ompromising himself. He was afraid of
everything. He was always afraid. If in spite of his natural timidity he
let himself be drawn into the Florentine Revolution of 1527 he must have
been driven by deep despair and the belief that his life was practically
lost. That extremity of suffering brought to the surface and into action
his fundamental beliefs.

His timid introspective soul was secretly ardently republican. We can
see this in the violent discussions which he had in 1545 with intimate
friends, Luigi del Riccio, Antonio Petreo and Donato Giannotti, who made
note of them in his "Dialogues on Dante's Divine Comedy." In these talks
he defends tyrannicide with enthusiasm.

He found himself in the front ranks of the Florentine revolutionists in
those days of national and republican revival which, in Florence,
followed the news of the taking of Rome by the Imperialists (May 6,
1527) and the driving out of Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici (May
17th). At first the Republic seems only to have given him artistic
commissions. He was ordered to cut from a block of marble a colossal
group of two figures as a companion-piece to the David. He obeyed, and
began a Hercules and Cacus;[43] then changed his plan and made a sketch
for a Samson slaying the Philistines. But the situation grew tragic and
he was called to more pressing tasks. In October, 1528, at San Miniato
he took part in a council presided over by the Gonfalonier Niccolo
Capponi to discuss the question of the fortification of the town.
Florence had summoned the architect Sebastiano Serlio and the engineer
Pierfrancesco d'Urbino and had sent Francesco da San Gallo and Amadio
d'Alberto to examine the fortifications of Prato, Pistoia, Pisa and
Livorno. Michelangelo was chosen in his turn on January 10, 1529, in the
_Collegium_ of the _Nove di Milizzia_ to direct the works of defense. He
was named on April 6th for one year _Governatore Generale_ and
_Procuratore_ of the fortifications of Florence, and was given a salary
of one golden ducat a day.[44] He realised that the important point of
defense was San Miniato for, "if the enemy gained possession of that
hill they would be master of the city." He determined, therefore, to
strengthen that position with bastions, but he encountered the ill-will
of the Gonfalonier Capponi, who tried to send him away from Florence on
various missions.

In June, 1529, he was ordered to inspect the citadel of Pisa and the
fortifications