They left their city and took refuge in Milan, while the people of Bologna sent envoys to the Pope's camp, surrendering their town and themselves to his apostolic clemency.

On the 11th of November, S.Martin's day, Giuliano della Rovere made his triumphal entry into Bologna, having restored two wealthy provinces to the states of the Church by a stroke of sheer audacity, unparalleled in the history of any previous pontiff.

Ten days afterwards we find him again renewing negotiations with the Signory for the extradition of Michelangelo.
II "Arriving then one morning at Bologna, and going to hear Mass at S.
Petronio, there met him the Pope's grooms of the stable, who immediately recognised him, and brought him into the presence of his Holiness, then at table in the Palace of the Sixteen.

When the Pope beheld him, his face clouded with anger, and he cried: 'It was your duty to come to seek us, and you have waited till we came to seek you; meaning thereby that his Holiness having travelled to Bologna, which is much nearer to Florence than Rome, he had come to find him out.
Michelangelo knelt, and prayed for pardon in a loud voice, pleading in his excuse that he had not erred through forwardness, but through great distress of mind, having been unable to endure the expulsion he received.

The Pope remained holding his head low and answering nothing, evidently much agitated; when a certain prelate, sent by Cardinal Soderini to put in a good word for Michelangelo, came forward and said: 'Your Holiness might overlook his fault; he did wrong through ignorance: these painters, outside their art, are all like this.' Thereupon the Pope answered in a fury: 'It is you, not I, who are insulting him.