Ruberto Strozzi, who was then in France, wrote anxiously inquiring after his health.  In reply, Michelangelo sent Strozzi a singular message by Luigi del Riccio, to the effect that “if the king of France restored Florence to liberty, he was ready to make his statue on horseback out of bronze at his own cost, and set it up in the Piazza.”  This throws some light upon a passage in a letter addressed subsequently to Lionardo Buonarroti, when the tyrannous law, termed “La Polverina,” enacted against malcontents by the Duke Cosimo de’ Medici, was disturbing the minds of Florentine citizens.  Michelangelo then wrote as follows:  “I am glad that you gave me news of the edict; because, if I have been careful up to this date in my conversation with exiles, I shall take more precautions for the future.  As to my having been laid up with an illness in the house of the Strozzi, I do not hold that I was in their house, but in the apartment of Messer Luigi del Riccio, who was my intimate friend; and after the death of Bartolommeo Angelini, I found no one better able to transact my affairs, or more faithfully, than he did.  When he died, I ceased to frequent the house, as all Rome can bear me witness; as they can also with regard to the general tenor of my life, inasmuch as I am always alone, go little around, and talk to no one, least of all to Florentines.  When I am saluted on the open street, I cannot do less than respond with fair words and pass upon my way.  Had I knowledge of the exiles, who they are, I would not reply to them in any manner.  As I have said, I shall henceforward protect myself with diligence, the more that I have so much else to think about that I find it difficult to live.”

This letter of 1548, taken in connection with the circumstances of Michelangelo’s illness in 1544, his exchange of messages with Ruberto degli Strozzi, his gift of the two Captives to that gentleman, and his presence in the house of the Strozzi during his recovery, shows the delicacy of the political situation at Florence under Cosimo’s rule.  Slight indications of a reactionary spirit in the aged artist exposed his family to peril.  Living in Rome, Michelangelo risked nothing with the Florentine government.  But “La Polverina” attacked the heirs of exiles in their property and persons.  It was therefore of importance to establish his non-complicity in revolutionary intrigues.  Luckily for himself and his nephew, he could make out a good case and defend his conduct.  Though Buonarroti’s sympathies and sentiments inclined him to prefer a republic in his native city, and though he threw his weight into that scale at the crisis of the siege, he did not forget his early obligations to the House of Medici.  Clement VII. accepted his allegiance when the siege was over, and set him immediately to work at the tasks he wished him to perform.  What is more, the Pope took pains and trouble to settle the differences between him and the Duke of Urbino.  The man had been no conspirator.