It is impossible to know for certain whether Michelangelo had physical relationships (Condivi ascribed to him a monk-like chastity),[60] but the nature of his sexuality is made apparent in his poetry.[61] He wrote over three hundred sonnets and madrigals. The longest sequence displaying a great romantic friendship, was written to Tommaso dei Cavalieri (c.xa01509–1587), who was 23 years old when Michelangelo met him in 1532, at the age of 57. These make up the first large sequence of poems in any modern tongue addressed by one man to another, predating Shakespeares sonnets to the fair youth by fifty years