1558-1567 2026
This is an AI modernization of The Life of Benvenuto Cellini into contemporary English. The original is available from Wikisource. Also available as an epub.
Benvenuto Cellini was born in Florence in 1500 and trained as a goldsmith. He worked for two popes, for Francis I of France, and finally for Duke Cosimo de' Medici in Florence. He made the gold saltcellar that is now in Vienna and the bronze Perseus that still stands in the Loggia dei Lanzi, a few steps from where he grew up. In 1558, at fifty-eight, he began dictating his life to a boy of thirteen in his workshop while he went on with his own work, and kept at it for some years. It stops without an ending, in the middle of an anecdote about a trip to Pisa.
What it covers is two books and 241 short chapters. He is in Rome for the sack of 1527, firing the guns from the walls of the Castel Sant'Angelo, and claims the shot that killed the commander of the besieging army. He is later locked up in that same castle by the Pope, and gets out over the wall on a rope of knotted bedsheets, breaking his leg in the fall. In between there are lawsuits, duels, plagues, a poisoning, a fever, several killings, and a long run of employers who all, by his account, treat him badly.
He is not a reliable witness about himself, and the book is better for it. Everything that goes wrong is somebody else's doing; every rival is a fraud; God takes a close personal interest in his affairs and sends him visions in prison to prove it. He is also funny without any sign of knowing it. The whole thing is dictated in the rhythm of a man talking rather than writing — sentences that start again halfway through, and chase one more detail before they finish — and this retelling keeps that rather than tidying it into good prose.
Two things in it are ugly and are not softened. He describes killing men, and he describes how he treated the women in his household, in the same untroubled voice he uses for a well-made cup, without any sense that either wants defending. This edition renders those passages exactly as he tells them and adds no comment.
The reason to read it is Book Two. The casting of the Perseus takes a few pages and is the best account of making anything in the language: the furnace lit, the workshop roof catching fire, Cellini in bed with a fever and certain he is dying, the metal curdling in the crucible, and every pewter plate and bowl in the house thrown into the melt to save the pour. This is translated from Cellini's own Italian rather than from a Victorian English version, and nothing is abridged.
Book One
Book Two
I am writing this troubled Life of mine to give thanks to the God of nature who gave me my soul and has looked after it since; I have done high and various things, and I am alive.
That cruel Destiny of mine has failed to rob me of life, of gold, of glory, of more skill than my share, of grace, of courage, of looks, of the kind of figure that passes many men, and catches the ones who pass me.
Only one thing grieves me badly, now that I know it: how much of that dear time I lost in vanity. The wind carries our fragile thoughts away.
Since regretting is no use, I shall be content, climbing back the way I came down — Benvenuto, Welcome, in the flower of this worthy Tuscan ground.
I had begun to write this Life of mine with my own hand, as you can see from certain pages stuck together; but seeing that I was losing too much time over it, and that it looked to me like enormous vanity, there came into my hands a son of Michele di Goro from the Pieve a Groppine, a boy of about thirteen and rather sickly. I set him to writing, and while I worked I dictated my Life to him; and because I got some pleasure out of it, I worked much harder and got a great deal more done. So I left him that job, which I hope to keep up as far forward as my memory will carry me.
All men of every sort who have done anything worth doing — or at any rate anything that resembles it — ought, if they are truthful and honest, to write down their own lives with their own hand. But nobody should begin so fine an undertaking before he is past the age of forty. That thought has come to me now, when I am walking on past my fifty-eighth year, finished, and am in Florence, my home town; and remembering the many contrary things that happen to anyone who lives, and finding myself with fewer of them on me than I have ever had up to this age — indeed it seems to me I have greater contentment of mind and health of body than I have ever had before; and remembering some pleasant good things and some evils beyond all reckoning, which, when I turn round and look back, frighten me with astonishment that I have got as far as this age of fifty-eight, walking so happily forward, by the grace of God.
Even though the men who have worked with some smell of skill about them have made themselves known to the world, and that alone ought to be enough for them — having been seen to be a man, and recognised as one — still, a man has to live the way he finds other people living, and so a little worldly swagger comes into it, and that has several heads. The first is to let other people know that your line comes down from men of quality, and of great antiquity.
I am called Benvenuto Cellini, son of Master Giovanni, son of Andrea, son of Cristofano Cellini; my mother was Madonna Elisabetta, daughter of Stefano Granacci; both of them citizens of Florence. We find it written in the chronicles made by our very old Florentines, men to be trusted — and Giovanni Villani writes it too — that the city of Florence was plainly built in imitation of the beautiful city of Rome; and you can still see some traces of the Colosseum and of the Baths. These are near Santa Croce. The Capitol was where the Old Market is now. The Rotonda is standing whole, which was made for the temple of Mars and is now our San Giovanni. That this was so can be seen perfectly well and cannot be denied; but the buildings are much smaller than the ones in Rome. The man who had them built, they say, was Julius Caesar, along with some Roman gentlemen who, when Fiesole had been stormed and taken, put up a city in this place, and each of them took on one of these notable buildings.
Julius Caesar had a first captain of his, a very brave man, called Fiorino of Cellino, which is a castle about two miles from Montefiascone. This Fiorino had made his quarters under Fiesole, where Florence is now, so as to be near the river Arno for the convenience of the army; and all those soldiers, and everyone else who had business with the captain, used to say: "Let's go to Fiorenze" — partly because the captain's name was Fiorino, and partly because the place where he had his quarters was, by the nature of it, extraordinarily rich in flowers. So, at the founding of the city, since this struck Julius Caesar as a very beautiful name, and one that had arrived by chance, and since flowers themselves bring a good omen, he gave the city the name of Fiorenze; and he did it to pay his brave captain that compliment as well, and he was all the fonder of him for having pulled him out of a very humble place, and because so able a man was a creature of his own making. As for the name these learned imaginers and investigators of the descent of names give — that it is because the city is flowing at the Arno — that does not seem to me to hold, because Rome is flowing at the Tiber, Ferrara is flowing at the Po, Lyons is flowing at the Saône, Paris is flowing at the Seine, and yet they all have different names, which came to them by other roads.
That is what we find, and that is what we believe: that we come down from a man of quality. Then we find that there are Cellinis of ours in Ravenna, the most ancient city in Italy, and there are great gentlemen there; and there are some in Pisa too, and I have found them in many parts of Christendom; and in this state as well some of the family are left, still given to arms — for it is not many years ago now that a young man called Luca Cellini, a beardless boy, fought with an experienced soldier and a very brave man, called Francesco da Vicorati, who had fought in the lists more than once before. This Luca, by his own courage, with his sword in his hand, beat him and killed him, with so much valour and skill that he astonished the world, which was expecting exactly the opposite; so that I take glory in tracing my descent from men of quality. As for the small honours I have won for my house, such as they are, under the way we live today and for the reasons everybody knows, and by my art, which is no great matter — I shall speak of those in their proper place; taking far more pride in having been born humble, and having laid some honourable beginning for my house, than if I had been born of great lineage and had stained it or blotted it out with rotten qualities. So I shall make a start by saying how it pleased God that I should be born.
My people lived in the Val d'Ambra, and they had a great deal of property there, and lived like little lords, having pulled back there because of the factions; they were all men given to arms, and very brave. In that time one of their sons, the youngest, who was called Cristofano, got into a great quarrel with certain neighbours and friends of theirs; and because the heads of the house on both sides had put their hands into it, and because they saw the fire was burning so dangerously that the two families looked likely to be wiped out altogether, the older men, considering this, agreed together: mine took Cristofano away, and the other side took away the other young man who was the origin of the quarrel. They sent theirs to Siena; ours sent Cristofano to Florence, and there they bought him a little house in the Via Chiara, by the convent of Sant'Orsola, and at the Ponte a Rifredi they bought him some very good land. Cristofano took a wife in Florence and had sons and daughters, and when all his daughters had been settled, the rest was divided among the sons after their father's death. The house in the Via Chiara, with a few other small things, went to one of those sons, whose name was Andrea. He too took a wife, and had four male children. The first was called Girolamo, the second Bartolomeo, the third Giovanni, who was afterwards my father, and the fourth Francesco. This Andrea Cellini understood a good deal about the architecture of those days, and lived by it as his trade; Giovanni, who was my father, worked at it harder than any of the others. And because, as Vitruvius says among other things, anyone who wants to do that art properly needs to have some music and good draughtsmanship, Giovanni, having made himself a good draughtsman, began to work at music, and along with it learned to play the viol and the flute very well; and being a very studious person, he seldom went out of the house.
They had a next-door neighbour called Stefano Granacci, who had several daughters, all of them very beautiful. As it pleased God, Giovanni saw one of these girls, whose name was Elisabetta; and he liked her so much that he asked for her as a wife. The two fathers knew each other perfectly well from living so close, and the match was easy to make; and each of them felt he had arranged his affairs very well. First the two good old men settled the match, then they began to talk about the dowry, and there was a little affectionate arguing between them, because Andrea said to Stefano: "My son Giovanni is the ablest young man in Florence and in Italy, and if I had wanted to give him a wife before now I should have had the biggest dowries that are given in Florence to people of our sort." And Stefano said: "You have a thousand reasons on your side; but I find myself with five girls, and so many other children, that when I do my sums this is as far as I can stretch." Giovanni had been listening for a while, hidden from them, and came out on them suddenly and said: "Oh, my father — I have wanted that girl and loved her, and not their money. Bad luck to the men who want to make themselves up out of their wife's dowry. Well then: since you have boasted that I am so clever, shall I not be able to keep my wife, and satisfy her needs, on rather less money than you want? Now I tell you plainly: the woman is mine, and I want the dowry to be yours." At this Andrea Cellini was rather put out, being a bit of an odd character; and a few days later Giovanni brought his wife home, and never asked for any dowry at all.
They enjoyed their youth and their holy love for eighteen years, wanting children very badly all that time; then, in those eighteen years, his wife miscarried twice of male children, through the small understanding of the doctors; then she was pregnant again and gave birth to a girl, and they called her Cosa, after my father's mother. Two years later she was pregnant again; and because the cravings pregnant women have are watched very closely, hers were exactly the same as at the birth before, so that they were sure she was going to have a girl like the first one, and had agreed to call her Reparata, to make up my mother's mother. It happened that she gave birth on the night of All Saints, when All Saints' Day had just finished, at half past four, in exactly the year fifteen hundred. The midwife, who knew they were expecting a girl, when she had cleaned the child up and wrapped it in beautiful white cloths, came very quietly to Giovanni my father and said: "I am bringing you a fine present, which you were not expecting." My father, who was a true philosopher, was pacing up and down, and said: "What God gives me is always dear to me"; and uncovering the cloths, he saw with his own eye the unexpected male child. Putting his old palms together, he lifted his eyes to God with them and said: "Lord, I thank you with all my heart; this is very dear to me, and let him be the Welcome one." All the people who were there asked him cheerfully what name he was going to give me, and Giovanni never answered them anything but: "Let him be the Welcome one." And they settled it, and holy Baptism gave me that name, Benvenuto, and that is how I go on living, by the grace of God.
Andrea Cellini my grandfather was still alive when I was about three years old, and he was past a hundred. One day they had changed a certain pipe on a sink, and a great scorpion had come out of it, which they had not seen, and it had got down from the sink to the floor and gone under a bench. I saw it, and ran to it, and put my hands on it. It was so big that, when I had it in my little hand, its tail stuck out on one side and both its claws stuck out on the other. They say that I ran to my grandfather in great delight, saying: "Look, grandfather, my lovely little crab!" When he saw that it was a scorpion, he nearly dropped dead of fright and of fear for me; and he asked me for it, coaxing me; and the more he coaxed the tighter I squeezed it, crying, because I would not give it to anybody. My father, who was still in the house, ran in at all this shouting, and stood there stupefied, not knowing what remedy to find that would keep the poisonous creature from killing me. Then he happened to catch sight of a pair of small scissors; and so, flattering me, he cut off its tail and its claws. Afterwards, when he was sure the great harm was past, he took it for a good omen.
At about the age of five, my father was in a little room of ours where they had been doing the washing, and a good fire of oak logs had been left; and Giovanni, with a viol in his arms, was playing and singing to himself by the fire. It was very cold. Looking into the fire, he happened to see, in the middle of the strongest flames, a little creature like a lizard, which was enjoying itself in the most vigorous part of the fire. Realising at once what it was, he had my sister and me called, and showed it to us children; and he gave me a great box on the ear, at which I began to cry my heart out. He quieted me pleasantly and said: "My dear little son, I am not giving you that for any wrong you have done, but only so that you will remember that the lizard you see in the fire is a salamander, which has never been seen by anybody else that we have any true report of." And then he kissed me and gave me some small coins.
My father began to teach me to play the flute and to sing music; and although I was of the tenderest age, when little children usually take pleasure in a whistle and toys of that sort, I disliked it beyond all reckoning, and only played and sang to obey him. In those days my father was making marvellous organs with wooden pipes, and heavy harpsichords, the best and the most beautiful that were to be seen then, and viols, lutes, and harps of the most beautiful and excellent kind. He was an engineer, and for making instruments — such as ways of throwing bridges, ways of building fulling mills, and other machines — he worked wonders; he was the first man to work ivory well. But because he had fallen in love with the woman who became my mother, and he my father — perhaps on account of that little flute of his, which he was playing much more than he ought to have done — he was asked by the Signory's Pipers to play along with them. He kept it up for a while for his own pleasure, and they worked on him so much that they made him one of their fellow pipers. Lorenzo de' Medici and his son Piero, who were very fond of him, saw afterwards that he was giving himself over entirely to the pipe and leaving his fine talent and his fine art behind, and they had him taken out of that post. My father took it very badly, and thought they had done him a great injury. He went straight back to his art, and made a mirror about an arm's length across, of bone and ivory, with figures and foliage, very finely finished and finely designed. The mirror was made in the shape of a wheel: in the middle was the glass; round it were seven roundels, in which the seven Virtues were carved and inlaid in ivory and black bone; and the whole mirror, and the Virtues with it, was on a balance, so that when you turned the wheel all the Virtues moved; and they had a counterweight at their feet that kept them upright. And because he had some knowledge of Latin, he put a Latin verse round the mirror, which said: "Whichever way Fortune's wheel turns, Virtue stays on her feet":
Rota sum; semper, quoquo me verto stat virtus
Not long afterwards his place among the pipers was given back to him. Some of these things happened before I was born, but since I remember them I have not wanted to leave them out. In those days those players were all highly respected craftsmen, and some of them worked in the greater guilds of silk and wool; which is why my father did not think it beneath him to take up that profession. The greatest wish he had in the world, so far as my affairs went, was that I should become a great player; and the greatest displeasure I could have in the world was when he talked to me about it, telling me that if I wanted to, he could see I was so fit for it that I should be the first man in the world.
As I have said, my father was a great servant of the house of Medici, and a great friend of theirs, and when Piero was driven out he trusted my father with a great many very important things. Afterwards, when the magnificent Piero Soderini came in, and my father was at his post as a player, Soderini heard about my father's marvellous talent and began to use him for very important work as an engineer; and as long as Soderini stayed in Florence he was as fond of my father as anyone in the world could imagine. And in this time my father used to have me carried on somebody's shoulder, being so young, and made me play the flute; and I took the treble part along with the palace musicians in front of the Signory, and I played from the book, and one of the ushers held me on his shoulder. Afterwards the Gonfalonier — that is, Soderini — took great pleasure in making me chatter, and used to give me sweets and say to my father: "Master Giovanni, teach him those other very beautiful arts of yours as well as the playing." To which my father answered: "I do not want him to do any art but playing and composing; because in that profession I hope to make him the greatest man in the world, if God gives him life." At these words one of the old Signori answered, saying to Master Giovanni: "Do what the Gonfalonier tells you; because would he ever be anything but a good player?"
So the time went by until the Medici came back. As soon as the Medici were back, the cardinal, who was afterwards Pope Leo, made a great deal of my father. While they had been away, the balls had been taken off the arms that were on the Medici palace, and a great red cross had been painted there instead, which were the arms and device of the Commune; so that as soon as they came back the red cross was scraped off, and the red balls were set into the shield, and the field made gold, and the whole thing very beautifully done. My father, who had a little natural vein of poetry in him, quite plain, with something prophetic in it as well — and that in him was certainly divine — as soon as the arms were uncovered, made these four lines underneath them, which went like this:
These arms, which have been buried so long under the meek and holy cross, now show their face glorious and glad, waiting for the sacred mantle of Peter.
This epigram was read all over Florence. A few days later Pope Julius the Second died. The cardinal de' Medici went to Rome, and against everything anybody in the world believed, he was made Pope — Pope Leo the Tenth, generous and great-souled. My father sent him his four prophetic lines. The Pope sent word that he should come there, and it would be good for him. He would not go; and instead of a reward, his place at the palace was taken away from him by Jacopo Salviati, as soon as he was made Gonfalonier. That is what put me into the goldsmith's trade; and part of the time I was learning that art and part of the time playing, very much against my will.
When he talked to me like that, I used to beg him to let me draw for so many hours of the day, and I would spend all the rest of it playing, only to keep him happy. And to this he would say: "Then you take no pleasure in playing?" And I told him no, because it seemed to me too low an art for what I had in mind. My good father, in despair over it, put me into the shop of the father of the Cavaliere Bandinello, whose name was Michelagnolo, a goldsmith from Pinzi di Monte, and very able at that art; he had no light of family behind him, but was a charcoal burner's son. That is nothing to blame Bandinello for, since he has made a beginning for his own house — if he had come by it in a good way. Whatever it is, I have no call to say anything about him. After I had been there a few days, my father took me away from Michelagnolo, being a man who could not live without seeing me all the time. So I stayed on, unhappily, at my playing, until I was fifteen. If I wanted to describe the great things that happened to me up to that age, and the great dangers to my own life, I should astonish anyone who read them; but so as not to run on too long, and because I have plenty to say, I shall leave them out.
When I got to fifteen, against my father's wish I put myself into a goldsmith's shop, with a man called Antonio di Sandro, a goldsmith, nicknamed Marcone the goldsmith. He was a very good practical hand, and a very decent man, proud and free in everything he did. My father would not let him give me any wages, as they do with other apprentices, so that, since I was taking up the art of my own free will, I could satisfy my appetite for drawing as much as I liked. And I did it very willingly, and that good master of mine took a marvellous pleasure in it. He had a natural son of his own, an only son, whom he often gave the orders to, so as to spare me. My eagerness was so great — or my natural bent, or both of them together — that in a few months I caught up with the good young men in the trade, indeed with the best of them, and began to draw some profit from my work. For all that, I did not fail now and then to please my good father, playing sometimes on the flute and sometimes on the cornet; and every time he heard me I always made the tears fall from him, with great sighs; and very often, out of pity, I would satisfy him, pretending that I was getting a good deal of pleasure out of it myself.
At this time I had a brother of my own blood, two years younger than me, very bold and very fierce, who afterwards became one of the great soldiers of the school of that marvellous man Signor Giovannino de' Medici, the father of Duke Cosimo. This boy was about fourteen and I was two years older. It was a Sunday, about two hours before dark, between the Porta a San Gallo and the Porta a Pinti, and there he had challenged a fellow of about twenty, with swords in their hands; and he pressed him so bravely that, having wounded him badly, he was going on further. There were a great many people watching, and among them a good number of the other man's relations; and seeing the thing going the wrong way, they got out a lot of slings, and one of the stones caught my poor young brother on the head. He fell to the ground at once, senseless, like a dead man. I happened to be there, without friends and without weapons, and I was shouting at my brother as loudly as I could to pull back, because what he had done to him was enough — and just then it happened that he fell like that, as good as dead. I ran up at once and took his sword, and stood in front of him; and against several swords and a great many stones I never moved away from my brother, until some brave soldiers came from the Porta a San Gallo and got me out of that great fury, marvelling a good deal that so much courage should be in anyone so young. So I carried my brother home like a dead man, and when we got home he came round again with great difficulty.
When he was better, the Eight, who had already condemned our adversaries and banished them for some years, banished us too for six months, outside a radius of ten miles. I said to my brother: "Come with me"; and so we left our poor father, and instead of giving us any sum of money, because he had none, he gave us his blessing. I went off to Siena to find a certain gallant gentleman called Master Francesco Castoro; and because on another occasion, when I had run away from my father, I had gone to this decent man and stayed with him some days, still working at the goldsmith's trade — when I came to him, Francesco recognised me at once and set me to work. Having put me to work, Francesco gave me a house for as long as I stayed in Siena; and I settled my brother and myself in it, and worked away for several months. My brother had made a beginning in Latin letters, but he was so young that he had not yet tasted the flavour of anything worth doing, and was wasting his time.
About this time the Cardinal de' Medici, who was afterwards Pope Clement, had us called back to Florence at my father's request. A certain pupil of my father's, moved by his own spite, told the Cardinal that he ought to send me to Bologna to learn to play properly under a master who was there, called Antonio, a genuinely able man in that profession of playing. The Cardinal told my father that if he sent me there he would write me letters of recommendation and support. My father, who was dying of eagerness for it, sent me; and I, being keen to see the world, went willingly.
When I got to Bologna I set to work with a man called Master Ercole del Piffero, and began to earn; and meanwhile I went every day for my playing lesson, and in a few weeks I made a great deal of progress in this cursed playing. But I made far more progress in the goldsmith's art, because, having had no help at all from the Cardinal, I went to live in the house of a Bolognese miniature painter called Scipione Cavalletti, in the street of Our Lady of the Baraccan; and there I applied myself to drawing, and to working for a man called Graziadio, a Jew, with whom I earned very well.
At the end of six months I came back to Florence, where that Pierino the piper, who had once been my father's pupil, took it very badly; and I, to please my father, went to see him at his house and played the cornet and the flute with a brother of his called Girolamo, several years younger than Piero, and a very decent, good young man, exactly the opposite of his brother. One day among others my father came to this Piero's house to hear us play; and taking the greatest pleasure in my playing, he said: "All the same I shall make a marvellous player of him, against the wish of the man who tried to stop me." To this Piero answered, and he spoke the truth: "Your Benvenuto will get much more profit and honour if he sticks to the goldsmith's art than out of this piping." My father was so angry at those words, seeing that I was of Piero's opinion too, that he said to him in a great rage: "I knew perfectly well that it was you who blocked this end I so much wanted, and it was you who had me moved out of my place at the Palace, paying me back with the great ingratitude people use as a reward for great favours. I got it given to you, and you had it taken away from me; I taught you to play, with all the arts you know, and you stop my son doing what I want. But keep these prophetic words in mind: it will not be years, I do not say, or months, but a few weeks, before you sink through the floor for this dishonest ingratitude of yours."
To these words Pierino answered and said: "Master Giovanni, most men, when they grow old, go mad along with the old age, as you have done; and I do not wonder at it, because you have given away every scrap of your property with the greatest generosity, without considering that your children were going to need it. Whereas I mean to do the exact opposite: to leave my children so much that they will be able to help yours." To this my father answered: "No bad tree ever made good fruit, and the other way round; and I tell you more: you are a bad man, and your children will be mad and poor, and will come begging from my able and wealthy children." So he left the house, the two of them grumbling wild words at each other.
I, who had taken my good father's side, came out of that house with him and told him I wanted to take revenge for the insults that scoundrel had done him — "on condition that you let me stick to the art of drawing." My father said: "Oh, my dear son, I too have been a good draughtsman; and as a refreshment after such marvellous labours, and for the love of me, who am your father and got you and brought you up and gave you the beginning of so many honourable skills, will you not promise me that, when they are resting, you will take up that flute now and then, and that most wanton cornet, and play it for your own pleasure and delight?" I said yes, and very willingly, for the love of him. Then my good father said that skills of that sort would be the greatest revenge I could take for the injuries received from his enemies.
Not a full month had gone by after these words when that Pierino, who was having a vault put in at a house of his in the Via dello Studio, was one day in his ground-floor room, over the vault they were building, with a good many companions; and it came up in conversation, and he began talking about his master, who had been my father, and repeating the words my father had said to him about sinking through the floor. He had hardly got them out when the room he was in — because the vault had been badly thrown, or else by the true power of God, who does not pay on Saturdays — sank; and the stones of the vault and the bricks came down with him and broke both his legs. The men who were with him, being left on the rim of the vault, came to no harm, but were left stunned and astonished, especially at what he had been saying so scornfully a moment before.
When my father heard of it, he armed himself and went to see him, and in the presence of his father, whose name was Niccolaio da Volterra, trumpeter to the Signory, he said: "Oh, Piero, my dear pupil, I am very sorry for your trouble; but if you remember rightly, it is not long since I warned you of it; and what I told you will happen between your children and mine will happen just the same."
A short while afterwards the ungrateful Piero died of that injury. He left his shameless wife with a son, who some years later came to me in Rome to beg. I gave to him, partly because it is my nature to give alms; and afterwards I remembered with tears the happy state Pierino had been in when my father said those words to him — that Pierino's children would one day go begging from his own able children. And enough has been said about that; and let nobody ever make fun of the forecasts of a decent man when he has been unjustly wronged, because it is not he who is speaking, but the voice of God itself.
I kept on at the goldsmith's art, and with it I helped my good father. His other son, my brother, called Cecchino — as I said above, he had had him started on Latin letters, because he wanted to make me, the elder, a great player and musician, and him, the younger, a great scholar of law. But nobody can force what nature inclines us to, which made me apply myself to the art of drawing, and my brother, who was of a fine build and full of grace, entirely to arms. And being still very young, he had left a first choice of the school of that most marvellous man Signor Giovannino de' Medici; and coming home, when I was not there, being rather badly supplied with clothes, he found his sisters and mine, who, hidden from my father, gave him a beautiful new cloak and doublet of mine. Beyond the help I was giving my father and my good, honest sisters, I had made myself those respectable clothes out of my own surplus labour. Finding myself cheated and my clothes taken, and not finding my brother, whom I wanted to take them back from, I asked my father why he let so great a wrong be done to me, seeing how willingly I wore myself out to help him. To this he answered that I was his good son, and that he had got back what he had thought lost; and that it was necessary — indeed a commandment of God himself — that whoever had good things should give to whoever had none; and that for love of him I should put up with this injury, and God would increase every good thing to me.
I, being a young man with no experience, answered my poor afflicted father back; and taking a wretched remnant of my clothes and my money, I set off towards one of the city gates. Not knowing which gate would put me on the road to Rome, I found myself at Lucca, and from Lucca at Pisa. When I got to Pisa — I was about sixteen — I stopped near the middle bridge, at the place they call the Fish Stone, at a goldsmith's shop, watching attentively what the master there was doing; and the master asked me who I was and what my trade was. I told him I did a little of the same art he was doing. This decent man told me to come into his shop, and immediately put work in front of me, and said these words: "Your good face makes me believe you are honest and good." So he gave me gold and silver and jewels; and when the first day was over he took me home in the evening to his house, where he lived respectably with a beautiful wife and children.
Remembering the grief my good father might be feeling about me, I wrote to him that I was in the house of a very good and decent man, called Master Ulivieri della Chiostra, and that I was working with him on a great many fine, large pieces; and that he should be easy in his mind, because I was applying myself to learning, and that I hoped with those skills soon to bring him back profit and honour. My good father answered the letter at once, saying this: "My son, the love I bear you is so great that if it were not for the great honour of the family, which I keep above everything, I should have set out at once to come for you; because it truly seems to me that I am without the light of my eyes when I do not see you every day, as I used to. I shall attend to bringing my house through to an honourable name, and you attend to learning your skills; and I only want you to remember these four plain words. Keep them, and never forget them:
In whatever house you mean to stay, live honestly, and do not steal.
This letter came into the hands of my master Ulivieri, and he read it without my knowing; then he told me he had read it, and said these words: "Well, my Benvenuto, your good face did not deceive me, as a letter from your father which has come into my hands assures me; he must be a very good and decent man. So consider yourself to be in your own house and with your own father."
While I was in Pisa I went to see the Campo Santo, and there I found many beautiful antiquities — marble sarcophagi, that is — and in many other places in Pisa I saw a great many other ancient things, and I worked away at them steadily on all the days I had left over from my work in the shop. And because my master used to come very affectionately to see me in the little room he had given me, and saw that I spent all my hours on things worth doing, he came to love me as if he had been my father. I made great progress in the year I stayed there, and worked in gold and in silver on important and beautiful pieces, which gave me the greatest heart to go further forward.
Meanwhile my father wrote to me very pitifully that I ought to come back to him, and in every letter reminded me that I must not lose that playing which he had taught me with so much labour. At that, the wish to go back to him went out of me at once, I hated this cursed playing so much; and it truly seemed to me that I was in paradise for the whole year I was in Pisa, where I never played once.
At the end of the year my master Ulivieri had occasion to come to Florence to sell certain gold and silver sweepings he had; and because a touch of fever had jumped on me in that filthy air, I came back to Florence with it and with my master. My father made a great fuss of that master of mine, begging him affectionately, without my knowing, to be so kind as not to take me back to Pisa. I stayed ill about two months, and my father very lovingly had me doctored and got me well, telling me continually that a thousand years seemed to have gone by while he waited for me to be well enough to hear me play a little. And while he was talking to me about this playing, holding my fingers on the pulse — because he had some knowledge of medicine and of Latin letters — he felt in that pulse, the moment he began to speak about playing, such a great disturbance that many times he went away from me dismayed and in tears. So that, seeing this great unhappiness of his, I told one of my sisters to bring me a flute; and although I still had the fever continually, since the instrument takes very little effort, playing gave me no disturbance. I played with such a fine command of hand and tongue that when my father came in unexpectedly he blessed me a thousand times, telling me that in the time I had been away from him it seemed to him I had made a great advance; and he begged me to go on, and not to lose so fine a skill.
When I was well, I went back to my Marcone, the decent man, the goldsmith, who gave me my living; and with what I earned I helped my father and my household.
At this time there came to Florence a sculptor called Piero Torrigiani, who was coming from England, where he had been for many years; and because he was a great friend of that master of mine, he came to him every day. Seeing my drawings and my work, he said: "I have come to Florence to carry off as many young men as I can; because, having a great work to do for my King, I want some of my Florentines to help me. And since your way of working and your drawings are more a sculptor's than a goldsmith's, and I have great works in bronze to do, I shall make you able and rich at the same time." This man was of the most beautiful build, extremely bold, with more the air of a great soldier than of a sculptor, especially in his astonishing gestures and his ringing voice, and a way of knitting his eyebrows fit to frighten any man off anything; and every day he was talking about his exploits with those beasts of Englishmen.
In this connection he happened to fall into talking about Michelangelo Buonarroti, the occasion of it being a drawing of mine copied from a cartoon by the most divine Michelangelo. That cartoon was the first beautiful work in which Michelangelo showed his marvellous powers, and he made it in competition with another man who was making one — with Leonardo da Vinci; and they were to serve for the Council Hall in the Palace of the Signory. They represented the taking of Pisa by the Florentines; and the wonderful Leonardo da Vinci had chosen to show a battle of horsemen with the capture of some standards, done as divinely as anyone could imagine. Michelangelo Buonarroti, in his, showed a quantity of foot soldiers who, it being summer, had gone to bathe in the Arno; and at that instant he shows the alarm being given, and those naked foot soldiers running to arms, with so many fine gestures that no work was ever seen, either of the ancients or of any of the moderns, that reached so high a mark; and, as I have said, the great Leonardo's was most beautiful and wonderful. These two cartoons stood, one in the Medici palace and one in the Pope's hall. As long as they stood there they were the school of the world. Even though the divine Michelangelo made the great chapel of Pope Julius afterwards, he never reached half so high a mark; his powers never afterwards came up to the force of those first studies.
Now let us come back to Piero Torrigiani, who, with that drawing of mine in his hand, said this: "This Michelangelo Buonarroti and I used to go as boys to learn in the Carmine church, in the chapel of Masaccio; and because Buonarroti had a habit of making fun of everybody who was drawing, one day among others, when he was annoying me, I got much angrier than usual, and clenched my hand and gave him such a punch on the nose that I felt the bone and the gristle of his nose crumble under my fist like a wafer; and marked by me like that he will stay as long as he lives." These words made such a hatred grow in me — because I was constantly seeing the works of the divine Michelangelo — that far from wanting to go off to England with him, I could not bear the sight of him.
I kept on steadily in Florence, learning under Michelangelo's beautiful manner, and I have never come away from it. At this time I formed a very close acquaintance and friendship with a well-bred young man of my own age, who was also with a goldsmith. His name was Francesco, son of Filippo, son of Fra Filippo, that most excellent painter. Going about together bred such love in us that we were never apart, night or day; and since his house was full of the beautiful studies his able father had made — several books of drawings by his own hand, copied from the beautiful antiquities of Rome — seeing them, I fell in love with them. We kept company for about two years.
In this time I made a piece of silver in low relief, about as big as a small child's hand. This piece served as a clasp for a man's belt, which they wore that size in those days. Carved on it was a knot of foliage done in the antique manner, with a number of little boys and other very beautiful masks. I made this piece in the shop of a man called Francesco Salimbene. When it had been seen by the goldsmiths' guild, I was given the credit of being the best young man in that art.
Now a certain Giovanbattista, called Il Tasso, a wood carver, a young man exactly my own age, began to tell me that if I wanted to go to Rome he would willingly come with me — this conversation of ours happened just after dinner — and because I had been angry with my father again over the same business of the playing, I said to Tasso: "You are a man for words and not for deeds." Tasso said: "I have quarrelled with my mother too, and if I had money enough to get me to Rome I would not go back to shut up that little bit of a shop I keep." To this I added that if that was what was stopping him, I had money by me that was enough to carry us both to Rome. Talking together like this as we walked, we found ourselves without noticing it at the Porta San Piero Gattolini. I said to him: "My dear Tasso, it is God's doing that we have come to this gate, when neither you nor I noticed it. Now that I am here, it seems to me I have done half the journey." And so, agreeing together as we went on our way, we said: "Oh, what will our old people say tonight?" Saying which, we made a pact together not to mention them again until we had got to Rome. So we tied our aprons behind us and went almost in silence as far as Siena.
When we got to Siena, Tasso said he had hurt his feet and did not want to come any further, and asked me to lend him money to get back with. I told him: "I should have nothing left to go on with; so you ought to have thought about it before you moved out of Florence. And if it is your feet that stop you coming, we will find a return horse for Rome, and then you will have no excuse for not coming." So I took the horse; and seeing that he did not answer me, I set off on the road towards Rome. When he saw I was set on it, he did not stop grumbling, but came limping along behind, a good way back and slowly, doing the best he could. When I got to the gate, feeling sorry for my little companion, I waited for him and took him up behind me, saying: "What on earth would our friends say about us, if, having set out for Rome, we had not had the courage to get past Siena?" Then the good Tasso said that I was right; and being a cheerful person, he began to laugh and sing; and so, singing and laughing all the way, we came to Rome. I was just nineteen, and so was the century.
As soon as we got to Rome I put myself into a shop with a master called Firenzuola. His name was Giovanni, and he came from Firenzuola in Lombardy, and he was an extremely able man at making vessels and large pieces. When I had shown him something of the model of that belt clasp I had made in Florence with Salimbene, he liked it marvellously, and said these words, turning to a workman he kept, a Florentine called Giannotto Giannotti, who had been with him several years: "This is one of those Florentines who know, and you are one of those who do not." Then I, recognising Giannotto, wanted to speak to him, because before he went to Rome we had often gone drawing together, and we had been on very familiar terms. He took what his master had said to him so badly that he said he did not know me and had no idea who I might be. At which, angry at such words, I said to him: "Oh, Giannotto, once my familiar friend — we have been together in this place and that, drawing, and eating and drinking and sleeping at your house in the country. I do not care whether you bear witness about me to this decent man, your master, because I hope my hands are such that, without your help, they will say what I am."
When I had finished these words, Firenzuola, who was an extremely bold and spirited person, turned to Giannotto and said to him: "Oh, you low scoundrel, are you not ashamed to use words and manners like that to a man who has been so close a companion to you?" And with the same spirit he turned to me and said: "Come into the shop, and do as you have said, and let your hands say what you are." And he gave me a most beautiful piece of silver to make for a cardinal. It was a small casket copied from the porphyry one that stands in front of the door of the Rotonda. Besides what I copied, I enriched it out of my own head with so many beautiful little masks that my master went about boasting and showing it round the trade, that so well made a piece had come out of his shop. It was about half an arm's length in size, and it was arranged so that it served as a saltcellar to stand on the table.
This was the first money I earned in Rome; and part of that money I sent to help my good father, and the other part I kept for my own living; and with it I went about studying the ancient things, until my money ran out and I had to go back to the shop to work. That Battista del Tasso, my companion, did not stay long in Rome, but went back to Florence.
Having taken on new work, I got the wish, when I had finished it, to change masters, being egged on by a certain Milanese called Master Pagolo Arsago. My first master, Firenzuola, had a great quarrel with this Arsago, saying some insulting words to him in my presence; at which I took up the words in defence of my new master. I said that I had been born free, and free I meant to live; and that he had nothing to complain of in him, still less in me, since he was left owing me a few scudi by our agreement; and that as a free workman I meant to go where I pleased, knowing that I was doing nobody any wrong. My new master also used a good many words, saying that he had not called me, and that I would do him a favour by going back to Firenzuola. To this I added that, not seeing that I was doing him any wrong in any way, and having finished the work I had begun, I meant to belong to myself and not to anyone else; and that whoever wanted me should ask me for myself.
At this Firenzuola said: "I do not want to ask you for yourself any more, and do not you come in front of me again for anything." I reminded him of my money; he jeered at me; to which I said that just as well as I could handle the tools for the pieces he had seen, I could handle a sword no worse to recover what I had worked for. At these words an old man happened to stop, whose name was Master Antonio da San Marino. He was the first and most excellent goldsmith in Rome, and he had been Firenzuola's master. Having heard my case, which I put in a way that could be perfectly well understood, he took my part at once and told Firenzuola to pay me. The disputes were great, because this Firenzuola was a marvellous handler of weapons, a good deal better at that than at the goldsmith's art; but right won its place, and I helped it with the same courage, so that I was paid. And in the course of time Firenzuola and I became friends, and I stood godfather to a son of his, at his own request.
Going on working with this Master Pagolo Arsago, I earned a great deal, always sending the greater part to my good father. At the end of two years, at my good father's entreaty, I went back to Florence, and set to work again with Francesco Salimbene, with whom I earned very well and wore myself out learning. Taking up again with that Francesco di Filippo, although I was very much given to certain pleasures, on account of that cursed playing, I never let go of certain hours of the day or the night which I gave to my studies.
In this time I made a silver clasp of the kind they used to call a heart-key. It was a belt three fingers wide, of the sort that used to be made for newly married women, and it was worked in half relief with some little figures in the round among the rest. It was made for a man called Raffaello Lapaccini. Although I was very badly paid for it, the honour I drew out of it was worth far more than the price I could justly have got.
Having worked at this time with a good many different people in Florence, where I had come to know some decent men among the goldsmiths — like that Marcone, my first master — others who had the name of being very good men, having been undermined by them in my work as far as they could manage, robbed me grossly. Seeing this, I broke away from them and considered them scoundrels and thieves. One goldsmith among the rest, called Giovanbattista Sogliani, obligingly let me have part of his shop, which was at the corner of the Mercato Nuovo, next to what had been the Landi bank. There I made a number of beautiful little pieces and earned well: I was able to help my household very well indeed. This woke the envy of those bad masters I had had before, who were called Salvadore and Michele Guasconti. They had three big shops in the goldsmiths' trade and did a great deal of business; so that, seeing that they were injuring me, I complained to a decent man about it, saying that the thefts they had used on me under the cloak of their pretended goodness ought to have been enough for them. This came back to their ears, and they boasted that they would make me repent of such words; at which I, not knowing what colour fear was, thought nothing or little of them.
One day it happened that I was leaning against the shop of one of these men, who called me over and partly scolded me and partly bullied me; to which I answered that if they had done right by me I should have said of them what one says of good and decent men; and that since they had done the opposite, they should complain of themselves and not of me. While I was talking, one of them, called Gherardo Guasconti, their cousin — put up to it, perhaps, by the rest of them together — waited for a load to pass. It was a load of bricks. When the load was opposite me, this Gherardo shoved it into me so hard that it hurt me badly. Turning round at once and seeing him laughing, I fetched him such a punch on the temple that he fell senseless like a dead man; then, turning to his cousins, I said: "That is how one treats thieving cowards of your sort." And when they wanted to make some demonstration, since there were a good many of them, I, being on fire, put my hand to a small knife I had, saying: "Whichever of you comes out of his shop, let the other run for the confessor, because the doctor will have nothing to do here." These words frightened them so much that not one of them moved to help his cousin.
As soon as I had gone, the fathers and the sons ran to the Eight, and there they said that I had attacked them in their own shops with weapons in my hand — a thing that had never been done in Florence before. The Eight had me summoned; and I appeared; and they gave me a great scolding and shouted at me, partly because they saw me in a cloak and them in gown and hood like respectable citizens; and also because my adversaries had been to speak to those gentlemen at home, each one separately, while I, not knowing how these things are done, had spoken to none of them, trusting in the great right I had on my side. And I said that, at the great injury and insult Gherardo had done me, moved by the greatest anger, and having given him nothing but a slap, it did not seem to me I deserved so stiff a reprimand.
Prinzivalle della Stufa, who was one of the Eight, hardly let me finish saying "slap" before he said: "You gave him a punch and not a slap." The little bell was rung and we were all sent outside, and in my defence Prinzivalle said to his colleagues: "Consider, gentlemen, the simplicity of this poor young man, who accuses himself of having given a slap, thinking it is a smaller offence than giving a punch; because for a slap in the Mercato Nuovo the penalty is twenty-five scudi, and for a punch little or nothing. This is a very able young man, and he keeps his poor household by his own labours, and keeps it in plenty; and would to God our city had abundance of that sort, seeing how short of them it is."
There were among them certain scraggy little hoods who, moved by my adversaries' pleading and their false information, being of the party of Fra Girolamo, would have liked to put me in prison and sentence me by the shovelful; but the good Prinzivalle put a stop to all of it. So he had me fined a small fine of four bushels of flour, to be given as alms to the convent of the Murate. As soon as we were called back in, he ordered me not to speak a word, on pain of their displeasure, and to obey what I had been sentenced to. So, giving me a stiff shouting-at, they sent us to the chancellor; and I, still muttering "It was a slap and not a punch," left the Eight laughing.
The chancellor ordered us, on the magistrate's behalf, to stand surety for each other; and they sentenced me alone to those four bushels of flour. It seemed to me I had been robbed on the highway; and so I sent for a cousin of mine called Master Annibale, a surgeon, the father of Messer Librodoro Librodori, wanting him to give the promise for me. He would not come; at which I, in a rage, blew up like an asp and made a desperate decision. Here you can see how much the stars not only incline us but force us. Knowing what a great obligation this Annibale was under to my house, my anger grew so much that, being carried right over to the bad and being somewhat choleric by nature, I stayed and waited until the said office of the Eight had gone to dinner. Being left there alone, and seeing that none of the Eight's staff was watching me any more, on fire with anger I went out of the Palace and ran to my shop, where I found a good-sized dagger, and jumped into the house of my adversaries, who kept house and shop together.
I found them at table; and that young Gherardo, who had been the head of the quarrel, threw himself on me; at which I struck him a dagger blow in the chest that went through his doublet and his jerkin right through to the shirt, without having touched his flesh or done him any harm in the world. It seemed to me, from the way my hand went in and the noise of the clothes, that I had done him tremendous harm; and he fell to the ground with fright, and I said: "Oh, you traitors, today is the day I kill the lot of you." The father, the mother and the sisters, believing it was Judgement Day, threw themselves on their knees on the ground at once and called out for mercy at the top of their voices; and seeing that they made no defence against me at all, and him stretched on the ground like a dead man, it seemed to me too low a thing to touch them; but I ran furiously down the stairs.
