Page:The Life of Michael Angelo.djvu/53

Rh dare not. On one of the following mornings he again sought out Michael Angelo and, full of terror, told him that Lorenzo had once more appeared to him. He was wearing the same costume, and as Cardiere, who was lying down, looked at him in silence, the phantom had boxed his ears, as a punishment for not having obeyed him. Michael Angelo then warmly reproved his friend and forced him, there and then, to set off on foot to the villa of the Medici family, at Careggi, near Florence. When half way on his journey Cardiere met Piero, stopped him and related his story. Piero burst into laughter and had him belaboured by his attendants. The prince's chancellor, Bibbiena, said to him: "You are out of your mind. Whom do you think Lorenzo loves best, his son or you? If his son, would he not rather have appeared to him than to any other person, if it had been necessary to appear at all?" Cardiere, lashed and scoffed at, returned to Florence, informed Michael Angelo of the failure of his journey, and so convinced him on the subject of the misfortunes which were going to overtake Florence that, two days later, the sculptor fled.

This was the first attack of those superstitious terrors which occurred more than once in the course of his life and which, however ashamed he might be of them, threw him into consternation.

He fled as far as Venice.

Hardly had he left the fiery atmosphere of Florence