Michelangelo felt the woes of Italy--and we
know he did so by his poems--he talked but little, doing his work
daily like a wise man all through the dust and din stirred up by
Julius and the League of Cambrai. The lights and shadows of Italian
experience at that time are intensely dramatic. We must not altogether
forget the vicissitudes of war, plague, and foreign invasion, which
exhausted the country, while its greatest men continued to produce
immortal masterpieces. Aldo Manuzio was quietly printing his complete
edition of Plato, and Michelangelo was transferring the noble figure
of a prophet or a sibyl to the plaster of the Sistine, while young
Gaston de Foix was dying at the point of victory upon the bloody
shores of the Ronco. Sometimes, however, the disasters of his country
touched Michelangelo so nearly that he had to write or speak about
them. After the battle of Ravenna, on the 11th of April 1512, Raimondo
de Cardona and his Spanish troops brought back the Medici to Florence.
On their way, the little town of Prato was sacked with a barbarity
which sent a shudder through the whole peninsula. The Cardinal
Giovanni de' Medici, who entered Florence on the 14th of September,
established his nephews as despots in the city, and intimidated the
burghers by what looked likely to be a reign of terror. These facts
account for the uneasy tone of a letter written by Michelangelo to
Buonarroto. Prato had been taken by assault upon the 30th of August,
and was now prostrate after those hideous days of torment, massacre,
and outrage indescribable which followed. In these circumstances
Michelangelo advises his family to "escape into a place of safety,
abandoning their household gear and property; for life is far more
worth than money." If they are in need of cash, they may draw upon his
credit with the Spedalingo of S. Maria Novella. The constitutional
liability to panic which must be recognised in Michelangelo emerges at
the close of the letter. "As to public events, do not meddle with them
either by deed or word. Act as though the plague were raging. Be the
first to fly." The Buonarroti did not take his advice, but remained at
Florence, enduring agonies of terror. It was a time when disaffection
toward the Medicean princes exposed men to risking life and limb.
Rumours reached Lodovico that his son had talked imprudently at Rome.
He wrote to inquire what truth there was in the report, and
Michelangelo replied: "With regard to the