When I got to the street I found the whole rest of the family, more than twelve of them; one of them had an iron shovel, some a great iron bar, others hammers and anvils, others sticks. Getting in among them like a poisoned bull, I threw four or five of them to the ground and fell down with them, always striking with the dagger, now at this one and now at that. Those who were left standing worked as hard as they could, hitting me two-handed with hammers, sticks and anvils; and because God sometimes mercifully steps in, he brought it about that neither they to me nor I to them did any harm in the world. All that was left there was my cap, which my adversaries, having pulled themselves together after running some way off from it, each of them struck with his weapon; and afterwards, looking round among themselves for the wounded and the dead, there was not one of them who had any hurt.
I went off towards Santa Maria Novella, and ran straight into Fra Alesso Strozzi, whom I did not know; and I commended myself to this good friar for the love of God, to save my life, because I had done a great wrong. The good friar told me not to be afraid of anything, because whatever evils in the world I had done, in that little cell of his I was perfectly safe.
An hour later the Eight, meeting outside their usual order, had one of the most terrifying proclamations issued against me that anyone ever heard, with the heaviest penalties for whoever had me or knew where I was, without regard to the place or the quality of the person keeping me. My afflicted, poor, good father went in to the Eight and threw himself on his knees on the ground, asking mercy for his poor young son; at which one of those hot-headed men, shaking the crest of his scraggy hood and standing up, said to my poor father with some insulting words: "Get up from there, and get out at once, because tomorrow morning we shall send him out to your farm with the lances." My poor father, still bold, answered them, saying: "You will do what God has ordained, and no more than that." To which the same man answered that God had certainly ordained it. And my father said to him: "I take comfort in the fact that you certainly do not know it."
Leaving them, he came to find me, along with a young man of my own age called Piero di Giovanni Landi; we loved each other more than if we had been brothers. This young man had a marvellous sword under his cloak and a beautiful coat of mail; and when they came to me my spirited father told me what had happened, and what the lords of the Eight had said to him. Then he kissed me on the forehead and on both eyes; he blessed me from his heart, saying: "May the power of God be what helps you"; and handing me the sword and the armour, he helped me put them on with his own hands. Then he said: "Oh, my good son, with these in your hand, either you live or you die." Pier Landi, who was standing there, never stopped weeping; and when he had handed me ten gold scudi, I asked him to take off certain little hairs of my beard, which were the first down.
Fra Alesso dressed me as a friar and gave me a lay brother for company. Going out of the convent and out by the Prato gate, I went along the walls as far as the Piazza San Gallo; and climbing the slope of Montui, in one of the first houses I found a man called Il Grassuccio, own brother to Messer Benedetto da Montevarchi. I unfriared myself at once, and having turned back into a man, we mounted two horses that were there for us and went off that night to Siena. I sent Grassuccio back to Florence, and he greeted my father and told him I had got safely away.
My father was overjoyed, and thought a thousand years had gone by before he could find that man of the Eight who had insulted him; and when he found him he said: "You see, Antonio, that it was God who knew what was going to happen to my son, and not you?" To which he answered: "Let him come back here another time." My father to him: "I shall attend to thanking God, who has saved him from this."
Being in Siena, I waited for the Rome courier and joined up with him. When we had passed the Paglia we met the messenger who was carrying the news of the new Pope, who was Pope Clement.
When I got to Rome I set to work in the shop of Master Santi the goldsmith. He was dead, but a son of his kept the shop. This man did not work himself, but had all the business of the shop done by a young man called Lucagnolo da Iesi. He was a countryman, and had come as a small boy to work with Master Santi. He was short, but very well built. This young man worked better than any man I had seen up to that time, with the greatest ease and with a great deal of design; he worked only in large pieces, that is, very beautiful vases and basins and things of that sort.
Having set myself to work in that shop, I undertook to make certain candlesticks for the Spanish bishop of Salamanca. These candlesticks were richly worked, as far as such a piece allows. A pupil of Raphael of Urbino, called Gianfrancesco, nicknamed Il Fattore, was a very able painter; and because he was a friend of the bishop, he put me very much in his favour, so that I had a great many pieces to do for this bishop, and earned very well.
At this time I went sometimes to draw in Michelangelo Buonarroti's chapel, and sometimes to the house of Agostino Chigi of Siena, in which house there were many beautiful paintings by the hand of that most excellent man Raphael of Urbino; and this was on holidays, because Messer Gismondo Chigi, brother of Messer Agostino, lived in that house. They were very proud when they saw young men like me coming to learn inside their houses. Messer Gismondo's wife, having seen me often in this house of hers — this lady was as well bred as could be and beautiful beyond measure — came up to me one day, looked at my drawings, and asked me whether I was a sculptor or a painter. I told the lady I was a goldsmith. She said I drew far too well for a goldsmith; and having a lily of the most beautiful diamonds set in gold brought to her by one of her waiting women, she showed it to me and wanted me to value it. I valued it at eight hundred scudi. Then she said I had valued it very well.
Then she asked me whether I had the confidence to set them well. I said very willingly; and in front of her I made a small drawing of it, and I made it all the better because I was enjoying spending time with this most beautiful and pleasant gentlewoman. When the drawing was finished, another very beautiful Roman lady came up, who had been upstairs and came down and asked Madonna Porzia what she was doing there; and she said, smiling: "I am amusing myself watching this good young man draw, who is both good and handsome." I, having got a little bold, but with a little honest shame mixed in, went red and said: "Whatever I am, madam, I shall always be entirely at your service." The gentlewoman, also blushing a little, said: "You know very well that I want you to serve me"; and handing me the lily, she said I should take it away with me. And more than that, she gave me twenty gold scudi that she had in her pocket, and said: "Set it for me in the way you have drawn it for me, and save me this old gold it is set in now." The Roman lady then said: "If I were that young man, I should be off with a good conscience." Madonna Porzia added that skill is rarely found with vice, and that if I did such a thing I should badly deceive that good look of an honest man that I showed. And turning, taking the Roman lady by the hand, she said to me with the pleasantest laugh: "Goodbye, Benvenuto."
I stayed a while longer over the drawing I was making, copying a certain figure of Jove by the hand of Raphael of Urbino. When I had finished it I left, and set myself to make a small wax model, showing by it how the finished piece would come out; and when I took it to show to Madonna Porzia, that Roman lady I spoke of being present, both of them were greatly satisfied with my work and did me so much honour that, moved by a little boldness, I promised them the piece would be half as good again as the model. So I set to work, and in twelve days I finished the jewel in the form of a lily, as I said above, ornamented with little masks, children and animals, and beautifully enamelled; so that the diamonds the lily was made of were improved more than half.
While I was working on this piece, that able man Lucagnolo, whom I spoke of above, showed that he took it very badly, telling me more than once that I should make far more profit and more honour by helping him work large silver vases, as I had begun to do. To which I said that I would be able, whenever I wanted, to work on large silver vases; but that pieces like the one I was making did not come along every day; and that in such pieces there was no less honour than in large silver vases, and a great deal more profit.
This Lucagnolo laughed at me, saying: "You will see, Benvenuto; because by the time you have finished that piece of yours, I shall have hurried up and finished this vase, which I began when you began the jewel; and experience will show you what profit I shall get out of my vase and what you will get out of your jewel." To which I answered that I was very glad to make such a trial with so able a man as he was, because at the end of the pieces it would be seen which of us was deceived. And so both of us, with a little scornful laugh, bent our heads fiercely, each eager to finish what he had begun; so that in about ten days each of us had finished his piece with great polish and art.
Lucagnolo's was a very large vase which was used on Pope Clement's table, where he threw the little bones of meat and the peel of various fruits while he was at his meal; made more for show than for necessity. This vase was ornamented with two beautiful handles, with many little and large masks, and with much beautiful foliage, of as much beauty and grace of design as anyone could imagine; to which I said that it was the most beautiful vase I had ever seen. At this Lucagnolo, thinking he had convinced me, said: "Your piece seems no less beautiful to me, but we shall soon see the difference between the one and the other."
So he took his vase and carried it to the Pope, who was very well satisfied, and had it paid for at once at the usual rate of the trade for such large work. Meanwhile I carried my piece to the gentlewoman, Madonna Porzia, who told me with great astonishment that I had gone far beyond the promise I had made her; and then she added that I should ask whatever I liked for my labour, because it seemed to her that I deserved so much that if she gave me a castle she would hardly feel she had satisfied me; but since she could not do that, she said, laughing, that I should ask for what she could do. To which I said that the greatest reward I had wanted for my labour was to have satisfied her ladyship. And so, laughing as well, and having made her a bow, I left, saying that I wanted no other reward than that.
Then Madonna Porzia turned to that Roman lady and said: "Do you see that the qualities we judged were in him are these, and not the vices?" Both of them wondered at it, and Madonna Porzia said: "My Benvenuto, have you ever heard it said that when the poor man gives to the rich, the devil laughs at it?" To which I said: "And so, out of all his troubles, this time I want to see him laugh." And as I went off she said that this time she did not want to do him that favour.
When I got back to my shop, Lucagnolo had the money he had had for his vase in a paper twist; and when I came in he said: "Come and compare the price of your jewel here alongside the price of my vase." To which I said that he should keep it that way until the next day, because I hoped that, just as my piece in its own kind had been no less beautiful than his, so I expected to let him see the price of it.
The next day came, and Madonna Porzia sent her steward to my shop, called me outside, and handed me a paper twist full of money on that lady's behalf, saying that she did not want the devil laughing at it altogether; giving me to understand that what she was sending me was not the full payment my labour deserved, with a great many other courteous words worthy of such a lady.
Lucagnolo, who thought a thousand years had gone by before he could put his twist next to mine, as soon as I came into the shop, in front of twelve workmen and other neighbours who had come up wanting to see the end of the contest, Lucagnolo took his twist with a scornful laugh, saying "Ho! Ho!" three or four times, and poured his money onto the counter with a great noise. There were twenty-five scudi in giulios, and he thought mine would be four or five scudi in small change. As for me, deafened by his shouting and by the looks and the laughter of the people standing round, after glancing a little way into my own twist and seeing that it was all gold, I stood at one end of the counter with my eyes down, and without a sound in the world lifted my twist high up in both hands and let it pour out like a mill hopper. My money was half as much again as his; so that all those eyes, which had been fixed on me with some scorn, turned at once to him and said: "Lucagnolo, Benvenuto's money, being gold, and being half as much again, makes a much finer show than yours."
I quite believed that out of envy, together with the shame Lucagnolo felt, he would drop dead on the spot; and although a third of that money of mine came to him, since I was the workman — for that is the custom: two thirds go to the workman and the other third to the masters of the shop — reckless envy had more power in him than greed, which ought to have worked entirely the other way, this Lucagnolo being the son of a peasant from Iesi. He cursed his art and the men who had taught it to him, saying that from then on he did not want to do that heavy work any more; he only wanted to attend to making those little bits of tomfoolery, since they were paid so well.
No less angry, I said that every bird sang its own song; that he was talking according to the caves he had come out of; but that I told him plainly, I should manage his rubbish perfectly well, and he would never manage that sort of tomfoolery. And going off in a rage, I told him I would soon let him see it. The people who were there told him out loud that he was in the wrong, holding him for the boor he was, and me for a man, as I had shown myself.
The next day I went to thank Madonna Porzia, and told her that her ladyship had done the opposite of what she had said: that when I wanted to make the devil laugh, she had made him deny God again. We both laughed pleasantly, and she gave me other beautiful and good pieces to do.
In the meantime I arranged, through a pupil of Raphael of Urbino the painter, for the bishop of Salamanca to give me a large water vessel to make, called an ewer, of the kind that are kept on sideboards for ornament. And since the bishop wanted two of them made of equal size, he gave one to Lucagnolo to make and I had the other; and that painter Gianfrancesco gave us the design for the mouldings of the vessels.
So I set my hand to my vessel with a marvellous appetite, and was accommodated with a small part of a shop by a Milanese called Master Giovanpiero della Tacca. Having got myself in order, I reckoned up the money I might need for my own affairs, and sent all the rest to help my poor good father. While it was being paid to him in Florence, he happened to run into one of those hot-headed men who were of the Eight at the time I made that little bit of disorder, and who, insulting him, had told him that he would send me out to the farm with lances whatever happened. And because that hot-head had certain thoroughly bad sons, my father said, to the point: "Misfortunes can happen to anybody, and above all to hot-tempered men when they are in the right, as happened to my son; but let us look at the rest of his life, and see how well I have known how to bring him up. Please God, for your own sake, that your sons do you neither worse nor better than mine do to me; because just as God has made me able to bring them up, so, where my own powers could not reach, he himself has saved them for me, against your belief, out of your violent hands."
And going off, he wrote me all of this, begging me for the love of God to play sometimes, so as not to lose that fine skill which he had taught me with so much labour. The letter was full of the most loving fatherly words anyone could ever hear; so that they moved me to tears of pity, and I wanted to give him a good measure of contentment about the playing before he died — as God grants us all the lawful favours we faithfully ask him for.
While I was pressing on with the beautiful Salamanca vessel, I had only one boy to help me, whom I had taken on as an errand boy, half against my will, at the pressing request of friends. This boy was about fourteen; his name was Paulino and he was the son of a Roman citizen who lived on his own income. This Paulino was the best mannered, the most honest and the handsomest boy I ever saw in my life; and for his decent ways and manners, and for his endless beauty, and for the great love he bore me, it came about that I set as much love on him as can be shut up in a man's breast.
This passionate love was the reason why, so as to see that marvellous face clear itself more often — for by its nature it looked serious and melancholy — as soon as I took up my cornet, it broke at once into a smile so honest and so beautiful that I do not wonder in the least at the nonsense the Greeks write about the gods of heaven. If he had been alive in those days, he would perhaps have taken them further off their hinges still.
This Paulino had a sister called Faustina, and I do not believe the Faustina the ancient books make so much noise about was ever so beautiful. Having taken me sometimes to his vineyard, and as far as I could judge, it seemed to me that this decent man, Paulino's father, would have liked to make me his son-in-law. This made me play a great deal more than I had done before.
It happened at this time that a certain Gianiacomo, a piper from Cesena who was with the Pope, a marvellous player, let me know, through Lorenzo the trombonist of Lucca, who is today in the service of our Duke, that they wanted to know whether I would help them at the Pope's Feast of the Assumption, and play the treble on my cornet that day in several motets they had chosen, very beautiful ones. Although I had the greatest wish to finish that beautiful vessel of mine that I had begun, since music is a marvellous thing in itself, and in order partly to satisfy my old father, I was content to keep them company. And for eight days before the Feast we practised together two hours a day, so that on the day of the Assumption we went up to the Belvedere, and while Pope Clement was at dinner we played those well-drilled motets in such a way that the Pope said he had never heard music played more sweetly or better together.
He called Gianiacomo to him and asked him where and how he had come by so good a cornet for the treble, and asked him particularly who I was. Gianiacomo told him my name exactly. At this the Pope said: "Then this is Master Giovanni's son?" He said I was. The Pope said he wanted me in his service among the other musicians. Gianiacomo answered: "Most Blessed Father, I do not undertake that you will get him, because the profession he attends to continually is the goldsmith's art, and he works marvellously in it, and draws far better earnings from it than he would from playing." At this the Pope said: "I want him all the more, having this skill in him besides, which I had not expected. Have the same salary made out for him as for the rest of you; and tell him from me to serve me, and that as time goes on I shall give him plenty to do in the other profession as well." And putting out his hand, he gave him a hundred gold scudi of the Chamber in a handkerchief, and said: "Divide them so that he gets his share."
Gianiacomo, having got away from the Pope, came to us and told us exactly everything the Pope had said to him; and having divided the money among the eight companions that we were, he gave me my share and said: "Now I am going to have you entered on the roll of our company." To which I said: "Let today pass, and I shall answer you tomorrow."
When I had left them, I went along thinking whether I ought to accept such a thing, considering how much it would harm me by turning me aside from the fine studies of my art. The following night my father appeared to me in a dream, and with the most loving tears begged me, for the love of God and of himself, to be content to take up that undertaking; and I thought I answered him that I would not do it in any way. Immediately it seemed to me that he frightened me in a horrible shape and said: "If you do not do it, you will have your father's curse, and if you do it, may you be blessed by me for ever." Waking up, I ran out of fear to have myself entered; then I wrote it to my old father, who out of too much joy had a seizure that brought him close to death; and he wrote at once to say that he too had dreamed almost the same thing that I had.
It seemed to me, having satisfied my good father's honest wish, that everything ought to come out for me to an honourable and glorious end. So I set to with the greatest urgency to finish the vessel I had begun for Salamanca. This bishop was a very remarkable man, extremely rich, but hard to satisfy: he sent every day to see what I was doing; and any time his messenger did not find me there, Salamanca flew into the greatest fury, saying he meant to have the piece taken away from me and given to somebody else to finish. This was caused by my serving that cursed playing.
Still, with the greatest urgency I had set myself to it night and day, so that when I had brought it to a point where it could be shown to the bishop, I let him see it; at which such a desire grew in him to see it finished that I repented of having shown it to him. In three months I had finished the piece, with as many beautiful little animals, leaves and masks as anyone could imagine.
I sent it at once by my boy Paulino to show to that able man Lucagnolo, mentioned above; and Paulino, with that endless grace and beauty of his, said this: "Messer Lucagnolo, Benvenuto says he sends you his promises and your rubbish, and waits to see your tomfoolery from you." When the words had been said, Lucagnolo took the vessel in his hand and looked at it a long while; then he said to Paulino: "Fine child, tell your master that he is a very able man, and that I beg him to have me for a friend, and let us not go into anything else." That honest and admirable young man brought me the message with the greatest delight.
The vessel was carried to Salamanca, who wanted it valued. This Lucagnolo took part in the valuation, and valued it and praised it so honourably, far beyond what I had expected. Salamanca, taking the vessel, said in his Spanish way: "I swear to God that I shall take as long to pay for it as he has taken to make it." Hearing this, I was left thoroughly unhappy, cursing the whole of Spain and everyone who wished it well.
Among the other beautiful ornaments this vessel had a handle all in one piece, most delicately worked, which by means of a certain spring stood upright over the mouth of the vessel. One day, when monsignor was showing this vessel of mine to certain Spanish gentlemen of his out of vanity, it happened that one of these gentlemen, after monsignor had gone, handling the beautiful handle far too roughly, and the delicate spring not being able to resist his boorish strength, broke it in his hand; and thinking he had done very badly, he begged the butler who had charge of it to take it quickly to the master who had made it, who should mend it at once, and to promise him whatever price he asked, provided it was mended quickly.
So the vessel came into my hands, and I promised to mend it very quickly, and I did. It was brought to me before dinner; at two hours before dark the man who had brought it came back, all in a sweat, because he had run the whole way, seeing that monsignor had asked for it again to show it to certain other lords. So this butler would not let me get a word out, saying: "Quick, quick, bring the vessel." At which I, wanting to take my time and not give it to him, said that I did not want to be quick. The servant flew into such a fury that, making as if to put one hand to his sword, with the other he made a show of forcing his way into the shop; which I immediately prevented with my weapons, together with a good many bold words, saying: "I will not give it to you; and go and tell monsignor your master that I want the money for my labour before it leaves this shop."
Seeing that he had not been able to get it by bullying, he set to begging me as one begs the Cross, telling me that if I gave it to him he would do so much for me that I should be paid. These words did not move me from my purpose at all, and I always told him the same thing. In the end, in despair of the business, he swore he would come back with so many Spaniards that they would cut me to pieces; and he went off at a run. Meanwhile I, believing some part of these murderous threats of theirs, promised myself to defend myself boldly; and having got ready a marvellous gun of mine that I used for shooting, I said to myself: "If a man takes my property and my labour with it, may he still be granted his life?" In the middle of this argument with myself, a number of Spaniards appeared together with their steward, who in their reckless way told the crowd of them to go in and take the vessel and give me a beating.
At these words I showed them the mouth of the gun, ready with its fire, and shouted out loud: "Traitors, renegades, is this how you murder houses and shops in a Rome like this? As many of you thieves as come near this door, so many will I bring down dead with this piece of mine." And turning the mouth of the gun on their steward, and making as if to fire, I said: "And you, thief, who let them do it — I mean you to be the first to die." He immediately put his heel into a jennet he was on and made off at full gallop.
At this great noise all the neighbours had come out; and some Roman gentlemen who were passing said as well: "Kill the renegades, and we will help you." These words had so much force that they went off badly frightened by me; so that, driven by the case, they were forced to tell the whole story to monsignor, who was extremely proud, and who shouted at all his servants and officers, both because they had come to commit such an outrage, and because, having begun it, they had not finished it.
Just then that painter who had been mixed up in the business came by, and monsignor told him to come and tell me on his behalf that if I did not bring him the vessel at once, the biggest piece left of me would be my ears; and that if I did bring it he would pay me for it on the spot. This did not frighten me in the least, and I let him know that I would go and tell the Pope about it straight away. In the meantime his temper cooled and so did my fear; and on the word of certain great Roman gentlemen that he would not hurt me, and with a good guarantee of payment for my labour, I got ready with a big dagger and my good coat of mail and went to monsignor's house, where he had got his whole household drawn up. When I went in I had my Paulino behind me with the silver vessel. It was neither more nor less than going through the middle of the Zodiac: one of them was acting the lion, another the scorpion, another the crab; until at last we came before this ugly priest, who let fly the most priestly, most thoroughly Spanish words that anyone could imagine. And I never lifted my head to look at him, nor answered him a word.
At this his temper seemed to grow; and having writing materials handed to me, he told me to write in my own hand that I was well satisfied and paid by him. At this I lifted my head and told him I would do it very willingly if I had my money first. The bishop's rage grew, and the bullying and the arguments were great. In the end I had the money first, and afterwards I wrote, and went off happy and content.
Afterwards Pope Clement heard of it — he had seen the vessel before, but had not been told it was by my hand — and he took the greatest pleasure in it, and praised me a great deal, and said in public that he had a very great liking for me. So that monsignor Salamanca greatly repented of having bullied me like that; and to make it up with me he sent word by the same painter that he wanted to give me a great many large pieces to do; to which I said I would do them very willingly, but that I wanted payment for them before I began.
These words too came to the ears of Pope Clement, and they moved him greatly to laughter. Cardinal Cibo was there, and the Pope told him the whole quarrel I had had with this bishop; then he turned to one of his officers and ordered him to keep giving me work for the palace continually. Cardinal Cibo sent for me, and after a good deal of pleasant talk gave me a large vessel to make, bigger than Salamanca's; and so did Cardinal Cornaro, and many others of those cardinals, above all Ridolfi and Salviati. I had work from all of them, so that I earned very well.
Madonna Porzia, mentioned above, told me I ought to open a shop that was entirely my own; and I did so, and never stopped working for that good, well-bred lady, who gave me a very great deal of earnings, and it was almost by her doing that I showed myself to the world as a man worth something.
I formed a great friendship with Signor Gabbriello Ceserino, who was gonfalonier of Rome; I made a great many pieces for this gentleman. One of them, among the rest, was notable: a large gold medal to be worn in a hat, and carved on that medal was Leda with her swan. Being very well satisfied with my work, he said he wanted to have it valued so as to pay me the right price. And because the medal was made with great discipline, the valuers of the trade valued it a great deal higher than he had imagined; so, keeping the medal in his own hands, I got nothing for my labour. The same thing happened with this medal as with Salamanca's vessel. And because these matters must not take up the room where I have things of greater importance to say, I shall pass over them briefly.
Although I am going somewhat outside my profession, since I mean to describe my life some of these things force themselves on me — not to be described in detail, but at least to be touched on briefly.
One morning of our Saint John's day, I was dining together with a good many of our nation, of various professions, painters, sculptors, goldsmiths; among the notable men there were one called Il Rosso, a painter, and Gianfrancesco, a pupil of Raphael of Urbino, and many others. And because I had brought them there freely, they were all laughing and joking, as a number of men together will, enjoying so marvellous a feast day. A brainless young man happened to pass by, a swaggerer, a soldier of Signor Rienzo da Ceri, and hearing this noise he jeered and said a great many insulting things about the Florentine nation. I, being the host of all these able and decent men, and feeling that I was the one insulted, quietly, without anybody seeing me, came up on this fellow, who was together with a whore of his, and who, to make her laugh, was still going on with that jeering. When I got to him, I asked him whether he was the bold one who was speaking ill of the Florentines. He said at once: "I am the man." At these words I raised my hand, hitting him in the face, and said: "And I am this man." At once we both put our hands boldly to our weapons; but no sooner had the brawl begun than a good many people came in between, taking my side rather than otherwise, having heard and seen that I was in the right.
The next day a written challenge was brought me to fight him, which I accepted very cheerfully, saying that this seemed to me a business I could get through a great deal faster than the ones in that other art of mine; and I went at once to speak to an old man called Il Bevilacqua, who had the name of having been the first sword in Italy, because he had been shut into the lists more than twenty times and had always come out of it with honour. This decent man was a great friend of mine, and knew me through my skill in my art, and had also been mixed up in certain terrible quarrels between me and other people. So he cheerfully said to me at once: "My Benvenuto, if you had Mars himself to deal with, I am sure you would come out of it with honour, because in all the years I have known you I have never seen you take up any quarrel wrongly." So he took my business on, and having brought us to the ground with our weapons in our hands, without any blood being shed, my adversary giving way, I came out of the affair with much honour. I shall not tell the other particulars, because although they would be very fine to hear in that line, I want to keep these words for talking about my art, which is what has moved me to write this; and in that I shall have far too much to say.
Even though I was moved by an honest envy, wanting to make some other work that would come up to and even go past those of that able man Lucagnolo, I never for that moved away from my own beautiful art of jewel setting; so that between the one and the other I brought myself great profit and greater honour, and in both of them I was continually making things unlike other people's.
At this time there was in Rome an extremely able man from Perugia named Lautizio, who worked in one profession only, and in that he was unique in the world. It happens that at Rome every cardinal keeps a seal, on which his title is stamped; these seals are made as big as the whole hand of a small boy of about twelve; and, as I have said above, the cardinal's title is carved on it, with a great many figures. One of these seals, well made, is paid a hundred scudi and more. I felt an honest envy of this able man too, although this art is very much apart from the other arts that belong to the goldsmith's trade; because this Lautizio, making this art of seals, could do nothing else. I set myself to study that art too, and although I found it extremely difficult, I never got tired of the labour it gave me, and kept on continually earning and learning.
There was also in Rome another most excellent and able man, a Milanese called Messer Caradosso. This man worked only in little chased medals made of plate, and many other things; he made some Peaces worked in half relief, and certain Christs a palm high, made of the thinnest sheets of gold, so well worked that I judged him to be the greatest master of such things I had ever seen, and I envied him more than anybody else.
There were also other masters who worked at medals cut in steel, which are the mother and the true guide of anyone who wants to know how to make coins really well. I set myself to learn all these different professions with the greatest study.
There is also the most beautiful art of enamelling, which I never saw anybody do well except a Florentine of ours called Amerigo, whom I did not know, though I knew his most marvellous works well; and I never saw anywhere in the world, or by any man, anything that came within a long way of that divine quality. To this exercise too — most difficult of all, because of the fire, which comes in at the very end of the finished, laborious work, and often ruins it and sends it to wreck — to this different profession too I set myself with all my power; and although I found it very difficult, the pleasure I took in it was so great that those great difficulties seemed to me a rest. And this came from an express gift lent me by the God of nature: a constitution so good and so well proportioned that I freely promised myself I could make it do whatever came into my mind to do. These professions I have named are numerous and very different from one another; so that a man who does one of them well, if he wants to do the others, hardly ever succeeds in them as he does in the one he does well; whereas I have used all my power to work at all these professions equally, and I shall show in its place that I have done it, as I say.
At this time, when I was still a young man of about twenty-three, there broke out a plague so beyond all reckoning that in Rome many thousands were dying of it every day. Being somewhat frightened by this, I began to take certain pleasures, as my mind dictated, and for another reason too, which I shall tell.
On feast days I liked going to the ancient ruins, copying them, now in wax and now in drawing; and because these ruins are all broken down, and a great many pigeons nest among them, I got the wish to use my gun on them: so that, to keep away from company, being frightened of the plague, I would put a gun on my Paulino's shoulder and the two of us alone would go off to the ruins. Which meant that very often I came back loaded with the fattest pigeons.
I never liked to put anything into my gun but a single ball, and so, by the true skill of that art, I made great bags. I kept a gun that was straight, made by my own hand; and inside and out there was never a mirror like it. I also made with my own hand the finest powder for shooting, in which I discovered the best secrets that anybody has found from that day to this; and of this, so as not to go on at length, I shall give one sign to astonish anyone who is expert in the profession. It is this: with a weight of my powder that was a fifth of the weight of the ball, the ball would carry two hundred paces at point blank.
Although the great pleasure I got out of this gun looked as if it were leading me away from my art and my studies — and though that was the truth — in another way it gave me back much more than it had taken from me; the reason being that every time I went out on this sport of mine my health greatly improved, because the air agreed with me strongly. Being melancholy by nature, as soon as I got into these pleasures my heart lifted at once, and I worked better and with far more power than when I stayed continually at my studies and my exercises; so that in the end the gun stood more to my profit than to my loss.
And through this pleasure of mine I made friends with certain searchers who kept watch on some Lombard peasants who came to Rome in their season to dig the vineyards. These men, digging the ground, were always finding ancient medals, agates, prases, cornelians, cameos; and they also found gems, such as emeralds, sapphires, diamonds and rubies. These searchers sometimes got such things from the peasants for very little money; and I, coming on the searchers sometimes — and very often — would give them as many gold scudi for what they had barely bought for as many giulios. This, quite apart from the great profit I got out of it, which was tenfold or more, also made me welcome to almost all the cardinals in Rome.
I shall only tell of one or two of the notable and rarer of these things. Among many others, there came into my hands the head of a dolphin about as big as a good-sized broad bean. Besides the fact that this head was extremely beautiful, nature here went far beyond the art; because this emerald was of so good a colour that the man who bought it from me for tens of scudi had it made up as an ordinary stone to wear in a ring, and set like that he sold it for hundreds.
Another kind of stone: this was a head in the most beautiful topaz that was ever seen in the world, and in this the art came up to nature. It was as big as a large hazelnut, and the head was as well made as anyone could imagine: it was a Minerva.
Then another stone, different from these: this was a cameo, with a Hercules cut on it binding the three-throated Cerberus. This was so beautiful and made with such skill that our great Michelangelo said he had never seen anything so marvellous.
Among many bronze medals, one came into my hands with the head of Jove on it. This medal was bigger than any I had ever seen: the head was so well made that no such medal was ever seen. It had a beautiful reverse with some little figures on it, made as well as the head.
I could say a great many great things about this, but I do not want to go on at length.
As I said above, the plague had begun in Rome. Although I want to go back a little way, I shall not for that go outside my subject.
There came to Rome a very great surgeon called Master Jacomo da Carpi. This able man, among his other treatments, undertook certain desperate cures of the French disease. And because these diseases in Rome are great friends of the priests, and above all of the richest of them, this able man, having made himself known, gave out that by means of certain fumigations he cured such complaints marvellously; but he wanted the bargain made before he began the cure, and the bargains were in hundreds and not in tens.
This able man had a good deal of understanding of design. Passing my shop by chance one day, he happened to see certain drawings I had in front of me, among them a number of odd little vases I had designed for my own pleasure. These vases were very different and unlike any that had ever been seen up to that time. Master Jacomo wanted me to make them for him in silver; which I did with the greatest willingness, since they were according to my own fancy. Although this able man paid me very well for them, the honour they brought me was a hundred times greater; because in the trade of those able goldsmiths they said they had never seen anything more beautiful or better carried out.
I had hardly finished them when this man showed them to the Pope; and the day after he went off with God. He was very learned, and spoke marvellously about medicine. The Pope wanted him to stay in his service; and this man said he did not want to be in anybody's service in the world, and that whoever needed him should go after him. He was a very cunning person, and he did wisely to get out of Rome; because not many months later all the people he had treated became so much worse that they were a hundred times worse than before: he would have been killed if he had stayed.
He showed my little vases to many lords; among them to the most excellent Duke of Ferrara; and he said he had got them from a great lord in Rome, telling that lord that if he wanted to be cured of his complaint, he wanted those two vases; and that the lord had told him they were antiques, and begged him to ask for anything else, which he would not find it hard to give him, as long as he left him those; and he said he had made a show of not wanting to treat him, and so he got them. Messer Alberto Bendedio told me this in Ferrara, and with a great air of importance showed me some clay copies of them; at which I laughed; and when I said nothing else, Messer Alberto Bendedio, who was a proud man, said to me in a rage: "So you laugh at them, eh? And I tell you that in a thousand years there has not been born a man who could so much as copy them." And I, so as not to take that reputation away from them, kept quiet and admired them in astonishment.
Many gentlemen in Rome spoke to me about this work, saying it seemed miraculous and antique to them; some of them were friends of mine; and I, being bold about the business, confessed that I had made them. When they would not believe it, and I wanted to stay truthful with them, I had to give proof of it by making new drawings; because the old ones were not enough, since Master Jacomo had cunningly carried them off with him. In this small piece of work I gained a great deal.
The plague going on for many months afterwards, I had come through the skirmish, because a good many of my companions had died and I had been left healthy and free.
One evening among others a confederate companion of mine brought home to supper a Bolognese woman of the town called Faustina. This woman was very beautiful, but she was about thirty, and she had with her a little servant girl of thirteen or fourteen. Since Faustina belonged to my friend, I would not have touched her for all the gold in the world. And although she said she was strongly in love with me, I kept faith constantly with my friend; but once they had gone to bed I stole that little servant, who was quite new to it — and woe to her if her mistress had known. So I passed that night pleasantly, and with far more satisfaction to me than I should have had with the mistress Faustina.
Dinner time was coming on, and I, being tired, having walked a good many miles, wanted to eat; and a great pain took me in the head, with a number of swellings in my left arm, and a carbuncle showing itself in the knuckle of my left hand, on the outside. Everybody in the house was terrified, and my friend, the big cow and the little one, all ran off; so that I was left alone with a poor errand boy of mine, who would never leave me. I felt my heart choking and knew for certain that I was a dead man.
At this, the father of this boy of mine passed along the street. He was doctor to Cardinal Iacoacci and was on his salary; and the boy said to his father: "Come, father, and see Benvenuto, who is in bed with a little indisposition." Without considering what the indisposition might be, he came straight to me, and when he had touched my pulse he saw and felt what he would not have wished. Turning at once to his son, he said: "Oh, you traitor of a son, you have ruined me: how can I go in front of the cardinal now?" To which the son said: "This master of mine, father, is worth far more than all the cardinals in Rome."
Then the doctor turned to me and said: "Since I am here, I mean to treat you. Of one thing only I warn you: if you have had intercourse, you are a dead man." To which I said: "I had it this night." At this the doctor said: "With what creature, and how much?" And I told him: "Last night, and with the very youngest little girl." Then, realising the foolish words he had used, he said to me at once: "Both because they are young, in that way, and do not stink yet, and because the remedy is in good time, do not be so frightened, because I hope to cure you by every means."
Having treated me and gone away, there came at once a very dear friend of mine called Giovanni Rigogli, who, being sorry both for my great illness and for my being left so alone by my companion, said: "Do not be afraid, my Benvenuto, because I shall never leave you until I see you well." I told this friend not to come near me, because I was done for. I only begged him to be so kind as to take a certain good sum of scudi which was in a little box there beside my bed, and, after God had taken me out of the world, to send them as a gift to my poor father, writing to him kindly, as I too had done, according to the custom that season of madness required. My dear friend told me he would not leave me in any way, and that whatever happened afterwards, one way or the other, he knew perfectly well what a friend ought to do.
And so we went forward with God's help; and with the marvellous remedies I began to improve very greatly, and I soon came safely out of that very great illness. Still keeping the sore open, with the plug in it and a plaster over it, I went off on a little wild horse of mine that I had. He had hair more than four fingers long; he was exactly as big as a big bear cub, and truly he looked like a bear. On him I went to find Il Rosso the painter, who was outside Rome towards Civitavecchia, at a place belonging to the Count dell'Anguillara called Cervetera; and I found my Rosso, who was overjoyed; and I said to him: "I have come to do to you what you did to me so many months ago." Bursting out laughing, and embracing and kissing me, he told me afterwards to keep quiet about it for the Count's sake. So, happy and cheerful, with good wines and excellent food, and made much of by the Count, I stayed there about a month; and every day I went off alone along the seashore, and got down there and loaded myself with all sorts of little stones, small shells and rare and beautiful conches.
On the last day, after which I did not go there again, I was set upon by a number of men who had disguised themselves and had landed from a Moorish galley; and thinking they had me shut in at a certain narrow place where it seemed impossible to get out of their hands, I got up at once on my little horse, and, having made up my mind at that dangerous place to be either roasted or boiled there, since I saw little hope of escaping one of the two ways, as God willed it the little horse — which was as I described above — made a jump it is impossible to believe; so that, having saved myself, I thanked God. I told the Count: he called to arms: we saw the galleys out at sea. The next day, sound and cheerful, I went back to Rome.
By now the plague had almost stopped, so that those who found themselves alive were making much of each other very cheerfully. Out of this there was born a company of painters, sculptors and goldsmiths, the best there were in Rome; and the founder of this company was a sculptor called Michelagnolo. This Michelagnolo was of Siena, and was a very able man, such that he could stand up among any others of the profession; but above all he was the most pleasant and the most fleshly man there ever was in the world. Of this company he was the oldest, but the youngest in the strength of his body.
We used to meet often; at the least twice a week. I will not keep quiet about the fact that in this company of ours there were Giulio Romano the painter and Gianfrancesco, marvellous pupils of the great Raphael of Urbino. Having met a good many times, it seemed good to that good leader of ours that on the following Sunday we should meet for supper at his house, and that each of us should be obliged to bring his crow — for that was the name Michelagnolo had given them — and that whoever did not bring one should be obliged to pay for a supper for the whole company. Those of us who had no acquaintance with such women of the town had to provide themselves with one, at no small expense and trouble, so as not to be shamed at that gathering of talent.
I, who thought I was well provided for by a very beautiful young woman called Pantasilea, who was greatly in love with me, was forced to give her up to a very dear friend of mine called Il Bachiacca, who had been and still was greatly in love with her. In this case there stirred a little lovers' resentment, because, seeing that at the first word I gave her up to Bachiacca, it seemed to this woman that I took very little account of the great love she bore me; from which, in the course of time, a very great matter was born, when she wanted to take revenge for the injury she had had from me — which I shall tell in its place.
Well, the hour was beginning to press when each of us was to present himself to that gathering of talent with his crow, and I found myself without one; and it seemed to me too bad a mistake to fall short in such a mad affair; and what held me back most was that I did not want to bring under my own light, among such talent, some plucked little crow. So I thought of a pleasantry to add to the merriment and make the laughing greater.
Having made up my mind, I called a boy of sixteen who lived next door to me: he was the son of a Spanish brass founder. This young man was studying Latin letters and was very studious. His name was Diego. He was beautiful of body, and marvellous in the colour of his skin; the carving of his head was far more beautiful than the ancient one of Antinous, and I had drawn him many times, and had had much honour out of it in my work. He kept company with nobody, so that he was not known; he dressed very badly and anyhow: he was in love only with his marvellous studies.
Having called him into my house, I begged him to let me dress him in the women's clothes that were laid out there. He was easy about it and dressed quickly; and with the most beautiful ways of arranging his hair I soon added great beauty to his beautiful face. I put two little rings in his ears with two large, beautiful pearls in them — the rings were broken, and only pinched the ears, which looked as if they had been pierced. Then I put beautiful gold chains and rich jewels round his neck, and dressed his beautiful hands with rings. Then, taking him pleasantly by an ear, I drew him in front of a large mirror of mine. The young man, seeing himself, said with such boldness: "Good heavens — is that Diego?" Then I said: "That is Diego, from whom I never asked any favour of any kind; and now I only beg that Diego to do me one honest favour: and that is, that in these very clothes" — I wanted him to come to supper with that gathering of talent I had spoken to him about more than once. The young man, honest, able and wise, put off that boldness of his, turned his eyes to the ground, and stood a while like that without saying anything; then all at once he lifted his face and said: "With Benvenuto I will come; now let us go."
Having put on his head a large towel of the kind they call in Rome a summer cloth, when we got to the place everybody had already arrived, and they all came to meet me. Michelagnolo was standing between Giulio and Gianfrancesco. Having taken the towel off the head of that beautiful figure of mine, that Michelagnolo — as I have said before, the drollest and pleasantest man anyone could imagine — took hold with both his hands, one on Giulio and one on Gianfrancesco, and pulled them down as far as he could, and himself, on his knees on the ground, shouted for mercy and called out to all the people, saying: "Look, look how the Angels of Paradise are made! Because, although they are called Angels, look — there are Angelesses among them too." And shouting, he said:
O Angel beautiful, O Angel true, save me, and make me the sign of the cross.
At these words the pleasant creature raised his right hand, laughing, and gave him a papal blessing with many pleasant words. Then Michelagnolo got up and said that one kisses the Pope's feet and Angels' cheeks; and when he had done it, the young man blushed deeply, which increased his beauty enormously.
So we went in, and the room was full of sonnets that each of us had made and sent to Michelagnolo. This young man began to read them, and read them all; which added so much to his endless beauties that it would be impossible to say it. After that there was a good deal of talk and wondering, which I do not want to go into, since I am not here for that; only one remark I must mention, because it was made by that marvellous painter Giulio, who, having run his eye skilfully over everyone who was there, but studying the women more than the rest, turned to Michelagnolo and said: "My dear Michelagnolo, that name of crows of yours suits these women very well today, although they are somewhat less beautiful than crows beside one of the most beautiful peacocks anyone could imagine."
The food being ready and set out, and it being time to sit down at table, Giulio begged as a favour that he should be the one to place us. This being entirely granted him, he took the women by the hand and put them all on the inner side, with mine in the middle; then he put all the men on the outside, and me in the middle, saying that I deserved every great honour. Behind the women there was a screen of natural jasmine, most beautiful, which made such a fine background for those women, and above all for mine, that it would be impossible to say it in words.
So we all went through that rich supper with the greatest goodwill, and it was marvellously abundant. After we had supped, there came a little marvellous music of voices along with instruments; and because they were singing and playing with the books in front of them, my beautiful figure asked to sing her part; and because he did that part of the music almost better than the rest, it caused so much wonder that the talk Giulio and Michelagnolo were making was no longer pleasant in the way it had been before, but was all in grave, solid words full of amazement.
After the music, a certain Aurelio Ascolano, who spoke marvellously without preparation, began to praise the women in divine and beautiful words; and while he was singing, those two women who had my figure between them never stopped chattering: one of them was telling how she had come to grief, and the other was asking my figure how she had done it, and who her friends were, and how long it was since she had come to Rome, and a great many things of that sort. It is true that if I were writing only to describe such pleasantries, I should tell of a good many accidents that happened there, set going by that Pantasilea, who was strongly in love with me; but since it is not to my purpose, I pass them over briefly.
Now this talk of those stupid women became a nuisance to my figure, whom we had named Pomona; and Pomona, wanting to get away from their silly talk, kept twisting about, now to one side and now to the other. She was asked by the woman Giulio had brought whether she felt any discomfort. She said yes, and that she thought she was some months gone, and felt a pain in her womb. At once the two women, who had her between them, moved to pity for Pomona, put their hands on her belly and found that she was male. Snatching their hands back at once, with the insulting words people use to handsome young men, they got up from the table; and the shouting spread at once, with great laughter and great astonishment, and the fierce Michelagnolo asked leave of everybody to give me a penance in his own way. Having got their yes, with the greatest shouting he lifted me off my feet, saying: "Long live the lord! Long live the lord!" and said that that was the sentence I deserved for having played so fine a trick. So ended that most pleasant supper and that day; and each of us went back to his own house.
