o be
right after all. Nevertheless, hearing better news, and hoping against
hope, he courageously returned to Florence in her extremity and went on
with the fortifications. Some of the works at San Miniato still remain.
Vauban is said to have found them of such interest that he surveyed and
measured them. During this sad time Michael Angelo laboured in secret at
the tombs of the Medici. The sad and despairing thoughts of the artist are
evident in the work he produced. No one can enter that solemn sacristy
without feeling the spirit of deepest sadness brooding over all--Il
Penseroso, and the figures of Day and of Night, of Morning and of Evening.

The city fell in August 1530. Marco Dandolo, of Venice, when he heard of
it, exclaimed aloud, "Baglioni has put upon his head the cap of the
biggest traitor upon record." The prominent citizens who escaped,
including Michael Angelo, were outlawed and their property confiscated.
Many who remained in the city were imprisoned, tortured, and beheaded.
Michael Angelo hid himself, the Senator Filippo Buonarroti says, in the
bell-tower of San Nicolo beyond Arno.(140) After the fury was over and
Clement's anger abated, Michael Angelo, hearing a message of peace from
the Pope, came forth from his hiding-place and resumed work on the statues
at San Lorenzo, moved thereto more by fear of the Pope than by love of the
Medici. During November or December his pension of fifty crowns a month
was renewed, the Pope's agent in Florence being Battista Figiovanni, Prior
of San Lorenzo.

In 1528 a block of marble had been assigned to Michael Angelo, from which
he determined to extract a heroic group of Hercules and Cacus. There is a
small wax model of this composition at South Kensington, attributed to
Michael Angelo, which may be for this design. The Medici Government handed
over the blocks to the craven Baccio Bandinelli, who produced the horrible
work, representing the same subject, now in front of the Palazzo Vecchio.

The Leda for the Duke of Ferrara,(141) but presented by Michael Angelo to
his pupil Mini, was painted during the siege. It was probably a design
from some antique gem in the Duke's cabinet. The original, and a copy by
Benedetto Bene, were taken to Paris by Antonio Mini, where they passed
into the possession of the King. Michael Angelo's Leda hung at
Fontainebleau until the time of Louis XIII., when a Minister of State, M.
Desnoyers, ordered its destruction, as it seemed to hi