The boy Michael Angelo and his two friends knew nothing of this odd law, and entered the city gaily, without having the necessary wax on their thumbs. As soon as this was noticed they were seized, taken before a judge, and sentenced to pay six hundred and fifty lire. They had not that much money between them, and so for a short time were placed under lock and key. Fortunately news of the boys' arrest came to a nobleman of the city who was much interested in art and who had already heard of Michael Angelo's ability. He at once had the boys set free, and invited Michael Angelo to visit him at his home. But Michael did not wish to leave his friends, and felt that it would be an imposition for the three of them to accept the invitation. When he spoke in this fashion to the nobleman the latter was very much amused. "Ah, well," said he, "if things stand so I must beg of you to take me also with your two friends to roam about the world at your expense." The joke showed the boy the absurd side of the matter. He gave his friends the little money he had left, said good-bye to them, and accepted the invitation to stay in Bologna. A very short time after, Piero de' Medici, driven from Florence by an angry people, came to Bologna and met his old friend of Lorenzo's gardens. For a short time the boys were together, then the young Medici set out to seek aid from other cities, in an attempt to rebuild his family fortunes. Meanwhile the nobleman who had offered Michael Angelo a home was delighted with his young friend. He found him keenly interested in Dante and Petrarch, and equally gifted as a sculptor and painter. He gave him work to do in the Church of San Petronio, and Michael did so well there that the artists of Bologna grew jealous of him, and at the end of the year forced him to leave the city. Then the boy artist went back to his home, only to find it changed unspeakably. Florence, that had been a city of delight, was now a city of dread. Savonarola held the people's ear, and had taught them to destroy what Lorenzo had led them to love. The monks of San Marco made bonfires of their paintings, priceless manuscripts had met with the same fate, and Lorenzo's house had been robbed of all its sculpture. The gardens were strewn with broken statues that had once been Michael Angelo's delight. He walked through them sadly, and realized that he alone was left of that group who had found so much happiness there only a few years before. The words that he had spoken to Lorenzo on the day he chiseled the faun came back to him, "To Rome I shall go some day," and thither he now set his face. Thereafter the Eternal City claimed Michael Angelo. Cardinal after cardinal, pope after pope, employed his marvelous genius to beautify the capital of the world. As he had said, he found work to do in the Holy Father's house. Whatever else they might do, the Italians of that age worshiped art, and there were two stars in their sky, Raphael and Michael Angelo.