If I wanted to describe exactly what and how many were the many pieces I made for different sorts of men, my telling would be far too long. I need say nothing else for the present, except that I attended with every care and diligence to making myself skilled in that variety and difference of arts I have spoken of above. So I worked continually at all of them; and because no occasion has yet come into my mind to describe any notable work of mine, I shall wait to put them in their place, and they will come soon.
Michelagnolo, the Sienese sculptor, was at this time making the tomb of the dead Pope Adrian. Giulio Romano the painter went off to serve the Marquis of Mantua. The other companions withdrew, this one here and that one there, about their business; so that our able company nearly all broke up.
At this time there came into my hands certain little Turkish daggers; and the handle was of iron, like the blade of the dagger, and the sheath was of iron in the same way. These things were carved, by means of tools, with a great many beautiful leaf patterns in the Turkish manner, and most delicately inlaid with gold; which greatly roused in me the wish to try myself in that profession too, so different from the others. And seeing that it came out very well for me, I made several pieces. These pieces were far more beautiful and far more lasting than the Turkish ones, for several reasons. One is that in my steel I cut very deeply and undercut, which is not done in Turkish work. The other is that Turkish leafwork is nothing but arum leaves with a few little sunflower blossoms; and although they have some grace, they do not go on giving pleasure the way our leafwork does.
Though in Italy we have different ways of making leafwork; because the Lombards make very beautiful leaves, copying ivy and traveller's joy with beautiful turnings, which are very pleasant to see; the Tuscans and the Romans have made a much better choice in this line, because they copy acanthus leaves, called bear's-claw, with their stalks and flowers, turning in different ways; and among the leaves it is very well arranged to put a few little birds and different animals, as anyone with good taste can see. Some of it is found naturally in wild flowers, such as the ones called snapdragons, which can be made out in certain blossoms, accompanied by other beautiful inventions of those able craftsmen; which things are called by people who do not know, grotesques.
These grotesques got that name from the moderns, because they were found by students in certain caverns in the earth at Rome, which caverns were anciently rooms, baths, studies, halls and other things of that sort. These students, finding them in those cavernous places — because the ground has been raised since ancient times and they were left down below, and because in Rome the word for those low places is grottoes — from this they got the name of grotesques. Which is not their true name; because just as the ancients enjoyed making up monsters, coupling goats and cows and mares, and when these mixtures were born they called them monsters, so those craftsmen made this sort of monster with their leafwork: and monsters is their true name, and not grotesques.
Making this sort of leafwork inlaid in the way described above, they were much more beautiful to look at than the Turkish. At this time it happened that in certain vessels which were ancient little urns full of ashes, there were found among those ashes certain iron rings inlaid with gold by the ancients themselves, and in each of those rings a little shell was set. When the learned looked into it, they said that these rings were worn by people who wanted to keep steady in their minds through some strange thing that had happened to them, for good or for ill. This moved me, at the request of certain gentlemen who were great friends of mine, to make some of these little rings; but I made them of well-purged steel, and afterwards, when they had been well cut and inlaid with gold, they made a very beautiful show; and it happened sometimes that for one of these little rings, for my labour alone, I had more than forty scudi.
At this time there were in use certain little gold medals, and every lord and gentleman liked to have some fancy or device of his carved on them, and they wore them in their caps. I made a great many of these pieces, and they were very difficult to make. And because that very able man I spoke of, called Caradosso, made some of them, for which, when they had more than one figure on them, he would take nothing less than a hundred gold scudi each — for that reason, not so much because of the price as because of his slowness, I was put forward by certain gentlemen, for whom, among other things, I made a medal in competition with this great able man, and on that medal there were four figures, over which I had laboured hard. It happened that these gentlemen and lords, setting it beside the marvellous Caradosso's, said that mine was much better made and more beautiful, and that I should ask what I liked for my labour, since, having satisfied them so well, they wanted to satisfy me as much. To which I said that the greatest reward for my labour, and the thing I most wanted, was to come up alongside the works of so able a man; and that, if their lordships thought so too, I called myself fully paid. And when I had gone off at once, they sent after me so generous a present that I was content, and it gave me such heart to do well that it was the cause of what will be heard of hereafter.
I shall go somewhat away from my profession here, since I want to tell of certain troublesome things that happened in this laborious life of mine. I have already told about that company of talent, and about the pleasantries that came about on account of that woman I spoke of, Pantasilea, who bore me that false and troublesome love; and she, being extremely angry with me over that pleasantry in which the Spaniard Diego took part at that supper, and having sworn to revenge herself on me, an occasion arose which I shall describe, in which my life ran the greatest risk.
It was this. There came to Rome a young man called Luigi Pulci, the son of one of the Pulci who had his head cut off for having lain with his own daughter. This young man had a most marvellous poetic talent and a knowledge of good Latin letters; he wrote well; he was beyond measure handsome in his grace and his figure. He had left the service of some bishop or other, and he was full of the French disease.
When this young man was in Florence, on summer nights in certain parts of the city they used to hold gatherings in the streets themselves, and this young man was among the best of those who sang there without preparation; his singing was so beautiful to hear that the divine Michelangelo Buonarroti, that most excellent sculptor and painter, whenever he knew where he was, went to hear him with the greatest eagerness and pleasure; and a certain man called Il Piloto, a very able goldsmith, and I, went with him. That was how the acquaintance came about between Luigi Pulci and me.
Now, many years later, he showed himself to me in Rome in that bad state, begging me to help him for the love of God. Moved to pity by his great talents, for the love of our country, and because it is my own nature, I took him into my house and had him treated in such a way that, being young as he was, he was soon brought back to health. While he was seeing to that recovery, he studied continually, and I had helped him to a great many books as far as I could manage; so that this Luigi, recognising the great kindness he had had from me, thanked me many times with words and with tears, telling me that if God ever put any good fortune in front of him, he would pay me back for the kindness I had done him. To which I said that I had not done for him what I should have liked, but at least what I could, and that it was the duty of human creatures to help one another; only I reminded him to pay this kindness I had done him to some other man who needed him, as he had needed me; and to be my friend, and consider me his.
This young man began to frequent the Court of Rome, where he soon found a place, and settled with a bishop, a man of eighty, called Bishop Gurgensis. This bishop had a nephew called Messer Giovanni: he was a Venetian gentleman. This Messer Giovanni made a great show of being in love with Luigi Pulci's talents, and under the name of those talents he had made him as familiar with him as if he had been himself. Luigi, having talked to this Messer Giovanni about me and about the great obligation he was under to me, caused Messer Giovanni to want to know me.
Now it happened that one evening among others I had given a little feast for that Pantasilea I have spoken of, and to that supper I had invited a good many able friends of mine; and just as we were going to table Messer Giovanni came up with Luigi Pulci, and after some ceremony they stayed to supper with us. That shameless whore, seeing the handsome young man, immediately set her designs on him; and for that reason, when the pleasant supper was over, I called Luigi Pulci aside and told him that, by all the obligation he had boasted of being under to me, he should not in any way seek out that whore's acquaintance. At which words he said to me: "Good heavens, my Benvenuto, do you take me for a senseless man?" To which I said: "Not senseless, but young"; and I swore to him by God that I had not a thought in the world about her, but that it would hurt me if he broke his neck over her. At which words he swore that he prayed God, if he ever spoke to her, that he might break his neck at once. This poor young man must have made that oath to God with his whole heart, because he did break his neck, as will be told here below.
Messer Giovanni showed himself towards him in a filthy love and not a virtuous one; because the young man was seen every day changing his clothes of velvet and silk, and it was known that he had given himself over entirely to wickedness and had banished his beautiful and admirable talents; and he made a show of not seeing me and not knowing me, because I had rebuked him, telling him that he had given himself as a prey to foul vices which would make him break his neck, as he had said.
That Messer Giovanni of his had bought him a most beautiful black horse, on which he had spent a hundred and fifty scudi. This horse handled marvellously well, so that Luigi went every day to prance about on this horse round that whore Pantasilea. I, becoming aware of it, took no notice at all, saying that everything acted according to its nature; and I attended to my studies.
It happened one Sunday evening that we were invited to supper by that Sienese sculptor Michelagnolo; and it was summer. At this supper Bachiacca was there, and he had brought with him that Pantasilea, his first acquaintance. So, being at table at supper, she was sitting between me and Bachiacca; and at the very best of the supper she got up from the table, saying she wanted to go about certain conveniences of hers, because she felt a pain in her stomach, and that she would come back at once. While we were talking and supping most pleasantly, she stayed away rather longer than she should have. It happened that, keeping my ears open, I thought I heard a very low sniggering in the street. I had a knife in my hand which I was using at table. The window was so close to the table that, rising a little, I saw in the street that Luigi Pulci along with Pantasilea, and I heard Luigi say: "Oh, if that devil Benvenuto were to see us, woe to us!" And she said: "Do not be afraid; listen to the noise they are making: they are thinking of anything but us."
At these words I, having recognised them, threw myself down from the window to the ground and took Luigi by the cloak, and with the knife I had in my hand I would certainly have killed him; but because he was on a little white horse, which he set spurs to, he left me the cloak in my hand to save his life. Pantasilea ran off into a church close by. The people at table got up at once and all came over to me, begging me not to trouble either myself or them on account of a whore; to which I said that I would not have stirred for her, but I would for that wicked young man, who showed that he thought so little of me. And so I would not be bent by any of the words of those able and decent men; instead I took my sword and went off by myself alone to the Prati, because the house where we were supping was near the Castle gate that leads to the Prati.
Going along towards the Prati, I was not long before, after the sun had gone down, I came back into Rome at a slow pace. It was already night and dark, and the gates of Rome were not shut. When it was getting on for two hours after dark I went past Pantasilea's house, meaning, if Luigi Pulci was there, to do harm to both of them. Seeing and hearing that nobody was in the house but an ugly servant girl called Canida, I went to put down my cloak and the scabbard of my sword, and so came back to the house, which was behind the Banchi on the river Tiber. Opposite this house there was an innkeeper's garden, belonging to a man called Romolo: this garden was shut in by a thick hedge of thorn, in which I hid myself, standing upright, waiting for the woman to come home along with Luigi.
After I had been there a while, that friend of mine called Bachiacca turned up, having either guessed it or been told. He called me in a low voice "gossip" (for that was what we called each other for a joke); and he begged me for the love of God, saying these words almost weeping: "My gossip, I beg you not to do any harm to that poor girl, because she is not at fault in the world." To which I said: "If at this first word you do not get out of my way, I shall give you this sword on the head." My poor gossip, frightened, was taken with a loosening of the bowels at once, and could go so short a distance that he had to obey me.
It was a starry night which gave a very great light. All at once I hear a noise of several horses, and they were coming forward on one side and the other: it was Luigi and Pantasilea accompanied by a certain Messer Benvegnato of Perugia, chamberlain to Pope Clement, and they had with them four very brave Perugian captains, with other very bold young soldiers: there were more than twelve swords among them all. When I saw this, considering that I did not know which way to run, I tried to push myself into that hedge; and because those sharp thorns hurt me, and I was working myself up like a bull, almost resolved to make a jump and run, at this Luigi had his arm round Pantasilea's neck, saying: "I will kiss you once at least, in scorn of that traitor Benvenuto."
At this, being tormented by the thorns and driven on by the young man's words, I sprang out, raised my sword, and said in a great voice: "You are all dead men." At this the blow of the sword fell on Luigi's shoulder; and because those satyrs had put the poor young man all in mail and other things of that sort, the blow was a very great one; and the sword, turning, struck Pantasilea on the nose and on the mouth. Both of them having fallen to the ground, Bachiacca, with his hose half down his legs, was shouting and running away.
Turning boldly on the others with my sword, those brave men, hearing a great noise which had started up in the inn, and thinking there was an army of a hundred men there, although they had put their hands bravely to their swords, two of the little horses among them got frightened and threw them into such disorder that, having knocked two of the best of them head over heels, the rest took to flight. And I, seeing that it was coming out well, got away from that business at a very fast run and with honour, not wanting to try fortune more than I ought.
In that immeasurable disorder some of those soldiers and captains had been wounded by their own swords, and Messer Benvegnato, the Pope's chamberlain, had been knocked over and trampled by a mule of his; and a servant of his, having put his hand to his sword, fell down together with him and wounded him badly in one hand. This injury caused Messer Benvegnato, more than all the others, to swear in that Perugian way of theirs, saying: "By God's — , I mean Benvegnato to teach Benvenuto how to live"; and he gave the commission to one of his captains, perhaps bolder than the others, but being young he had less judgement.
This man came to find me where I had withdrawn, in the house of a great Neapolitan gentleman who, having heard and seen some things of my profession, and besides that the disposition of my mind and body fitted for soldiering, which was what the gentleman was inclined to, so that, seeing myself made much of, and finding myself in my own line as well, I made such an answer to that captain that I believe he greatly repented of having come in front of me.
A few days later, when the wounds of Luigi and the whore and the others had dried up a little, this great Neapolitan gentleman was approached by Messer Benvegnato, whose fury had gone off, to make me make peace with the young man Luigi, and to say that those brave soldiers, who had nothing to do with me at all, only wanted to know me. The gentleman told them all that he would bring me wherever they liked, and would willingly make peace; but on this condition, that neither side should throw words back at each other, because that would be too much against their honour; it was enough to make a show of drinking and kissing, and that he would do the talking, by which he would willingly save them.
And so it was done. On a Thursday evening the gentleman took me to Messer Benvegnato's house, where all those soldiers were who had been at that rout, and they were still at table. With my gentleman there were more than thirty brave men, all well armed; a thing Messer Benvegnato had not expected. When we got into the hall, first the gentleman and then I, he said these words: "God save you, gentlemen. We have come to you, Benvenuto and I, whom I love like a brother of my own blood; and we are here willingly to do whatever you have a mind to do." Messer Benvegnato, seeing the room filling with so many people, said: "We are asking you for peace and nothing else." So Messer Benvegnato promised that the governor of Rome's court would give me no trouble. We made peace; and I went back at once to my shop, not able to be an hour without that Neapolitan gentleman, who either came to find me or sent for me.
In the meantime Luigi Pulci was well again, and every day he was on that black horse of his that handled so well. One day among others, it having been drizzling, and he putting the horse through its paces exactly in front of Pantasilea's door, it slipped and fell, and the horse on top of him; and having broken his right leg clean off, he died a few days later in Pantasilea's house, and fulfilled the oath he had made to God from his heart. So you can see that God keeps account of the good and the bad, and gives each one his deserts.
By now the whole world was in arms. Pope Clement had sent to ask Signor Giovanni de' Medici for certain bands of soldiers, and when they came they behaved so outrageously in Rome that it was bad to keep an open shop. That was what made me withdraw into a good little house behind the Banchi; and there I worked for all the friends I had won.
My work at this time was nothing of much importance, so I need not talk about it. I took a great deal of pleasure at this time in music and in pleasures of that sort.
Pope Clement, on the advice of Messer Jacopo Salviati, having dismissed those five bands that Signor Giovanni had sent him — Signor Giovanni being already dead in Lombardy — Bourbon, knowing that there were no soldiers in Rome, pushed his army towards Rome with the greatest urgency. On this occasion the whole of Rome took to arms. Now I was a great friend of Alessandro, son of Piero del Bene, and because at the time when the Colonnesi came into Rome he had asked me to guard his house for him, so on this greater occasion he begged me to raise fifty companions to guard the house, and to be their leader, as I had been at the time of the Colonnesi; so I raised fifty very brave young men, and we moved into his house, well paid and well treated.
Bourbon's army had already appeared at the walls of Rome, and Alessandro del Bene begged me to go with him and keep him company; so one of the best of our companions and I went; and on the way a young man called Cecchino della Casa joined us. We got to the walls of the Campo Santo, and there we saw that marvellous army, which was already making every effort to get in. At the place on the walls where we came up there were a number of young men lying dead, killed by those outside: there was fighting there with all their might; there was a fog as thick as anyone can imagine.
I turned to Alessandro and said: "Let us get back home as fast as we can, because there is no remedy in the world here; you see, those are climbing up and these are running away." Alessandro, frightened, said: "Would to God we had never come!" And so, turning about in the greatest hurry to go, I took him up on it, saying: "Since you have brought me here, we must do something like men." And turning my arquebus to where I saw the thickest and closest knot of fighting, I aimed exactly at the middle, at one man I saw raised above the others; on account of which the fog did not let me make out whether he was on horseback or on foot. Turning at once to Alessandro and Cecchino, I told them to fire their arquebuses, and showed them how to do it so as not to get an arquebus shot from those outside. So, having done it twice each, I went up carefully to the wall, and, seeing an extraordinary uproar among them, it turned out that by these shots of ours Bourbon had been killed; and he was that first man I had seen raised above the others, as was understood afterwards.
Leaving there, we went off through the Campo Santo, and came in by Saint Peter's; and coming out behind by the church of Sant'Angelo, we got to the great gate of the Castle with the greatest difficulty, because Signor Renzo da Ceri and Signor Orazio Baglioni were wounding and killing everyone who came away from the fighting at the walls. When we got to the gate, part of the enemy had already entered Rome, and we had them at our backs. The Castle wanting to drop the portcullis of the gate, a little space was made, so that the four of us got inside.
As soon as I was in, Captain Pallone de' Medici took hold of me, because, being one of the Castle's household, he forced me to leave Alessandro; which I did very much against my will. So I went up to the keep, and at the same moment Pope Clement had come into the Castle by the corridors, because he had not wanted to leave the palace of Saint Peter earlier, not being able to believe that they would get in.
After I found myself inside in that way, I went up to certain pieces of artillery which were in the charge of a gunner called Giuliano, a Florentine. This Giuliano, leaning out at the battlement of the Castle, could see his own poor house being sacked and his wife and children abused; so that, for fear of hitting his own, he did not dare fire his guns; and, having thrown the match for firing on the ground, he was tearing his face with great weeping; and certain other gunners were doing the same. So I took one of those matches, getting some who were there to help me who had no such feelings; and I turned certain sakers and falconets where I saw the need, and with them killed a great many of the enemy; and if this had not been done, that party which had entered Rome that morning would have come straight to the Castle, and it is possible that it might easily have got in, because the artillery was giving them no trouble. I went on firing; on account of which some cardinals and lords blessed me and gave me the greatest heart. At which, growing bold, I forced myself to do what I could not; it is enough that I was the cause of saving the Castle that morning, and that those other gunners went back to doing their duty. I went on all that day.
When evening came, while the army was entering Rome by the Trastevere side, Pope Clement having made a great Roman gentleman called Messer Antonio Santacroce head of all the gunners, this great gentleman came to me first of all, making much of me; and he put me with five marvellous pieces of artillery in the highest place in the Castle, the one called the Angel: this place goes right round the Castle and looks towards the Prati and towards Rome. So he gave me so many men under me that I could give orders to, to help me turn my guns; and having had a payment made me in advance, he gave me bread and a little wine, and then begged me to go on as I had begun. And I, who am sometimes more inclined to this profession than to the one I hold as my own, did it so willingly that it came out better for me than the other.
When night came, and the enemy had come into Rome, we who were in the Castle — and above all I, who have always taken pleasure in seeing new things — stood considering this immeasurable strangeness and burning; a thing which those who were anywhere but in the Castle could neither see nor imagine. Therefore I shall not set myself to describe such a thing; I shall only go on describing this life of mine that I have begun, and the things that belong to it exactly.
Going on working my guns continually, in a whole month that we stayed besieged in the Castle, a great many very great things happened to me, all worth telling; but so as not to be too long, and not to show myself too far outside my profession, I shall leave out most of them, telling only those that force me to it, which will be the fewest and the most notable.
And this is the first. Messer Antonio Santacroce had made me come down off the Angel, so as to fire at certain houses near the Castle where some of the enemy from outside had been seen going in; and while I was firing, a cannon shot came at me which hit the corner of a battlement and carried away so much of it that it was the reason I was not hurt; because the whole greater quantity struck my chest all at once; and, my breath being stopped, I lay stretched on the ground like a dead man, and heard everything the bystanders were saying. Among them Messer Antonio Santacroce was greatly grieved, saying: "Alas, we have lost the best help we had."
Coming up at this noise, a certain companion of mine called Gianfrancesco, a piper — this man was more inclined to medicine than to piping — ran off weeping at once for a little flask of very good Greek wine; and having made a tile red hot, on which he put a good handful of wormwood, he then sprinkled it with that good Greek wine; and when the wormwood was well soaked, he immediately laid it on my chest, where the blow could plainly be seen. There was so much power in that wormwood that it gave me back my lost faculties at once. When I wanted to begin to speak I could not, because some foolish little soldiers had filled my mouth with earth, thinking that with it they were giving me the communion, whereas they had rather excommunicated me, because I could not come round again, this earth giving me a good deal more trouble than the blow. Having escaped this too, I went back to those furies of the artillery, keeping at them with all the skill and urgency I could imagine.
And because Pope Clement had sent to ask help of the Duke of Urbino, who was with the Venetian army, telling the ambassador to tell his Excellency that as long as the Castle held out it would make three fires every evening on top of the Castle, accompanied by three triple shots of artillery, and that as long as this signal lasted it showed that the Castle would not surrender — I had this duty of making these fires and firing these guns. Now, in the daytime I always pointed them at places where they could do some great harm; on account of which the Pope liked me a great deal better, because he saw that I did the work with the care such things call for. The Duke's help never came; and I, who am not here for that, shall describe no more of it.
While I was up there at that devilish exercise of mine, some of the cardinals who were in the Castle used to come and see me, but most often Cardinal Ravenna and Cardinal de' Gaddi; and I told them several times not to come in front of me, because those little red caps of theirs could be seen a long way off, and from the neighbouring palaces, like the Torre de' Bini, both they and I ran the greatest danger; so that in the end I had them shut out, and I got a good deal of enmity from them for it.
Signor Orazio Baglioni also came about me often, who was very fond of me. One day among others, when he was talking with me, he saw something going on at a certain inn which was outside the Castle gate, at a place called Baccanello. This inn had for its sign a sun painted between two windows, in red. The windows being shut, Signor Orazio judged that opposite that sun, inside, between the two windows, there was a table of soldiers making merry; and so he said to me: "Benvenuto, if you have the heart to hit an arm's length from that sun with this half-cannon of yours, I think you would do a good piece of work, because there is a great noise to be heard over there, where there must be men of much importance." To which I said: "I can well enough hit the middle of that sun"; but there was a barrel full of stones close to the mouth of the cannon, and the fury of the fire and of the wind the cannon made would have sent it to the ground. To which the gentleman answered: "Do not waste time, Benvenuto: in the first place it is not possible, standing as it does, that the wind of the cannon should make it fall; but even if it did fall and the Pope were underneath it, it would be less harm than you think, so fire, fire."
I, without thinking any further about it, hit the middle of the sun exactly, as I had promised. The barrel fell, as I said, and it fell exactly between Cardinal Farnese and Messer Jacopo Salviati, and would have squashed them both flat; and the reason was that Cardinal Farnese had just then reproached Messer Jacopo with being the cause of the sack of Rome; and, as they were insulting each other, they had moved apart to give room to the insulting words, and that was why my barrel did not squash them both.
Hearing the great noise going on in that lower court, the good Signor Orazio went down in a great hurry; and I, leaning out where the barrel had fallen, heard some of them saying: "It would be a good thing to kill that gunner." At which I turned two falconets on the stairs that came up, with my mind made up that the first man who came up should have one of the falconets fired at him. Some of Cardinal Farnese's servants must have had orders from the cardinal to come and make trouble for me; so I came forward with the fire in my hand. Recognising some of them, I said: "Oh, you cut-throats, if you do not get away from there, and if there is anyone who dares to come inside these stairs, I have two falconets here ready with which I will make powder of you; and go and tell the cardinal that I have done what I was ordered to by my superiors, and that these things are being done and have been done in defence of you priests, and not to hurt you."
When they had gone, up came Signor Orazio Baglioni at a run, and I told him to stay back or I would kill him, because I knew perfectly well who he was. This gentleman stopped a moment, not without fear, and said to me: "Benvenuto, I am your friend." To which I said: "Sir, come up alone, and then come in any way you like." This gentleman, who was extremely proud, stopped a moment and said to me angrily: "I have a mind not to come up any further, and to do the exact opposite of what I had meant to do for you." To this I answered that, just as I had been put in that post to defend other people, so I was fit to defend myself too. He told me he was coming alone; and when he had come up, his face being altered more than it should have been, that was the reason I kept my hand on my sword and looked at him like a dog. At this he began to laugh, and the colour coming back into his face, he said to me most pleasantly: "My Benvenuto, I wish you all the good I have, and when it pleases God the time comes, I shall show it to you. Would to God you had killed those two scoundrels, because one of them is the cause of so much evil, and the other may yet be the cause of worse." And he told me that if I were asked, I should not say he was there with me when I fired that gun; and that as for the rest I should not worry.
The uproar was very great, and the business went on a long time. I do not want to go on any longer about it here: it is enough that I nearly took revenge for my father on Messer Jacopo Salviati, who had done him a thousand pieces of treachery (according to my father's own complaints). At any rate, without meaning to, I gave him a great fright. Of Farnese I will say nothing, because it will be heard in its place how well it would have been if I had killed him.
I attended to firing my guns, and with them I did something very notable every day; so that I had won a credit and a favour with the Pope beyond all reckoning. Not a day ever passed in which I did not kill some of the enemy outside.
One day among others the Pope was walking about the round keep, and could see in the Prati a Spanish colonel whom he recognised by certain marks, having heard that he had once been in his service; and while he was watching him he talked about him. I, who was up on the Angel and knew nothing of this, but saw a man there having trenches put in order, with a little javelin in his hand, dressed all in rose colour, considering what I could do against him, took a gerfalcon of mine that I had there — this piece is bigger and longer than a saker, almost like a half-culverin. I emptied this piece and then loaded it with a good quantity of fine powder mixed with the coarse; then I aimed it very carefully at this man in red, giving it a marvellous elevation, because he was so far off that the art did not promise a shot at that distance with artillery of that sort. I gave it fire and hit that man in red exactly in the middle, who out of self-importance had put his sword in front of him in a certain Spanish way of his: so that when my cannon ball arrived and struck that sword, the man was seen to be divided in two pieces.
The Pope, who was not expecting such a thing, took great pleasure and wonder in it, both because it seemed impossible to him that a gun could carry so far in aim, and because he could not settle how the man could be in two pieces or how such a thing could be. And he sent for me and questioned me. So I told him all the care I had used in the way of firing; but as for the man being in two pieces, neither he nor I knew the cause. Kneeling down, I begged him to bless me again for the homicide, and for the others I had committed in that Castle in the service of the Church. At which the Pope, raising his hands and making a wide cross over my figure, told me that he blessed me and forgave me all the homicides I had ever committed and all those I ever should commit in the service of the apostolic Church.
Having left him, I went up, and pressing on I never stopped firing, and hardly a shot ever went for nothing. My drawing and my fine studies and my beauty of playing music were all in the playing of those guns; and if I had to tell in detail the fine things I did in that cruel infernal business, I should astonish the world; but so as not to be too long I pass over them. I shall tell only one or two of the more notable ones, which are necessary to me.
And this is one: thinking day and night what I could do for my part in defence of the Church, and having considered that the enemy changed their guards and passed by the gate of Santo Spirito, which was a reasonable shot but came at me across, so that I did not do the great harm I wanted to do — still, a good many were killed every day. So that, seeing that this passage was blocked, the enemy put more than thirty barrels one night on the top of a roof, which cut off that view of mine. And I, who thought about this case a little better than I had before, turned all five of my pieces of artillery, aiming them at those barrels; and I waited for the twenty-second hour, just at the fine moment for changing the guards. And because they, thinking they were safe, came more slowly and much more closely packed than usual, when I gave fire to my blowers I not only threw down those barrels which were blocking me, but with that one blast killed more than thirty men.
For which reason, going on to do it twice more afterwards, the soldiers were thrown into such disorder that — being full of the plunder of the great sack, and some of them wanting to enjoy the fruits of their labours — they several times wanted to mutiny and go off. Still, being held back by their brave captain, called Gian di Urbino, they were forced, at very great inconvenience to themselves, to take another way for the changing of their guards; which inconvenience meant more than three miles, where the first was not half of one.
Having done this piece of work, all those lords who were in the Castle showed me marvellous favours. This particular case, having turned out of so much importance, I have wanted to tell in order to make an end of this subject, because I am not in the profession that moves me to write; for if I wanted to make my life fine with things of that kind, I should have far too many left to tell. There is only one more, which I shall tell in its place.
Jumping forward a good way, I shall tell how Pope Clement, in order to save the tiaras with all the quantity of the great jewels of the apostolic Chamber, had me called, and shut himself up in a room alone with the Cavalierino and me. This Cavalierino had once been a servant in Filippo Strozzi's stable: he was French, a person of the lowest birth; and because he was a great servant, Pope Clement had made him extremely rich, and trusted him like himself. So the Pope and the Cavaliere and I, shut in that room, they put those tiaras in front of me with all that great quantity of jewels from the apostolic Chamber, and he ordered me to strip them all out of the gold they were set in. And I did so; then we wrapped each of them in a little paper and sewed them into certain pads on the Pope's body and the Cavalierino's. Then they gave me all the gold, which was about two hundred pounds, and told me to melt it down as secretly as I could.
I went off to the Angel, where my room was, which I could shut so that nobody troubled me; and having made myself a little draught furnace of bricks there, and fitted into the bottom of the furnace a good-sized ash tray in the shape of a dish, I threw the gold on top onto the coals, and little by little it fell into that dish. While this furnace was working, I was constantly on the watch for how I could harm our enemies; and because we had the enemy's trenches below us at less than a stone's throw, I did them damage in those trenches with certain old-fashioned quarrels, several stacks of which were among the Castle's old munitions. Having taken a saker and a falconet, both of which were a little broken at the muzzle, I filled these with those quarrels; and when I gave fire to the guns they flew off wildly, doing a great many unexpected injuries in the trenches; so that, keeping these constantly ready while I was melting the gold, a little before vespers I saw come along the edge of the trench a man on horseback, on a mule. The mule was going very fast, and this man was talking to the men in the trenches. I took care to give fire to my gun before he came opposite me; and so, having fired with good judgement, when he came up I caught him with one of those quarrels exactly in the face: the rest of them hit the mule, which fell dead. In the trench a very great uproar was heard; I gave fire to the other piece, not without great harm to them.
This was the Prince of Orange, who was carried along inside the trenches to a certain inn nearby, where in a short time all the nobility of the army hurried.
When Pope Clement heard what I had done, he sent for me at once; and when he had asked me about it, I told him everything, and told him besides that the man must have been of very great importance, because in that inn where they had carried him all the leaders of that army had immediately gathered, as far as one could judge. The Pope, with very good sense, sent for Messer Antonio Santacroce, the gentleman who was head and guide of all the gunners, as I have said, and told him to order all of us gunners to aim all our artillery at that house — and there was an endless number of guns — and that at an arquebus shot every man should give fire; so that, if those leaders were killed, that army, which was almost on props, would all break up; and that perhaps God would have heard their prayers, which they were making so often, and by that road would have freed them from those impious scoundrels.
We had got our artillery in order, according to Santacroce's commission, and were waiting for the signal, when Cardinal Orsini heard of it and began to shout at the Pope, saying that on no account should such a thing be done, because they were on the point of concluding the agreement; and that if those men were killed, the camp without a leader would force its way into the Castle and would finish ruining them altogether: therefore they did not want such a thing done. The poor Pope, in despair, seeing himself murdered inside and out, said he left the matter to them.
So, our orders having been taken off us, I, who could not keep still, when I heard that they were coming to give me the order not to fire, gave fire to a half-cannon I had, which struck a pillar in the courtyard of that house, where I could see a great many people leaning. This shot did the enemy such great harm that it nearly made them abandon the house. Cardinal Orsini wanted me either hanged or killed at all costs; at which the Pope defended me boldly. The great words that passed between them, although I know them, since I do not profess to write histories, I need not tell; I shall only attend to my own affair.
When I had melted the gold, I took it to the Pope, who thanked me a great deal for what I had done, and ordered the Cavalierino to give me twenty-five scudi, excusing himself to me that he had no more to give. A few days later the agreement was made.
I went off with Signor Orazio Baglioni, along with three hundred companions, towards Perugia; and there Signor Orazio wanted to hand me over the company, which for the time being I did not want, saying that I wanted to go and see my father first, and to buy off the sentence of banishment I had from Florence. This gentleman told me that he had been made captain of the Florentines; and there was Ser Pier Maria di Lotto, sent by the Florentines, to whom Signor Orazio strongly recommended me as his own man.
So I came to Florence with several other companions. The plague was very great, beyond all reckoning. When I got to Florence, I found my good father, who thought either that I was dead in that Sack or that I would come back to him with nothing. Which turned out entirely the other way: I was alive, and with a good deal of money, with a servant, and well mounted. When I came to my old man, the joy I saw in him was so great that I certainly thought, while he was embracing and kissing me, that he would die of it on the spot. I told him all those devilries of the Sack, and put a good quantity of scudi into his hand, which I had earned in a soldierly way; and after we had made much of each other, the good father and I, he went off at once to the Eight to buy off my sentence; and it happened that one of the Eight was one of the men who had given it me, and it was the one who had so tactlessly told my father that time that he meant to send me out to the farm with lances; on account of which my father used some sharp words by way of revenge, brought on by the favours Signor Orazio Baglioni had shown me.
As things stood, I told my father how Signor Orazio had chosen me for a captain, and that I ought to start thinking about raising the company. At these words my poor father was immediately upset, and begged me for the love of God not to take up such a business, although he knew I should be fit for it and for more; telling me besides that he had his other son, my brother, who was so extremely brave at war, and that I ought to attend to that marvellous art in which I had laboured so many years and with such great study.
Although I promised to obey him, being a wise man he thought that if Signor Orazio came, both because I had promised him and for other reasons, I should never be able to help going on with the business of the war; so he thought of a good way to get me out of Florence, saying: "Oh, my dear son, the plague here is very great, beyond all reckoning, and I keep thinking I see you come home with it. I remember, when I was a young man, that I went off to Mantua, where they made a great deal of me, and I stayed there several years. I beg you and I command you, for love of me, to get away from here and go there — today rather than tomorrow."
Since it has always given me pleasure to see the world, and having never been to Mantua, I went willingly, taking the money I had brought; and the greater part of it I left with my good father, promising him to help him always, wherever I might be, and leaving my elder sister to look after my poor father. Her name was Cosa, and, never having wanted a husband, she had been accepted as a nun at Santa Orsola, and so she stayed on to help and manage my old father and to look after my other, younger sister, who was married to a certain sculptor called Bartolomeo. So I set off with my father's blessing, took my good horse, and went off on it to Mantua.
I should have far too many great things to tell if I wanted to write this little journey in detail. The world being darkened with plague and war, it was with the greatest difficulty that I got at last to Mantua; and when I got there I looked for work, and was set to work by a certain Master Nicolò of Milan, who was goldsmith to the Duke of Mantua. When I had been set to work, two days later I went off to visit Messer Giulio Romano, that most excellent painter I have spoken of, a great friend of mine, who made much of me beyond all reckoning and was very put out that I had not gone to dismount at his house. He lived like a lord, and was doing a work for the Duke outside the gate of Mantua, at a place called the Te. This work was great and marvellous, as perhaps can still be seen.
Messer Giulio at once spoke to the Duke about me with many honourable words; and the Duke ordered me to make him a model for holding the relic of Christ's blood which they have there, and which they say was brought there by Longinus. Then he turned to Messer Giulio, telling him to make me a drawing for the reliquary. At this Messer Giulio said: "My lord, Benvenuto is a man who has no need of other people's drawings, and your Excellency will judge that very well when you see his model."
Setting my hand to this model, I made a design for the reliquary in which the phial could be very well placed; then I made a little wax model for the top. This was a Christ seated, who in his raised left hand held his great Cross, with the action of leaning on it; and with his right hand he made a sign with his fingers as if to open the wound in his breast. When this model was finished, the Duke liked it so much that his favours were beyond all reckoning, and he let me know that he would keep me in his service on such terms that I could live richly there.
In the meantime, having paid my respects to his brother the Cardinal, the Cardinal begged the Duke to be so good as to let me make the pontifical seal for his most reverend lordship; which I began. While I was working on this piece, the quartan fever came on me; and when this fever took me it drove me out of my senses, so that I cursed Mantua and whoever was master of it and whoever liked being there. These words were repeated to the Duke by that Milanese goldsmith of his, who saw perfectly well that the Duke wanted to make use of me. When the Duke heard those sick words of mine, he was badly angered with me; so that, since I was angry with Mantua, we were equal in our tempers.
When my seal was finished, which took four months, with several other little pieces made for the Duke in the Cardinal's name, I was well paid by the Cardinal; and he begged me to go back to Rome, that marvellous city where we had come to know each other.
Having left Mantua with a good sum of scudi, I got to Governo, the place where that most brave man Signor Giovanni was killed. There a short bout of fever took me, which did not hinder my journey at all, and it stayed behind at that place, and I never had it again.
Then, arriving in Florence, and thinking to find my dear father, I knocked at the door, and a certain furious hunchbacked woman came to the window and drove me off with a good deal of rudeness, telling me I made her sick. To which hunchback I said: "Oh, tell me, you crooked hunchback, is there any other face in this house but yours?" "No, and bad luck to you." At which I said loudly: "May this not last you two hours." At this argument a neighbour came out, who told me that my father and everybody in my house were dead of the plague; and since I had partly guessed it, that was why the grief was less. Then she told me that only my younger sister was left alive, whose name was Liperata, and that she had been taken in by a holy woman called Monna Andrea de' Bellacci.
I left there to go to the inn. By chance I ran into a very great friend of mine, called Giovanni Rigogli. Having dismounted at his house, we went off to the square, where I had news that my brother was alive; and I went to find him at the house of a friend of his called Bertino Aldobrandi. When I found my brother, and we had made endless fuss over each other — the reason it was so extraordinary being that he had been given news of my death and I of his — then, after a great burst of laughter, he took me by the hand in astonishment and said: "Come, brother, and I will take you to a place you would never imagine: I have married off our sister Liperata again, and she is quite certain you are dead."
While we were going there we told each other a great many fine things that had happened to us; and when we got to the house where my sister was, she was so overcome by the unexpected strangeness that she fell into my arms in a faint; and if my brother had not been there, the thing was such, and without a word said, that at first her husband did not think I was her brother. Cecchino my brother, speaking and helping the fainting woman, soon brought her round; and having wept a little for our father, our sister, her husband and a little son of hers, orders were given for supper; and at that pleasant wedding party nobody talked any more of the dead all evening, but only of wedding matters. So we finished supper cheerfully and with great pleasure.
Forced by the entreaties of my brother and my sister, I stayed in Florence, because my own wish was to go back to Rome. And that dear friend of mine as well — the one I spoke of before, who helped me so much in certain of my troubles, that is, Piero di Giovanni Landi — this Piero too told me that I ought to stay in Florence a while; because the Medici had been driven out of Florence, that is Signor Ippolito and Signor Alessandro, who were afterwards one a Cardinal and the other Duke of Florence, and Piero told me I ought to stay a little and see what happened.
So I began to work in the Mercato Nuovo, and set a great quantity of jewels, and earned well. At this time there came to Florence a Sienese called Girolamo Marretti: this Sienese had been a long time in Turkey and was a person of lively wit. He came to my shop and gave me a gold medal to make, to be worn in a hat; he wanted me to make on this medal a Hercules forcing open the lion's mouth. So I set to work at it; and while I was working on it Michelangelo Buonarroti came several times to see it; and because I had laboured hard over it, the action of the figure and the fierceness of the animal being very different from anything anyone had made in that line up to then — and also because that way of working was entirely unknown to the divine Michelangelo — he praised this work of mine so much that my spirit for doing well rose beyond all reckoning.
But because I had nothing else to do except set jewels, which, although it was the greatest earning I could get, did not satisfy me, since I wanted to make works of some other skill than setting jewels — at this point there came along a certain Federigo Ginori, a young man of very lofty spirit. This young man had been at Naples many years, and because he was very handsome in body and presence, he had fallen in love at Naples with a princess; and so, wanting to make a medal in which there should be an Atlas with the world on his back, he asked the great Michelangelo to make him a little drawing of it. Who said to Federigo: "Go and find a certain young goldsmith called Benvenuto; he will serve you very well, and certainly he does not need a drawing from me. But so that you may not think I want to run away from the labour of so small a thing, I shall very willingly make you a little drawing; meanwhile speak to this Benvenuto and let him make a little model of it too; and afterwards the better of the two can be put into work."
Federigo Ginori came to find me and told me what he wanted, and afterwards how much that marvellous Michelangelo had praised me; and that I should make a little wax model of it too, while that admirable man had promised him a drawing. Those words of that great man gave me such heart that I set myself at once with the greatest urgency to make the model; and when I had finished it, a certain painter, a great friend of Michelangelo's, called Giuliano Bugiardini, brought me the drawing of the Atlas. At the same moment I showed Giuliano my wax model, which was very different from Michelangelo's drawing; so that Federigo and Bugiardini too concluded that I should make it according to my own model.
So I began it, and the most excellent Michelangelo saw it and praised it so much that it was beyond all reckoning. It was a figure, as I have said, chased out of plate; it had the heavens on its back, made into a ball of crystal, with the zodiac cut into it, on a ground of lapis lazuli; and together with the figure it made so fine a show that it was beyond all reckoning. Underneath was a motto in letters that said "Summa tulisse juvat" — it is a joy to have borne the highest. Federigo, being satisfied, paid me most generously.
Since Messer Luigi Alamanni was in Florence at this time, and was a friend of Federigo Ginori's, he brought him several times to my shop, and by his kindness he became a very familiar friend of mine.
When Pope Clement made war on the city of Florence, and the city prepared to defend itself, and had the militia of the people arranged by every quarter, I too was called out for my part. I got myself richly equipped; I kept company with the greatest nobility of Florence, who were seen to be very much of one mind about wanting to serve in that defence; and those speeches were made in every quarter that are well known. Besides that, the young men came together more than usual, and nothing was ever talked about but this.
One day about noon, when there was a crowd of the leading men and young men of the city in my shop, a letter was brought to me from Rome, which came from a certain man known in Rome as Master Jacopino della Barca. His name was Jacopo dello Sciorina, but della Barca in Rome, because he kept a boat that crossed the Tiber between the Ponte Sisto and the Ponte Sant'Angelo. This Master Jacopo was a very ingenious person, and had pleasant and very fine conversation; he had once been in Florence a designer of patterns for the silk weavers. This man was a great friend of Pope Clement's, who took great pleasure in hearing him talk.
Being one day in such talk, they came round to the subject of the Sack and of the action at the Castle; on which account the Pope, remembering me, said as much good of me as anyone can imagine; and he added that if he knew where I was, he would be glad to have me back. Master Jacopo said that I was in Florence; so the Pope ordered him to write to me to come back to him. This letter said that I should come back to Clement's service, and that it would be good for me. The young men who were there wanted to know what the letter contained; so I hid it as well as I could, and afterwards wrote to Master Jacopo begging him on no account whatever to write to me again, for good or ill.
He, his appetite growing greater, wrote me another letter, which went so far beyond all bounds that if it had been seen I should have come off badly. It said that, on the Pope's behalf, I should come at once, since he wanted to use me for things of the greatest importance; and that if I wanted to do well I should leave everything at once, and not stay to set myself against a pope, along with those raving madmen.
When I saw the letter it put me in such fear that I went to find that dear friend of mine called Pier Landi; who, seeing me, at once asked me what news I had, since I looked so troubled. I told my friend that what I had that gave me that great trouble I could not tell him in any way; I only begged him to take the keys I was giving him, and to give back the jewels and the gold to this man and that, whom he would find written in a little book of mine; then to take the goods in my house and look after them a little with his usual kindness, and that in a few days he would know where I was. This wise young man, having perhaps roughly guessed the thing, said: "My brother, go away quickly, then write, and do not give a thought to your own affairs." So I did. He was the most faithful friend, the wisest, the most decent, the most discreet, the most loving I have ever known. Having left Florence, I went to Rome, and wrote from there.
