It was there that his fellow-pupil, Pietro Torrigiano, who was always his enemy and a bully, broke his nose with one blow and flew to Rome from the rage of Lorenzo.
It was when Michelangelo was seventeen that Lorenzo died, at the early age of forty-two, and although the garden still existed and the Medici palace was still open to the youth, the spirit had passed.

Piero, who succeeded his father, had none of his ability or sagacity, and in two years was a refugee from the city, while the treasures of the garden were disposed by auction, and Michelangelo, too conspicuous as a Medici protege to be safe, hurried away to Bologna.

He was now nineteen.
Of his travels I say nothing here, for we must keep to Florence, whither he thought it safe to return in 1495.

The city was now governed by the Great Council and the Medici banished.

Michelangelo remained only a brief time and then went to Rome, where he made his first Pieta, at which he was working during the trial and execution of Savonarola, whom he admired and reverenced, and where he remained until 1501, when, aged twenty-six, he returned to Florence to do some of his most famous work.