Lorenzo de Medicis death on 8 April 1492 brought a reversal of Michelangelos circumstances.[20] Michelangelo left the security of the Medici court and returned to his fathers house. 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 churchs hospital.[21] Between 1493 and 1494 he bought a block of marble, and carved a larger than life statue of Hercules, which was sent to France and subsequently disappeared sometime c. 18th century.[18][c] On 20 January 1494, after heavy snowfalls, Lorenzos heir, Piero de Medici, commissioned a snow statue, and Michelangelo again entered the court of the Medici.