As soon as I got to Rome, having found some of my friends, by whom I was very well received and made much of, I set at once to work on pieces that were all for earning and not for a name worth describing.
There was a certain old goldsmith called Raffaello del Moro. He was a man of much reputation in the trade, and in other respects a very decent man. He begged me to be so kind as to come and work in his shop, because he had some pieces of importance to do which would earn very well: so I went willingly.
More than ten days had passed without my letting myself be seen by that Master Jacopino della Barca; who, seeing me by chance, gave me the greatest welcome, and having asked me how long it was since I had arrived, I told him it was about a fortnight. This man took it very badly, and told me that I took very little account of a pope, who had already had him write three times for me with great urgency. And I, who had taken it much more badly than he had, never answered him anything, but swallowed my temper. This man, who was extremely full of words, got onto a beaten track and said so much that at last, when I saw he was tired, I said nothing to him except that he should take me to the Pope at his convenience; to which he answered that there was always time; at which I said: "And I am always ready."
He began to make his way towards the palace with me (this was Maundy Thursday), and when we got to the Pope's rooms, he being known and I being expected, we were let in at once. The Pope was in bed, a little unwell, and with him were Messer Jacopo Salviati and the Archbishop of Capua. When the Pope saw me, he was extraordinarily glad; and I, having kissed his feet, went up to him as modestly as I could, showing that I wanted to tell him some things of importance. He immediately made a sign with his hand, and Messer Jacopo and the Archbishop withdrew a good way from us.
I began at once, saying: "Most Blessed Father, since the Sack I have not been able to confess or take communion, because they will not absolve me. The case is this: when I melted the gold and did that work of getting those jewels out, your Holiness gave orders to the Cavalierino that he should give me some little reward for my labour, which I had none of — indeed he gave me rudeness instead. When I went upstairs, where I had melted the gold, and lifted the ashes, I found about a pound and a half of gold in little grains like millet; and because I had not enough money to get myself home respectably, I thought I would make use of it, and give it back afterwards when I had the chance. Now I am here at the feet of your Holiness, who are the true confessor: be so good as to give me leave so that I can confess and take communion, and by the grace of your Holiness get back the grace of my Lord God."
Then the Pope, with a little sigh of modesty, perhaps remembering his own troubles, said these words: "Benvenuto, I am quite certain of what you say, and I can absolve you of any impropriety you may have committed, and more than that, I mean to; so say everything with a completely free and good mind, because if you had had the value of one of those whole tiaras, I am fully disposed to pardon you." Then I said: "I had nothing else, most Blessed Father, than what I have said; and this did not come to the value of a hundred and forty ducats, which is what I had for it from the mint at Perugia, and with it I went to comfort my poor old father."
The Pope said: "Your father was as able, good and decent a man as was ever born, and you do not fall short of him at all: I am very sorry the money was so little; so that as for this which you say there was, I make you a present of it, and I forgive you everything; testify of this to your confessor, if there is nothing else that concerns me; then, when you have confessed and taken communion, let yourself be seen again, and it will be good for you."
When I had left the Pope, and Messer Jacopo and the Archbishop had come up, the Pope said as much good of me as could be said of any man in the world; and he said that he had confessed and absolved me. Then he added, saying to the Archbishop of Capua, that he should send for me and ask me whether anything else was needed about that case, that he should absolve me of everything, that he gave him full authority; and besides that, he should make as much of me as he could.
While I was going off with Master Jacopino, he asked me most inquisitively what that long, close conversation was that I had had with the Pope; and when he had asked me more than twice, I told him I did not want to tell him, because they were not things that concerned him; therefore he should not ask me again. I went and did everything I had agreed with the Pope; then, when the two feast days had passed, I went to visit him; and he, making more of me than before, said: "If you had come to Rome a little sooner, I should have had you remake those two tiaras of mine that we spoiled in the Castle. But because they are things of little skill apart from the jewels on the outside, I shall use you for a work of the greatest importance, where you will be able to show what you can do. And this is the clasp for my cope" — which is made round in the shape of a trencher, and as big as a small trencher, a third of an arm across — "and on this I want a God the Father made in half relief, and in the middle of it I want to fit this beautiful great point of a diamond with a great many other jewels of the greatest importance. Caradosso began one and never finished it; I want this one finished quickly, because I want to enjoy it a little myself. So go and make a fine little model." And he had all the jewels shown to me; at which I went off at once with my heart in my mouth.
While the siege was round Florence, that Federigo Ginori for whom I had made the medal of the Atlas died of consumption, and the medal came into the hands of Messer Luigi Alamanni, who a short time later took it himself to give to King Francis, King of France, with some very beautiful writings of his own. The King liking this medal beyond measure, that most accomplished man Messer Luigi Alamanni said a few words to his Majesty about my qualities, over and above the art, with such favour that the King showed he wanted to know me.
Pressing on with all the urgency I could with that little model, which I was making exactly the size the work was to be, a good many people in the goldsmiths' trade were roused, who thought themselves fit to do such a thing. And because there had come to Rome a certain Micheletto, a very able man at cutting cornelians, and also a most knowledgeable jeweller — he was an old man and of much reputation, and he had had a hand in looking after the Pope's two tiaras — while I was making this model he wondered a great deal that I had not applied to him, being a knowledgeable man and much in the Pope's credit. At last, seeing that I did not come to him, he came to me, asking what I was doing. "What the Pope has ordered me," I answered. Then he said: "The Pope has ordered me to see all these things that are made for his Holiness." To which I said that I would ask the Pope first, and then I should know what I had to answer him. He told me I would repent of it; and having gone off from me in a rage, he got together with all those of the trade, and, talking about this business, they all gave the charge of it to Michele; who, with that good wit of his, had more than thirty drawings made by certain able draughtsmen, all different from each other, for this piece of work.
And because he had the Pope's ear at his convenience, having come to an understanding with another jeweller called Pompeo, a Milanese (who was much favoured by the Pope, and was a relation of Messer Traiano, the Pope's first chamberlain), these two, that is Michele and Pompeo, began to tell the Pope that they had seen my model, and that it seemed to them I was not an instrument fit for so wonderful a piece of work. At this the Pope said that he had to see it too; and then, if I was not fit, a man would be looked for who was. They both said they had several wonderful drawings on the subject; at which the Pope said he was very glad, but that he did not want to see them before I had finished my model; then he would see everything together.
Within a few days I had finished my model, and taking it up one morning to the Pope, Messer Traiano made me wait, and meanwhile sent in a hurry for Micheletto and Pompeo, telling them to bring their drawings. When they had come, we were let in; on which Michele and Pompeo at once began to spread out their drawings, and the Pope to look at them. And because draughtsmen outside the jeweller's trade do not know the placing of jewels, nor had those who were jewellers taught them — for a jeweller, when figures come in among his jewels, must be able to draw, or nothing good comes of it — so all those drawings had stuck that marvellous diamond in the middle of God the Father's chest.
The Pope, who was of very good wit, seeing such a thing, did not like it at all; and when he had seen ten of them, he threw the rest on the ground and said to me, who was standing at one side: "Show me your model here a moment, Benvenuto, so that I can see whether you are in the same error as these men." I came forward and opened a little round box, and it seemed as if a brightness struck the Pope right in the eyes; and he said in a great voice: "If you had been inside my body you could not have made it otherwise than I see it: these men could not have found any other way of disgracing themselves."
Many great lords came up, and the Pope showed them the difference between my model and their drawings. When he had praised it a good deal, and they stood there frightened and looking foolish, he turned to me and said: "I see one trouble here that is of very great importance. My Benvenuto, wax is easy to work; the whole thing is to do it in gold." To these words I answered boldly: "Most Blessed Father, if I do not do it ten times better than this model of mine, let it be agreed that you do not pay me for it." At these words a great uproar rose among those lords, saying that I was promising too much. There was one of these lords, a very great philosopher, who said in my favour: "From the fine physiognomy and symmetry of body that I see in this young man, I promise myself everything he says, and more." The Pope said: "And so do I believe it too."
Calling that chamberlain of his, Messer Traiano, he told him to bring five hundred gold ducats of the Chamber there. While the money was being waited for, the Pope again considered more slowly the fine way in which I had fitted the diamond with the God the Father. This diamond I had put exactly in the middle of the work, and above the diamond I had fitted God the Father sitting, in a certain fine turned attitude which gave the most beautiful harmony, and did not crowd the stone at all: raising his right hand he was giving the blessing. Under the diamond I had fitted three little boys, who with their arms raised held the diamond up. One of these boys, the middle one, was in full relief; the other two were in half. Round about there were a good number of different boys, fitted in with the other beautiful jewels. The rest of God the Father had a mantle that floated out, out of which came a great many boys, with many other fine ornaments, which made a most beautiful show. This work was made of a white stucco on a black stone.
When the money came, the Pope gave it me with his own hand, and begged me with the greatest pleasantness to manage so that he should have it in his own lifetime, and that it would be good for me.
Having carried the money and the model away, it seemed to me a thousand years before I could set my hands to it. Having begun at once to work with great urgency, at the end of a week the Pope sent word to me by a chamberlain of his, a very great Bolognese gentleman, that I should come to him and bring what I had worked on. While I was going, this chamberlain, who was the most well-bred person in that Court, told me that the Pope did not only want to see that work, but wanted to give me another of very great importance; and this was the dies for the coins of the mint of Rome; and that I should arm myself to be able to answer his Holiness — that was why he had warned me of it.
I came to the Pope, and spread out before him that plate of gold on which God the Father alone had already been carved, which, sketched out like that, showed more skill than that little wax model; so that the Pope, astonished, said: "From now on I mean to believe everything you say." And having done me a great many extravagant favours, he said: "I want to give you another piece of work, which would be as dear to me as this and dearer, if you have the heart to do it." And having told me that he would be glad to have the dies of his coins made, and asking me whether I had made any before, and whether I had the heart to make them, I said that I very well had the heart for it, and that I had seen how they were made, but that I had never made any.
There being present a certain Messer Tommaso da Prato, who was his Holiness's datary, being a great friend of my enemies, he said: "Most Blessed Father, the favours your Holiness does this young man, and his being extremely bold by nature, are the reason he would promise you a new world; because, having given him a great piece of work, and now adding a greater one to it, they will be the cause of one getting in the way of the other." The Pope turned on him angrily and said that he should attend to his own office; and he ordered me to make a model of a broad gold doubloon on which he wanted a naked Christ with his hands bound, with letters saying "Ecce Homo"; and on the reverse a pope and an emperor together propping up a cross that looked as if it were falling, with letters saying "Unus spiritus et una fides erat in eis" — there was one spirit and one faith in them.
The Pope having ordered me this fine coin, Bandinello the sculptor came up, who had not yet been made a knight, and with his usual presumption dressed up as ignorance said: "These goldsmiths have to be given drawings for such fine things." I turned to him at once and said that I had no need of his drawings for my art; but that I hoped in time to give his art trouble with my drawings. The Pope showed that he was as pleased with these words as anyone can imagine, and turning to me, said: "Go, my Benvenuto, and attend to serving me with a good spirit, and do not lend an ear to the words of these madmen."
So I went off, and very quickly made two dies; and having struck a coin in gold, I took the coin and the dies to the Pope one Sunday after dinner, and when he saw it he was left astonished and pleased — not so much at the fine work, which pleased him beyond measure, but he was made to marvel still more by the speed I had used. And to increase the Pope's satisfaction and wonder, I had brought with me all the old coins that had been made before by those able men who had served Pope Julius and Pope Leo; and seeing that mine gave far more satisfaction, I pulled out of my breast a petition asking for that office of master of the dies of the mint, which office gave six gold scudi a month in salary, quite apart from the dies being paid for by the mint master, who gave three of them to the ducat.
The Pope took my petition and, turning, put it into the datary's hand, telling him to dispatch it for me at once. The datary took the petition, and, wanting to put it in his pocket, said: "Most Blessed Father, your Holiness should not run at it so furiously; these are things that deserve some consideration." Then the Pope said: "I have understood you; give that petition here." And having taken it, he signed it at once with his own hand; then, giving it back to him, he said: "Now there is no more to be said; dispatch it for him now, because that is what I want; and Benvenuto's shoes are worth more than the eyes of all these other blockheads." And so, having thanked his Holiness, I went off to work overjoyed.
I was still working in the shop of that Raffaello del Moro I mentioned. This decent man had a beautiful young daughter, and he had designs on me for her; and I, having partly noticed it, wanted such a thing myself. But while I had this wish I never showed it in the world at all; on the contrary I behaved so properly that I made them wonder.
It happened that this poor girl got a disease in her right hand which had rotted those two little bones next to the little finger and the one beside it. And because the poor girl was being treated, through her father's carelessness, by an ignorant quack, who said that the poor girl would be left crippled in the whole of her right arm if nothing worse happened to her — seeing the poor father so dismayed, I told him not to believe everything that ignorant doctor said. At which he told me he had no acquaintance with any doctors or surgeons, and begged me, if I knew any, to put him in the way of one.
I at once sent for a certain Master Jacomo of Perugia, a most excellent man in surgery; and when he had seen this poor girl, who was dismayed because she must have got wind of what that ignorant doctor had said, this knowledgeable man said she would have nothing wrong with her and would use her right hand perfectly well, although those two last fingers might be a little weaker than the others; that would give her no trouble in the world.
And having set his hand to treating her, a few days later, when he wanted to eat away a little of the rot on those little bones, the father called me to come and see something too of the operation that had to be done on this girl. So, Master Jacomo having taken certain thick tools, and seeing that with them he was doing very little good and very great pain to the girl, I told the master to stop and to wait for me an eighth of an hour. Running to the shop, I made a little tool of the finest steel, curved, and it scraped. Coming back to the master, he began to work so gently that she felt no pain at all, and in a short time he had finished. For this, among other things, this decent man came to love me more than his two sons; and so he set about curing his beautiful daughter.
I had a very great friendship with a certain Messer Giovanni Gaddi, who was a clerk of the Chamber. This Messer Giovanni took a great delight in the arts, although he had none of them in himself. There lived with him a certain Messer Giovanni, a Greek, a very great scholar; a Messer Lodovico da Fano, a scholar like him; Messer Antonio Allegretti; and at that time Messer Annibal Caro, a young man. From outside there were Messer Bastiano the Venetian, that most excellent painter, and I; and almost every day we saw each other once at Messer Giovanni's. On account of this friendship that decent man Raffaello the goldsmith said to Messer Giovanni: "My dear Messer Giovanni, you know me; and since I should like to give that little daughter of mine to Benvenuto, and can find no better go-between than your lordship, I beg you to help me in it, and yourself to settle out of my means whatever dowry you please."
This scatterbrained man hardly let the poor decent fellow finish before he said to him, without any sense in the world: "Say no more about it, Raffaello, because you are further from it than January is from blackberries." The poor man, much cast down, quickly looked for someone else to marry her to; and the girl's mother and all of them went about sulking at me, and I did not know why. And feeling that they were paying me in bad money for the many kindnesses I had done them, I looked about to open a shop near them. Messer Giovanni said nothing until the girl was married, which happened several months later.
I attended with great urgency to finishing my work and to serving the mint, for the Pope commissioned me again with a coin worth two carlins, on which was a portrait of the head of his Holiness, and on the reverse a Christ on the sea, holding out his hand to Saint Peter, with letters round it saying "Quare dubitasti?" — why did you doubt? This coin pleased so far beyond measure that a certain secretary of the Pope, a man of very great ability, called Il Sanga, said: "Your Holiness may take glory in having a kind of coinage which is not to be seen among the ancients, with all their pomp." To this the Pope answered: "And Benvenuto may take glory in serving an emperor like me, who knows him."
Going on with the great work in gold, I showed it often to the Pope, who kept urging me to see it, and every day he wondered at it more.
I had a brother in Rome in the service of Duke Alessandro, for whom at this time the Pope had procured the dukedom of Penna. In this Duke's service there were a great many soldiers, decent, brave men from the school of that very great man Signor Giovanni de' Medici, and my brother among them, and the Duke thought as much of him as of any of the bravest of the others.
One day after dinner this brother of mine was in the Banchi, in the shop of a certain Baccino della Croce, where all those bravoes used to take shelter; he had got himself into a chair and was asleep. Just then the sheriff's guard passed by, taking a certain Captain Cisti, a Lombard, to prison — he was also from the school of that great Signor Giovannino, but he was not in the Duke's service. Captain Cattivanza degli Strozzi was in the shop of Baccino della Croce. Captain Cisti, seeing Captain Cattivanza degli Strozzi, said to him: "I was bringing you those few scudi I owed you; if you want them, come and get them before they go to prison with me."
This captain was willing to put other people up to the mark, without caring to try himself; so, finding present there certain very bold young men, more willing than strong for so great an undertaking, he told them to go up to Captain Cisti and get that money of his handed over, and that if the guard resisted they should use force on them, if they had the nerve for it. These young men were only four, all four of them beardless; and the first was called Bertino Aldobrandi, the next Anguillotto of Lucca; of the others I do not remember the names. This Bertino had been brought up as a true pupil of my brother, and my brother loved him as immeasurably as anyone can imagine.
So the four bold young men went up to the sheriff's guard, who were more than fifty constables, with pikes, arquebuses and two-handed swords. In a few words hands were put to weapons, and those four young men pressed the guard so marvellously that if Captain Cattivanza had only shown himself a little, without putting his hand to a weapon, those young men would have put the guard to flight; but they stood too long, and Bertino got certain serious wounds which knocked him to the ground; at the same moment Anguillotto also got a wound in the right arm, so that, not being able to hold his sword any longer, he pulled back as well as he could; the others did the same; Bertino Aldobrandi was picked up off the ground badly wounded.
While these things were going on, we were all at table, because that morning we had dined more than an hour later than usual. Hearing this noise, one of the sons, the elder, got up from the table to go and see the fight. His name was Giovanni, and I said to him: "Please do not go, because in things like this one always sees a certain loss with nothing to gain." His father said the same to him: "Ah, my son, do not go."
This young man, without listening to anybody, ran down the stairs. When he got to the Banchi, where the great fight was, and saw Bertino picked up off the ground, he ran back; and coming back he met Cecchino my brother, who asked him what it was. Giovanni, having been signalled by some of them not to tell Cecchino, said in his stupidity how it was that Bertino Aldobrandi had been killed by the guard. My poor brother let out such a bellow that it could have been heard ten miles off; then he said to Giovanni: "Alas, could you tell me which of them killed him for me?" Giovanni said yes, and that it was one of them who had a two-handed sword, with a blue feather in his cap.
My poor brother going forward, and having recognised the killer by that mark, threw himself with that marvellous quickness and boldness of his into the middle of the whole guard, and, before anything at all could be done about it, put a thrust into his belly and ran him through to the other side, and with the hilt of his sword pushed him to the ground; then he turned on the others with such skill and daring that he alone put them all to flight. Except that, turning to strike an arquebusier, that man, out of sheer necessity, fired his arquebus and caught the brave, unlucky young man above the knee of his right leg. When he was down on the ground, the guard, half in flight, hurried to get away, so that another like him should not come up.
Hearing the uproar going on, I too got up from the table, and put my sword at my side, which everybody carried in those days; and when I got to the bridge of Sant'Angelo I saw a knot of many men; so I went forward, and being known by some of them, room was made for me, and they showed me what I would least have wanted to see, though I showed great eagerness to see it. At first I did not know him, because he was dressed in clothes different from the ones I had seen him in a little while before; so that, having known me before I knew him, he said: "Dearest brother, do not let my great injury upset you, because my trade promised me such a thing; have me carried away from here quickly, because there are only a few hours of life left."
Being told the case while he was speaking to me, with the shortness such accidents allow, I answered him: "Brother, this is the greatest grief and the greatest sorrow that could come to me in all my life; but be of good heart, because before you lose your sight you shall see your revenge taken by my hands on the man who has hurt you." Our words to each other were of this substance, but very short.
The guard was fifty paces away from us, because Maffio, their sheriff, had made part of them come back to carry off the corporal my brother had killed; so that, having walked those few paces very fast, wrapped and shut up in my cloak, I had got right beside Maffio, and I should certainly have killed him, because there were plenty of people about and I had got in among them. Already, with as much quickness as anyone can imagine, having half drawn my sword, Berlinghier Berlinghieri, a very brave young man and a great friend of mine, threw himself on me from behind, on my arms; and with him were four other young men like him, who said to Maffio: "Get away, because this man alone was going to kill you." Maffio asked, "Who is this?" And they said: "This is the brother of the man you see there, his own brother." Not wanting to hear any more, he withdrew hastily to the Torre di Nona; and they said to me: "Benvenuto, this hindrance we have put on you against your will has been done for the best; now let us go and help the man who has not long to live."
So, having turned about, we went to my brother, whom I had carried into a house. A council of doctors was called at once and they treated him, not deciding to take the leg right off, which might have saved him.
As soon as he had been treated, Duke Alessandro appeared there and made much of him; and my brother, being still in his senses, said to Duke Alessandro: "My lord, I am sorry for nothing except that your Excellency is losing a servant, than whom you might perhaps find abler men in this profession, but not men who would serve you with as much love and faith as I did." The Duke told him to try to live; as for the rest, he knew him perfectly well for a decent and brave man. Then he turned to certain of his people, telling them that nothing should be wanting to that brave young man.
When the Duke had gone, the abundance of blood, which could not be stopped, was the cause of driving him out of his mind; so that the whole of the following night he raved, except that when they wanted to give him communion he said: "You did well to confess me before; now it is not possible for me to receive this divine sacrament in this instrument that is already spoiled; only be content that I taste it with the divinity of my eyes, by which it will be received by my immortal soul, and that alone asks him for mercy and pardon." When these words were finished and the Sacrament had been taken away, he went straight back to the same madness as before, which was made up of the greatest furies and the most horrible words we could ever imagine; and it never stopped all night until day.
When the sun was out of our horizon, he turned to me and said: "Brother, I do not want to stay here any longer, because these men would make me do something great, and they would repent of having troubled me." And kicking out with both legs, which we had put into a very heavy box, he shifted it as if to get on horseback; and turning his face to me, he said three times: "Goodbye, goodbye" — and with the last word that most valiant soul went away.
At the proper hour, which was late, two hours before dark, I had him buried with the greatest honour in the church of the Florentines; and afterwards I had a very beautiful marble slab made for him, with certain trophies and banners carved on it.
I do not want to leave out that when one of his friends asked him who had given him that arquebus shot, and whether he would recognise him, he said yes, and gave him the marks; and although my brother had been on his guard against my hearing such a thing, I had heard it perfectly well; and what followed will be told in its place.
To come back to the slab: certain marvellous scholars who knew my brother gave me an epigram, telling me that it was what that admirable young man deserved. It said this: "Francisco Cellino Fiorentino, qui quod in teneris annis ad Ioannem Medicem ducem plures victorias retulit et signifer fuit, facile documentum dedit quantae fortitudinis et consilii vir futurus erat, ni crudelis fati archibuso transfossus quinto aetatis lustro jaceret, Benvenutus frater posuit. Obiit die XXVII Maii MDXXIX." Which is to say: to Francesco Cellini of Florence, who, because in his tender years he won several victories under Giovanni de' Medici his commander, and was his standard-bearer, easily gave proof of what a man of courage and counsel he would have been, had he not been shot through by the arquebus of a cruel fate and lain here in his twenty-fifth year: Benvenuto his brother set this up. He died on the twenty-seventh day of May, 1529.
He was twenty-five; and because he was called among the soldiers Cecchino del Piffero, the piper's boy, when his own name was Giovanfrancesco Cellini, I wanted to put that name he was known by under our arms. I had this name cut in the most beautiful ancient letters; and I had them all made broken, except the first and the last letter. Being asked about those broken letters by the scholars who had made me that fine epigram, why I had done it so, I told them that the letters were broken because that marvellous instrument of his body was spoiled and dead; and that those two whole letters, the first and the last, were: the first, in memory of that great gift God gives us of this soul of ours kindled by his divinity, which is never broken; the other, the last whole one, was for the glorious fame of his brave qualities. This pleased them a great deal, and since then somebody else has made use of this device.
Next I had our Cellini arms carved on the slab, which I altered from what they properly are; because at Ravenna, which is a most ancient city, our Cellini are to be seen as much honoured gentlemen, who have for arms a rampant lion, gold on a blue field, with a red lily set in the right paw, and above it a bar with three little gold lilies. That is the true arms of the Cellini. My father showed me ours, which was the paw alone, with all the rest of those things; but I should prefer that the arms of the Cellini of Ravenna were kept to.
To come back to the one I made on my brother's tomb: it was the lion's paw, and instead of the lily I made it hold an axe, with the field of the arms divided into four quarters; and I made that axe only so that I should not forget to take his revenge.
I attended with the greatest urgency to finishing that gold work for Pope Clement, which the Pope greatly wanted, and he had me called two and three times a week, wanting to see the work, and it pleased him more every time. And several times he rebuked me, almost shouting at me, for the great sadness I carried about over this brother of mine; and once among others, seeing me more cast down and haggard than I should have been, he said: "Benvenuto, well now — I did not know you were mad. Have you not known before this that there is no remedy for death? You are trying to go after him."
Leaving the Pope, I went on with the work and with the dies for the mint; and for my sweetheart I had taken up the courting of that arquebusier who had shot my brother. This man had once been a light horseman, and afterwards had put himself among the corporals of arquebusiers with the sheriff; and what made my temper rise the most was that he had boasted in this way, saying: "If it had not been for me, who killed that brave young man, at the least delay he alone would have put us all to flight, to our great loss."
Knowing that this passion of seeing him so often was taking away my sleep and my food and was leading me down a bad road, not caring that it was so low an undertaking and not much to be praised, one evening I set myself to get out of so much trouble.
This man lived in a house near a place called Torre Sanguigna, next to a house where there lodged one of the most favoured courtesans of Rome, called Signora Antea. The twenty-fourth hour had just struck, and this arquebusier was standing at his door with his sword in his hand, and had had supper. I came up to him very deftly with a great Pistoja dagger, and swinging a backhand at him, meaning to take his head off clean, he turned very fast as well, and the blow landed on the point of his left shoulder; and having broken the whole bone, he got up, dropped his sword, lost his wits from the great pain and set off running. So, following him, in four paces I caught him, and raising the dagger above his head, he ducking his head hard, the dagger caught exactly the bone of his neck and the middle of the nape, and went into it on both sides so deep that although I made a great effort to get it back I could not; because out of Antea's house four soldiers jumped with their swords drawn in their hands, so that I was forced to put my hand to my sword to defend myself against them.
Leaving the dagger, I got away from there, and for fear of being recognised I went to the house of Duke Alessandro, which was between the Piazza Navona and the Rotonda. When I got there I had word taken to the Duke, who let me know that if I had been alone I should keep quiet and not worry about anything, and that I should go and work on the Pope's piece, which he wanted so much, and work indoors for a week — especially since those soldiers had come up who had hindered me, and had that dagger in their hands, and were telling the thing as it had happened, and the great trouble they had had getting that dagger out of the neck bone and the head of the man, who they did not know who he was. Giovanni Bandini, coming up at this, said to them: "That dagger is mine, and I had lent it to Benvenuto, who wanted to take revenge for his brother." The soldiers had a great deal to say, being sorry they had hindered me, although the revenge had been done by the shovelful.
More than a week went by; the Pope did not send for me as he usually did. Afterwards, having sent for me by that Bolognese gentleman, his chamberlain, whom I have already spoken of, this man with great modesty gave me to understand that the Pope knew everything, and that his Holiness had a very great liking for me, and that I should attend to my work and keep quiet. When I got to the Pope, he looked at me with the eye of a pig, and with his looks alone gave me a frightening scolding; then, having turned his attention to the work, his face began to clear, and he praised me beyond measure, telling me I had done a great deal of work in so short a time; then, looking me in the face, he said: "Now that you are cured, Benvenuto, attend to living." And I, understanding him, said that I would do so.
I opened a very beautiful shop at once in the Banchi, opposite that Raffaello, and there I finished the work a few months afterwards.
The Pope having sent me all the jewels except the diamond, which for certain needs of his he had pawned to certain Genoese bankers, I kept all the others, and of the diamond I only had the shape.
I kept five very good workmen, and outside this work I did a great deal of business; so that the shop was loaded with a great value of work and of jewels, of gold and of silver. I kept in the house a large, beautiful shaggy dog, which Duke Alessandro had given me; and although this dog was good for hunting, because he brought me every sort of bird and other animal I had killed with the arquebus, he was also most marvellous for guarding a house.
It happened at this time — the season of life I was in promising it, being twenty-nine years old — that I had taken as my servant a young woman of a most beautiful form and grace; and I used her for drawing from, to the purpose of my art, and she also gratified my youth in the delight of the flesh. On that account my room was well away from those of my workmen, and a long way from the shop, and joined by a little closet to a small room of this young servant's; and I very often enjoyed her. And although I have had the lightest sleep that any man in the world ever had, on such occasions of the works of the flesh it sometimes becomes very heavy and deep.
So it happened that one night among others, having been spied on by a thief who, under cover of saying he was a goldsmith, had had his eye on those jewels and planned to steal them from me, he broke into my shop and found a good many little pieces of gold and silver; and while he stood there prising open some boxes to find the jewels he had seen, that dog jumped on him, and he defended himself against him badly with a sword; so that several times the dog ran through the house and into the rooms of my workmen, which were open, it being summer. When they would not hear that great barking of his, he pulled the covers off them; and still not being heard, he took first one and then another by the arm and woke them by force, and barking in that horrible way of his, showed them the way, going on in front of them. And when he saw that they would not follow him, and became a nuisance to these traitors, who threw stones and sticks at the dog — and they could do it, because it was by my orders that they kept the lamp lit all night — at last, having shut their doors tight, the dog, having lost hope of any help from these scoundrels, took the business on all by himself; and running down, and not finding the thief in the shop, he caught up with him; and fighting with him, he had already torn his cloak off him and taken it; and if it had not been that he called for help from some tailors, telling them for the love of God to help him defend himself from a mad dog, and they, believing it was true, jumped out and drove the dog off with great difficulty, it would have gone hard with him.
When day came, my men went down to the shop and saw it broken into and open, and all the boxes broken. They began to shout at the top of their voices: "Alas, alas!" At which, waking up, frightened by that noise, I came out. Coming up to me, they said: "Oh, unlucky us — we have been robbed by a man who has broken open and taken everything!"
These words had such power that they did not let me go to my chest to see whether the Pope's jewels were in it; but out of that anxiety I almost entirely lost the light of my eyes, and told them to open the chest themselves and see how many of the Pope's jewels were missing. These young men were all in their shirts; and when they had opened the chest and saw all the jewels and the gold work along with them, they said to me joyfully: "There is no harm done, since the work and the jewels are all here; although this thief has left us all in our shirts, because last night, with the great heat, we all undressed in the shop and left our clothes there."
My powers coming back at once to their place, and having thanked God, I said: "Go and all of you get dressed again, and I will pay for everything, when I have heard at more leisure how the thing happened."
What grieved me most, and what made me so bewildered and frightened, so far out of my nature, was that the world might have thought that I had made up that pretence of a thief only in order to steal the jewels myself; because Pope Clement had been told by one of his most trusted men and by others — who were Francesco del Nero, Zana de' Biliotti his accountant, the Bishop of Vaison and a good many others of that sort — "How can you trust so great a value of jewels, most Blessed Father, to a young man who is all fire, and is more sunk in weapons than in his art, and is not yet thirty?" To which the Pope answered, did any of them know that I had ever done anything to give them such a suspicion? Francesco del Nero, his treasurer, answered quickly, saying: "No, most Blessed Father, because he has never had such an opportunity." At this the Pope answered: "I hold him for an entirely decent man, and if I saw an evil in him I would not believe it." This was what gave me the greatest trouble, and it came back into my memory at once.
When I had given orders to my young men to get dressed again, I took the work along with the jewels, fitting them into their places as well as I could, and with them I went at once to the Pope, who had been told by Francesco del Nero part of that noise that had been heard in my shop, and had immediately put suspicion into the Pope. The Pope, imagining harm rather than anything else, gave me a terrible look and said in a haughty voice: "What have you come to do here? What is it?" "Here are all your jewels and the gold, and nothing is missing." Then the Pope, his face clearing, said: "So be you welcome."
I showed him the work, and while he was looking at it I told him all the incidents of the thief and of my distress, and what had given me the greatest sorrow. At which words he several times turned to look me hard in the face; and Francesco del Nero was present, on account of which he seemed to be half sorry that he had not been right. At last the Pope, bursting out laughing at all the things I had told him, said to me: "Go, and attend to being a decent man, as I knew you were."
Pressing on with that work of mine and working continually for the mint, there began to be seen about Rome certain false coins struck with my own dies. They were taken at once to the Pope; and, suspicion having been put on me, the Pope said to Jacopo Balducci, the master of the mint: "Use the greatest diligence to find the criminal, because we know that Benvenuto is a decent man." This treacherous mint master, being an enemy of mine, said: "God grant, most Blessed Father, that it turns out as you say, because we have one or two things that point elsewhere." At this the Pope turned to the governor of Rome and told him to use a little diligence in finding this criminal.
In those days the Pope sent for me; then, with a neat conversation, he came round to the coins, and very much to the point said to me: "Benvenuto, would you have the heart to make false coins?" To which I answered that I believed I could make them better than any of the men who attended to such a low business; because those who attend to such laziness are not men who know how to earn, nor are they men of great talent; and if I with my little talent earned so much that I had a surplus — for when I put dies into the mint, every morning before I dined it fell to me to earn three scudi at the least (for that had always been the custom of paying for the coining dies, and that fool of a mint master hated me because he would have liked to have them cheaper) — what I earned by the grace of God and of the world was quite enough for me; and I should not have earned so much by making false coins.
The Pope took the words in perfectly; and, whereas he had given orders that they should carefully take care that I did not leave Rome, he told them to search diligently and not to bother about me, because he would not have liked to anger me, which might have been the cause of losing me. The men he warmly commissioned were certain clerks of the Chamber, who, having made the proper searches, since it fell to them, found him at once. It was a die-stamper of the mint itself, called by name Cesare Macheroni, a Roman citizen; and along with him a moulder of the mint was taken.
On this same day, as I was going through the Piazza Navona with that beautiful poodle of mine, when I came in front of the sheriff's door my dog with the greatest violence, barking loudly, threw himself inside the door of the sheriff's house onto a young man who had been held there a while at the instance of a certain Donnino, a goldsmith of Parma, once a pupil of Caradosso, on suspicion of having robbed him. This dog of mine made such an effort to tear this young man to pieces that the constables were moved to pity — above all as the young man boldly defended his own case, and Donnino did not say enough to be convincing, all the more so as one of the corporals of the constables was a Genoese who knew the young man's father; so that, between the dog and these other circumstances, they were behaving as if they meant to let the young man go at all costs.
When I had come up, the dog, knowing no fear of sword or stick, threw himself on the young man again; and they told me that if I did not do something about my dog they would kill him for me. Having got hold of the dog as well as I could, as the young man pulled his cloak round him, certain little papers fell out of the hood; by which Donnino recognised them as his own things. I also recognised a little ring; so I said at once: "This is the thief who broke into and robbed my shop; that is why my dog knows him." And letting the dog go, he threw himself on him again; at which the thief begged my mercy, telling me he would give me back what he had of mine. Having got hold of the dog again, the man gave me back in gold and silver and little rings what he had of mine, and twenty-five scudi over and above; and then he begged my mercy. At which words I told him to beg God's mercy, because I would do him neither good nor harm.
And going back to my business, a few days later that Cesare Macheroni of the false coins was hanged in the Banchi in front of the mint door; his companion was sent to the galleys; the Genoese thief was hanged in the Campo di Fiore; and I was left with a greater name for being a decent man than I had before.
Having my work almost finished, there came that very great flood which overflowed the whole of Rome with water. I was standing watching what it was doing; the day was already spent, the twenty-second hour had struck, and the waters were rising beyond measure. And because the front of my house and shop was in the Banchi and the back rose several arms' lengths, since it came out towards Monte Giordano, so that, thinking first of the safety of my life and then of my honour, I put all those jewels on me and left the gold work with my workmen to guard; and so, barefoot, I got down out of my back windows, and as well as I could I went through those waters until I got to Monte Cavallo, where I found Messer Giovanni Gaddi, clerk of the Chamber, and Bastiano the Venetian, the painter. Going up to Messer Giovanni, I gave him all those jewels to keep for me; and he looked after me as if I had been his brother.
Then, a few days later, when the fury of the water had passed, I came back to my shop and finished the work with such good fortune, by the grace of God and my own great labours, that it was held to be the most beautiful work that had ever been seen in Rome; so that when I took it to the Pope he could not have enough of praising it, and said: "If I were a rich emperor, I would give my Benvenuto as much land as his eye could travel over; but since these days we are poor bankrupt emperors, all the same we shall give him enough bread to satisfy his small appetites."
When I had let the Pope finish that fit of words, I asked him for a mace-bearer's place that had fallen vacant. At which words the Pope said he wanted to give me something of much greater importance. I answered his Holiness that he should give me that little one meanwhile, as an earnest. Bursting out laughing, he said he was content, but that he did not want me to serve, and that I should come to an agreement with my fellow mace-bearers not to serve, by giving them some favour they had already asked the Pope for, which was to be able to collect their income with authority. That was done. This mace-bearer's place brought me in a little less than two hundred scudi a year of income.
Going on afterwards to serve the Pope, now with one small piece and now with another, he ordered me to make him a design for a very rich chalice; which I made, the design and the model. This model was of wood and wax; instead of the knop of the chalice I had made three little figures of a good size, in the round, which were Faith, Hope and Charity; then on the foot I had made three matching scenes in three roundels in low relief: in one was the Nativity of Christ, in the other the Resurrection of Christ, in the third Saint Peter crucified head downward; for so I had been ordered to make it.
While I was carrying this work forward, the Pope very often wanted to see it; so that, noticing that his Holiness had never remembered afterwards to give me anything, when a friar of the Piombo's place fell vacant I asked him for it one evening. The good Pope, no longer remembering the fit he had had at the end of that other work, said to me: "The office of the Piombo brings in more than eight hundred scudi, so that if I gave it to you, you would attend to scratching your belly, and that fine art you have in your hands would be lost, and I should have the blame for it."
I answered at once that cats of a good sort catch better when they are fat than when they are hungry: "And so that sort of decent men who are inclined to skill put it into practice much better when they have abundant means to live on; so that those princes who keep such men in abundance, your Holiness should know, are watering their skills; and the other way about, skills are born starved and mangy. And your Holiness should know that I did not ask for it meaning to get it. I was lucky enough to get that poor mace-bearer's place! I imagined as much about this. Your Holiness will do well, not having wanted to give it me, to give it to some able man who deserves it, and not to some great ignoramus who will attend to scratching his belly, as your Holiness said. Take an example from the good memory of Pope Julius, who gave such an office to Bramante, that most excellent architect." And having at once made him a bow, I went off in a fury.
Bastiano the Venetian, the painter, came forward and said: "Most Blessed Father, may your Holiness be pleased to give it to someone who works hard at skilful things; and because, as your Holiness knows, I too willingly work hard at them, I beg you to make me worthy of it." The Pope answered: "This devil Benvenuto will not listen to a reproof. I was disposed to give it to him, but it is not right to be so proud with a Pope; so I do not know what I shall do."
The Bishop of Vaison at once came forward and pleaded for Bastiano, saying: "Most Blessed Father, Benvenuto is young, and a sword suits him much better at his side than a friar's habit; may your Holiness be pleased to give it to this able man Bastiano; and to Benvenuto you can give something good another time, which will perhaps suit him better than this."
Then the Pope, turning to Messer Bartolomeo Valori, said to him: "When you meet Benvenuto, tell him from me that he himself has got the Piombo for Bastiano the painter; and that he should take notice that the first better thing that falls vacant shall be his; and that meanwhile he should attend to doing well, and finish my works."
The next evening, at two hours of the night, I met Messer Bartolomeo Valori on the corner of the mint: he had two torches in front of him and was going in a hurry, having been sent for by the Pope; and when I had bowed to him he stopped and called me, and told me with the greatest affection everything the Pope had told him to say to me. To which words I answered that I would finish my work with greater diligence and study than any of the others; but with no hope at all of ever getting anything from the Pope. Messer Bartolomeo rebuked me, telling me that one should not answer a Pope's offers like that. To whom I said that, putting my hope in such words when I knew I should not get anything anyway, I should be mad to answer otherwise; and, leaving him, I went off to attend to my business.
Messer Bartolomeo must have repeated my bold words to the Pope, and perhaps more than I said, so that the Pope let more than two months go by without calling me, and I in all that time would not go up to the palace for anything. The Pope, who was eating his heart out over that work, ordered Messer Roberto Pucci to keep an eye on what I was doing. This good big man came to see me every day, and always said some affectionate word to me, and I to him.
The Pope being about to leave for Bologna, at last, seeing that I would not go there of my own accord, he let me know through Messer Roberto that I should bring the work up, because he wanted to see how far I had got. So I brought it, showing that the important part of it was all done, and I begged him to let me have five hundred scudi, partly on account and partly because I was a good deal short of the gold to finish the work with. The Pope said to me: "Attend, attend to finishing it." I answered as I left that I would finish it if he let me have money. And so I went off.
The Pope, having gone off to Bologna, left Cardinal Salviati as legate of Rome, and left him orders to press me about this work, and said to him: "Benvenuto is a person who thinks little of his own skill, and less of Us; so see that you press him, so that I find it finished."
This beast of a cardinal sent for me at the end of a week, telling me to bring the work up; and I went to him without the work. When I got there, this Cardinal said to me at once: "Where is this onion stew of yours? Have you finished it?" To which I answered: "Most reverend monsignor, I have not finished my onion stew, and I shall not finish it unless you give me some onions to finish it with."
At these words the Cardinal, who had more the face of an ass than of a man, became half as ugly again; and coming at me at once with half a sword, he said: "I shall put you in a galley, and then it will be a favour to you to finish the work." I too became a beast with this beast, and said to him: "Monsignor, when I commit sins that deserve the galleys, then you shall put me there; but for these sins I am not afraid of your galleys; and I tell you more, that on account of your lordship I do not ever mean to finish it; and do not ever send for me again, because I shall never come in front of you again, unless you have me brought by the constables."
The good Cardinal tried several times, affectionately, to let me know that I ought to work and ought to bring it to show him; so that to such messengers I said: "Tell monsignor to send me some onions, if he wants me to finish the onion stew." And I never answered them any other words; so that he gave up that hopeless charge.
The Pope came back from Bologna and asked for me at once, because that Cardinal had already written him the worst he could about my affairs. The Pope being in the greatest fury anyone can imagine, he let me know that I should come with the work. So I did.
During the time the Pope was at Bologna, a rheum had come on me with so much trouble in my eyes that I could hardly live for the pain; so that this was the first reason why I did not carry the work forward. And the trouble was so great that I certainly thought I should be left blind; so that I had made my reckoning of what would be enough to live on as a blind man.
While I was going to the Pope, I was thinking of the way I ought to take to make my excuse for not having been able to carry the work forward. I thought that while the Pope was looking at it and considering it I could tell him how things were; which did not come about, because when I got to him he said at once, in coarse words: "Give me that work here; is it finished?" I uncovered it; at once, in a greater fury, he said: "In God's truth I tell you, who make a profession of taking account of nobody, that if it were not for the honour of the world I would have you thrown out of those windows together with that work."
