But
instead of thanking him they abused him, and reproached him with being a
timid man and too suspicious. He who replied to him thus had better have
opened his ears to him, for the House of Medici entered into Florence and
his head was cut off; whereas, if he had listened, he might have been yet
alive.
XLII. When Michael Angelo saw how little his word was considered, and how
the ruin of the city was certain, by the authority he had he caused a gate
to be opened, and went out with two of his people, and betook himself to
Venice. And certainly this notion of a treachery was no fable; but he who
arranged it judged that it would pass over with less disgrace if it was
not discovered just then, as time would achieve the same result by his
merely failing in his duty and hindering others who wished to do theirs.
The departure of Michael Angelo was the occasion of many rumours, and he
fell into great disgrace with the governors. All the same, he was recalled
with many prayers, with appeals to his patriotism, and by those who urged
that he must not abandon the responsibilities that he had taken upon
himself, and that the matter was not at such an extremity as he had been
given to understand, and many other things. Persuaded by all this, and by
the authority of the personages who wrote to him, but chiefly by his love
for his country, after he had received a safe conduct for ten days before
the day of his arrival in Florence, he returned, not without danger to his
life.
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