In the following months he carved a polychrome wooden "Crucifix" (1493), as a gift to the prior of the Florentine church of Santo Spirito, which had allowed him to do some anatomical studies of the corpses of the church's hospital.
Ko je bil star sedemnajst let, ga je nek učenec, Pietro Torrigiano, udaril na nosu, kar mu je povzročilo zmaličenje, ki je opazno na vseh Michelangelovih portretih.