At which, seeing the Pope turned into such a very bad beast, I made haste to get out of his sight. While he was going on with his bullying, having put the work under my cloak, I muttered: "The whole world could not make a blind man work at such things." Raising his voice louder, the Pope said: "Come here; what are you saying?" I stood in two minds about setting off running down those stairs; then I made up my mind, and threw myself on my knees, shouting loudly, because he did not stop shouting, and said: "And if I have gone blind through an illness, am I obliged to work?" At this he said: "You saw well enough to come here, and I do not believe any of these things you say are true." To which I said, hearing him lower his voice somewhat: "Let your Holiness ask his own doctor, and he will find the truth." He said: "We shall hear at more leisure whether it is as you say."
Then, seeing that I was being given a hearing, I said: "I do not believe that this great illness of mine was caused by anyone but Cardinal Salviati, because he sent for me as soon as your Holiness had gone; and when I came to him he called my work an onion stew, and told me he would have me finish it in a galley; and there was so much power in those indecent words that out of the extreme passion I felt my face take fire at once, and there came into my eyes so immeasurable a heat that I could not find my way home; and a few days later two cataracts fell over my eyes, so that I could not see any light at all, and since your Holiness left I have never been able to work at anything."
Getting up off my knees, I went off with God; and it was reported to me that the Pope said: "If offices are given, discretion cannot be given with them. I did not tell the Cardinal to lay on so hard: if it is true that he has trouble with his eyes, which I shall hear from my doctor, one ought to have some compassion for him."
There was present a great gentleman, a great friend of the Pope's and a very able man. The Pope having asked him what person I was, he said: "Most Blessed Father, I ask you, because it has seemed to me that you have come in one and the same moment into the greatest anger I ever saw and the greatest compassion; so that for this reason I ask your Holiness who he is; because if he is a person who deserves to be helped, I would teach him a secret to cure him of that illness." At these words the Pope said: "That is the greatest man who was ever born in his profession; and one day when we are together I will show you some of his marvellous works, and him with them; and I shall be glad to see whether he can be done any good."
Three days later the Pope sent for me one day after dinner, and this gentleman was there. As soon as I had arrived, the Pope had that clasp of mine for the cope brought. In the meantime I had taken out that chalice of mine; on account of which that gentleman said he had never seen so marvellous a work. When the clasp came up, his wonder grew much greater; and looking me in the face he said: "He is young indeed to know so much, and very fit to gain more." Then he asked me my name. To which I said: "Benvenuto is my name." He answered: "I shall be a Benvenuto — a welcome one — to you this time. Take cornflowers with the stalk, the flower and the roots all together, then have them distilled over a gentle fire, and with that water bathe your eyes several times a day, and you will certainly be cured of that illness; but have yourself purged first, and then go on with the water."
The Pope used some affectionate words to me: and so I went off half content.
It was true that I had the illness, but I believe I had earned it by means of that beautiful young servant I kept at the time I was robbed. The French disease waited more than four whole months before showing itself to me, and then it covered me all over, all at once: it was not in the way of the other kind you see, but it seemed as if I were covered with certain little blisters, as big as farthings, and red. The doctors would never baptise it a French disease for me; and I kept telling them the causes I believed it came from. I went on treating myself in their way, and nothing did me any good; until at last, having made up my mind to take the wood against the wishes of those first doctors of Rome, I took this wood with all the discipline and abstinence anyone can imagine, and in a few days I felt the greatest improvement; so that at the end of fifty days I was cured and as sound as a fish.
Afterwards, to give myself some refreshment after the great labour I had gone through, winter coming on, I took to shooting for my pleasure, which made me go out in the wet and the wind and stand about in the marshes; so that in a few days there came back on me a trouble a hundred times greater than the one I had had before. Having put myself back in the doctors' hands, and being continually treated, I always got worse. When the fever jumped on me, I decided to take the wood again: the doctors would not have it, telling me that if I went into it with a fever I should die in a week. I decided to go against their wishes; and keeping the same regime I had kept the other time, when I had drunk four days of this holy water of the wood the fever went away entirely.
I began to take a very great improvement; and while I was taking the wood I always carried forward the models for that work; and in that abstinence I made the most beautiful things and the rarest inventions I ever made in my life. At the end of fifty days I was thoroughly cured, and afterwards I attended with the greatest diligence to making my health secure. When I had come out of that great fasting, I found myself as clean of my illnesses as if I had been born again. Although I took pleasure in making that health of mine that I so wanted secure, I did not stop working either; so that in that work and in the mint I certainly gave each of them its proper share.
It happened that that Cardinal Salviati, who had that great hatred of me I have mentioned, was made legate of Parma. In Parma a certain Milanese goldsmith was taken who was a forger of coins, whose name was Tobbia. Having been sentenced to the gallows and the fire, the Legate was spoken to about it, and he was put in front of him as a very able man. The Cardinal had the execution of the sentence held over, and wrote to Pope Clement, telling him that there had come into his hands one of the greatest men in the world in the profession of the goldsmith's art, and that he had already been condemned to the gallows and the fire for being a forger of coins; but that this man was simple and good, because he said he had asked the opinion of a confessor of his, who, he said, had given him leave to make them. And more than that he said: "If you have this great man come to Rome, your Holiness will be the cause of taking down that great haughtiness of your Benvenuto's; and I am quite certain that this Tobbia's works will please you far more than Benvenuto's."
So that the Pope had him come to Rome at once. And when he had come, he called us both and had each of us make a design for a unicorn's horn, the most beautiful that was ever seen: it had been sold for seventeen thousand ducats of the Chamber. The Pope wanting to give it to King Francis, he wanted it richly mounted in gold first, and ordered both of us to make the designs.
When we had made them, each of us took his to the Pope. Tobbia's design was in the shape of a candlestick, where, like a candle, that beautiful horn was fitted in; and for the foot of this candlestick he made four little unicorn heads, with the simplest invention: so that when I saw such a thing I could not help sniggering a little in a neat way. The Pope noticed it and said at once: "Show your design here." Mine was a single unicorn's head, matching the horn. I had made the finest sort of head that could be seen, and the reason was that I had taken part of the make of a horse's head and part of a stag's, enriched with the finest sort of mane and other elegances; so that as soon as mine was seen everybody gave it the palm.
But because there were present at this dispute certain Milanese of very great authority, they said: "Most Blessed Father, your Holiness is sending this great present into France; you should know that the French are coarse men and will not recognise the excellence of this work of Benvenuto's; but this ciborium sort of thing will please them well enough, and it will also be made sooner; and Benvenuto will attend to finishing your chalice, and you will get two works done at the same time; and this poor man whom you have had come here will get employed as well."
The Pope, wanting his chalice, very willingly caught at the advice of those Milanese; so the next day he assigned the work on that unicorn's horn to Tobbia, and let me know by his wardrobe keeper that I should finish his chalice for him. To which words I answered that I wanted nothing else in the world but to finish that beautiful work of mine; but that if it had been of any other material than gold, I could very easily have finished it myself; but since it was of gold as it was, his Holiness would have to give me some, if he wanted me to be able to finish it. At these words this vulgar courtier said: "Good heavens, do not ask the Pope for gold, because you will put him in such a rage that it will go badly, badly with you." To which I said: "Oh, sir, will your lordship teach me a little how one can make bread without flour? Just so, without gold that work will never be finished." This wardrobe keeper, thinking somewhat that I had made fun of him, told me he would report everything I had said to the Pope; and so he did.
The Pope, going into a bestial fury, said he wanted to see whether I was such a madman as not to finish it. So more than two months went by; and although I had said I did not want to lift a finger to it, I had not done that, but on the contrary had worked at it continually with the greatest love. Seeing that I did not bring it, he began to show me a great deal of disfavour, saying he would punish me at all costs.
There was present at these words a Milanese jeweller of his called Pompeo, who was a close relation of a certain Messer Traiano, the most favoured servant Pope Clement had. These two agreed together and said to the Pope: "If your Holiness were to take the mint away from him, perhaps you would give him the wish to finish the chalice." Then the Pope said: "On the contrary, there would be two evils: one, that I should be badly served in the mint, which matters so much to me; and the other, that I should certainly never get the chalice."
These two Milanese, seeing the Pope ill disposed towards me, in the end had so much power that he did take the mint from me and gave it to a certain young Perugian called Fagiuolo for a nickname. Pompeo came to tell me, on the Pope's behalf, that his Holiness had taken the mint from me, and that if I did not finish the chalice he would take other things from me. To this I answered: "Tell his Holiness that he has taken the mint from himself and not from me, and that the same would happen with those other things; and that when his Holiness wants to give it back to me, I shall not want it back in any way."
This graceless and unlucky man thought a thousand years had gone by before he could get to the Pope to repeat all these things to him, and he put something in out of his own mouth. A week later the Pope sent by this same man to tell me that he no longer wanted me to finish that chalice for him, and that he wanted it back exactly in the way and at the point to which I had brought it. To this Pompeo I answered: "This is not like the mint, that he can take from me; but the five hundred scudi I had are his Holiness's, and I shall give them back at once; and the work is mine, and I shall do with it what I please." Pompeo ran off to report that, with some other biting words which I had said to him, and with good reason.
Three days later, on a Thursday, two of his Holiness's most favoured chamberlains came to me — one of them is still alive today and is a bishop, and was called Messer Pier Giovanni, and was his Holiness's wardrobe keeper; the other was of even greater family than he, but I do not remember his name. When they came to me they said: "The Pope sends us, Benvenuto: since you would not understand him by the easier road, he says either that you give us his work, or that we take you to prison."
Then I looked them in the face very cheerfully and said: "Gentlemen, if I gave the work to his Holiness, I should be giving him my work and not his; and I do not want to give him my work either, because, having brought it a long way forward with my great labour, I do not want it to go into the hands of some ignorant beast who will spoil it for me with little trouble." There was present, while I said this, that goldsmith called Tobbia I have mentioned, who recklessly asked me for the models of the work as well: the words I said to such a wretch, worthy of him, need not be repeated here.
And because those gentlemen chamberlains were pressing me to make up my mind what I wanted to do, I told them I had made it up. Having taken my cloak, and before I went out of my shop, I turned to an image of Christ with great reverence and with my cap in my hand, and said: "O our kind and immortal, just and holy Lord, everything you do is according to your justice, which is without equal. You know that I am just arriving at the age of thirty in my life, and that never until now has prison been promised me for anything: since now you are content that I should go to prison, I thank you for it with all my heart."
Then, turning to the two chamberlains, I said this, with a certain rather ruffled look of mine: "A man like me did not deserve constables of less worth than you gentlemen; so put me between you and take me as a prisoner where you like." Those two most well-bred men burst out laughing, put me between them, and, talking pleasantly the whole way, took me to the Governor of Rome, who was called Il Magalotto.
When I got to him, the fiscal Procurator was there with him, and they were waiting for me; and those gentlemen chamberlains, still laughing, said to the Governor: "We hand you over this prisoner, and take good care of him. We have been very glad to take the office from your officers, because Benvenuto has told us that since this is his first arrest, he did not deserve constables of less worth than we are." As soon as they had gone they came to the Pope; and having told him precisely everything, at first he made as if to fly into a fury, and afterwards forced himself to laugh, because there were present some lords and cardinals who were friends of mine and who greatly favoured me.
Meanwhile the Governor and the Fiscal partly bullied me, partly exhorted me and partly advised me, telling me that reason required that a man who has a work made by another can take it back at his pleasure, and in any way he likes. To which things I said that this was not what justice promised, and that a pope could not do it; because he was not a pope of the sort those little tyrant lordlings are, who do the worst they can to their people, keeping neither law nor justice: therefore a Vicar of Christ cannot do any of these things.
Then the Governor, with certain constable-like ways and words, said: "Benvenuto, Benvenuto, you are asking me to do to you what you deserve." "You will do me honour and courtesy if you do to me what I deserve." Again he said: "Send for the work at once, and see that you do not wait for a second word." To this I said: "Gentlemen, do me the favour of letting me say four more words about my case."
The Fiscal, who was a much more discreet constable than the Governor, turned to the Governor and said: "Monsignor, let us do him the favour of a hundred words; as long as he gives up the work, that is quite enough for us."
I said: "If there were any sort of man who was having a palace or a house built, he could justly say to the master who was building it, 'I do not want you to work on my house or my palace any more'; and paying him justly for his labour, he can send him away. Again, if there were a lord who was having a jewel of a thousand scudi set, and saw that the jeweller was not serving him according to his wish, he can say, 'Give me my jewel, because I do not want your work.' But in this present business there is none of these heads; because it is neither a house nor a jewel; nothing else can be said to me except that I should give back the five hundred scudi I have had. So, monsignori, do everything you can, because you will get nothing else from me but the five hundred scudi. And so you may tell the Pope. Your threats do not frighten me in the world at all; because I am a decent man, and I am not afraid of my sins."
The Governor and the Fiscal stood up and told me they were going to the Pope, and that they would come back with orders, and that it would go badly with me. So I was left under guard. I walked about a hall, and they were nearly three hours coming back from the Pope. In the meantime all the nobility of our nation of merchants came to visit me, begging me urgently not to stand and argue with a Pope, because it might be my ruin. To whom I answered that I had quite made up my mind about what I wanted to do.
As soon as the Governor and the Fiscal had come back from the Palace, having had me called, he spoke in this strain: "Benvenuto, certainly I am sorry to have come back from the Pope with such orders as I have; so either you find the work at once, or you look to your own affairs." Then I answered that, since I had never believed until that hour that a holy Vicar of Christ could do an injustice, "I want to see it before I believe it; so do what you can."
Again the Governor spoke, saying: "I have two more words to say to you from the Pope, and then I shall carry out the orders given me. The Pope says that you should bring the work here to me, and that I should see it put in a box and sealed; then I am to take it to the Pope, who promises on his faith not to move it from its seal, but to keep it shut, and will give it straight back to you; but he wants it done this way so that he too may have his share of the honour."
At these words I answered, laughing, that I would very willingly give him my work in the way he said, because I wanted to be able to say what a Pope's faith is made of. And so, having sent for my work and sealed it up in the way he said, I gave it him.
The Governor having gone back to the Pope with the work in that way, the Pope took the box — according to what the Governor told me — and turned it over several times; then he asked the Governor whether he had seen it, and he said he had seen it and that it had been sealed like that in his presence; then he added that it had seemed to him a very marvellous thing. At which the Pope said: "You will tell Benvenuto that Popes have authority to loose and to bind much greater things than this." And while he was saying these words, with some little indignation he opened the box, taking off the cords and the seal it had been tied with; then he looked at it a long while, and as far as I gathered he showed it to that goldsmith Tobbia, who praised it a great deal. Then the Pope asked him whether he had the nerve to make a work in that way; the Pope told him to follow exactly that arrangement; then he turned to the Governor and said to him: "See whether Benvenuto will give it to us; because if he gives it us like this he shall be paid everything it is valued at by able men; or else, if he really wants to finish it himself, let him name a term; and if you see that he wants to do it, let him be given the reasonable facilities he asks for."
Then the Governor said: "Most Blessed Father, knowing the terrible quality of that young man, give me authority to give him a good dressing-down in my own way." At this the Pope said he should do what he liked with words, although he was sure he would make it worse; then, when he saw he could do nothing else, he should tell me to take his five hundred scudi to that Pompeo, his jeweller mentioned above.
The Governor came back and had me called into his room, and with a constable's look he said: "Popes have authority to loose and to bind the whole world, and it is immediately confirmed in Heaven as well done: there is your work, loosed and seen by his Holiness." Then I raised my voice at once and said: "I thank God, for now I know what a Pope's faith is made of." Then the Governor said and did a great deal of extravagant bullying; and afterwards, seeing that it came to nothing at all, quite despairing of the business, he took up a somewhat sweeter manner and said to me: "Benvenuto, I am very sorry that you will not understand your own good; so go, and take the five hundred scudi when you like to the Pompeo I mentioned."
Having taken my work, I went off and at once took the five hundred scudi to Pompeo. And because the Pope, perhaps thinking that through inconvenience or some other occasion I should not bring the money so soon, wanting to tie up the thread of my service again — when he saw that Pompeo came before him smiling with the money in his hand, the Pope spoke rudely to him and was very sorry that the thing had turned out that way; then he said to him: "Go and find Benvenuto in his shop, and make as much of him as your ignorant beastliness can; and tell him that if he will finish that work for me to make a reliquary of it, to carry the Corpus Domini in when I go in procession with it, I shall give him the facilities he wants to finish it; as long as he works."
Pompeo came to me, called me out of the shop, and made me the sickliest donkey's caresses, telling me everything the Pope had ordered him. To which I answered at once that the greatest treasure I could wish for in the world was to have got back the favour of so great a Pope, which had been lost by me not through my own fault, but through the fault of my immeasurable illness, and through the wickedness of those envious men who take pleasure in doing harm; "and since the Pope has plenty of servants, let him not send you round me any more, for your own health's sake; so mind your own business. I shall never fail, night or day, to think of and do everything I can in the Pope's service; and remember well that when you have told this about me to the Pope, you must in no way mix yourself up in any of my affairs, because I shall make you know your errors by the penance they deserve."
This man reported everything to the Pope in a much more beastly way than I had put it to him. So the business stood for a while, and I attended to my shop and my own affairs.
That goldsmith Tobbia mentioned above attended to finishing that setting and ornament for the unicorn's horn; and besides that the Pope had told him to begin the chalice in the way he had seen mine. And when he began to have Tobbia show him what he was doing, finding himself badly satisfied, he was very sorry to have broken with me, and blamed that man's works and the men who had put him forward; and several times Baccino della Croce came to speak to me on the Pope's behalf, that I should make that reliquary. To whom I said that I begged his Holiness to let me rest after the great illness I had had, of which I was not yet quite out of danger; but that I would show his Holiness that in the hours in which I could work, I would spend them all in his service.
I had set myself to take his portrait, and I was making him a medal in secret; and those steel dies to strike the medal I made at home; and in my shop I kept a partner who had been my apprentice, called Felice.
At this time, as young men do, I had fallen in love with a little Sicilian girl who was very beautiful; and because she too showed that she was very fond of me, her mother, noticing it, and suspecting what might come of it — for I had arranged to run away with the girl for a year to Florence, in the greatest secrecy from her mother — noticing it, she left Rome secretly one night and went off towards Naples; and she gave out that she had gone from Civitavecchia, and she went from Ostia. I went after her to Civitavecchia and did unreckonable mad things to find her. It would be too long to tell such things exactly: it is enough that I was on the point either of going mad or of dying. At the end of two months she wrote to me that she was in Sicily and very unhappy. In this time I had attended to all the pleasures anyone can imagine, and had taken up another love, only to put out the first one.
It happened to me, through certain odd chances, that I made friends with a certain Sicilian priest, who was of the loftiest wit and had a very good knowledge of Latin and Greek letters. Coming once to the point in a conversation where we happened to speak of the art of necromancy, I said: "I have had the greatest wish all my life to see or hear something of this art." At which words the priest added: "A man who sets himself to such an undertaking must have a strong and steady mind." I answered that I should have more than enough strength and steadiness of mind, if only I could find a way to do such a thing. Then the priest answered: "If you have the nerve for that, I shall satisfy you fully as to all the rest." And so we agreed to make a beginning of the business.
One evening among others the priest got himself in order, and told me to find a companion or two. I called Vincenzio Romoli, a very great friend of mine, and he brought with him a man of Pistoia who also went in for necromancy. We went off to the Colosseum, and there the priest, having dressed himself in the manner of a necromancer, set about drawing circles on the ground with the finest ceremonies anyone in the world could imagine; and he had made us bring precious perfumes and fire, and foul perfumes too. When he was ready, he made the door to the circle; and taking us by the hand, he put us into the circle one by one; then he shared out the duties: he gave the pentacle into the hand of that other companion of his, the necromancer, and to the others he gave the care of the fire for the perfumes; then he set his hand to the conjurations.
This thing lasted more than an hour and a half; several legions appeared, so that the Colosseum was quite full. I, who was attending to the precious perfumes, when the priest knew there was so great a quantity of them, turned to me and said: "Benvenuto, ask them for something." I said they should bring it about that I might be with my Sicilian Angelica. That night we had no answer at all; but I had very great satisfaction from what I had wanted of such a thing.
The necromancer said we must go there another time, and that I should be satisfied in everything I asked for, but that he wanted me to bring a virgin boy with me. I took an errand boy of mine of about twelve, and called that Vincenzio Romoli again with me; and, a certain Agnolino Gaddi being a familiar companion of ours, we brought him too to this business.
Having got to the appointed place again, the necromancer having made the same preparations with the same arrangement and even more marvellous, he put us into the circle, which he had made again with more admirable art and more admirable ceremonies; then he gave my Vincenzio the care of the perfumes and the fire, and Agnolino Gaddi took it with him; then he put the pentacle into my hand, which he told me to turn according to the places he signalled to me, and under the pentacle I held that little errand boy of mine.
The necromancer began to make those most terrible invocations, calling by name a great quantity of those demons who are heads of the legions, and commanding them by the power and might of the uncreated, living and eternal God, in Hebrew words, and a good many Greek and Latin ones as well; so that in a short space of time the whole Colosseum was filled a hundred times more than they had been that first time. Vincenzio Romoli attended to making fire together with Agnolino, and a great quantity of precious perfumes.
I, by the necromancer's advice, again asked to be able to be with Angelica. The necromancer turned to me and said: "Do you hear what they have said? That within a month you will be where she is." And again he added that he begged me to hold him firm, because the legions were a thousand times more than he had asked for, and were the most dangerous; and that now they had settled what I had asked for, it was necessary to make much of them and dismiss them patiently.
On the other side the boy, who was under the pentacle, said in the greatest terror that there were a million of the fiercest men in that place, all threatening us; and besides that he said that four measureless giants had appeared, who were armed and were making as if to come in among us. At this the necromancer, who was trembling with fear, attended as best he could, in a sweet and gentle way, to dismissing them. Vincenzio Romoli, who was shaking like a reed, attended to the perfumes. I, who was as frightened as they were, made an effort to show it less, and gave them all the most marvellous heart; but certainly I had given myself up for dead, from the fear I saw in the necromancer.
The boy had stuck his head between his knees, saying: "I want to die this way, because we are dead men." Again I said to the boy: "These creatures are all beneath us, and what you see is smoke and shadow; so lift up your eyes." When he had lifted his eyes, he said again: "The whole Colosseum is burning, and the fire is coming at us"; and putting his hands over his face, he said again that he was dead, and that he would not look any more.
The necromancer commended himself to me, begging me to hold him firm, and to have perfumes of asafoetida made; so, turning to Vincenzio Romoli, I told him to perfume with asafoetida quickly. While I was saying this, looking at Agnolino Gaddi, who was so terrified that the light of his eyes had gone out of focus, and he was more than half dead, I said to him: "Agnolo, in places like this one must not be afraid, but must set about doing something and helping oneself; so put some of that asafoetida on quickly." As Agnolo was about to move, he let off a blast of wind with such an abundance of shit that it had more power than the asafoetida. The boy, at that great stink and that noise, lifted his face a little, and hearing me laugh a bit, was reassured a little in his fear and said that they were beginning to go off in a great hurry.
So we stayed on until the bells began to ring for matins. Again the boy told us that few of them were left, and far off. When the necromancer had done all the rest of his ceremonies and had undressed and packed up a great bundle of books he had brought, we all came out of the circle together with him, sticking one under another; above all the boy, who had got into the middle and had taken hold of the necromancer by his robe and of me by my cloak. And all the time, while we were going home towards the Banchi, he kept telling us that two of the ones he had seen in the Colosseum were skipping along in front of us, now running along the roofs and now on the ground.
The necromancer said that of all the times he had gone into circles, so great a thing had never happened to him; and he tried to persuade me to be willing to be with him in consecrating a book, from which we should draw endless riches, because we should ask the demons to teach us where the treasures are that the earth is full of, and in that way we should become extremely rich; and that these things about love were vanities and follies which came to nothing.
I told him that if I knew Latin letters I would very willingly do such a thing. Still he tried to persuade me, telling me that Latin letters would be no use to me at all, and that if he had wanted he could have found plenty of men with good Latin letters; but that he had never found anyone with as steady a mind as mine, and that I ought to follow his advice. With this talk we got home, and each of us dreamed of devils all that night.
Seeing each other afterwards day by day, the necromancer pressed me to attend to that undertaking; so I asked him how much time it would take to do such a thing, and where we should have to go. To this he answered that in less than a month we should come out of the business, and that the most suitable place was in the mountains of Norcia; although a master of his had consecrated one near a place called the Abbey of Farfa; but that he had had some difficulties there which would not arise in the mountains of Norcia; and that those Norcian peasants are men to be trusted, and have some practice in this thing, so that at need they can give marvellous help.
This priest necromancer had certainly persuaded me so much that I had willingly disposed myself to do such a thing; but I said I wanted first to finish those medals I was making for the Pope, and I had spoken about them to him and to nobody else, begging him to keep them secret for me.
All the same, I kept asking him whether he believed that by that time I should be with my Sicilian Angelica; and seeing the time coming very close, it seemed a very great thing to me that I heard nothing of her. The necromancer told me that I should certainly find myself where she was, because they never fail when they promise in the way they had then; but that I should keep my eyes open and guard against some scandal that might come to me because of that case; and that I should force myself to put up with something against my nature, because he saw a very great danger in it; and that it would be good for me if I went with him to consecrate the book, because by that road that great danger of mine would pass over, and I should be the cause of making him and me extremely happy.
I, who was beginning to have more appetite for it than he had, told him that a certain Master Giovanni da Castel Bolognese had come to Rome, a very able man at making medals of the sort I made, in steel, and that I wanted nothing else in the world but to compete with this able man and come out on the world with such a piece of work, by which I hoped with that skill, and not with the sword, to kill those several enemies of mine.
This man still went on at me, saying: "For pity's sake, my Benvenuto, come with me and escape a great danger which I see in you." Having disposed myself in every way to want to finish my medal first, we were already near the end of the month; and by then, being so taken up with the medal, I no longer remembered either Angelica or anything else of that sort, but was entirely intent on my work.
One day among others, near the hour of vespers, an occasion came for me to go out of my usual hours from my house to my shop; because I had my shop in the Banchi and kept a little house behind the Banchi, and I seldom went to the shop, since I left all the business to that partner of mine called Felice.
Having been in the shop a little while, I remembered that I had to go and speak to Alessandro del Bene. Getting up at once and arriving in the Banchi, I ran into a certain great friend of mine, whose name was Ser Benedetto. He was a notary and had been born in Florence, the son of a blind man from Siena who used to recite prayers. This Ser Benedetto had been at Naples many and many years; then he had come back to Rome and did business for certain Sienese merchants, the Chigi.
And because that partner of mine had asked him again and again for certain money he was owed for some little rings he had let him have on trust, this day, meeting him in the Banchi, he asked him for his money in a somewhat rough way, which was his habit; and Ser Benedetto was with his masters, so that, seeing such a thing done in such a way, they shouted at Ser Benedetto a great deal, telling him they wanted to use somebody else, so as not to have to hear any more of such rubbish. This Ser Benedetto defended himself with them as well as he could, and said that he had paid that goldsmith, and that he was not able to bridle the fury of madmen. The Sienese took that remark badly and dismissed him at once.
Having got away from them, he went off in a hurry to my shop, perhaps to do Felice some harm. It happened that we met exactly in the middle of the Banchi; and I, who knew nothing about it, greeted him most pleasantly in my usual way, and he answered me with a great many rude words. At which everything the necromancer had told me came back to me; so, holding the rein as hard as I could on what his words were forcing me to do, I said: "Ser Benedetto, brother, do not be angry with me, because I have done you no harm, and I know nothing about these affairs of yours; and whatever you have to do with Felice, go and settle it with him, if you please; he knows perfectly well what he has to answer you. So, as I know nothing about it, you do me wrong to bite at me like this, all the more knowing that I am not a man who puts up with insults."
At this he said that I knew all about it, and that he was a man fit to make me carry a heavier load than that, and that Felice and I were two great scoundrels. By now a good many people had gathered to see the argument. Driven on by his ugly words, I quickly stooped to the ground and took a lump of mud, because it had been raining, and with it I quickly swung my hand up to give it him in the face. He ducked his head, so that I got him with it in the middle of his head. In this mud there was a stone of hard rock with many sharp corners, and catching him with one of those corners in the middle of the head, he fell down senseless like a dead man; and, seeing such an abundance of blood, all the bystanders judged that he was dead.
While he was still on the ground, and some people were setting about carrying him away, that Pompeo the jeweller I mentioned above came by. The Pope had sent for him about some business of jewels. Seeing that man in that bad state, he asked who had done it to him. He was told: "Benvenuto has done it, because this beast asked for it."
Pompeo, having got quickly to the Pope, said to him: "Most Blessed Father, Benvenuto has this very minute killed Tobbia; I saw it with my own eyes." At this the Pope in a fury ordered the Governor, who was there present, to take me and hang me at once in the place where the homicide had been done, and to use every diligence to get me, and not to come before him until he had hanged me.
When I had seen that unlucky man on the ground, I thought at once about my own affairs, considering the power of my enemies and what such a thing might bring forth. Leaving there, I withdrew to the house of Messer Giovanni Gaddi, clerk of the Chamber, wanting to get myself ready as quickly as I could to go off with God. At which Messer Giovanni advised me not to be in such a fury to leave, since it might be that the harm was not as great as it seemed to me; and having sent for Messer Annibal Caro, who lived with him, he told him to go and find out about the case.
While these orders were being given, there appeared a Roman gentleman who was with the Cardinal de' Medici and had been sent by him. This gentleman, having called Messer Giovanni and me aside, told us that the Cardinal had told him the words he had heard the Pope say, and that he had no remedy at all to be able to help me, and that I should do everything in my power to escape this first fury, and that I should not trust myself in any house in Rome.
As soon as the gentleman had gone, Messer Giovanni, looking me in the face, made as if to weep, and said: "Alas, wretched me, that I have no remedy at all to be able to help you!" Then I said: "By the help of God, I shall help myself well enough; I only ask you to lend me one of your horses." A black Turkish horse was already got ready, the most beautiful and the best in Rome. I mounted him with a wheel-lock arquebus in front of the saddle bow, ready to defend myself with it.
When I got to the Ponte Sisto, I found there the whole of the sheriff's guard, on horseback and on foot; so, making a virtue of necessity, boldly urging my horse on quietly, by God's mercy their eyes were darkened, and I passed free; and with as much haste as I could I went off to Palombara, a place belonging to Signor Giovanbattista Savelli, and from there I sent the horse back to Messer Giovanni, and would not even let him know where I was.
Signor Giambattista, when he had made much of me for two days, advised me that I ought to get away from there and go off towards Naples, until this fury had passed; and having given me company, he set me on the road to Naples, on which I found a sculptor friend of mine who was going to San Germano to finish Piero de' Medici's tomb at Monte Cassino. His name was Il Solosmeo. He gave me news of how that very evening Pope Clement had sent a chamberlain of his to find out how Tobbia was; and, having found him at work, and that nothing at all had happened to him, and that he did not even know anything about it, when this was reported to the Pope, he turned to Pompeo and said to him: "You are a wretch; but I tell you plainly, you have stirred up a snake that will bite you and serve you right." Then he turned to Cardinal de' Medici and ordered him to take some care of me, because he would not have wanted to lose me for anything.
So Solosmeo and I went off singing towards Monte Cassino, to go on to Naples together.
When Solosmeo had gone over his business at Monte Cassino, we went off together towards Naples. When we had got to within half a mile of Naples, an innkeeper came to meet us who invited us to his inn, and told us that he had been in Florence many years with Carlo Ginori; and that if we went to his inn he would make a great deal of us, since we were Florentines. We told this innkeeper several times that we did not want to go with him. This man kept going on ahead of us and then dropping behind, saying the same things over and over, that he would like us at his inn.
So, becoming a nuisance to me, I asked him whether he could tell me of a certain Sicilian woman called Beatrice, who had a beautiful young daughter called Angelica, and they were courtesans. This innkeeper, thinking I was making fun of him, said: "God send bad luck to courtesans and to those who like them"; and, giving his horse his heel, he made as if to go off from us for good.
Thinking I had got that beast of an innkeeper off my back in a good way — although I got no capital out of it, because that great love I bore Angelica had come back to me, and I was talking about it to Solosmeo, not without some lover's sighs — we see the innkeeper come back to us in a great hurry; and when he got to us he said: "It is either two or three days since a woman and a young girl came to lodge next to my inn, who have those names; I do not know whether they are Sicilians or from some other country." Then I said: "That name Angelica has such power over me that I want to come to your inn at all costs."
We went off together with the innkeeper into the city of Naples, and dismounted at his inn; and it seemed to me a thousand years before I could get my things in order, which I did very quickly; and going into the house next to the inn, I found there my Angelica, who made the most immeasurable fuss of me that anyone in the world can imagine. So I stayed with her from that hour, the twenty-second, until the following morning, with such pleasure as I never had the like of. And while I was rejoicing in this pleasure, I remembered that that very day the month expired which had been promised me in the circle of necromancy by the demons. So let every man who meddles with them consider the unreckonable dangers I have been through.
I happened to have a diamond in my purse, which I showed among the goldsmiths; and although I was still young, I was so well known in Naples as a man worth something that a great deal was made of me. Among the others was a certain most gallant jeweller called Messer Domenico Fontana. This decent man left his shop for the three days I was in Naples, and never left my side, showing me a great many beautiful antiquities that were in Naples and outside Naples; and more than that, he took me to pay my respects to the Viceroy of Naples, who had let him know that he had a fancy to see me.
When I got to his Excellency, he gave me a very honourable welcome; and while we were doing this, that diamond caught his Excellency's eye; and having had it shown to him, he said that if I had to part with it, I should not exchange it with anyone else, if I pleased. To which I, having taken the diamond back, handed it to his Excellency again, and told him that the diamond and I were both at his service. Then he said that he liked the diamond very much, but that it would please him far more if I stayed with him; that he would make me such terms that I should have reason to praise him. We used a good many courteous words to each other; but coming afterwards to the merits of the diamond, and his Excellency ordering me to name a price for it, whatever seemed right to me, in a single word, I told him that two hundred scudi was exactly its price.
At this his Excellency said that it seemed to him I was not at all far from what was right; but that, being set by my hand, since he knew me for the first man in the world, it would not turn out, if somebody else set it, with the excellence it showed. Then I said that the diamond was not set by my hand, and that it was not well set; and that what it did, it did by its own goodness; and that if I reset it for him I should improve it a great deal from what it was. And putting my thumbnail to the edges of the diamond, I drew it out of its ring, and having cleaned it a little I handed it to the Viceroy; who, satisfied and astonished, made me out an order that I should be paid the two hundred scudi I had asked for.
Coming back to my lodging, I found letters from Cardinal de' Medici, telling me to come back to Rome with great diligence, and to go straight to dismount at his most reverend lordship's house. Having read the letter to my Angelica, with little loving tears she begged me to be so good as to stay in Naples, or else to take her with me. To whom I said that if she wanted to come with me I would give her those two hundred ducats I had had from the Viceroy to keep.
Her mother, seeing us in this close conversation, came up to us and said: "Benvenuto, if you want to take my Angelica to Rome, leave me fifteen ducats so that I can have my baby, and then I will come along too." I told the old bawd that I would leave her thirty willingly if she was content to give me my Angelica. So, having settled it, Angelica begged me to buy her a gown of black velvet, because velvet was cheap in Naples. I was content about it all; and having sent for the velvet and made the bargain and everything, the old woman, who thought I was more cooked than raw, asked me for a gown of fine cloth for herself, and a great many other expenses for her children, and a good deal more money than I had offered her. To whom I turned pleasantly and said: "My dear Beatrice, is what I have offered you enough?" She said no. Then I said that what was not enough for her would be enough for me; and having kissed my Angelica, she with tears and I with laughter, we parted, and I went straight back to Rome.
Leaving Naples at night with the money on me, so as not to be waylaid or murdered, as is the custom of Naples, when I got to the Selciata, with great cunning and bodily courage I defended myself against several riders who had come to murder me. Then, some days later, having left Solosmeo to his business at Monte Cassino, I arrived one morning for dinner at the inn at Anagni.
Being near the inn, I fired at some birds with my arquebus and killed them; and a little iron pin that was in the lock of my gun tore my right hand. Although the injury was of no importance, it looked a good deal, because of the great quantity of blood my hand poured out.
Having gone into the inn and put my horse in its place, and having gone up onto a rough gallery, I found a number of Neapolitan gentlemen who were about to sit down at table; and with them was a young gentlewoman, the most beautiful I ever saw. When I came up, behind me came a very bold young servant of mine with a great partisan in his hand: so that we, the weapons and the blood, put such terror into those poor gentlemen — above all because that place was a nest of murderers — that, getting up from the table, they prayed God in great fright to help them. To whom I said, laughing, that God had helped them, and that I was a man to defend them from anyone who wanted to hurt them; and asking them for a little help to bandage my hand, that most beautiful gentlewoman took a handkerchief of hers richly worked in gold, meaning to bandage me with it; I would not have it: at once she tore it across the middle, and with the greatest gentleness bandaged me with her own hand.
So, being somewhat reassured, we dined very cheerfully. After dinner we mounted and went along in company. Their fright was not yet over; and those gentlemen cunningly had me entertain that gentlewoman, dropping some way behind; and I rode beside her on a fine little horse of mine, having signalled my servant to keep a little away from me; so that we talked of those things the apothecary does not sell. And in that way I came to Rome with the greatest pleasure I ever had.
When I got to Rome, I went off to dismount at the Cardinal de' Medici's palace; and, finding his most reverend lordship, I greeted him and thanked him for having had me come back. Then I begged his lordship to make me safe from prison, and if possible from the fine as well. He was very glad to see me; he told me not to worry about anything; then he turned to a gentleman of his called Messer Pierantonio Pecci, a Sienese, telling him to tell the sheriff on his behalf not to dare touch me.
Then he asked him how the man was whose head I had hit with the stone. Messer Pierantonio said he was ill, and would be worse still, because, having heard that I was coming back to Rome, he said he wanted to die in order to spite me. At which words the Cardinal said with great laughter: "That man could not have found any other way than this to let us know that he was born of Sienese." Then he turned to me and said: "For our own honour and yours, have patience for four or five days and do not go about in the Banchi; after that go where you like, and let the madmen die at their convenience."
I went home and set myself to finish the medal I had already begun, of the head of Pope Clement, which I made with a reverse figuring a Peace. This was a little female figure dressed in the thinnest clothes, girt up, with a torch in her hand burning a heap of weapons tied together like a trophy; and there was figured the wall of a temple, in which Fury was figured bound with many chains; and round about was a motto in letters saying "Clauduntur belli portae" — the gates of war are shut.
While I was finishing the medal, the man I had struck got better, and the Pope did not stop asking for me; and because I avoided going about the Cardinal de' Medici — since every time I came before him his lordship gave me some important work to do, which greatly hindered the finishing of my medal — it happened that Messer Pier Carnesecchi, a great favourite of the Pope's, took on the care of looking after me: so in a neat way he told me how much the Pope wanted me to serve him. To whom I said that in a few days I would show his Holiness that I had never moved away from his service.
A few days later, having finished my medal, I struck it in gold and in silver and in brass. Having shown it to Messer Piero, he brought me in to the Pope at once. It was a day after dinner in the month of April, and it was fine weather: the Pope was in the Belvedere.
When I came before his Holiness, I put the medals into his hands together with the steel dies. Having taken them, and having at once recognised the great force of art that was in them, looking Messer Piero in the face he said: "The ancients were never so well served with medals." While he and the others were considering them, now the dies and now the medals, I began most modestly to speak, and said:
"If the power of my perverse stars had not had a greater power to hinder what they violently showed me they meant to do, your Holiness would have lost, without any cause on your part or mine, a faithful and loving servant. Therefore, most Blessed Father, there is no error at all in those cases where everything is at stake in using the way certain poor simple men speak of, saying that one should mark seven and cut one. Since a wicked, lying tongue of a most evil adversary of mine had so easily made your Holiness angry that you came into such a fury, ordering the Governor to take me at once and hang me — seeing afterwards such an impropriety, doing so great a wrong to yourself in depriving yourself of a servant of yours such as your Holiness yourself says he is, I am quite sure that, both before God and before the world, your Holiness would afterwards have felt no small remorse. Therefore good and virtuous fathers, and masters of that kind too, ought not so hastily to let their arm fall on their sons and their servants; seeing that being sorry for it afterwards is no use at all. Since God has hindered this malignant course of the stars, and has saved me for your Holiness, I beg you once more not to be so easily angered with me."
The Pope, having stopped looking at the medals, listened to me with great attention; and because there were present a good many lords of the greatest importance, the Pope, blushing somewhat, showed that he was ashamed; and not knowing any other way of getting out of that tangle, he said he did not remember ever having given such an order. Then, seeing this, I went into other talk, so as to turn aside that shame he had shown.
His Holiness, having got onto the subject of the medals again, asked me what way I had used to strike them so marvellously, being so large; which he had never seen among the ancients, medals of such size. We talked about that a good while; and he, being afraid I would make him another little speech worse than that one, told me that the medals were most beautiful and that they were very welcome to him, and that he would have liked to make another reverse of his own fancy, if such medals could be struck with two reverses. I said they could. Then his Holiness ordered me to make the story of Moses when he strikes the rock and the water comes out of it, with a motto above saying "Ut bibat populus" — that the people may drink. And then he added: "Go, Benvenuto, for you will not have finished it before I have thought about your affairs."
When I had gone, the Pope boasted in front of everybody that he would give me so much that I should be able to live richly without ever having to work for anybody else again. I attended urgently to finishing the reverse of the Moses.
In the meantime the Pope fell ill; and, the doctors judging that the illness was dangerous, that adversary of mine, being afraid of me, ordered certain Neapolitan soldiers to do to me what he was afraid I would do to him. So I had a great deal of trouble to defend my poor life.
Going on, I finished the reverse entirely; and having taken it up to the Pope, I found him in bed in a very bad way. All the same he made much of me, and wanted to see the medals and the dies; and having spectacles and lights brought, he could not make out anything at all. He set himself to grope over them a little with his fingers; then, having done that a while, he heaved a great sigh and said to some of them that he was sorry for me, but that if God gave him back his health he would settle everything.
Three days later the Pope died; and I, finding that I had lost my labour, put a good heart into myself and said to myself that by means of those medals I had made myself so well known that by any pope who came I should be employed, perhaps with better fortune. So I put heart into myself, cancelling entirely and completely the great injuries Pompeo had done me; and having put on my armour and my sword, I went off to Saint Peter's and kissed the dead Pope's feet, not without tears; then I came back into the Banchi to consider the great confusion that comes about on such occasions.
And while I was sitting in the Banchi with a good many friends of mine, Pompeo came by in the middle of ten very well armed men; and when he was exactly opposite where I was, he stopped a moment in the attitude of wanting to pick a quarrel with me. Those who were with me, bold and willing young men, signalled to me that I should put my hand to my sword; at which I immediately considered that if I put my hand to my sword some very great harm would follow to men who had not a fault in the world; therefore I judged it better that I alone should put my own life at risk. Having stood there for as long as it takes to say two Hail Marys, Pompeo laughed at me scornfully; and, going off, his men laughed too, shaking their heads; and with gestures of that sort they did a great deal of bullying. My companions wanted to put their hands to the quarrel; to whom I said angrily that I was a man to know how to finish my own quarrels by myself, and that I did not need braver men than I was; so let everybody mind his own business.
My friends, offended, went off from me grumbling. Among them was my dearest friend, whose name was Albertaccio del Bene, own brother of Alessandro and of Albizzo, who is today in Lyons and extremely rich. This Albertaccio was the most admirable young man I ever knew, and the most spirited, and he loved me as he loved himself; and because he knew perfectly well that that act of patience had not been out of smallness of spirit but out of the boldest courage — for he knew me very well — he came back to the point and begged me to do him the favour of calling on him to be with me in whatever I had a mind to do. To whom I said: "My Albertaccio, dearest to me of all the rest: the time will certainly come when you will be able to help me; but in this case, if you love me, do not look at me, and mind your own business, and get away quickly as the others have done, because this is no time to lose." These words were said quickly.
