Page:The Life of Michael Angelo.djvu/114



disgust of things and of himself threw him into the Revolution, which broke out in Florence in 1527.

Up to that time Michael Angelo had shown in political matters the same indecision of mind from which he ever suffered in his life and in his art. Never did he succeed in conciliating his personal opinions with his obligations towards the Medici. This violent genius was, moreover, ever timid in action; he would not run the risk of struggling against the powerful ones of this world on the ground of politics and religion. His letters show him to have been ever anxious over himself and the members of his family, fearing to compromise himself and denying the bold words which he sometimes uttered in a first movement of indignation against some act of tyranny. At every moment he was writing to his family to tell them to take care, to keep silent, and flee at the first alarm.

"Act as you would in plague time—be the first to 70