Michelangelo asking him, by virtue of his skill and of the tie to her family, to realize a preparatory drawing for the funerary monument of her husband and to entrust it to a trusted artist. The choice fell on Daniele da Volterra to which Michelangelo provided the drawing today identified in that preseved in the Amsterdam Rijksprenterkabinet.