Meanwhile my enemies had made their way at a slow pace from the Banchi towards the Chiavica, as the place is called, and had arrived at a crossing of streets which go off in different directions; but the one where my enemy Pompeo's house was, was the street that leads straight to the Campo di Fiore. And for some business of his, Pompeo had gone into the apothecary's shop on the corner of the Chiavica, and had stayed there with the apothecary a while over some affairs of his; although I was told that he had been boasting about that piece of bullying he thought he had done me. But at all events it was his bad fortune; because when I got to that corner he was just coming out of the apothecary's, and his bravoes had opened out and had already taken him into the middle of them.
I put my hand to a small sharp dagger, and forcing the line of his bravoes, I laid my hands on his chest with such quickness and steadiness of mind that none of them could do anything about it. Having drawn to give it him in the face, the fright he took made him turn his face away, so that I pricked him exactly under the ear; and there I struck home two blows only, at the second of which he fell dead out of my hands — which was never my intention; but, as they say, blows are not given by agreement.
Having taken the dagger back in my left hand, and with my right drawn my sword to defend my life, all those bravoes ran to the dead body and made no move at all against me; and so, all alone, I withdrew along the Strada Giulia, thinking where I could save myself.
When I had gone three hundred paces, Il Piloto the goldsmith, a very great friend of mine, caught up with me and said: "Brother, since the harm is done, let us see about saving you." To whom I said: "Let us go to Albertaccio del Bene's house, because a little while ago I told him the time would soon come when I should need him."
When we got to Albertaccio's house the fuss made of me was beyond all reckoning, and soon the noblest of the young men of the Banchi of every nation appeared, except the Milanese; and they all offered to lay down their lives for the saving of mine. Messer Luigi Rucellai also sent to offer me marvellously that I should make use of anything of his, and so did many other great men like him; because they all agreed in blessing my hands, thinking that man had murdered me too far, and wondering a great deal that I had put up with so much.
At this moment Cardinal Cornaro, having heard of the thing, sent thirty soldiers of his own accord, with as many partisans, pikes and arquebuses, to take me to his own rooms for greater safety; and I accepted the offer and went with them, and more than as many again of those young men kept me company.
In the meantime Messer Traiano, that relation of his, the Pope's first chamberlain, heard of it and sent to Cardinal de' Medici a great Milanese gentleman to tell the Cardinal of the great harm I had done, and that his most reverend lordship was bound to punish me. The Cardinal answered at once and said: "He would have done great harm if he had not done this smaller harm: thank Messer Traiano on my behalf for having informed me of what I did not know." And turning at once, in the presence of the gentleman, to the Bishop of Forlì, a gentleman and member of his household, he said: "Look diligently for my Benvenuto, and bring him here to me, because I mean to help and defend him; and whoever acts against him will be acting against me."
The gentleman went off very red in the face, and the Bishop of Forlì came to find me at Cardinal Cornaro's house; and, having found the Cardinal, he said that Cardinal de' Medici was sending for Benvenuto, and that he wanted to be the one to keep him. Cardinal Cornaro, who was as odd-tempered as a bear cub, answered the bishop very angrily, telling him that he was as fit to keep me as Cardinal de' Medici was. At this the bishop said that he begged him to let him speak one word to me about something apart from that affair, on other business of the Cardinal's. Cornaro told him that for that day he should consider that he had spoken to me.
Cardinal de' Medici was very offended; but all the same I went the following night, without Cornaro's knowledge, very well accompanied, to visit him; and then I begged him to do me the favour of leaving me in Cornaro's house, and I told him of the great courtesy Cornaro had shown me; so that, if his most reverend lordship let me stay with Cornaro, I should come to have one more friend in my necessities; or else that he should dispose of me in whatever way pleased his lordship. He answered that I should do whatever seemed good to me.
Having gone back to Cornaro's house, a few days later Cardinal Farnese was made Pope; and, having at once given orders about matters of more importance, the Pope asked for me, saying he did not want anybody but me to make his coins. To these words a certain gentleman of his household, very close to him, called Messer Latino Juvinale, answered his Holiness, and said that I was a fugitive for a homicide committed on the person of a Milanese called Pompeo; and he added all my reasons very favourably. At which words the Pope said: "I did not know of Pompeo's death, but I did know Benvenuto's reasons; so let him have a safe conduct made out at once, with which he may be perfectly safe."
There was present a great friend of that Pompeo's, and very close to the Pope, who was called Messer Ambrogio and was a Milanese, and he said to the Pope: "In the first days of your papacy it would not be well to grant favours of this sort." To whom the Pope turned and said: "You do not know the case as well as I do. Know that men like Benvenuto, unique in their profession, ought not to be bound by the law; and this man all the more so, because I know how much right he has on his side." And having had the safe conduct made out for me, I began at once to serve him with the greatest favour.
That Latino Juvinale came to find me and ordered me to make the Pope's coins. At which all those enemies of mine were roused: they began to hinder me from making them. At which the Pope, becoming aware of the thing, shouted at them all, and insisted that I should make them.
I began to make the dies for the scudi, on which I made a half figure of Saint Paul, with a motto in letters saying "Vas electionis" — a chosen vessel. This coin pleased far more than the ones by those who had made them in competition with me; so that the Pope said that nobody else should ever speak to him about coins again, because he wanted me to be the one who made them and nobody else.
So I attended to working freely; and that Messer Latino Juvinale brought me in to the Pope, because the Pope had given him that duty. I wanted to get back the grant of the office of striker of the mint. The Pope let himself be advised about this, saying that first I must have the pardon for the homicide, which I should get on the Feast of the Assumption in August by order of the wardmasters of Rome — for that is the custom every year at this solemn feast, to give these wardmasters twelve banished men; meanwhile another safe conduct would be made out for me, by which I could be safe until that time.
My enemies, seeing that they could in no way manage to keep me from the mint, took another course. Pompeo, when he was killed, had left three thousand ducats of dowry to a little bastard daughter of his; and they arranged that a certain favourite of Signor Pier Luigi, the Pope's son, should ask for her in marriage through that lord: and so it was done. This favourite was a little peasant brought up by that lord, and, from what was said, very little of that money came to him, because the lord laid his hands on it and meant to use it himself.
But because this husband of the young girl, to please his wife, had several times begged the lord to have me taken, which lord had promised to do it as soon as he saw the favour I had with the Pope fall off a little — things standing so for about two months, because that servant of his was trying to get his dowry, the lord did not answer him to the purpose, but let his wife know that he would take revenge for her father at all costs.
Although I knew something of it, and had presented myself several times before that lord, who made a show of doing me the greatest favours, on the other side he had arranged one of two ways: either to have me killed or to have me taken by the sheriff. He gave the commission to a certain little devil of a Corsican soldier of his, to do it as cleanly as he could; and those other enemies of mine, above all Messer Traiano, had promised to make this little Corsican a present of a hundred scudi; who said he would do it as easily as drinking a fresh egg.
I, hearing of such a thing, went about with my eyes open and in good company and very well armed with a coat of mail and sleeves, which I had licence for. This little Corsican, out of greed, thinking to get all that money safely for himself, believed he could do the business by himself alone; so that one day, after dinner, they had me called on Signor Pier Luigi's behalf; at which I went at once, because the lord had talked to me about wanting to make several large silver vessels.
Having left home in a hurry, still with my usual armour, I went quickly along the Strada Giulia, thinking I should meet nobody at that hour. When I was at the upper end of the Strada Giulia, to turn towards the Farnese palace, it being my habit to turn wide at corners, I saw that little Corsican get up from where he was sitting and come out into the middle of the street; so that I was not put out at all, but stood ready to defend myself; and slowing my pace somewhat, I went close to the wall to leave a wide road for the Corsican. He too came close to the wall; and, when we had already come well up to each other, having recognised expressly by his behaviour that he had a mind to do me harm, and seeing me alone like that, thinking it would come off for him — so that I began to speak and said: "Brave soldier, if it were night you might say you had taken me for somebody else; but because it is day, you know perfectly well who I am, and I have never had anything to do with you, and never did you any harm; but I should be quite ready to do you a good turn."
At these words he, in a bullying attitude, not getting out of my way, told me he did not know what I was talking about. Then I said: "I know perfectly well what you want and what you are saying; but the business you have undertaken to do is more difficult and dangerous than you think, and it might turn out backwards; and remember that you have to do with a man who would defend himself against a hundred. And this is not an honourable business for brave men, such as you are."
Meanwhile I too was looking at him like a dog, and both of us had changed colour. By now people had come up, who had already realised that our words were of iron; so that, not having the nerve to lay hands on me, he said: "We shall see each other again another time." To whom I said: "I always see decent men again, and men who look like it."
Having gone off, I went to the lord's house, and he had not sent for me. Coming back to my shop, that little Corsican let me know, through a very great friend of his and of mine, that I should not be on my guard against him any more, and that he wanted to be a good brother to me; but that I should be well on my guard against others, because I was in the greatest danger, since men of much importance had sworn my death. Having sent to thank him, I guarded myself as best I could.
Not many days later I was told by a great friend of mine that Signor Pier Luigi had given express orders that I should be taken that evening. This was told me at twenty hours; so I spoke about it with some friends of mine, who urged me to go away at once. And because the order had been given for one hour of the night, at twenty-three hours I got into the post saddle and rode off to Florence: because, since that little Corsican had not had the heart to do the business he had promised, Signor Pier Luigi had on his own authority given orders that I should be taken, only in order to quiet a little that daughter of Pompeo's, who wanted to know where her dowry was. Not being able to satisfy her with revenge in either of the two ways he had arranged, he thought of another, which we shall tell in its place.
I got to Florence and paid my respects to Duke Alessandro, who made marvellous fuss of me and asked me to stay with him.
And because there was in Florence a certain sculptor called Il Tribolino, and he was my gossip, since I had stood godfather to a son of his, talking with him he told me that a certain Jacopo del Sansovino, once his first master, had sent for him; and because he had never seen Venice, and for the earnings he expected, he was going very willingly; and asking me whether I had ever seen Venice, I said no; so he begged me to go with him for a jaunt, which I promised him. So I answered Duke Alessandro that I wanted to go as far as Venice first, and afterwards I would willingly come back to serve him; and he made me promise it, and ordered me to speak to him before I left.
The next day, having got myself ready, I went to take leave of the Duke, whom I found in the Pazzi palace, at the time when the wife and daughters of Signor Lorenzo Cibo were lodged there. Having let his Excellency know that I wanted to go to Venice with his good favour, Cosimino de' Medici, today Duke of Florence, came back with the answer, telling me to go and find Niccolò da Monte Aguto, who would give me fifty gold scudi, which money his Excellency the Duke gave me, that I should enjoy them for love of him; and afterwards come back and serve him.
I had the money from Niccolò, and went to the house for Tribolo, who was ready; and he asked me whether I had tied up my sword. I told him that a man on horseback going on a journey ought not to tie up his sword. He said that in Florence that was the custom, because there was a certain Ser Maurizio who for the least thing would have given Saint John the Baptist himself the rope; so one had to carry one's sword tied until one was outside the gate. I laughed at it, and so we went off.
We joined up with the Venice courier, whose nickname was Lamentone. We went in company with him, and, having passed Bologna, one evening among others we arrived at Ferrara; and, having lodged at the inn on the Piazza, Lamentone went off to find some of the exiles to bring them letters and messages from their wives; for it was so by the Duke's consent that only the courier could speak to them, and nobody else, on pain of the same banishment they were under.
In the meantime, it being a little past twenty-two hours, Tribolo and I went off to see the Duke of Ferrara come back, who had gone to Belfiore to watch a joust. On his way back we met a good many exiles, who looked at us hard, almost forcing us to speak with them. Tribolo, who was the most fearful man I ever knew, kept telling me: "Do not look at them and do not speak with them, if you want to go back to Florence."
So we stayed to watch the Duke come back; then, having gone back to the inn, we found Lamentone there. And when it was getting on for one hour of the night, Niccolò Benintendi appeared with his brother Piero, and another old man, who I think was Jacopo Nardi, along with several other young men; and as soon as they came they asked the courier, each of them, about his own family in Florence. Tribolo and I stood some way off, so as not to speak with them.
After they had talked a while with Lamentone, that Niccolò Benintendi said: "I know those two perfectly well; why do they make such a fuss about not wanting to speak to us?" Tribolo kept telling me to keep quiet. Lamentone told them that the licence which had been given to him had not been given to us. Benintendi went on and said that it was asinine, and sent us cankers and a thousand fine things.
Then I raised my head as modestly as I could and knew how, and said: "Dear gentlemen, you can do us a great deal of harm, and we can do you no good at all; and although you have said some words to us which are not fitting, we do not for that wish to be angry with you." That old man of the Nardi said that I had spoken like the decent young man I was.
Niccolò Benintendi then said: "I have them and the Duke in my backside." I answered that he was in the wrong with us, that we had nothing to do with his affairs. That old man of the Nardi took our side, telling Benintendi that he was in the wrong; at which he still went on saying insulting words. So I told him that I would say and do things to him that he would not like; so let him mind his own business and leave us alone. He answered that he had the Duke and us in his backside again, and that we and he were a heap of asses.
At which words, giving him the lie in his throat, I drew my sword; and the old man, who wanted to be first at the stairs, fell a few steps down, and all of them on top of him, one on another. At which, jumping forward, I swung my sword along the walls in the greatest fury, saying: "I shall kill you all" — and I took very good care not to do them any harm, when I could have done far too much.
At this noise the innkeeper shouted; Lamentone said, "Do not do it"; some of them said, "Alas, my head!", others, "Let me get out of here." It was an unreckonable beating: they looked like a herd of pigs. The innkeeper came with a light; I went back up and put away my sword.
Lamentone told Niccolò Benintendi that he had done wrong; the innkeeper said to Niccolò Benintendi: "It is a matter of life to put your hand to a weapon here, and if the Duke knew of these insolences of yours he would have you hanged by the throat; so I will not do to you what you deserve; but never come to this inn again, or it will go badly with you." The innkeeper came up to me, and when I wanted to excuse myself he would not let me say anything, telling me that he knew I had a thousand reasons on my side, and that I should be well on my guard against them on the journey.
When we had supped, a boatman came up to take us to Venice. I asked him whether he would give me the boat to ourselves; and he was content, and we made an agreement on it.
Very early in the morning we took horses to go to the port, which is I do not know how many miles from Ferrara; and when we got to the port we found there Niccolò Benintendi's brother with three other companions, waiting for me to arrive: among them were two shafted weapons, and I had bought a fine javelin in Ferrara. Being also very well armed, I was not dismayed at all, as Tribolo was, who said: "God help us: these men are here to kill us." Lamentone turned to me and said: "The best thing you can do is to go back to Ferrara, because I see the thing is dangerous. Please, my Benvenuto, let the fury of these mad beasts pass over."
Then I said: "Let us go forward, because God helps the man who is in the right; and you shall see how I shall help myself. Is that boat not hired for us?" "Yes," said Lamentone. "And we shall be in it without them, as far as my own powers can manage."
I urged my horse forward, and when I was within fifty paces I dismounted, and went boldly forward with my javelin. Tribolo had stopped behind and was huddled up on his horse, so that he looked like the cold itself; and Lamentone the courier was puffing and blowing like a wind, for that was his way of doing things — but he did it more then than usual, standing there considering what end that devilry was going to have.
When I got to the boat, the boatman came up to me and said that those several Florentine gentlemen wanted to come into the boat in our company, if I were content with it. To whom I said: "The boat is hired for us and not for anybody else, and it grieves me to my heart not to be able to be with them." At these words a bold young man of the Magalotti said: "Benvenuto, we shall see that you are able." Then I said: "If God and the right I have, together with my own strength, will it or can do it, you will not make me able to do what you say." And with the words together I jumped into the boat. Turning the point of my weapon at them, I said: "With this I shall show you that I am not able."
Wanting to make a little demonstration, having put his hand to his weapon and come forward, that man of the Magalotti — I jumped up onto the edge of the boat and gave him such a great blow that if he had not fallen over backwards on the ground I should have run him through from side to side. The other companions, instead of helping him, pulled back; and, seeing that I could have killed him, instead of striking him I said: "Get up, brother, and take your weapon and go away; you have seen well enough that I cannot do what I do not want to do, and that I have not wanted to do what I could have done."
Then I called Tribolo and the boatman and Lamentone into the boat; and so we went off towards Venice. When we had gone ten miles up the Po, those young men had got into a light boat and caught up with us; and when they came opposite us, that fool Pier Benintendi said to me: "Get along, Benvenuto, for we shall see each other again in Venice." "Get on your way, and I am coming," I said; "and everywhere I let myself be seen again."
So we arrived in Venice. I took advice from a brother of Cardinal Cornaro, asking him to do me the favour of being able to carry a weapon; who told me to carry it freely, since the worst that could happen was to lose the sword.
So, carrying our weapons, we went to visit Jacopo del Sansovino the sculptor, who had sent for Tribolo; and he made a great fuss of me and wanted to give us dinner, and we stayed with him. Talking with Tribolo, he told him that he did not want to employ him for the present, and that he should come back another time.
At these words I burst out laughing, and said pleasantly to Sansovino: "Your house is much too far from his, for him to have to come back another time." The poor dismayed Tribolo said: "I have here the letter you wrote me to come." At this Sansovino said that men of his sort, decent and able men, could do that and more.
Tribolo shrugged his shoulders and said "Patience" several times. At this, and not looking at the abundant dinner Sansovino had given me, I took my companion Tribolo's part, since he was in the right. And because at that table Sansovino had never stopped chattering about his own great performances, speaking ill of Michelangelo and of everybody else who worked in that art, and only praising himself marvellously, this had become such a nuisance to me that I had not eaten a mouthful I liked, and I only said these two words: "Oh, Messer Jacopo, decent men do the things of decent men; and those able men who do beautiful and good works are much better known when they are praised by others than when they praise themselves so confidently on their own account." At these words both he and we got up from the table grumbling.
That same day, being in Venice near the Rialto, I ran into Piero Benintendi, who was with several men; and, seeing that they were looking to do me some harm, I withdrew into an apothecary's shop until I had let that fury pass by. Afterwards I heard that that young man of the Magalotti, to whom I had shown courtesy, had shouted at them a great deal; and so it passed off.
A few days later we came back towards Florence; and being lodged at a certain place which is on this side of Chioggia, on the left hand as you come towards Ferrara, the innkeeper wanted to be paid in his own way before we went to sleep; and when we told him that in other places the custom was to pay in the morning, he said: "I mean to be paid in the evening, and in my own way." I said, at those words, that men who wanted to do things their own way ought to make a world of their own, because that was not the custom here. The innkeeper answered that I should not bother his head, because he meant to do it his way. Tribolo was trembling with fear, and kept nudging me to keep quiet, so that they should not do us worse: so we paid him his way and went off to sleep.
We had the good luck of very beautiful beds, everything new and genuinely clean; for all that, I never slept, thinking all that night how I had to go about revenging myself. At one moment it came into my mind to set fire to his house; at another to cut the throats of four good horses he had in his stable; I saw that all of it was easy for me to do, but I did not see that it would be easy to save myself and my companion. In the end I took as my expedient to put the baggage and my companions in the boat, and so I did; and having hitched the horses to the tow rope which pulled the boat, I said they should not move the boat until I came back, because I had left a pair of my slippers in the place where I had slept.
So, going back into the inn, I asked for the innkeeper; and he answered me that he had nothing to do with us, and that we should go to the brothel. There was a great lout of a stable boy of his there, all half asleep, who said to me: "The innkeeper would not move for the Pope, because he is sleeping with a certain little slut he has wanted for a long time"; and he asked me for a tip; so I gave him some of those small Venetian coins, and told him to hold back the man with the tow rope a little while I looked for my slippers and came back.
Having gone up, I took a little knife that shaved, and the four beds that were there I cut them all to shreds with that knife; so that I knew I had done more than fifty scudi of damage. And coming back to the boat with some scraps of that serge in my pocket, I told the man who was guiding the tow rope in a hurry to get moving quickly.
When we had got a little way from the inn, my gossip Tribolo said that he had left certain straps behind that tied up his little valise, and that he wanted to go back for them at all costs. To which I said that he should not bother about two little straps, because I would make him as many big ones as he could want. He told me I was always joking, but that he wanted to go back for his straps at all costs; and, insisting to the man with the tow rope that he stop, while I said that he should keep going, I told him meanwhile of the great damage I had done to the innkeeper; and having shown him a sample of certain scraps of the serge and so on, such a trembling came over him that he never stopped saying to the man with the rope: "Get on, get on quickly." And he never felt safe from this danger until we had got back to the gates of Florence.
When we got there, Tribolo said: "Let us tie up our swords for the love of God, and do not do this to me any more; because I have felt the whole time as if my guts were in a basin." To which I said: "My gossip Tribolo, you do not need to tie up your sword, because you have never untied it" — and I said this by chance, having never seen him give a sign of being a man on that whole journey. At which, looking at his sword, he said: "By God, you are right, because it is tied in the way I fixed it before I left my house."
My gossip felt that I had kept him bad company, because I had taken offence and defended myself against those who had wanted to do us harm; and I felt that he had kept me much worse company, in not setting himself to help me in such needs. Let a bystander without passion judge it.
When I had dismounted, I went at once to find Duke Alessandro and thanked him a great deal for the present of the fifty scudi, telling his Excellency that I was fully ready for whatever I was good for in serving his Excellency. He at once ordered me to make the dies for his coins; and the first I made was a coin of forty soldi, with his Excellency's head on one side and on the other a Saint Cosmas and a Saint Damian. These were silver coins, and they pleased so much that the Duke ventured to say that they were the most beautiful coins in Christendom. So said the whole of Florence, and everybody who saw them.
So I asked his Excellency to settle a salary on me, and to have the rooms at the mint made over to me; and he told me to attend to serving him and that he would give me a great deal more than I was asking; and meanwhile he told me he had given the order to the master of the mint, who was a certain Carlo Acciaiuoli, and that I should go to him for all the money I wanted. And so I found it was; but I drew the money so sparingly that I was always left with something owing to me, by my own reckoning.
Then I made the dies for the giulio, on which was a Saint John in profile, seated, with a book in his hand, which seemed to me the most beautiful work I ever made; and on the other side were Duke Alessandro's arms. After this I made the die for the half giulios, on which I made a head facing forward of a young Saint John. This was the first coin with a head facing forward on so thin a silver flan that was ever made; and this difficulty does not show, except to the eyes of those who are excellent in such a profession. After this I made the dies for the gold scudi, on which was a cross on one side with certain little cherubim, and on the other side his Excellency's arms.
When I had made these four sorts of coins, I begged his Excellency to settle my salary and make over to me the rooms mentioned, if my service pleased him. At which words his Excellency told me kindly that he was very content, and that he would give the orders.
While I was speaking to him, his Excellency was in his wardrobe and was looking at a marvellous gun which had been sent him from Germany. Seeing that I was looking at that fine instrument with great attention, he put it into my hands, telling me that he knew perfectly well how much I delighted in such a thing, and that as an earnest of what he had promised me I should take from his wardrobe an arquebus of my own choosing, apart from that one, since he well knew that there were many there as fine and as good. At which words I accepted and thanked him; and, seeing me start looking round with my eyes, he ordered his wardrobe keeper, a certain Pretino of Lucca, to let me take whatever I wanted. And having gone off with the most pleasant words, I stayed behind and chose the most beautiful and the best arquebus I ever saw or ever had, and I took it home.
Two days later I brought him certain small drawings his Excellency had asked me for, to make some works in gold which he wanted to send as a present to his wife, who was still in Naples. Again I asked him about that same business of mine, that he should settle it for me. Then his Excellency told me that first he wanted me to make the dies for a fine portrait of himself, as I had done for Pope Clement. I began that portrait in wax; on account of which his Excellency ordered that at whatever hours I came to take his likeness, I should always be let in.
I, seeing that this business of mine was dragging on, called a certain Pietro Paolo of Monterotondo, of the Roman country, who had been with me from a small boy in Rome; and, finding that he was with a certain wretched Bernardone, a goldsmith who did not treat him very well, on that account I took him away from him and taught him very well to put in those dies for the coins; and meanwhile I took the Duke's likeness. And many times I found him dozing after dinner with that Lorenzino of his who afterwards killed him, and nobody else; and I wondered a great deal that a Duke of that sort should trust himself so.
It happened that Ottaviano de' Medici, who seemed to govern everything, wanting to favour, against the Duke's wish, the old master of the mint, whose name was Bastiano Cennini, an old-fashioned man of little knowledge, had had those clumsy dies of his mixed in with mine for the dies of the scudi; on which account I complained to the Duke, who, seeing the truth, took it very badly, and said to me: "Go and tell it to Ottaviano de' Medici, and show it to him." So I went at once; and having shown him the injury that had been done to my beautiful coins, he said to me like an ass: "That is how we please to do it." To whom I answered that it was not what was right, and it did not please me. He said: "And if it pleased the Duke?" I answered: "It would not please me; because such a thing is neither just nor reasonable." He said that I should get out of his sight, and that I should swallow it that way if I burst.
Having gone back to the Duke, I told him everything that Ottaviano de' Medici and I had discussed so unpleasantly; so I begged his Excellency not to let a wrong be done to the beautiful coins I had made for him, and to give me leave to go. Then he said: "Ottaviano wants too much of it; and you shall have what you want, because this is an injury done to me."
That same day, which was a Thursday, there came to me from Rome an ample safe conduct from the Pope, telling me to come quickly for the pardon of the Feast of the Assumption in the middle of August, so that I could free myself of that charge for the homicide I had done. Having gone to the Duke, I found him in bed, because they said he had disordered himself; and having finished in a little more than two hours what I needed for his wax medal, I showed it to him finished, and it pleased him a great deal. Then I showed his Excellency the safe conduct I had had by the Pope's order, and how the Pope was asking me to make him certain works; for this reason I should go and win back that beautiful city of Rome, and meanwhile I would serve him with his medal.
At this the Duke said, half in anger: "Benvenuto, do as I say, do not go; because I shall settle your salary, and give you the rooms at the mint, with a great deal more than you would know how to ask me for, because you ask what is just and reasonable: and whom would you have put in my beautiful dies that you have made me?" Then I said: "My lord, everything has been thought of, because I have here a pupil of mine, a young Roman whom I have taught, who will serve your Excellency very well until I come back with your medal finished, to stay with you always afterwards. And because I have my shop open in Rome with workmen and some business, when I have had my pardon I shall leave all my Roman devotions to a man I have brought up who is there, and afterwards, with your Excellency's good favour, I shall come back to you."
Present at this was that Lorenzino de' Medici I have mentioned, and nobody else; the Duke signalled to him several times that he too should encourage me to stay; on account of which Lorenzino never said anything but: "Benvenuto, you would do better to stay." To whom I said that I wanted to win back Rome at all costs. He said nothing else, and kept looking at the Duke with a very evil eye.
I, having finished the medal in my own way and having shut it in its little box, said to the Duke: "My lord, be of good cheer, because I shall make you a far more beautiful medal than I made for Pope Clement; because reason requires that I should do better, that one being the first I ever made; and Messer Lorenzo here will give me some very beautiful reverse, being a learned person and of the greatest wit." At these words Lorenzo at once answered, saying: "I was thinking of nothing else but of giving you a reverse that would be worthy of his Excellency." The Duke smirked, and, looking at Lorenzo, said: "Lorenzo, you shall give him the reverse, and he shall make it here, and shall not go." Lorenzo answered quickly, saying: "I shall do it as soon as I can, and I hope to do something to make the world marvel." The Duke, who took him now for a bit of a madman and now for a lazy fellow, rolled over in bed and laughed at the words he had said to him.
I left without any other ceremony of leave-taking, and left them alone together. The Duke, who did not believe I would go, said nothing more to me. When he heard afterwards that I had gone, he sent a servant after me who caught me up at Siena, and gave me fifty gold ducats from the Duke, telling me that I should enjoy them for love of him and come back as soon as I could. "And from Messer Lorenzo I tell you that he is getting ready a marvellous reverse for that medal you want to make."
I had left all instructions with Pietro Paolo the Roman about how he was to put in the dies; but because it was a very difficult thing, he never put them in very well. I was left a creditor of the mint, for the making of my dies, for more than seventy scudi.
I went off to Rome, and took with me that most beautiful wheel-lock arquebus the Duke had given me, and with the greatest pleasure I used it many times on the way, doing unreckonable feats with it.
I got to Rome; and because I kept a little house in the Strada Giulia which was not in order, I went to dismount at the house of Messer Giovanni Gaddi, clerk of the Chamber, with whom I had left in trust when I left Rome many fine weapons of mine and many other things I set great store by. So I did not want to dismount at my shop; and I sent for that Felice, my partner, and had that little house of mine put in very good order at once. Then the next day I went to sleep in it, being very well provided with clothes and everything I needed, wanting the following morning to go and visit the Pope to thank him.
I had two boy servants, and under my house there was a laundress who cooked for me very cleanly. Having given supper that evening to several friends of mine, and that supper having passed with the greatest pleasure, I went off to sleep; and hardly had the night passed when in the morning, more than an hour before day, I heard someone knocking with the greatest fury at the door of my house, one blow not waiting for the next.
So I called my elder servant, whose name was Cencio — it was he I had taken into the necromantic circle — and told him to go and see who was the madman who was beating on it so beastly at that hour. While Cencio was going, I lit another lamp, since I always keep one burning at night, and at once put on over my shirt a marvellous shirt of mail, and over it an old coat, anyhow.
Cencio came back and said: "Alas, master, it is the sheriff with the whole guard, and he says that if you do not come quickly he will throw the door down; and they have torches and a thousand things with them." To whom I said: "Tell them I am putting on an old coat, and that I am coming out in my shirt like this."
Imagining that it was a murder, like the one Signor Pier Luigi had already arranged for me, I took in my right hand a marvellous dagger I had, and in my left the safe conduct; then I ran to the back window, which looked out over certain gardens, and there I saw more than thirty constables; from which I knew that I could not escape on that side. Having put the two boys in front of me, I told them to open the door when I told them exactly.
Having got myself ready, the dagger in my right and the safe conduct in my left, in an attitude of real defence, I said to the two boys: "Do not be afraid; open." Vittorio the sheriff jumped inside at once with two others, thinking he could easily lay hands on me; and, seeing me ready in that way, they drew back and said: "This calls for something more than jokes." Then I said, throwing the safe conduct at them: "Read that; and since you cannot take me, still less do I want you to touch me."
The sheriff then told several of them to take me, and that the safe conduct could be looked at afterwards. At this, boldly, I pushed my weapon forward and said: "God be for the right; either I escape alive, or I am taken dead." The room was narrow; they made as if to come at me by force, and I made a great show of defence; on account of which the sheriff knew that he could not have me in any way but the one I had said. Having called the clerk, while he was having the safe conduct read he made as if two or three times to have hands laid on me; at which I never moved from that resolution I had made. Giving up the business, they threw the safe conduct on the ground and went off without me.
Having gone back to rest, I felt badly upset, and could never take up sleep again. I had made up my mind that as soon as it was day I would have myself bled; so I took advice about it from Messer Giovanni Gaddi, and he from a little apology of a doctor of his, who asked me whether I had been frightened. Now consider what a doctor's judgement that was, having been told so great a case, and asking me such a question! This was a certain young jackanapes who laughed almost continually and at nothing; and, laughing in that way, he told me to take a good glass of Greek wine and to attend to being cheerful and not to be afraid.
Messer Giovanni kept saying: "Master, a man of bronze or of marble would be frightened in such cases; how much more a man." At this the little doctor said: "Monsignor, we are not all made in one way: this is a man neither of bronze nor of marble, but of solid iron"; and, putting his hands on my pulse, with that senseless laughing of his he said to Messer Giovanni: "Now feel here; this is not the pulse of a man, but of a lion or a dragon." At which I, whose pulse was strongly disturbed — perhaps beyond the measure that stupid doctor had learned either from Hippocrates or from Galen — knew my own trouble well enough; but so as not to frighten myself more, or do myself more harm than I had already had, I showed a good spirit.
Meanwhile Messer Giovanni had dinner got ready, and we all ate in company: which was, along with Messer Giovanni, a certain Messer Lodovico da Fano, Messer Antonio Allegretti, Messer Giovanni the Greek, all most learned persons, and Messer Annibal Caro, who was very young. And nothing else was talked of at that dinner but this bold affair. And they had it told over and over again by Cencio, my little servant, who was beyond measure quick-witted, bold and very handsome of body; and every time he told this raging business of mine, doing the attitudes I had done and saying very well the words I had said, something new always came back to me. And they often asked him whether he had been frightened; to which words he answered that they should ask me whether I had been frightened, because he had had exactly what I had had.
This chatter becoming a nuisance to me, and because I felt strongly upset, I got up from the table, saying that I wanted to go and dress myself and him in new clothes of blue cloth and silk; that I wanted to go in the procession in four days' time, when the Feast of the Assumption came, and that I wanted Cencio to carry the lighted white torch for me. So, having gone off, I went to cut out the blue clothes, with a fine little gown of blue watered silk as well and a doublet of the same; and for him I made a doublet and a gown of taffeta, also blue.
When I had cut out these things, I went off to the Pope, who told me to speak to his Messer Ambrogio, since he had given orders that I should make a great work in gold. So I went to find Messer Ambrogio; who was very well informed about the sheriff business, and had been in agreement with my enemies about making me come back, and had shouted at the sheriff for not having taken me; and he excused himself, that against a safe conduct in that form he could not do it. Messer Ambrogio began to talk to me about the business the Pope had ordered; then he told me to make the designs for it and that everything would be provided.
Meanwhile the day of the Assumption came; and because the custom is that those who have such pardons must give themselves up as prisoners, on that account I went back to the Pope and told his Holiness that I did not want to put myself in prison, and that I begged him to do me the favour of not going to prison. The Pope answered me that that was the custom, and so it should be done. At this I knelt down again and thanked him for the safe conduct his Holiness had made me; and said that with it I would go back to serve my Duke of Florence, who was waiting for me with so much eagerness. At these words the Pope turned to a trusted man of his and said: "Let Benvenuto be given the pardon without the prison; and let his grant be drawn up for him so that it is in good form."
The grant having been drawn up, the Pope signed it; it was registered at the Capitol; then, on the appointed day, between two gentlemen, I went most honourably in the procession, and had the full pardon.
Four days later a very great fever took me with an unreckonable chill; and, having gone to bed, I judged at once that I was a dead man. I had the first doctors of Rome called, among them a Master Francesco da Norcia, a very old doctor and of the greatest credit in Rome. I told these doctors what I thought had been the cause of my great illness, and that I had wanted to be bled, but that I had been advised against it; and if I was still in time, I begged them to bleed me. Master Francesco answered that bleeding now would not be good, but then it would have been, and I should have had no trouble in the world; now I must be treated another way.
So they set their hands to treating me with all the diligence they could and knew in the world; and every day I got furiously worse, so that at the end of a week the illness grew so much that the doctors, despairing of the business, gave orders that I should be humoured and given everything I asked for. Master Francesco said: "As long as there is breath in him, call me at any hour, because nobody can imagine what nature can do in a young man of this sort; therefore, if he faints, give him these five remedies one after another, and send for me, and I shall come at any hour of the night; because it would please me more to save this man than any cardinal in Rome."
Messer Giovanni Gaddi came to visit me two or three times a day, and every time he took up one of my fine guns and my coats of mail and my swords, and kept saying: "This thing is beautiful, and this other one is more beautiful" — and so with my little models and small things: so that he had become a nuisance to me. And with him came a certain Mattio Franzesi, who seemed to think that a thousand years had gone by before I died as well; not because anything of mine would come to him, but he seemed to want what Messer Giovanni was showing such a great appetite for.
I had that Felice, my partner, who gave me the greatest help that one man in the world can ever give another. My nature was weakened and thoroughly beaten down; I had no strength left, once the breath had gone out, to take it in again; but the soundness of my brain stood firm, just as it did when I had nothing wrong with me. So, being in my right mind like that, a terrible old man came to find me at the bedside and wanted to drag me by force into a great boat of his; on account of which I called that Felice of mine to come near me and drive that scoundrelly old man away. Felice, who was most loving to me, ran up weeping and said: "Get away, you traitor of an old man, who want to rob me of all my good."
Messer Giovanni Gaddi, being there present, said: "The poor fellow is raving, and there are only a few hours left in him." That other man, Mattio Franzesi, said: "He has been reading Dante, and in this great illness that wandering has come over him"; and he said, laughing: "Get away, you old scoundrel, and do not bother our Benvenuto."
Seeing myself mocked, I turned to Messer Giovanni Gaddi and said to him: "My dear master, know that I am not raving, and that it is true about this old man who is giving me this great trouble. But you would do much better to take that wretch Mattio out of my sight, who laughs at my illness; and since your lordship thinks me worthy to see him, you ought to come here with Messer Antonio Allegretti or with Messer Annibal Caro, or with others of your able men, who are persons of another discretion and another wit than this beast."
Then Messer Giovanni said jokingly to Mattio that he should get out of his sight for good; but because Mattio laughed, the joke became earnest, because Messer Giovanni never wanted to see him again, and had Messer Antonio Allegretti called, and Messer Lodovico, and Messer Annibal Caro.
When these decent men had come, I took the greatest comfort from it, and talked with them a good while in my right mind, still urging Felice to drive the old man away. Messer Lodovico kept asking me what it was that I seemed to see, and what he was like. While I was drawing him for them well in words, this old man took me by an arm and pulled me to him by force; on account of which I shouted for them to help me, because he wanted to throw me under the deck in that frightening boat of his. When I had said that last word, a very great faintness came on me, and it seemed to me that he threw me into that boat.
They say that then, in this faint, I threw myself about and said ugly words to Messer Giovanni Gaddi, that he was coming to rob me and not out of any charity; and a great many other very ugly words which made Messer Giovanni ashamed. Then they said that I lay still like a dead man; and having waited more than an hour, and thinking that I was growing cold, they left me for dead. And having gone back to their houses, that Mattio Franzesi heard of it, and wrote to Florence to Messer Benedetto Varchi, a very dear friend of mine, that at such and such an hour of the night they had seen me die. On account of which that great and able man Messer Benedetto, and my great friend, made a marvellous sonnet on my death, which was not real but was well believed, and it will be put in its place.
More than three long hours went by before I came to myself; and, all the remedies of Master Francesco having been given, and seeing that I did not come round, my dearest Felice set off at a run to Master Francesco da Norcia's house, and knocked so hard that he woke him and got him up, and weeping begged him to come to the house, because he thought I was dead. To whom Master Francesco, who was extremely choleric, said: "Son, what do you think I would do by coming? If he is dead, I am sorrier for it than you are; do you think that with my medicine, if I came, I could blow up his backside and give him back to you alive?" Seeing that the poor young man was going off weeping, he called him back and gave him a certain oil to rub on my wrists and my heart, and told them to squeeze the little fingers of my feet and hands very tight; and that if I came round they should send for him at once.
Felice, having gone off, did everything Master Francesco had told him; and, it being nearly broad daylight, and thinking themselves without hope, they gave orders to make the shroud and to wash me. In a moment I came round and called Felice to drive that old man away quickly, quickly, who was bothering me. Felice wanted to send for Master Francesco, and I said he should not send, and that he should come here to me, because the old man went off at once and was afraid of him. Felice having come up to me, I touched him and it seemed to me that the old man went off in a fury; so I begged him always to stay by me.
Master Francesco, having appeared, said that he meant to save me at all costs, and that he had never in his life seen greater strength in a young man than that; and, setting his hand to writing, he ordered me perfumes, washings, ointments, plasters and a great many unreckonable things. Meanwhile I came round with more than twenty leeches on my backside, pricked, bandaged and altogether ground down.
A good many friends of mine having come to see the miracle of the resurrected dead man, men of great importance had come, and plenty of them; in front of whom I said that the little gold and money I had, which might be about eight hundred scudi between gold, silver, jewels and money, I wanted to go to my poor sister who was in Florence, whose name was Monna Liperata; and all the rest of my goods, weapons and everything else, I wanted to go to my dearest Felice, and fifty gold ducats over, so that he could clothe himself. At these words Felice threw himself on my neck, saying that he wanted nothing, only that he wanted me alive. Then I said: "If you want me alive, touch me like that, and shout at that old man, who is afraid of you." At these words there were some who were frightened, knowing that I was not raving but was speaking to the purpose and in my right mind.
So my great illness went on, and I improved little. That most excellent man Master Francesco came four or five times a day; Messer Giovanni Gaddi, who was ashamed, did not come before me any more.
My brother-in-law appeared, my sister's husband: he was coming from Florence for the inheritance; and because he was a very decent man, he was very glad to have found me alive; and it gave me an unreckonable comfort to see him, and he at once made much of me, saying that he had come only to look after me with his own hands; and so he did for several days. Then I sent him away, having an almost certain hope of health. Then he left the sonnet of Messer Benedetto Varchi, which is this:
On the believed and untrue death of Benvenuto Cellini
Who will console us, Mattio? Who is there to stop us dying of our weeping, since it is true, alas, that without us that clear friendly soul has climbed to Heaven
so early — the soul in which such worth flowered that down to his own time the world saw no equal, nor will see one, I think, since the best go first?
Gentle spirit, if outside the mortal veil one loves, look down from Heaven on those you loved on earth, weeping not for your good but for their own harm.
You have gone to contemplate up in Heaven the high Maker, and now see him living, just as with your learned hands you formed him down here.
The illness had been so beyond all reckoning that it did not seem possible to come to an end of it; and that decent man Master Francesco da Norcia laboured harder over it than ever, and every day brought me new remedies, trying to make the poor disordered instrument firm again; and with all those unreckonable labours it did not seem possible to come to the end of this indignation, so that all the doctors had almost despaired of it and did not know what more to do.
I had an unreckonable thirst, and had been on my guard, as they had ordered me, for many days; and Felice, who felt he had done a fine piece of work in saving me, never left me; and that old man no longer gave me so much trouble, but sometimes visited me in dreams.
One day Felice had gone out, and there had been left to look after me an errand boy of mine and a servant girl called Beatrice. I asked the boy what had become of my lad Cencio, and what it meant that I had never seen him in my need. The boy told me that Cencio had had a far greater illness than I had, and that he was at the point of death. Felice had ordered them not to tell me. When he had told me such a thing I took the greatest sorrow from it.
Then I called that servant Beatrice, who was from Pistoia, and begged her to bring me full of clear cold water a great crystal cooler that was there near by. This woman ran at once and brought it to me full. I told her to hold it to my mouth, and that if she let me drink a draught of it my own way, I would give her a gown. This servant, who had stolen certain little things of some importance from me, and who out of fear that the theft would be found out would have been very glad if I had died, let me drink as much of that water as I could in two goes, so that in fact I drank more than a flask of it; then I covered myself up and began to sweat, and fell asleep.
Felice came back after I must have slept about an hour, and asked the boy what I was doing. The boy said: "I do not know: Beatrice brought him that cooler full of water, and he has drunk nearly all of it; I do not know now whether he is dead or alive." They say that this poor young man nearly fell to the ground for the great sorrow he took; then he took a bad stick and with it beat the servant desperately, saying: "Alas, you traitress, you have killed him for me!"
While Felice was beating her and she was shouting, I was dreaming; and it seemed to me that the old man had cords in his hands, and, wanting to give orders to tie me up, Felice had come on him and was hitting him with an axe, so that this old man ran off, saying: "Let me go, and I shall not come back for a long time."
Meanwhile Beatrice, shouting loudly, had run into my room; on account of which, waking up, I said: "Let her be, because perhaps in wanting to do me harm she has done me so much good that you, with all your labours, never managed to do anything of what she has done entirely: attend to helping me, because I am sweating; and be quick."
