"Yonder he goes," cried the proud mother; "dost see thy son, Ludovico?" But her husband scowled; he had little use for a son of his who had rather be painter than merchant.
A year of happiness passed for the boys in the Medici gardens, and then the skies of Florence darkened. A monk from San Marco named Savonarola raised his voice to shame the gay people of their extravagance, and his bitter tongue sought out Lorenzo the Magnificent as chief offender. The boy Michael Angelo went to hear Savonarola preach, and came away heavy of mind and heart. He heard the beautiful things of the world assailed as sinful, and his beloved master called a servant of the Evil One. A winter of reproach came upon the city, and when it ended, and Lent was over, darkness fell, for Lorenzo lay dead at his summer home of Careggi, in 1492—the year when Columbus discovered America.
For a long time Michael Angelo, stunned by his patron's loss, could do no work, and when at last he found the heart to take up his brush and palette it was no longer in the great house of the Medici, but in a little room he had arranged for himself as a studio under his father's roof.
He was not long left to work there in peace; the three sons of Lorenzo, boys of nearly his own age, who had been playmates with him in the gardens, and had studied with him under the same masters, needed his help. The great Medici had said, long before, that of his three sons one was good, one clever, and the third a fool. Giulio, now thirteen years old, was the good one; Giovanni, seventeen years old, already a Prince Cardinal of the Church, was the clever one, and Piero, the oldest, now head of the family in Florence, was the fool.
The storm raised by Savonarola was ready to break about Piero de' Medici's head, and such friends as were still faithful to him he gathered about him at his house. Michael Angelo, his old playmate, was among the number, and so he again moved to the palace. For a brief time they sought to win back the favor of the people by a return to the old-time magnificence.
With no wise head to guide, the youths were soon in sore straits. Their love of art, their study of the poets, their attempt to revive the history of Greece and Rome were all scorned and mocked at as so much wanton dissipation. The boys drew closer together; the fate of their house hung trembling in the balance.
Then one morning a young lute-player named Cardiere came to Michael Angelo and, drawing him aside from the others, told him that in a dream the night before, Lorenzo had appeared to him, robed in torn black garments, and in deep, melancholy tones had ordered him to tell Piero, his son, that he would soon be driven out from Florence, never to return. Michael Angelo told the musician to tell Piero, but the latter was too frightened to obey.
A few days later he came again to Michael Angelo, this time pale and shaking with fear, and said that Lorenzo had appeared to him a second time, had repeated what he had said to him before, and had threatened him with dire punishment if he dared again to disobey his strict command.
Alarmed at the news Michael Angelo spoke his mind to Cardiere and bade him set off at once to see Piero, who was at Careggi, and give him his father's warning. Cardiere, half-way to Careggi, met Piero and some friends riding in toward Florence. The minstrel stopped their way and besought Piero to hear his story. The young Medici bade him speak, but when he had heard the warning he laughed, and his friends laughed with him.
Bibbiena, one of Piero's closest friends, and later to be the subject of one of Raphael's masterpieces, cried aloud in scorn to Cardiere: "Fool! Dost think that Lorenzo gives thee such honor before his own son that he would thus appear to thee rather than to Piero?" With laughter at Cardiere's crestfallen face the gay troop rode on, and the poor messenger of evil tidings returned slowly with his news to Michael Angelo.