ABSTRACT
The Medici Chapel and the Biblioteca Laurenziana were interrupted by a political crisis. In 1527 Michelangelo turned away from the Medici commissions to more purely Florentine projects, but he may also have gone back to the tomb. This is the period of Michelangelo's project for the colossal piazza statue. In January 1529 he was appointed to a committee assigned to complete the fortifications begun by the Medici in 1526. In April he was Governor-General of the fortifications, working on the earthwork defenses of the hill of San Miniato. Warfare was changing rapidly; a number of drawings, exciting just as abstract patterns, survive to show the kinds of masonry bastions he wanted to design. In January 1530 Michelangelo was working on a painting of Leda and the Swan, which he had promised Duke Alfonso I d'Este while staying in Ferrara. For Michelangelo, Night and Leda may have been mythologically related.