Felice took heart again, dried me and comforted me; and I, feeling the greatest improvement, promised myself my health. Master Francesco, appearing, and seeing the great improvement, and the servant weeping, and the errand boy running back and forth, and Felice laughing, this confusion gave the doctor to believe that some strange thing had happened which was the cause of that great improvement of mine.
Meanwhile that other one, Master Bernardino, appeared, who at the beginning had not wanted to bleed me. Master Francesco, a very able man, said: "Oh, the power of nature! She knows her own needs, and the doctors know nothing." That little brain of a Master Bernardino answered at once and said: "If he had drunk another flask he would have been cured at once." Master Francesco da Norcia, an old man and of great authority, said: "It was the bad luck that God send you." And then he turned to me and asked me whether I could have drunk any more; to whom I said no, because I had entirely taken away my thirst. Then he turned to Master Bernardino and said: "Do you see that nature took exactly what she needed, and no more and no less? So she was asking for what she needed when the poor young man asked you to bleed him: if you knew that his health lay in drinking two flasks of water now, why did you not say so before? And you would have had the credit."
At these words the little apology of a doctor went off sulking, and never came there again.
Then Master Francesco said that I should be taken out of that room, and that they should have me carried towards one of the hills of Rome. Cardinal Cornaro, hearing of my improvement, had me carried to a place of his that he had on Monte Cavallo: that same evening I was carried there with great care in a chair, well covered and steady. When I got there I began to vomit; and in that vomiting there came out of my stomach a hairy worm a quarter of an arm long: the hairs were long and the worm was very ugly, spotted with different colours, green, black and red. It was kept for the doctor, who said he had never seen such a thing, and then said to Felice: "Now take care of your Benvenuto, who is cured, and do not let him make any disorder; because although that has saved him, another disorder now would kill him. You see, the illness has been so great that when they brought him the holy oil we were too late; now I know that with a little patience and time he will make other beautiful works."
Then he turned to me and said: "My Benvenuto, be wise and make no disorder at all; and when you are cured I want you to make me a Madonna by your own hand, because I want to adore her always for love of you." Then I promised it him; then I asked him whether it would be a good thing for me to go as far as Florence. Then he told me to make myself a little safer first, and to see what nature did.
A week having passed, the improvement was so little that I had almost become a nuisance to myself, because I had been more than fifty days in that great trouble; and, having made up my mind, I got ready; and in a pair of panniers my dear Felice and I went off towards Florence.
And because I had written nothing, I arrived in Florence at my sister's house, where I was wept over and laughed over at the same time by my sister. That day a good many friends of mine came to see me; among the others Pier Landi, who was the greatest and dearest I ever had in the world. The next day a certain Niccolò da Monte Aguto came, who was a very great friend of mine; and because he had heard the Duke say, "Benvenuto would have done much better to die, because he has come here to put his head in a halter, and I shall never forgive him" — Niccolò, coming to me, said desperately: "Alas, my dear Benvenuto, what have you come here to do? Did you not know what you have done against the Duke? Because I have heard him swear, saying that you have come to put your head in a halter at all costs."
Then I said: "Niccolò, remind his Excellency that Pope Clement once wanted to do the same to me, and just as wrongly; let him have me looked after and let me get well; because I shall show his Excellency that I have been the most faithful servant he will ever have in his life; and since some enemy of mine will have done me this bad turn out of envy, let him wait for my recovery, and as soon as I can I shall give him such an account of myself that I shall make him wonder."
This bad turn had been done me by Giorgetto Vasari of Arezzo, the painter, perhaps in payment for so many kindnesses done him; for I had kept him in Rome and paid his keep, and he had turned my house upside down for me; because he had a dry sort of leprosy, and had got his hands used to scratching all the time; and, sleeping with a good apprentice I had, called Manno, thinking he was scratching himself he had flayed Manno's leg with those dirty little hands of his, whose nails he never cut. Manno took his leave of me, and wanted to kill him at all costs: I made peace between them; then I got Giorgio a place with the Cardinal de' Medici, and always helped him. This is the reward: that he had told Duke Alessandro that I had spoken ill of his Excellency, and that I had boasted that I would be the first to leap onto the walls of Florence, in agreement with his Excellency's exiled enemies.
These words, according to what I heard afterwards, that fine gentleman Ottaviano de' Medici had made him say, wanting to revenge himself for the anger the Duke had shown him over the coins and over my leaving Florence; but I, being innocent of that falsehood laid on me, had no fear in the world at all. And that able man Master Francesco da Montevarchi treated me with the greatest skill, and my dearest friend Luca Martini had brought him to me, who stayed with me the greater part of the day.
In the meantime I had sent the most faithful Felice back to Rome to look after my business there. Having lifted my head a little off the pillow, which was at the end of a fortnight, although I could not go on my own feet, I had myself carried into the Medici palace, up to where the little terrace is; and so I had myself set down to sit and wait for the Duke to pass.
And when a good many friends of mine at Court greeted me, they wondered a great deal that I had taken the trouble to have myself carried there in that way, being so badly reduced by the illness; telling me that I ought to have waited to be cured and to visit the Duke afterwards. A good many being gathered together, they all looked at me as a miracle; not so much because they had heard I was dead, but it seemed to them more of a miracle that I looked to them like a dead man.
Then I said, in front of them all, that some wicked scoundrel had told my lord the Duke that I had boasted that I meant to be the first to climb onto his Excellency's walls, and that afterwards I had spoken ill of him; on account of which I had not the nerve either to live or to die until I had first purged myself of this disgrace, and known who the reckless scoundrel was who had made that false report.
At these words a great number of those gentlemen had gathered; and showing the greatest compassion for me, one said one thing and one another; I said that I would never leave that place until I knew who it was who had accused me. At these words there came up, among all those gentlemen, Master Agostino, the Duke's tailor, and said: "If you want to know nothing else but that, you shall know it this very minute." Just then that Giorgio the painter came by: then Master Agostino said: "There is the man who accused you: now you can tell whether it is true or not."
I boldly, unable to move as I was, asked Giorgio whether such a thing were true. Giorgio said no, that it was not true, and that he had never said such a thing. Master Agostino said: "Oh, you gallows-bird, do you not know that I know it for certain?" Giorgio went off at once, and said no, that it had not been him.
Not long afterwards the Duke passed by; at whom I at once had myself held up before his Excellency, and he stopped. Then I said that I had come there in that way only to justify myself. The Duke looked at me and wondered that I was alive; then he told me to attend to being a decent man and getting well.
Having gone back home, Niccolò da Monte Aguto came to find me and told me that I had got through one of the greatest storms in the world, which he had never believed I would; because he had seen my trouble written in an unchangeable ink; and that I should attend to getting well quickly, and then go off with God, because it came from a place and from a man who would have done me harm. And then, having said "Take care", he said to me: "What harm have you done that scoundrel Ottaviano de' Medici?" I told him that I had never done him any harm, but that he had done plenty to me; and, having told him the whole business of the mint, he said: "Go off with God as soon as you can, and be of good cheer, because sooner than you think you will see your revenge."
I attended to getting well; I gave advice to Pietro Paolo about the business of the coin dies; then I went off with God, going back to Rome, without a word to the Duke or anybody else.
When I got to Rome, having made much of my friends, I began the Duke's medal; and I had already made in a few days the head in steel, the most beautiful work I ever made in that line; and there came to see me at least once every day a certain great fool called Messer Francesco Soderini. Seeing what I was doing, he said to me several times: "Alas, you cruel man, so you mean to make this raging tyrant immortal for us. And because you never made so beautiful a work, it can be seen by this that you are our sworn enemy and so great a friend of theirs — since the Pope and he both wanted to have you hanged twice, and wrongly: that was the father and the son; now beware of the Holy Ghost." It was certainly held that Duke Alessandro was Pope Clement's son. Messer Francesco also said, and swore it expressly, that if he could he would have stolen those dies of that medal from me. To whom I said that he had done well to tell me, and that I would guard them in such a way that he would never see them again.
I sent word to Florence that they should tell Lorenzino to send me the reverse of the medal. Niccolò da Monte Aguto, to whom I had written it, wrote back to me, telling me that he had asked that mad melancholy philosopher Lorenzino, who had told him that day and night he thought of nothing else, and that he would do it as soon as he could; therefore he told me not to put any hope in his reverse, and to make one myself of my own pure invention; and that when I had finished it I should take it freely to the Duke, and it would be good for me.
Having made a design for a reverse which seemed to me to the purpose, I carried it forward with all the urgency I could; but because I was not yet safe from that measureless illness, I took a good deal of pleasure in going shooting with my gun along with that dear Felice of mine, who knew nothing at all of my art; but because we were continually together, day and night, everybody imagined that he was most excellent in the art. On account of which he, who was the pleasantest of men, and I laughed together a thousand times over this great credit he had won; and because he was called Felice Guadagni — Felix Gains — he said to me jokingly: "I should call myself Felice Gains-little, if you had not made me acquire so great a credit that I can call myself Gains-a-great-deal." And I told him that there are two ways of gaining: the first is what one gains for oneself, the second is what one gains for others; so that I praised in him that second way far more than the first, since he had gained me my life.
We had these conversations again and again; but among the rest, one day at Epiphany, we were together near the Magliana, and the day was already almost done; on which day I had killed a good many ducks and geese with my gun; and having almost made up my mind not to shoot any more that day, we were coming back urgently towards Rome. Calling my dog, whom I called by the name of Barucco, and not seeing him in front of me, I turned and saw that the well-trained dog was watching certain geese that had settled down in a ditch. On account of which I got down at once; and having got my good gun ready, I fired at them from a long way off and got two of them with a single ball; because I never wanted to fire with anything but a single ball, with which I shot two hundred arms' lengths and hit the mark most of the time; which one cannot do those other ways. So, having hit the two geese, one almost dead and the other wounded, which, wounded like that, was flying badly, my dog went after this one and brought it to me; the other, seeing that it was diving down into the ditch, I came up on it. Trusting to my boots, which were quite high, pushing my foot forward, the ground gave way under me: and although I got the goose, I had the boot of my right leg quite full of water. Having lifted my foot in the air I emptied out the water, and, having mounted, we hurried to get back to Rome.
But because it was very cold, I felt my leg freezing in such a way that I said to Felice: "This leg needs help here, because I no longer know any way of being able to bear it." The good Felice, without saying anything else, got down off his horse, and, having taken thistles and small sticks and set about making a fire, meanwhile, while I was waiting, having put my hands into the feathers of the breast of one of those geese, I felt a good deal of warmth; on account of which I did not have the fire made after all, but filled that boot of mine with those goose feathers, and at once I felt so much comfort that it gave me back my life.
I mounted, and we came on urgently towards Rome. When we had got to a certain little rise, it being already night, looking towards Florence we both together let out a great cry of astonishment, saying: "O God of heaven, what is that great thing to be seen over Florence?" It was like a great beam of fire, which sparkled and gave out a very great brightness. I said to Felice: "Certainly we shall hear tomorrow that some great thing has happened in Florence."
So, having come on to Rome, it was very dark; and when we had got near the Banchi and near our house, I had a little horse under me which went at a very furious amble; so that, a heap of rubble and broken tiles having been made in the middle of the street that day, my horse, not seeing the heap, nor I, went up it at that speed, and then, coming down, stumbled, so as to turn a somersault: it put its head between its legs; whereby, by the express power of God, I did not do myself any harm in the world. Lights having been brought out by the neighbours at that great noise, I, who had jumped to my feet, without mounting again ran home laughing, having escaped a chance of breaking my neck.
When I got home I found there certain friends of mine, to whom, while we were supping together, I told the tight places of the shooting and that devilry of the beam of fire that we had seen; and they said: "What on earth is that going to mean?" I said: "Something new must have happened in Florence." So, having passed our supper pleasantly, the next day late the news came to Rome of Duke Alessandro's death.
On account of which many acquaintances of mine came saying to me: "You said rightly that some great thing had happened over Florence." At this there came trotting up on a certain wretched little mule that Messer Francesco Soderini; laughing wildly and madly along the way, he said: "This is the reverse of the medal of that wicked tyrant, that your Lorenzino de' Medici promised you." And besides he added: "You wanted to make dukes immortal for us: we do not want any more dukes." And there he made fun of me as if I had been a head of one of those factions that make dukes.
At this there came up a certain Baccio Bettini, who had a great head like a basket, and he too made fun of me about these dukes, telling me: "We have un-duked them, and we shall have no more dukes; and you wanted to make them immortal for us" — with a great many of these annoying words. Which becoming too much of a nuisance to me, I said to them: "Oh, you great fools, I am a poor goldsmith who serves whoever pays me, and you make fun of me as if I were a head of a party; but I do not for that want to reproach you with the insatiability, madness and worthlessness of your forefathers. But I do say plainly to all this foolish laughter you are making, that before two or three days at the most have gone by you will have another duke, perhaps much worse than the one who has gone."
The next day that man Bettini came to my shop and said to me: "There would be no need to spend money on couriers, because you know things before they happen: what spirit is it that tells you them?" And he told me that Cosimo de' Medici, son of Signor Giovanni, had been made Duke; but that he had been made so with certain conditions which would hold him in, so that he would not be able to flutter about in his own way. Then it was my turn to laugh at them, and I said: "These men of Florence have put a young man on a marvellous horse, then they have put spurs on him and given him the bridle in his hand at his own liberty, and put him in a most beautiful field, where there are flowers and fruits and a great many delights; and then they have told him not to go beyond certain marked bounds. Now tell me, who is there who can hold him back when he wants to go beyond them? Laws cannot be given to the man who is master of them." So they left me alone and did not bother me.
Having attended to my shop, I went on with some business of mine, not of much moment, because I was attending to the restoration of my health, and it did not yet seem to me that I was safe from the great illness I had been through.
In the meantime the Emperor was coming back victorious from the Tunis expedition, and the Pope had sent for me and was taking counsel with me about what sort of honourable present I advised him to give the Emperor. To whom I said that what seemed to me most to the purpose was to give his Majesty a gold cross with a Christ, for which I had almost made an ornament, which would be very much to the purpose and would do the greatest honour to his Holiness and to me. I had already made three little gold figures, in the round, about a palm high: these figures were the ones I had begun for Pope Clement's chalice; they were figured for Faith, Hope and Charity. So I added in wax all the rest of the foot of the cross; and having taken it to the Pope with the Christ in wax and with many very beautiful ornaments, it greatly satisfied the Pope; and before I left his Holiness we came to agreement about everything that was to be done, and afterwards we valued the making of the work.
This was one evening at four hours of the night; the Pope had given orders to Messer Latino Juvinale to have money given me the following morning. It seemed good to Messer Latino, who had a great streak of madness in him, to want to give the Pope a new invention which should come from him alone; and he upset everything that had been arranged. And in the morning, when I thought I was going for the money, he said with that beastly presumption of his: "It is for us to be the inventors, and for you to be the workmen. Before I left the Pope in the evening, we thought of something much better." At which first words, not letting him go any further, I said: "Neither you nor the Pope can ever think of anything better than the things where Christ comes in; so now say all the courtiers' rubbish you know." Without saying anything else, he went off from me in a rage, and tried to give the work to another goldsmith; but the Pope would not have it, and sent for me at once and told me that I had spoken well, but that they wanted to use a Book of Our Lady, which was illuminated marvellously, and which had cost Cardinal de' Medici more than two thousand scudi to have illuminated: and this would be to the purpose to make a present to the Empress, and for the Emperor they would afterwards make what I had planned, which was truly a present worthy of him; but this was being done because there was little time, since the Emperor was expected in Rome within a month and a half.
For this book he wanted a cover made of solid gold, richly worked and adorned with many jewels. The jewels were worth about six thousand scudi: so that, having given me the jewels and the gold, I set my hand to the work, and, urging it on, in a few days I made it come out with such beauty that the Pope marvelled and showed me the greatest favours, on condition that that beast Juvinale should not come about me.
Having the work near its end, the Emperor appeared, for whom many marvellous triumphal arches had been made; and having come into Rome with marvellous pomp, which it falls to others to write about, because I want to deal only with what concerns me, on his arrival he at once gave the Pope a diamond which he had bought for twelve thousand scudi. The Pope sent for me about this diamond and gave it me, that I should make him a ring to the measure of his Holiness's finger; but he said he wanted me first to bring the book to the point it had got to.
When I had brought the book to the Pope, it greatly satisfied him; then he took counsel with me about what excuse could be found with the Emperor that would be valid for that work being unfinished. Then I said that the valid excuse was that I should speak of my ill health, which his Majesty would very easily believe, seeing me as thin and dark as I was. At this the Pope said that he liked it very much; but that I should add, on his Holiness's behalf, in making him the present of the book, to make him a present of myself as well; and he told me the whole manner I was to keep to, and the words I was to say, which words I said to the Pope, asking him whether he was pleased that I should say it so. He said to me: "You said it far too well, if you had the nerve to speak in that way to the Emperor as you speak to me."
Then I said that with far greater confidence I had the nerve to speak with the Emperor; seeing that the Emperor went dressed as I went, and it would seem to me that I was speaking to a man who was made as I was; which did not happen to me speaking with his Holiness, in whom I saw a far greater divinity, both because of the ecclesiastical ornaments, which showed me a kind of halo, together with his Holiness's fine old age: all these things made me more afraid than those of the Emperor did. At these words the Pope said: "Go, my Benvenuto, for you are an able man: do us honour, and it will be good for you."
The Pope ordered two Turkish horses, which had been Pope Clement's, and were the most beautiful that ever came into Christendom. These two horses the Pope ordered Messer Durante his chamberlain to lead down to the corridors of the palace, and there to give them to the Emperor, saying certain words that he laid on him.
We went down together; and when we came before the Emperor, those two horses came in through those rooms with such majesty and such spirit that the Emperor and everybody marvelled. At this Messer Durante came forward in such a graceless way, and with certain words of his in the Brescian manner, his tongue knotting itself in his mouth, that a worse thing was never seen or heard: it moved the Emperor somewhat to laughter.
Meanwhile I had already uncovered my work; and, having noticed that the Emperor had turned his eyes on me in the most gracious way, I came forward at once and said: "Sacred Majesty, our most holy Pope Paul sends this Book of Our Lady as a present to your Majesty, which is written by hand and illuminated by the hand of the greatest man who ever practised that profession; and this rich cover of gold and jewels is unfinished on account of my ill health: for which reason his Holiness, together with the book, presents me as well, that I may come along with your Majesty to finish your book for you; and moreover, whatever you may have a mind to have made, for as long as I live I shall serve you in it."
At this the Emperor said: "The book is welcome to me and so are you; but I want you to finish it for me in Rome; and when it is finished and you are well, bring it to me and come and find me." Then, talking with me, he called me by my name; on account of which I wondered, because no words had passed in which my name could have come up; and he told me he had seen that clasp for Pope Clement's cope, on which I had made so many marvellous figures. So we stretched out our conversation for a whole half hour, talking of a good many different things, all of them skilful and pleasant; and because it seemed to me that I had come out of it with far greater honour than I had promised myself, having made a little cadence in the talk, I made my bow and went off.
The Emperor was heard to say: "Let Benvenuto be given five hundred gold scudi at once" — so that the man who took them up asked which was the Pope's man who had spoken to the Emperor. Messer Durante came forward, and robbed me of my five hundred scudi. I complained of it to the Pope; who said that I should not worry; that he knew everything, how well I had borne myself in speaking to the Emperor, and that of that money I should have my share at all events.
Having gone back to my shop, I set my hand with great urgency to finishing the diamond ring; about which there were sent to me four of the first jewellers of Rome; because it had been said to the Pope that that diamond was set by the hand of the first jeweller in the world, in Venice, whose name was Master Miliano Targhetta, and, the diamond being somewhat thin, it was too difficult a business to do without great counsel.
I was glad of the four jeweller men, among whom was a Milanese called Gaio. He was the most presumptuous beast in the world, and the one who knew least and thought he knew most; the others were most modest and very able men. This Gaio began to speak before all the rest and said: "Save Miliano's foil, and to that, Benvenuto, you will take off your cap; because just as tinting a diamond is the most beautiful and the most difficult thing in the jeweller's art, Miliano is the greatest jeweller there ever was in the world, and this is the most difficult diamond."
Then I said that so much the greater glory it was to me to fight with so brave a man of such a profession; then I turned to the other jewellers and said: "See, I am saving Miliano's foil; and I shall try whether by making one I can improve on it; and if not, we shall tint it again with that same one." The beastly Gaio said that if I did it that way he would willingly take off his cap to it. To whom I said: "Then if I do it better, it deserves the cap off twice." "Yes," he said; and so I began to make my foils.
Having set about making the foils with the greatest diligence — which I shall teach in its place how they are made — that diamond was certainly the most difficult that ever came before me either before or since, and Miliano's foil was skilfully made; still it did not dismay me. I, having sharpened up the little tools of my wits, managed not only to come up to it but to pass it very well. Then, knowing that I had beaten him, I went looking to beat myself, and with new methods I made a foil that was better than the one I had made, by a long way.
Then I sent to call the jewellers, and, having tinted the diamond with Miliano's foil, then having cleaned it well, I tinted it again with mine. Having shown it to the jewellers, one of the first able men among them, called Raffaello del Moro, took the diamond in his hand and said to Gaio: "Benvenuto has passed Miliano's foil." Gaio, who would not believe it, took the diamond in his hand and said: "Benvenuto, this diamond is two thousand ducats better than with Miliano's foil."
Then I said: "Since I have beaten Miliano, let us see whether I can beat myself"; and having begged them to wait for me a little, I went up to a little upper room of mine, and out of their sight tinted the diamond again, and, having brought it to the jewellers, Gaio said at once: "This is the most marvellous thing I ever saw in my life, because this diamond is worth better than eighteen thousand scudi, where we hardly valued it at twelve." The other jewellers, turning to Gaio, said: "Benvenuto is the glory of our art, and deservedly we ought to take off our caps both to his foils and to him." Gaio then said: "I mean to go and tell the Pope, and I want him to have a thousand gold scudi for the setting of this diamond." And running off to the Pope, he told him everything; on account of which the Pope sent three times that day to see whether the ring was finished.
At twenty-three hours I took the ring up; and because the door was not kept against me, having lifted the curtain discreetly, I saw the Pope together with the Marquis del Vasto, who must have been pressing him about things he did not want to do; and I heard him say to the Marquis: "I tell you no, because it is my part to be neutral and nothing else." Having drawn back quickly, the Pope himself called me; so I went in quickly, and having handed him that beautiful diamond, the Pope drew me aside, so that the Marquis moved away.
The Pope, while he was looking at the diamond, said to me: "Benvenuto, start a conversation with me that looks as if it were important, and do not stop as long as the Marquis is here in this room." And having begun to walk about, the thing he was doing for my sake pleased me, and I began to talk with the Pope about the way I had gone about tinting the diamond. The Marquis stood upright at one side, leaning against a tapestry, and shifted now onto one foot and now onto the other.
The theme of this conversation was of such importance, if one wanted to tell it properly, that one could have talked of it for three whole hours. The Pope took such great pleasure in it that it went beyond the displeasure he had at the Marquis being there. I had mixed into the talk that part of philosophy which belonged to that profession; so that, having talked for close on an hour, the Marquis, becoming bored, went off half in a rage. Then the Pope made me the most familiar caresses anyone in the world can imagine, and said: "Wait, my Benvenuto, and I shall give you another reward for your skills than the thousand scudi that Gaio has told me your labour deserves."
So, when I had gone, the Pope praised me in front of those familiars of his, among whom was that Latino Juvinale I have spoken of. Who, having become my enemy, tried with every study to do me harm; and, seeing that the Pope spoke of me with so much affection and admiration, said: "There is no doubt at all that Benvenuto is a person of marvellous wit; but although every man is naturally bound to love those of his own country more than others, one ought still to consider well in what way one should speak of a Pope. He has had it to say that Pope Clement was the finest prince there ever was, and just as able, but with bad fortune; and he says that your Holiness is quite the opposite, and that the tiara weeps on your head, and that you look like a truss of straw dressed up, and that there is nothing in you but good fortune."
These words had such force, said by a man who knew perfectly well how to say them, that the Pope believed them: I not only had not said them, but such a thing never came into my consideration. If the Pope could have done it with his honour, he would have done me the greatest harm; but, being a person of the greatest wit, he made a show of laughing at it: nevertheless he kept inside himself so great a hatred of me that it was beyond all reckoning. And I began to notice it, because I did not get into his rooms with the same ease as before, but with the greatest difficulty. And because I had been many years practised in those courts, I imagined that somebody had done me a bad turn; and, making neat enquiries about it, I was told the whole thing, but I was not told who it had been; and I could not imagine who had said such a thing, for if I had known it I should have taken revenge for it by the shovelful.
I attended to finishing my little book; and when I had finished it I took it to the Pope, who really could not help praising it to me a great deal. To whom I said that he should send me to take it, as he had promised me. The Pope answered that he would do what it suited him to do, and that I had done what belonged to me. So he gave orders that I should be well paid.
Out of those works, in a little more than two months, I made five hundred scudi: the diamond was paid me at the rate of a hundred and fifty scudi and no more; all the rest was given me for the making of that little book, which making deserved more than a thousand, being a work rich in a great many figures and leafwork and enamels and jewels. I took what I could get, and made up my mind to go off with God out of Rome.
At this the Pope sent the little book to the Emperor by a nephew of his called Signor Sforza; who, presenting the book to the Emperor, the Emperor was most grateful for it and at once asked about me. The young Signor Sforza, having been coached, said that I had not come because I was ill. All of it was repeated to me.
Meanwhile I got ready to go off towards France; and I wanted to go quite alone, but I could not, because of a young man who was with me, called Ascanio. This young man was of very tender years and was the most marvellous servant there ever was in the world; and when I took him he had left a master of his called Francesco, who was a Spaniard and a goldsmith. I, who would not have wanted to take this boy so as not to come into a quarrel with the Spaniard, said to Ascanio: "I do not want you, so as not to displease your master." He managed so that his master wrote me a note saying I might freely take him.
So he had been with me many months; and because he had come to me thin and pinched, we called him the Little Old Man; and I thought he was a little old man, both because he served so well, and because he was so knowing, since it did not seem reasonable that at the age of thirteen, which he said he was, there should be so much wit.
Now, to come back: in those few months he filled out, and, having recovered from his hardship, became the handsomest young man in Rome; and both because he was that good servant I have described, and because he learned the art marvellously, I set the greatest love on him as on a son, and I kept him dressed as if he had been my son. Seeing himself restored, the young man felt that he had had a great piece of luck to fall into my hands. He often went to thank his master, who had been the cause of his great good; and because this master of his had a beautiful young wife, she used to say: "Surgetto, what have you done that you have become so handsome?" — for that is what they called him when he was with them. Ascanio answered her: "Madonna Francesca, it has been my master who has made me so handsome and much better besides."
This spiteful little woman took it very badly that Ascanio should say so; and because she had the name of being an unchaste woman, she knew how to make the young man some caresses perhaps beyond the use of decency; on account of which I noticed that this young man went to see his mistress a good deal more often than was usual with him.
It happened that, having one day beaten a shop boy badly, when I came in, coming from outside, the boy complained, weeping, telling me that Ascanio had beaten him for no reason at all. At which words I said to Ascanio: "With reason or without reason, never let me hear that you have struck anybody in my house again, because you will feel how I know how to strike." He answered me back, and I threw myself on him at once and gave him with fists and kicks the roughest beating he ever felt. As soon as he could get out of my hands, without cloak and without cap he ran out; and for two days I never knew where he was, nor did I look for him.
Only at the end of two days there came to speak to me a Spanish gentleman called Don Diego. He was the most generous man I ever knew in the world; I had made him, and was making him, certain works, so that he was very much a friend of mine. He told me that Ascanio had gone back to his old master, and that, if I thought fit, I should give him back his cap and cloak that I had given him. At these words I said that Francesco had behaved badly, and had acted like an ill-bred person; because if he had told me at once when Ascanio went to him, since he was in his house, I would very willingly have given him leave; but for having kept him two days and then not letting me know, I did not want him to stay with him, and let him see to it that I did not see him in his house in any way. Don Diego reported it; on account of which Francesco made a joke of it.
The next morning I saw Ascanio working at some rubbish of wirework beside his master. As I passed, Ascanio made me a bow, and his master almost laughed at me. He sent to tell me, by that gentleman Don Diego, that if I thought fit I should send back to Ascanio the clothes I had given him; and if not, he did not care, and Ascanio would not go short of clothes.
At these words I turned to Don Diego and said: "Signor Don Diego, in all your affairs I never saw a more generous or a more decent man than you; but this Francesco is quite the opposite of what you are, because he is a dishonoured renegade. Tell him this from me: that if before vespers ring he has not himself brought Ascanio back to me here at my shop, I shall kill him at all costs; and tell Ascanio that if he does not get away from there at that hour consecrated to his master, I shall do him little less."
At these words Signor Don Diego answered me nothing, but went and put such terror into Francesco that he did not know what to do. Meanwhile Ascanio had gone to look for his father, who had come to Rome from Tagliacozzo, where he came from; and, hearing of this confusion, he too advised Francesco that he ought to take Ascanio back to me. Francesco said to Ascanio: "Go there yourself, and your father will go with you." Don Diego said: "Francesco, I see some great scandal coming: you know better than I who Benvenuto is; take him back to him safely, and I will come with you."
I, having got myself ready, was walking about the shop waiting for the stroke of vespers, having disposed myself to do one of the most ruinous things I ever did in my life. At this Don Diego appeared, and Francesco and Ascanio, and the father, whom I did not know. Ascanio having come in, I looked at them all with an angry eye, and Francesco, pale of colour, said: "Here is Ascanio brought back to you, whom I kept, not thinking to displease you." Ascanio said reverently: "My master, forgive me; I am here to do everything you order me."
Then I said: "Have you come to finish the time you promised me?" He said yes, and never to leave me again. Then I turned and told that shop boy whom he had beaten to hand me that bundle of clothes; and to him I said: "Here are all the clothes I had given you, and with them take your freedom and go where you like."
Don Diego was left astonished at this, since he had expected anything else. At this, Ascanio together with his father begged me to forgive him and take him back. Having asked who it was who was speaking for him, he told me it was his father; to whom, after many entreaties, I said: "And because you are his father, for love of you I take him back."
Having made up my mind, as I said a little while ago, to go off towards France — both because I had seen that the Pope did not think of me as he had before, since through evil tongues my long service had been muddied for me, and for fear that those who had the power might do me worse — for that reason I had disposed myself to look for another country, to see whether I could find better fortune; and I would willingly have gone off with God alone.
Having made up my mind one evening to leave in the morning, I told that faithful Felice that he should enjoy all my things until my return; and that if it happened that I did not come back, I wanted everything to be his.
And because I had a Perugian apprentice who had helped me finish those works for the Pope, I gave him his leave, having paid him for his labour. He told me that he begged me to let him come with me, and that he would come at his own expense; that if it happened that I stopped to work with the King of France, it was still better for me to have some of my Italians with me, and above all people whom I knew would know how to help me. He knew how to beg me so well that I was content to take him with me in the way he had said.
Ascanio, being also present at this conversation, said half in tears: "Since you took me back, I said that I meant to stay with you for life, and so I mean to do." I told him that I did not want him on any account. The poor young man began to get ready to come after me on foot. Seeing him take such a resolution, I took a horse for him as well, and having put a little valise of mine on the crupper, I loaded myself with far more baggage than I would have done.
And having left Rome, I came to Florence, and from Florence to Bologna, and from Bologna to Venice, and from Venice I went to Padua; where I was carried off from the inn by that dear friend of mine called Albertaccio del Bene. The next day I went to kiss the hands of Messer Pietro Bembo, who was not yet a cardinal. Messer Pietro made me the most extravagant caresses that can ever be made to any man in the world; then he turned to Albertaccio and said: "I want Benvenuto to stay here with all his people, even if he had a hundred of them; so make up your mind, if you want Benvenuto too, to stay here with me, otherwise I do not mean to give him back to you."
And so I stayed to enjoy myself with this most able lord. He had had a room got ready for me that would have been too honourable for a cardinal, and he insisted always that I should eat beside his lordship. Then he came, with the most modest talk, to show me that he would have liked me to take his portrait; and I, who wanted nothing else in the world, having made myself some very white stucco in a little box, began it; and the first day I worked two hours running, and sketched out that able head with such good grace that his lordship was left astonished; and, being a very great man in his letters and in poetry to a superlative degree, but understanding nothing at all in the world of this profession of mine, the reason is that it seemed to him I had finished it at that time, when I had hardly begun it: so that I could not make him understand that it needed a long time to do well.
At last I made up my mind to do it as well as I knew how, with the time it deserved; and because he wore his beard short, in the Venetian way, it gave me a great deal of trouble to make a head that satisfied me. Still, I finished it, and it seemed to me that I had made the most beautiful work I ever made, as far as my art was concerned. On account of which I saw that he was dismayed, because he thought that, having made it in wax in two hours, I ought to make it in ten in steel. Then, seeing that I had not been able to do it in two hundred hours in wax, and that I was asking leave to go off towards France, he was much put out by it, and asked me at least to make him a reverse for his medal; and this was a Pegasus in the middle of a wreath of myrtle. This I made in about three hours' time, giving it very good grace; and being very well satisfied, he said: "This horse seems to me a ten times greater thing than making a little head, over which you have laboured so long: I cannot grasp this difficulty."
Still he kept telling me and begging me that I ought to do it for him in steel, saying: "Please do it for me, because you will do it very quickly if you want to." I promised him that I did not want to do it there; but that wherever I settled to work I would do it for him without fail.
While we were keeping to this subject, I had gone off to bargain for three horses to go off towards France; and he had me kept an eye on secretly, because he had the greatest authority in Padua; so that when I wanted to pay for the horses, which I had bargained for at fifty ducats, the owner of the horses said to me: "Able man, I make you a present of the three horses." To whom I answered: "It is not you who are giving them me; and from the man who is giving them me I do not want them, because I have not been able to give him anything for my labour." The good man told me that if I did not take those horses I should not get any other horses out of Padua and would have to go on foot. At this I went off to the magnificent Messer Pietro, who made a show of knowing nothing, and still made much of me, telling me to stay on in Padua. I, who wanted nothing of it and was disposed to go at all costs, was forced to accept the three horses; and with them I went off.
I took my road through the land of the Grisons, because no other road was safe, on account of the wars. We crossed the mountains of the Alba and the Bernina: it was the eighth of May and the snow was very deep. With the greatest danger to our lives we crossed these two mountains. When we had crossed them, we stopped at a place which, if I remember rightly, is called Wallenstadt: there we lodged.
That night a Florentine courier turned up there, who was called Il Busbacca. I had heard this courier spoken of as a man of credit and able in his profession, and I did not know that he had come down in the world through his own knaveries. When he saw me at the inn he called me by name and told me that he was going to Lyons about matters of importance, and that he begged me to lend him money for the journey. At this I said that I had no money to be able to lend him, but that if he wanted to come along with me I would pay his expenses as far as Lyons.
This scoundrel wept and made me fine speeches, telling me how, "over affairs of importance for the nation, a poor courier having run out of money, a man like you is bound to help him"; and besides he told me that he was carrying things of the greatest importance for Messer Filippo Strozzi; and because he had a case for a cup covered in leather, he told me in my ear that in that case was a silver cup, and that in that cup were jewels worth many thousands of ducats, and that there were letters of the greatest importance which Messer Filippo Strozzi was sending.
At this I told him to let me shut up the jewels on his own person, where they would be in less danger than carrying them in that cup; and to leave the cup to me, which might be worth about ten scudi, and I would serve him with twenty-five. At these words the courier said that he would come along with me, since he could do nothing else, because to leave that cup would be no honour to him. So we cut it short.
And in the morning, setting off, we came to a lake which is between Wallenstadt and Wesen; this lake is fifteen miles long, and one comes out at Wesen. Seeing the boats on this lake, I was afraid; because the boats are of fir, not very big and not very thick, and they are not nailed, nor even pitched; and if I had not seen four German gentlemen get into another like it with their horses, I should never have got into this one; on the contrary I would sooner have turned back; but I thought, from the beastly things I saw them do, that those German waters did not drown people as ours in Italy do.
Those two young men of mine kept saying: "Benvenuto, this is a dangerous thing to get into with four horses." To whom I said: "Do you not consider, you cowards, that those four gentlemen have gone in ahead of us, and are going off laughing? If this were wine, as it is water, I should say they were going cheerfully to drown in it; but because it is water, I know very well that they have no more pleasure in drowning in it than we have."
This lake was fifteen miles long and about three wide; on one side was a very high mountain full of caves, on the other it was flat and grassy. When we had gone about four miles in, the lake began to get up a storm, so that those who were rowing asked us for help, that we should help them row; and so we did for a while. I signalled, and said that they should throw us onto that further shore; they said it was not possible, because there is no water there to hold the boat up, and there are certain shallows on which the boat would break up at once and we should all be drowned; and still they urged us to help them. The boatmen were calling to each other, asking for help.
Seeing them dismayed, having a wise horse, I fixed the bridle round his neck and took a part of the halter in my left hand. The horse, who was, as they are, with some intelligence, seemed to have noticed what I meant to do, since, having turned his face towards that fresh grass, I wanted him to drag me with him as he swam.
At this there came so great a wave from that lake that it swamped the boat. Ascanio, shouting: "Mercy, my father, help me!" — meant to throw himself on me; on account of which I put my hand to my little dagger and told them to do what I had taught them, because the horses would save their lives just as I hoped to save mine that way; and that if he threw himself on me again I would kill him. So we went on several miles in this mortal danger.
When we were halfway across the lake, we found a bit of flat ground where we could rest, and on this flat ground I saw those four German gentlemen had got out. When we wanted to get out, the boatman would not have it at any price. Then I said to my young men: "Now is the time to make some trial of ourselves: so put your hands to your swords, and let us make them put us on land by force." So we did, with great difficulty, because they made the greatest resistance.
Still, when we were put on land, we had to climb two miles up that mountain, which was harder than going up a ladder. I was all armed in mail, with heavy boots and with a gun in my hand, and it was raining as much as God knew how to send. Those devils of German gentlemen, with their little horses led by hand, worked miracles, because our horses were no good for this purpose, and we were bursting with the effort of making them climb that difficult mountain.
When we had got up a good way, Ascanio's horse, which was a most marvellous Hungarian horse, was a little in front of Busbacca the courier, and Ascanio had given him his javelin to help him carry; it happened that at the bad places that horse slipped and went so staggering, not being able to help himself, that he struck on the point of that scoundrel courier's javelin, who had not known how to get it out of the way; and having gone through the horse's throat from side to side — that other apprentice of mine, wanting to help his horse too, which was a black horse, slipped towards the lake and caught hold of a bramble which was very thin. On this horse was a pair of saddlebags, in which was all my money with everything of value that I had. I told the young man to save his own life and let the horse go to the devil: the fall was more than a mile and went sheer down and fell into the lake. Exactly under this place our boatmen had stopped; so that if the horse fell, it would land right on them.
I was ahead of them all, and we stood watching the horse tumbling, which seemed to be going certainly to perdition. At this I said to my young men: "Do not worry about anything, let us save ourselves and thank God for everything; I am only sorry for this poor man Busbacca, who has tied his cup and his jewels, which are worth several thousand ducats, to the saddle bow of that horse, thinking that was safer; and mine are a few hundred scudi, and I am not afraid of anything in the world, as long as I have God's grace."
Busbacca then said: "I am not sorry for mine, but I am very sorry for yours." I said to him: "Why are you sorry for my little, and not sorry for your own great deal?" Busbacca then said: "I shall tell you in God's name: in these cases, and in the pass we are in, one must tell the truth. I know that yours are scudi, and are real; but that cup case of mine, where I said there were so many jewels and so many lies, is quite full of caviar."
Hearing this, I could not help laughing; my young men laughed; he wept.
That horse helped himself, when we had given him up for lost. So, laughing, we took up our strength again and set ourselves to keeping on up the mountain. Those four German gentlemen, who had got to the top of that steep mountain before us, sent us some men who helped us; so that we got to that wildest of lodgings: where, being wet, exhausted and starving, we were most pleasantly received; and there we dried ourselves, rested ourselves, satisfied our hunger, and the wounded horse was treated with certain herbs; and we were shown that sort of herb, which the hedges were full of, and we were told that by keeping the wound continually full of those herbs the horse would not only get well but would serve us as if he had nothing wrong with him at all: and so we did.
Having thanked the gentlemen, and being very well restored, we left there and went on, thanking God for having saved us from that great danger.
We arrived at a place beyond Wesen: here we rested for the night, where all through the night we heard a watchman singing in a very pleasant way; and because all the houses of that town are of fir wood, the watchman said nothing except that people should look out for fire.
Busbacca, who was terrified by the day, at every hour when the man sang, Busbacca shouted in his sleep, saying: "Alas, God, I am drowning!" — and this was the fright of the day just past; and added to that, he had got drunk that evening, because he wanted to have a drinking match with all the Germans who were there; and sometimes he said, "I am burning," and sometimes, "I am drowning": it seemed to him at times that he was in hell being martyred with that caviar round his neck. This night was so pleasant that all our troubles had been turned into laughter.
Getting up in the morning in very fine weather, we went to dine at a cheerful place called Lachen. There we were treated marvellously; then we took guides, who were going back to a place called Zurich. The guide who was leading went along an embankment of a lake, and there was no other road, and this embankment was itself covered with water, so that the beastly guide slipped, and he and his horse went under the water. I, who was exactly behind the guide, having stopped my horse, stood watching the beast come out of the water; and, as if nothing had happened, he began singing again and signalled to me to go on. I threw myself off to the right hand and broke through some hedges; and so I guided my young men and Busbacca. The guide shouted, telling me in German that if those people saw me they would kill me. We went on and escaped that other fury.
We arrived at Zurich, a marvellous city, as clean as a jewel. There we rested a whole day, and then early one morning we left; we came to another beautiful city called Solothurn: from there we came to Lausanne, from Lausanne to Geneva, from Geneva to Lyons, always singing and laughing.
At Lyons I rested for four days; I was very glad to be with some friends of mine; I was repaid the expense I had been at for Busbacca; then at the end of the four days I took the road towards Paris. This was a pleasant journey, except that when we got to La Palisse a band of adventurers tried to murder us, and it was not without some courage that we saved ourselves. Then we went on as far as Paris without a single trouble in the world: always singing and laughing we arrived safely.
