And if the truest truth of love I know,
One pang outweighs a thousand pleasures far._

Ruberto Strozzi, who was then in France, wrote anxiously inquiring
after his health. In reply, Michelangelo sent Strozzi a singular
message by Luigi del Riccio, to the effect that "if the king of France
restored Florence to liberty, he was ready to make his statue on
horseback out of bronze at his own cost, and set it up in the Piazza."
This throws some light upon a passage in a letter addressed
subsequently to Lionardo Buonarroti, when the tyrannous law, termed
"La Polverina," enacted against malcontents by the Duke Cosimo de'
Medici, was disturbing the minds of Florentine citizens. Michelangelo
then wrote as follows: "I am glad that you gave me news of the edict;
because, if I have been careful up to this date in my conversation
with exiles, I shall take more precautions for the future. As to my
having been laid up with an illness in the house of the Strozzi, I do
not hold that I was in their house, but in the apartment of Messer
Luigi del Riccio, who was my intimate friend; and after the death of
Bartolommeo Angelini, I found no one better able to transact my
affairs, or more faithfully, than he did. When he died, I ceased to
frequent the house, as all Rome can bear me witness; as they can also
with regard to the general tenor of my life, inasmuch as I am always
alone, go little around, and talk to no one, least of all to
Florentines. When I am saluted on the open street, I cannot do less
than respond with fair words and pass upon my way. Had I knowledge of
the exiles, who they are, I would not reply to them in any manner. As
I have said, I shall henceforward protect myself with diligence, the
more that I have so much else to think about that I find it difficult
to live."

This letter of 1548, taken in connection with the circumstances of
Michelangelo's illness in 1544, his exchange of messages with Ruberto
degli Strozzi, his gift of the two Captives to that gentleman, and his
presence in the house of the Strozzi during his recovery, shows the
delicacy of the political situation at Florence under Cosimo's rule.
Slight indications of a reactionary spirit in the aged artist exposed
his family to peril. Living in Rome, Michelangelo risked nothing with
the Florentine government. But "La Polverina" attacked the heirs of
exiles in their property and persons. It was therefore of importance
to establish his non-complicity in revolu