After resting a little in Paris, I went to find Rosso the painter, who was in the King's service. This Rosso I believed to be the greatest friend I had in the world, because in Rome I had done him the greatest kindnesses one man can do another; and since these kindnesses can be told in a few words, I do not want to leave off telling them, to show how shameless ingratitude is. Because of his bad tongue, while he was in Rome, he had spoken so much ill of the works of Raphael of Urbino that Raphael's pupils meant to kill him at all costs: I saved him from that, guarding him day and night with enormous trouble. Again, for having spoken ill of Master Antonio da San Gallo, a most excellent architect, Rosso had a commission taken away from him which San Gallo had got him from Messer Agnolo de' Cesi; after that San Gallo began to work against him so hard that he had brought him to the point of starving to death; on account of which I lent him many tens of scudi to live on. And not having had them back yet, knowing that he was in the King's service, I went, as I have said, to visit him: I was not so much thinking that he would give me back my money, but I thought he would give me help and favour to get me into the service of that great King. When the man saw me, he was upset at once and said to me: "Benvenuto, you have come at too great an expense on so long a journey, especially at this time, when the mind is on war and not on trifles like our works." Then I said that I had brought money enough to be able to get back to Rome in the same way as I had come to Paris; and that this was not the return for the trouble I had gone through for him; and that I was beginning to believe what Master Antonio da San Gallo had told me about him. When he tried to turn the thing into a joke, having seen his own wretchedness, I showed him a bill of exchange for five hundred scudi on Ricciardo del Bene. This wretched man was ashamed then, and when he tried to keep me almost by force, I laughed at him and went off along with a painter who was there present. This man was called lo Sguazzella: he too was a Florentine; and I went to lodge in his house with three horses and three servants at so much a week. He treated me very well, and I paid him better. Then I looked for a way to speak to the King, to whom I was introduced by a certain Messer Giuliano Buonaccorsi, his treasurer. Over this I was held up a long while, because I did not know that Rosso was using every diligence to keep me from speaking to the King. Once the said Messer Giuliano had noticed it, he took me straight to Fontainebleau and put me in front of the King, from whom I had a whole hour of most gracious audience. And because the King was making ready to go towards Lyons, he told the said Messer Giuliano to bring me with him, and that on the road they would talk over certain fine works His Majesty had it in mind to have made. So I went along with the train of the Court; and on the way I did a great deal of service to the Cardinal of Ferrara, who did not have his hat yet. And since every evening I had long talks with the said Cardinal, His Lordship said I ought to stay at Lyons at an abbey of his, and there I could enjoy myself until the King came back from the war, since he was going towards Grenoble, and at his abbey in Lyons I should have every comfort. When we reached Lyons I had fallen ill, and that young man of mine Ascanio had caught a quartan fever; so that the French and their Court had become tiresome to me, and it seemed a thousand years until I got back to Rome. When the Cardinal saw me set on going back to Rome, he gave me money enough to make him a basin and a jug of silver in Rome. So we went back towards Rome on very good horses, coming over the mountains of the Simplon; and I had joined company with certain Frenchmen, with whom we travelled a good stretch, Ascanio with his quartan and I with a dull little fever which seemed as if it would never leave me at all; and my stomach had turned against food so much that I do not believe I managed to eat a whole loaf in a week, and I very much wanted to reach Italy, wanting to die in Italy and not in France.
When we had passed the mountains of the said Simplon, we came on a river near a place called Indevedro. This river was very wide and quite deep, and over it there was a long narrow little bridge with no parapets. It being a morning of very heavy hoarfrost, when I reached the bridge, finding myself ahead of everybody, and seeing it to be very dangerous, I ordered my young men and servants to dismount and lead their horses by the bridle. So I crossed the said bridge very happily, and came along talking with one of those two Frenchmen, who was a gentleman: the other one was a notary, who had stayed a little way behind, and was jeering at that French gentleman and at me for having chosen the discomfort of going on foot out of fear of nothing at all. I turned round to him, seeing him in the middle of the bridge, and begged him to come on gently, because he was in a very dangerous place. This man, who could not fail his French nature, told me in French that I was a man of little spirit, and that there was not a scrap of danger there. While he was saying these words, he chose to prick his horse a little, and at that the horse at once slid off the bridge, and with its legs towards the sky fell beside a very large rock. And because God is often merciful to madmen, this beast together with the other beast, his horse, plunged into a very deep pool, where they both went under, he and the horse. As soon as I saw this, with the greatest speed I set off running, and with great difficulty jumped onto that rock, and hanging over from it I caught hold of a corner of a cloak the man had on him, and by that corner I pulled him up, for he was still under the water; and because he had drunk a great deal of water, and was very near being drowned, when I saw him out of danger I congratulated him on my having saved his life. To which this man answered me in French and said that I had done nothing; that the important thing was his papers, which were worth many tens of scudi: and it seemed as if he said these words to me in a rage, all wet and spluttering. At that, I turned to certain guides we had, and told them to help that beast, and that I would pay them. One of those guides set to helping him with skill and great labour, and fished up his papers for him, so that he lost nothing; the other guide would never take the least trouble to help him. When we had then got to the place mentioned above — we had made up a purse, and it had fallen to me to do the spending — after we had dined I gave several coins out of the company's purse to that guide who had helped to pull the man out of the water; on account of which the man said to me that I would be giving that money out of my own, since he did not mean to give him anything beyond what we had agreed on for doing a guide's office. At that, I said a great many insulting words to him. Then the other guide came at me, the one who had taken no trouble, and wanted me to pay him too; and because I said, "This one deserves a reward as well, for having carried the cross," he answered me that he would soon show me a cross I should weep at. I told him that I would light a candle-end at that cross, by which I hoped it would fall to him to weep first. And because this is a place on the borders between the Venetians and the Germans, the man ran to fetch people, and came back with them, a great boar-spear in front of him. I, who was on my good horse, lowered the cock of my arquebus: turning to my companions, I said, "At the first shot I kill that one; and the rest of you do your duty, because these are highway assassins, and they have taken this small occasion only to murder us." That innkeeper, where we had eaten, called one of those headmen, who was a great old fellow, and begged him to put a stop to so much trouble, saying to him: "This is a very brave young man, and even if you cut him to pieces, he will kill so many of you, and after doing the harm he means to do he might well slip out of your hands." The thing quieted down, and that old chief of theirs said to me: "Go in peace, for you would not make a salad of it, if you had a hundred men with you." I, who knew he was telling the truth, and had already made up my mind and counted myself a dead man, hearing no further insulting words said to me, shook my head and said: "I should have done all I could, to show I was a live animal and a man." And taking the road, that evening at the first lodging we made up the account of the purse, and I parted from that brutish Frenchman, remaining great friends with the other one who was a gentleman; and with my three horses, alone, we came to Ferrara. When I had dismounted, I went to the Duke's Court to pay my respects to His Excellency, so as to be able to leave in the morning towards Santa Maria of Loreto. I had waited until two hours into the night, and then the Duke appeared: I kissed his hands; he made me a great welcome, and gave orders that water should be brought for my hands. At which I said pleasantly: "Most excellent lord, it is more than four months since I have eaten enough to make anybody believe a man could live on so little; so, knowing that I should not be able to enjoy the royal dishes of your table, I will stay here talking with you while Your Excellency has supper, and both you and I at one and the same time will have more pleasure than if I supped with you." So we struck up conversation, and went on until five hours into the night. At five hours I took my leave, and going off to my inn I found a marvellous meal laid out, because the Duke had sent me the choice pieces off his own dish with very good wine; and having been kept in that way more than two hours past my hour for eating, I ate with the greatest appetite, which was the first time in four months that I had been able to eat.
Leaving in the morning, I went to Santa Maria of Loreto, and from there, having said my prayers, I went on to Rome; where I found my most faithful Felice, to whom I left the shop with all its furnishings and fittings, and I opened another one next to Sugherello the perfumer, much bigger and roomier; and I thought to myself that great King Francis would not be remembering me. On account of which I took on a great many works from various lords, and meanwhile I was working on that jug and basin I had undertaken to make for the Cardinal of Ferrara. I had a great many workmen and a great deal of big business in gold and silver. I had made an agreement with that Perugian workman of mine, who had written down for himself all the money that had been spent on his account, which money had been spent on his clothing and on many other things; with the expenses of the journey it came to about seventy scudi: of which we had agreed that he should work off three scudi a month; for I was making him earn more than eight scudi. At the end of two months this rascal went off out of my shop with a God-be-with-you, and left me embarrassed by a great deal of business, and said he did not mean to give me anything more. For this reason I was advised to help myself by way of justice, because I had made up my mind to cut off one of his arms; and I would certainly have done it, but my friends told me it was not right for me to do such a thing, seeing that I would lose my money and perhaps Rome another time, because blows are not struck on terms; and that with that paper I had in his own hand I could have him arrested at once. I took the advice, but I chose to go about the thing more openly. I brought the suit before the auditor of the Chamber properly, and won it; and by virtue of it, which took several months, I afterwards had him put in prison. I found my shop loaded with very large commissions, and among the rest all the gold ornaments and jewels of the wife of Signor Gerolimo Orsino, father of Signor Paolo, today son-in-law of our Duke Cosimo. These works were very near finishing, and all the while more of the most important kind kept coming in. I had eight workmen, and along with them, for honour and for profit, I worked day and night.
While I was pushing on my undertakings so vigorously, there came to me a letter sent with all speed by the Cardinal of Ferrara, which ran to this effect: "Benvenuto, our dear friend. In these last days this great Most Christian King remembered you, saying that he wished to have you in his service. To which I answered that you had promised me that whenever I sent for you on His Majesty's service you would come at once. To these words His Majesty said: 'I want the means of coming to be sent to him, as a man of his rank deserves,' and at once ordered his Admiral to have a thousand gold scudi paid me by the treasurer of savings. Present at this conversation was Cardinal de' Gaddi, who at once came forward and told His Majesty that there was no need for His Majesty to give that order, because he said he had already sent you money enough, and that you were on the road. Now if by chance the contrary is the case, as I believe, when you have had this letter of mine, answer at once, because I will pick up the thread again and get you the promised money from this magnanimous King."
Now let the world and those who live in it take notice of how much the malignant stars with adverse fortune can do in us human beings! I had not spoken twice in my life to that silly little creature of a small cardinal, Gaddi; and he did not do this piece of officiousness to do me any harm in the world, but did it only out of scattiness and worthlessness of his own, making a show of taking care himself of the affairs of the talented men the King wanted, as the Cardinal of Ferrara did. But he was such a fool afterwards that he sent me no word of it; for certainly, rather than shame a silly puppet, for love of my country, I would have found some excuse to patch up that foolish officiousness of his. As soon as I had the most reverend Cardinal of Ferrara's letter, I answered that of Cardinal de' Gaddi I knew nothing in the world, and that even if he had made me some such offer, I would not have moved out of Italy without His most reverend Lordship's knowing it; and all the more so since I had in Rome a greater quantity of business than I had ever had before; but that at a single word from His Most Christian Majesty, told me by so great a lord as His most reverend Lordship, I would set off at once, throwing everything else aside.
When I had sent my letters off, that traitor of a Perugian workman of mine thought up a piece of malice, which succeeded for him at once, given the avarice of Pope Paul of the Farnese family, and still more that of his bastard son, then called Duke of Castro. This workman I speak of let one of the secretaries of the said Signor Pier Luigi understand that, having been with me as a workman several years, he knew all my affairs; on the strength of which he gave the said Signor Pier Luigi his word that I was a man worth more than eighty thousand ducats, and that most of this money I had in jewels; and that the jewels belonged to the Church, and that I had stolen them at the time of the sack of Rome in the Castel Sant'Angelo, and that they should see to having me arrested at once and secretly.
One morning among others, I had worked more than three hours before daybreak on the works for the bride I spoke of above, and while my shop was being opened and swept out I had put my cloak on to take a little turn; and taking my way along the Strada Giulia, I came out at the corner of the Chiavica; where Crespino the constable with his whole troop of catchpoles came up against me, and said to me: "You are the Pope's prisoner." To whom I said: "Crespino, you have taken me for somebody else." "No," said Crespino, "you are the talented Benvenuto, and I know you very well, and I have to take you to the Castel Sant'Angelo, where lords and men of talent like you go." And because four of his corporals threw themselves on me and tried by force to take from me a dagger I had at my side and certain rings I had on my finger, the said Crespino said to them: "Let none of you touch him: it is quite enough that you do your office, and see that he does not escape me." Then, coming up to me, he asked me for my weapons with courteous words. While I was giving him my weapons, it struck me that in that very place I had killed Pompeo. From there they took me into the Castle, and shut me up as a prisoner in a room high up, in the keep. This was the first time I ever tasted prison, up to that age of mine of thirty-seven years.
When Signor Pier Luigi, the Pope's son, had considered the great quantity of money I was accused of, he at once asked as a favour of that father of his the Pope that he should make him a gift of this sum of money. Which the Pope willingly granted him, and moreover told him that he would also help him to recover it: so that, having kept me prisoner eight whole days, at the end of the eight days, to bring the matter to some conclusion, they sent to examine me. So I was called into one of those halls which are in the Castle, the Pope's own, a very honourable place; and the examiners were the Governor of Rome, who was called Messer Benedetto Conversini of Pistoia, who was afterwards Bishop of Iesi; the second was the Procurator Fiscal, whose name I do not remember; the third was the judge of criminal cases, who was called Messer Benedetto da Cagli. These three men began to examine me, first with kindly words, then with the harshest and most frightening words, brought on because I said to them: "My lords, it is more than half an hour that you have not stopped asking me about fables and about matters of which it can truly be said that you are chattering, or that you are gossiping. A way of speaking, chattering, that has no tone to it, or gossiping, that means nothing; so I beg you to tell me what you want from me, and to let me hear reasoning come out of your mouths, and not fables and chatter." At these words of mine the Governor, who was from Pistoia, no longer able to cover up his hot-tempered nature, said to me: "You speak very confidently, indeed too haughtily; so that I will make this haughtiness of yours humbler than a puppy's at the reasoning you will hear me tell you; which will be neither chatter nor fables, as you say, but will be a setting out of arguments, to which you will certainly need to do your best to give us an answer." And so he began: "We know for a certainty that you were in Rome at the time of the Sack that was made in this unhappy city of Rome; and at that time you were in this Castel Sant'Angelo, and were employed here as a gunner; and because your trade is that of goldsmith and jeweller, Pope Clement, having known you before, and there being nobody else here of that profession, called you into his privacy and had you take out all the jewels of his tiaras and mitres and rings; and then, trusting you, he wanted you to sew them onto him: on account of which you kept back for yourself, hidden from His Holiness, the value of eighty thousand scudi. This has been told us by a workman of yours, in whom you confided and to whom you boasted of it. Now we tell you plainly to find the jewels, or the value of those jewels: and then we will let you go free."
When I heard these words I could not keep myself from bursting into enormous laughter; then, having laughed a while, I said: "I thank God greatly that for this first time it has pleased His Majesty that I should be imprisoned, and that I am at least happy not to be imprisoned for some feeble thing, as most often seems to happen to young men. If what you say were true, there is no danger here of my having to be punished with a bodily penalty, since the laws at that time had lost all their authority; so that I could excuse myself by saying that as an officer I had kept that treasure for the sacred and holy Apostolic Church, waiting to hand it over to a good Pope, or truly to whoever should ask me for it, which now would be you, if it were so." At these words that furious Governor of Pistoia did not let me finish saying my reasons, but said in a rage: "Arrange it as you please, Benvenuto, since it is enough for us to have found our own again; and be quick about it, if you do not want us to do more than talk." And as they were about to get up and go away, I said to them: "My lords, I have not finished being examined, so finish examining me, and then go where you please." They sat down again at once, in a fine rage, almost showing that they did not want to hear another word I might say then, and half risen, thinking they had found out all they wanted to know. On account of which I began in this fashion: "Know, my lords, that it is about twenty years that I have lived in Rome, and never here nor anywhere else was I imprisoned." At these words that ruffian of a Governor said: "But you have killed men." Then I said: "You say it, and not I; but if a man came to kill you, priest as you are, you would defend yourself, and in killing him the holy laws allow it: so let me say my reasons, since you will want to be able to report to the Pope and to be able to judge me justly. I tell you again that it is close on twenty years that I have lived in this marvellous Rome, and in it I have done very great business in my profession: and because I know that this is the seat of Christ, I would certainly have promised myself that if a temporal prince had wanted to do me some violence, I should have had recourse to this holy Chair and to this Vicar of Christ, that he might defend my rights. Alas! where am I to go then? and to what prince, to defend me from so wicked an assault? Ought you not, before you took me, to have found out where I was turning over these eighty thousand ducats? And ought you not to have looked at the list of the jewels which this Apostolic Chamber has had written down carefully these five hundred years? Then, if you had found anything missing, that was the moment to seize all my books, along with me. I tell you that the books in which all the jewels of the Pope and of the tiaras are written down are all in existence, and you will not find anything missing of what Pope Clement had that is not carefully written down. The only thing there might be is that, when that poor man Pope Clement wanted to come to terms with those thieves of Imperials, who had robbed Rome and shamed the Church, there came to negotiate this agreement a man called Cesare Iscatinaro, if I remember rightly; who, having as good as concluded the agreement with that plundered Pope, in order to make a little show of affection to him let fall from his finger a diamond worth about four thousand scudi: and because the said Iscatinaro bent down to pick it up, the Pope told him to keep it for love of him. I was actually present at these doings: and if the said diamond is missing, I can tell you where it has gone; but I am quite certain that you will find this one written down too. After that you may be ashamed at your leisure of having assaulted a man like me, who has done so many honourable services for this Apostolic See. Know that if I had not been what I was, the morning the Imperials came into the Borgo they would have got into the Castle without any hindrance at all; and I, without being rewarded on that account, threw myself vigorously on the artillery, which the gunners and the soldiers of the garrison had abandoned, and put heart into a poor little companion of mine called Raffaello da Montelupo, a sculptor, who had abandoned it too and had got himself into a corner all terrified, doing nothing: I roused him up; and he and I alone killed so many of the enemy that the soldiers took another way. I was the one who fired an arquebus shot at Scatinaro, for seeing him talk with Pope Clement without a bow, but with the ugliest mockery, Lutheran and impious as he was. Pope Clement over this had a search made in the Castle for whoever had done it, to hang him. I was the one who wounded the Prince of Orange in the head with an arquebus shot, down here under the trenches of the Castle. Besides that, I have made for the holy Church so many ornaments of silver, of gold and of jewels, so many medals and coins so fine and so honourable. Is this then the rash priestly reward that is used towards a man who has served and loved you with such faith and such skill? Oh, go and tell the Pope again everything I have told you, telling him that he has all his jewels, and that I never had anything else from the Church except certain wounds and stonings in that time of the Sack; and that I counted on nothing except a little reward from Pope Paul, which he had promised me. Now I am clear about His Holiness and about you, his officers." While I was saying these words they stood astonished to hear me; and looking each other in the face, with a gesture of amazement they went away from me. All three went in agreement to report to the Pope everything I had said. The Pope, ashamed, gave orders with the greatest diligence that all the accounts of the jewels should be gone over again. Then, when they had seen that nothing was missing, they left me in the Castle without saying anything more: Signor Pier Luigi, thinking himself too that he had done badly, they set about diligently trying to make me die.
During this little stir of the time, King Francis had already learned in detail how the Pope was holding me prisoner, and so very wrongfully: having sent to the Pope as ambassador a certain gentleman of his who was called Monsignor de Morluc, he wrote to him to ask me of the Pope, as a man of His Majesty's. The Pope, who was a very able and marvellous man, but in this affair of mine behaved like a mean and foolish one, answered the King's said envoy that His Majesty should not concern himself about me, because I was a man very troublesome with weapons, and for this reason he warned His Majesty to let me alone, because he was holding me prisoner for homicides and other devilries of mine of that kind. The King answered again that in his kingdom very good justice was kept; and that just as His Majesty rewarded and favoured men of talent marvellously, so on the other hand he punished troublesome ones; and that since His Holiness had let me go, not caring for the service of the said Benvenuto, and had seen him gladly in his kingdom, he had taken him into his own service; and asked for him as his own man. These things were the greatest annoyance and harm to me, although they were the most honourable favours a man of my sort could wish for. The Pope had fallen into such a fury out of his fear that I might go and tell of that wicked piece of villainy used towards me, that he was thinking of every way he could, with his honour, to have me put to death. The Castellan of the Castel Sant'Angelo was a Florentine of ours, who was called Messer Giorgio the knight, of the Ugolini. This honest man used towards me the greatest courtesies that can be used in the world, letting me go free about the Castle on my word alone; and because he understood the great wrong that had been done me, when I wanted to give him security for going about the Castle at my ease, he told me that he could not take it, seeing that the Pope set too much store by this affair of mine; but that he would freely trust my word, because he heard from everybody what an honest man I was: and I gave him my word, and so he gave me the chance of doing a little work on something. At this, thinking that this indignation of the Pope's would come to an end, both because of my innocence and because of the King's favours, and still keeping my shop open, Ascanio my apprentice came to me in the Castle, and brought me some things to work on. Though I could work little, seeing myself imprisoned in that way and so wrongfully; still I made a virtue of necessity: cheerfully, as best I could, I put up with this perverse fortune of mine. I had made the greatest friends of all those guards and of many soldiers of the Castle. And because the Pope came sometimes to supper in the Castle, and during the time the Pope was there the Castle kept no guards, but stayed freely open like an ordinary palace; and because during the time the Pope was there in that way all the prisoners were usually shut up with greater diligence; yet none of these things was done to me, but freely at all these times I went about the Castle; and several times some of those soldiers advised me that I ought to run away, and that they would back me up, knowing the great wrong that had been done me: to whom I answered that I had given my word to the Castellan, who was such an honest man, and who had done me such great kindnesses. There was a soldier there, very brave and very clever; he said to me: "My Benvenuto, know that a man who is a prisoner is not bound, and cannot bind himself, to keep faith, any more than to anything else; do what I tell you; run away from this rascal of a Pope and from this bastard son of his, who will take your life from you in any case." I, who had made up my mind rather to lose my life than to fail of my promised word to that honest man the Castellan, put up with this inestimable unpleasantness, along with a friar of the Pallavicini house, a very great preacher.
This one had been arrested as a Lutheran: he was a very good companion to live with, but as a friar he was the greatest rascal in the world, and lent himself to every sort of vice. His fine qualities I admired, his ugly vices I greatly abhorred, and I reproved him for them freely. This friar never did anything but remind me that I was not bound to keep faith with the Castellan, since I was in prison. To which I answered that as a friar he was quite right, but as a man he was not right, because a man who was a man and not a friar had to keep his word in every sort of accident he might find himself in: therefore I, who was a man and not a friar, was never going to fail of that plain and honest word of mine. When the said friar saw that he could not manage to corrupt me by way of his most subtle and virtuous reasonings, so marvellously put by him, he thought of trying me another way; and letting a good many days pass like that, while he was reading me the sermons of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, he gave them a commentary so admirable that it was finer than the sermons themselves; by which I was left enchanted, and there was nothing in the world I would not have done for him, apart from failing of my word, as I have said. When the friar saw me astonished at his talents, he thought of another way; for he began, in a pretty fashion, to ask me what course I would take if the wish came on me, once they had shut me up, to open those prison doors and escape. I too, wanting to show some subtlety of my wit to this talented friar, told him that I would certainly open any lock, however difficult, and all the more those of these prisons, which would be like eating a little fresh cheese to me. The said friar, to make me tell my secret, belittled me, saying that there are a great many things said by men who have got some credit for being ingenious; that if they then had to put in practice the things they boasted of, they would lose so much credit that it would go hard with them: and that he was hearing me say things so far from the truth that if I were ever put to it, he thought I would come out of it with little honour. At this, feeling myself pricked by this devil of a friar, I told him that I always undertook far less in words about myself than I knew how to do, and that this thing I had promised about the keys was the feeblest of them; and that in a few words I would make him quite sure it was as I said; and inconsiderately, as I have said, I showed him easily everything I had spoken of. The friar, making a show of not caring about it, took the whole thing in at once, most cleverly and thoroughly.
And as I have said above, that honest man the Castellan let me go freely all about the Castle; and he did not even lock me up at night, as he did all the others; he also let me work at whatever I wanted, in gold and silver and wax; and although I had worked several weeks on a certain basin I was making for the Cardinal of Ferrara, finding myself sick of the prison, working at that sort of thing had become tiresome to me; and I worked only, for less unhappiness, at some little figures of mine in wax: of which wax the said friar got hold of a piece from me, and with the said piece he put into practice that way with the keys which I had inconsiderately taught him. He had taken as companion and helper a chancellor who was with the said Castellan. This chancellor was called Luigi, and was a Paduan. When they wanted to have the said keys made, the locksmith gave them away; and because the Castellan came sometimes to see me in my room, and having seen me working with that wax, he recognized the said wax at once and said: "Even if this poor man Benvenuto has had one of the greatest wrongs done him that was ever done, he ought not to have carried on this kind of business with me, who was doing him the one kindness I could do him. Now I shall keep him shut up very close and never do him another kindness in the world." So he had me shut up again with some unpleasantness, especially of words said to me by certain devoted servants of his, who wished me exceedingly well, and every hour told me all the good offices this lord Castellan had done for me; so that over this incident they called me an ungrateful man, empty and without faith. And because one of those servants said these insults to me more boldly than became him, I, feeling myself innocent, answered boldly, saying that I had never failed of my word, and that I would maintain such words at the risk of my life, and that if he or anybody else said such unjust words to me again, I would say that whoever said such a thing lied in his throat. Unable to bear the insult, he ran to the Castellan's room and brought me back the wax with that model made of the key. As soon as I saw the wax, I told him that he and I were both in the right; but that he should let me speak to the lord Castellan, because I would tell him frankly how the case stood, which was of far more importance than they thought. At once the Castellan had me called, and I told him the whole business; on account of which he took the friar in hand, and the friar gave away that chancellor, who was within an inch of being hanged. The said Castellan quieted the matter, which had already come to the Pope's ears; he saved his chancellor from the gallows, and gave me the same freedom I had before.
When I saw this affair go forward with so much severity, I began to think about my own case, saying: "If another one of these furies came on, and this man did not trust me, I should no longer be under any obligation to him, and I should want to use my wits a little, which I am sure would come out for me differently from that wretched friar's." And I began to have new thick sheets brought to me, and I did not send the dirty ones back. When my servants asked me for them, I told them to keep quiet, because I had given them away to certain poor soldiers; and that if such a thing got known, those poor fellows would be in danger of the galleys: so that my young men and servants, most faithfully, and Felice above all, kept the matter of the said sheets very well hidden for me. I set about emptying a straw mattress, and burnt the straw, because in my prison there was a fireplace where a fire could be made. I began to make out of these sheets strips a third of a braccio wide: when I had made as much as seemed to me enough to get down from that great height of the keep of the Castel Sant'Angelo, I told my servants that I had given away as many as I wanted, and that they should see to bringing me the thin ones, and that I would always give them back the dirty ones. The matter was forgotten.
As for those workmen and servants of mine, Cardinal Santiquattro and Cardinal Cornaro had my shop shut up, telling me plainly that the Pope would not hear a word of letting me go, and that those great favours of the King's had done me far more harm than good; because the last words Monsignor de Morluc had said on the King's behalf had been that Monsignor de Morluc told the Pope he ought to hand me over to the ordinary judges of the court; and that, if I had done wrong, he could punish me, but if I had not done wrong, reason required that he should let me go. These words had annoyed the Pope so much that he had a mind never to let me go again. This Castellan most certainly helped me as much as he could.
At this time, when those enemies of mine saw that my shop had been shut, they said in mockery some insulting word every day to those servants and friends of mine who came to visit me in prison. It happened one day among others that Ascanio, who came to me twice every day, asked me to make him a certain little coat for himself out of a blue satin gown of mine, which I never wore: it had served me only that once, when I went in procession in it: so I told him that these were not the times, nor was I in a place, for wearing clothes of that sort. The young man took it so badly that I did not give him this wretched gown, that he told me he wanted to go off to Tagliacozzo to his home. All worked up, I told him that he would be doing me a kindness by getting out of my sight; and he swore in a great passion never to come in front of me again. While we were saying this, we were walking round the keep of the Castle. It happened that the Castellan was walking too: meeting His Lordship at exactly that point, Ascanio said: "I am going, and goodbye for ever." At this I said: "And for ever I want it to be, and so let it truly be: I will order the guards never to let you pass again," and turning to the Castellan, with all my heart I begged him to order the guards never to let Ascanio pass again, saying to His Lordship: "This little peasant comes to add to my great trouble; so I beg you, my lord, never to let him in again." The Castellan was very sorry about it, because he knew him for a young man of marvellous talent: besides which he was of such a fine shape of body that it seemed as if everybody who saw him even once was particularly fond of him. The said young man went off in tears, and carried with him a little curved sword of his, which he sometimes carried secretly under his clothes. Going out of the Castle, with his face all in tears, he met two of my greatest enemies, one of whom was that Girolamo of Perugia I spoke of, and the other a certain Michele, both of them goldsmiths. This Michele, being a friend of that rascal the Perugian and an enemy of Ascanio's, said: "What does it mean that Ascanio is crying? Perhaps his father is dead? I mean that father of his in the Castle." Ascanio said to this: "He is alive, but you will be dead in a moment;" and raising his hand, with that curved sword of his he dealt him two blows, both of them on the head, so that with the first he laid him on the ground, and with the second he then cut off three fingers of his right hand, while still striking at his head. He was left there as if dead. It was reported to the Pope at once; and the Pope in great anger said these words: "Since the King wants him to be tried, go and give him three days to defend his case." At once they came, and did the said office the Pope had charged them with. That honest man the Castellan went straight to the Pope, and made it clear to him that I had known nothing of the matter, and that I had driven him away. He defended me so admirably that he saved my life from that great fury. Ascanio fled to Tagliacozzo to his home, and from there he wrote to me asking my pardon a thousand times, saying that he knew he had been wrong to add unpleasantness to my great troubles; but that if God gave me the grace to get out of that prison, he would never leave me again. I let him know that he should attend to learning his trade, and that if God gave me liberty, I would call him back in any case.
This Castellan had every year certain illnesses which took his wits away altogether; and when this thing began to come on him, he talked a great deal: a way of chattering; and these humours of his were different every year, because one time it seemed to him that he was an oil jar; another time it seemed to him that he was a frog, and he hopped like a frog; another time it seemed to him that he was dead, and he had to be buried: so every year he came into one or another of these different humours. This time he began to imagine that he was a bat, and while he went about at his ease he sometimes squeaked as dully as bats do; he also made a little play with his hands and his body, as if he had meant to fly. His doctors, who had seen how it was, and so had his old servants, gave him every pleasure they could imagine: and because it seemed to them that he took great pleasure in hearing me talk, every little while they came for me and brought me to him. On account of which this poor man sometimes kept me four and five whole hours, in which I had never left off talking with him. He kept me at his table to eat opposite him, and never left off talking or making me talk; but in all that talking I ate very well all the same. He, poor man, neither ate nor slept, so that he had worn me out and I could bear no more; and looking him in the face sometimes, I saw that the pupils of his eyes were frightening, because one looked one way and the other another.
He began to ask me if I had ever had a fancy for flying: to whom I said that all those things which had been most difficult for men, I had most gladly tried to do and had done; and this business of flying, since the God of nature had presented me with a body very fit and disposed for running and jumping far more than the ordinary, and then with that little wit of mine which I would apply with my hands, I had the heart to fly for certain. This man began to ask me what methods I would use: to whom I said that, considering the animals that fly, and wanting to imitate by art what they had from nature, there was none that could be imitated except the bat. As soon as this poor man heard that name of bat, which was the humour he was suffering from that year, he let out an enormous cry, saying: "He speaks the truth, he speaks the truth; this is it, this is it;" and then he turned to me and said to me: "Benvenuto, if somebody gave you the means, would you have the heart to fly?" To whom I said that if he would afterwards give me my liberty, it would be enough for me to have the appearance of flying as far as the Prati, if he would make me a pair of wings of waxed Rheims linen. Then he said: "And the appearance would be enough for me too; but because the Pope has ordered me to take care of you as of his own eyes, I know that you are an ingenious devil who would run away; so I mean to have you shut up with a hundred keys, so that you shall not escape me." I set about begging him, reminding him that I could have escaped and, for love of the word I had given him, would never have failed him; so I begged him for the love of God, and for so many kindnesses as he had done me, that he would not choose to add a greater trouble to the great trouble I already had. While I was saying these words to him, he was giving express orders that they should bind me and take me to prison and shut me in well. When I saw that there was no other remedy, I said to him in front of all his people: "Shut me up well and guard me well, because I shall run away in any case." So they took me off, and shut me up with marvellous diligence.
Then I began to think of the way I should take to escape. As soon as I saw myself shut in, I went examining how the prison stood in which I was locked; and when it seemed to me that I had certainly found the way to get out of it, I began to think in what way I should get down from that great height of the keep, for so that high tower was called: and taking those new sheets of mine, which I have already said I had made into strips and sewn together very well, I went examining how much bulk of them would be enough for me to be able to get down. Having judged what would serve me, and having put everything in order, I found a pair of pincers which I had taken from a Savoyard who was one of the Castle guards. This man had charge of the barrels and the cisterns; he also took pleasure in working with wood; and because he had several pairs of pincers, among them there was one pair very thick and large: thinking they were the thing for me, I took them from him and hid them inside that straw mattress. When the time came that I wanted to use them, I began with them to try at those nails which held the hinges; and because the door was double, the clinching of the said nails could not be seen; so that when I tried to draw one out, I went through the greatest labour; still, in the end I managed it. When I had drawn out this first nail, I went thinking what way I should take so that they should not notice it. At once I fixed up, with a little scraping of rusty iron, a little wax, which was exactly the same colour as those nail heads I had drawn out; and with that wax I began carefully to counterfeit those nail heads on their hinges: and one after another, as many as I drew out, so many I counterfeited in wax. I left the hinges fastened, each of them at top and bottom, with certain of the same nails I had drawn out, and then put back; but they were cut, then put back lightly, just enough to hold the hinges for me. I did this thing with the greatest difficulty, because the Castellan dreamed every night that I had escaped, and so he sent to look at the prison from hour to hour; and the man who came to look at it had the name and the ways of a catchpole. This one was called il Bozza, and he always brought another with him, who was called Giovanni, nicknamed Pedignone; this one was a soldier, and Bozza was a servant. This Giovanni never came a single time to that prison of mine without saying some insult to me. He was from the district of Prato and had been in Prato at the apothecary's: he looked carefully every evening at those hinges and at the whole prison, and I said to him: "Guard me well, because I mean to escape in any case." These words bred the greatest enmity between him and me; so that with the greatest diligence I put away carefully in my straw mattress all those bits of iron of mine, such as the pincers, and a dagger quite a big one and other things belonging to the business; and so those strips I had made, these too I kept in this straw mattress; and as soon as it was day, I swept out my room myself: and although by nature I take pleasure in cleanliness, at that time I was cleanliness itself. When I had swept out, I made my bed so daintily, and with some flowers, which almost every morning I had brought me by a certain Savoyard. This Savoyard had charge of the cistern and of the barrels; and he too took pleasure in working with wood; and it was from him that I stole the pincers with which I unfastened the nails of those hinges.
To come back to my bed: when Bozza and Pedignone came, I never said anything else to them except that they should keep away from my bed, so that they should not dirty it for me or spoil it; telling them, on some occasion when out of mockery they touched my bed a little, ever so lightly: "Ah, you filthy loafers! I will lay my hand on one of those swords of yours, and do you such a mischief that I will make you wonder. Do you think you are fit to touch the bed of a man like me? Over this I will have no regard for my own life, because I am certain I shall take yours; so leave me alone with my troubles and my tribulations, and do not give me any more grief than I have already; if not, I will let you see what a desperate man can do." These words they repeated to the Castellan, who expressly ordered them never to come near that bed of mine, and that when they came to me they should come without swords, and take very good care of me in everything else. Having made my bed safe, I felt I had done everything: because in that lay the whole importance of my business.
One holiday evening among others, the Castellan feeling himself very badly disposed and those humours of his grown stronger, never said anything except that he was a bat, and that if they heard that Benvenuto had flown away, they should let him go, for he would catch me up, since he too would certainly fly by night, and stronger than I, saying: "Benvenuto is a counterfeit bat, and I am a real bat; and since he has been given into my keeping, just leave it to me, and I shall certainly catch him." Having been several nights in this humour, he had worn out all his servants; and I by various ways heard everything, above all from that Savoyard who was fond of me.
Having made up my mind that holiday evening to escape in any case, first of all I said my prayers to God most devoutly, begging His divine Majesty to defend and help me in so dangerous an undertaking; then I set my hand to all the things I meant to use, and worked all that night. When it was two hours before daybreak, I got those hinges out with the greatest labour, because the wooden jamb of the door, and the bolt as well, made an obstruction, and so I could not open it: I had to hack away the wood; still, in the end I opened it, and putting on me those strips, which I had wound like skeins of yarn on two little sticks, I got out and went to the privies of the keep; and having uncovered two roof tiles from the inside, I easily jumped up onto the roof at once. I was in a white doublet and a pair of white hose and likewise a pair of half boots, in which I had put that little dagger of mine already mentioned. Then I took one end of those strips of mine and made it fast to a piece of old tile which was built into the said keep: by chance this stuck out barely four fingers. The strip was arranged like a stirrup. When I had hooked it to that piece of tile, turning to God I said: "Lord God, help my right, because I have right on my side, as You know, and because I am helping myself." Letting myself go very gently, holding myself up by the strength of my arms, I got right down to the ground. There was no moonlight, but it was a fine clear night. When I was on the ground, I looked at the great height I had come down so boldly, and went off happy, thinking I was free. It turned out not to be so, because on that side the Castellan had had two walls built, quite high, and used the place as a stable and a hen house: this place was closed with heavy bolts on the outside. When I saw that I could not get out of there, it gave me the greatest unhappiness.
While I was walking up and down thinking about my situation, my feet struck against a great pole which was covered by the straw. This with great difficulty I set upright against that wall; then by the strength of my arms I climbed it right to the top of the wall. And because that wall came to a sharp edge, I had no strength to pull the said pole up; so I made up my mind to fasten on a piece of those strips, which was the second skein, because one of the two skeins I had left attached to the keep of the Castle: so I took a piece of this other strip, as I have said, and having tied it to that beam, I got down this wall, which gave me the greatest labour and had tired me very much, and besides that I had flayed the insides of my hands, which were bleeding; on account of which I had settled down to rest, and had bathed my hands with my own urine. When it seemed to me that my strength had come back, I climbed to the last circuit of the walls, which looks towards the Prati; and having laid down that skein of strips of mine, with which I meant to take a turn round a battlement, and to do at this lesser height what I had done at the greater; having, as I say, laid down my strip, one of those sentries who were on guard came upon me. Seeing my design blocked, and seeing myself in danger of my life, I resolved to face that guard; who, seeing my determined spirit and that I was coming towards him with a weapon in my hand, quickened his pace, making as though to get out of my way. Having got a little distance from my strips, very quickly I turned back; and although I saw another guard, that time he chose not to see me. When I got to my strips, having tied them to the battlement, I let myself go; on account of which, whether it was that it seemed to me I was near the ground and I opened my hands to jump, or whether my hands were simply tired and could not stand up to that labour, I fell, and in this fall of mine I struck my head and lay senseless more than an hour and a half, as far as I can judge. Then, as the day was beginning to break, that little coolness that comes an hour before the sun brought me back to myself; but I was still out of my wits, because it seemed to me that my head had been cut off, and it seemed to me that I was in purgatory. Lying like that, little by little my faculties came back to their proper state, and I realized that I was outside the Castle, and at once I remembered everything I had done. And because I felt the blow on my head before I noticed that my leg was broken, putting my hands to my head I brought them away all bloody: then, having felt myself over well, I knew and judged that I had no injury of any importance; but when I tried to get up from the ground, I found my right leg broken three fingers above the heel. Not even this dismayed me: I drew out my little dagger together with its sheath; for this having a metal tip with quite a big ball at the end of the tip, that was the cause of my having broken my leg; because the bone coming up against that thickness of that ball, and the bone not being able to bend, made it break in that place: so that I threw away the dagger's sheath, and with the dagger I cut a piece of that strip which I had left over, and as best I could I put the leg together again, and then on all fours, with the said dagger in my hand, I went off towards the gate. When I got to the gate, I found it shut; and seeing a certain stone right under the gate, which, judging that it was not very firmly set, I tried to loosen; then I put my hands to it, and feeling it shift, it obeyed me easily, and I drew it out; and by that way I got in.
It had been more than five hundred paces walking from the place where I fell to the gate where I got in. When I had got inside Rome, certain mastiff dogs threw themselves on me and bit me badly; and when they came at me several times to worry me, I struck at them with that dagger of mine and pricked one of them so soundly that it yelped loudly, so that the other dogs, as their nature is, ran to that dog: and I made haste, going off towards the church of the Traspontina still on all fours. When I had reached the mouth of the street that turns towards Sant'Angelo, from there I took the way to go towards St. Peter's, so that as broad day came on me, I considered that I was in danger; and meeting a water carrier who had loaded his donkey and filled his jars with water, I called him to me and begged him to lift me up bodily and carry me onto the level at the top of the steps of St. Peter's, saying to him: "I am a poor young man who, over a love affair, tried to get down from a window; and so I fell, and broke my leg. And because the place I came out of is of great importance, and I should be in danger of being cut to pieces, I beg you to take me quickly, and I will give you a gold scudo," and I put my hand to my purse, where I had a good quantity of them. At once the man took hold of me, and willingly got me on his back, and carried me onto the said level at the top of the steps of St. Peter's; and there I made him set me down, and told him to run back to his donkey.
At once I took my way, still on all fours, and was going to the house of the Duchess, wife of Duke Ottavio and daughter of the Emperor, natural, not legitimate, who had been the wife of Duke Alessandro, Duke of Florence; and because I knew for certain that about this great princess there were many friends of mine, who had come from Florence with her; and also because she had done me a favour by means of the Castellan; who, wanting to help me, had told the Pope, when the Duchess made her entry into Rome, that I had been the cause of saving more than a thousand scudi of damage which a heavy rain was doing them: on account of which he said that he was in despair, and that I put heart into him, and told how I had trained several heavy pieces of artillery towards that quarter where the clouds were thickest, and where a very heavy rain had already begun; on account of which, when these pieces of artillery began to be fired, the rain stopped, and at the fourth round the sun came out; and that I had been the entire cause of that festival passing off very well; on account of which, when the Duchess heard it, she had said: "That Benvenuto is one of those men of talent who were with the blessed memory of Duke Alessandro my husband, and I shall always take account of such men, when the occasion comes of doing them a kindness;" and she had also spoken about me to Duke Ottavio her husband. For these reasons I was going straight to the house of Her Excellency, who was living in the Borgo Vecchio in a very fine palace that is there; and there I should have been quite safe from the Pope's touching me; but because what I had done up to that point had been too marvellous for a human body, and God not wanting me to fall into so much vainglory, for my own good chose to give me yet a greater discipline than the one before; and the cause was this, that while I was going on all fours like that up those steps, a servant who was with Cardinal Cornaro recognized me at once; which cardinal was lodged in the Palace. This servant ran to the Cardinal's room, and having woken him, said: "Most reverend Monsignor, your Benvenuto is down there, having escaped from the Castle, and he is going along on all fours all covered in blood: by the look of him he has broken a leg, and we do not know where he is going." The Cardinal said at once: "Run, and carry him bodily up here to my room." When I came to him, he told me not to be afraid of anything; and at once he sent for the first doctors of Rome; and by them I was treated: and this was a Master Iacomo of Perugia, a most excellent surgeon. He set the bone for me admirably, then bandaged me, and with his own hand let my blood; for my veins being swollen far beyond the ordinary, and also because he chose to make the opening somewhat wide, the rush of blood came out so great that it caught him in the face, and covered him in such abundance that he could not get on with treating me: and having taken this for a very bad omen, he treated me with great difficulty; and several times he wanted to leave me, remembering that he too was risking no small penalty for having treated me, or even for having finished treating me. The Cardinal had me put in a private room, and went off at once to the Palace with the intention of asking the Pope for me.
Meanwhile a very great noise had gone up in Rome: for the strips had already been seen hanging from the great tower of the keep of the Castle, and all Rome was running to see this astonishing thing. Meanwhile the Castellan had come into the highest of his humours of madness, and wanted, in spite of all his servants, to fly from that keep himself, saying that nobody could recapture me but he, by flying after me. At this Messer Roberto Pucci, father of Messer Pandolfo, having heard of this great affair, went in person to see it; then he came on to the Palace, where he met Cardinal Cornaro, who told him the whole business, and how I was in one of his rooms and already treated. These two honest men went in agreement to kneel down before the Pope, who, before he let them say anything, said: "I know everything you want from me." Messer Roberto Pucci said: "Most blessed Father, we ask you as a favour for that poor man, who for his talents deserves to have some consideration shown him, and besides those, has shown such bravery together with such ingenuity that it has not seemed a human thing. We do not know for what sins Your Holiness has kept him so long in prison; so, if those sins were too outrageous, Your Holiness is holy and wise, and may do your will in the matter, high and low; but if they are things that can be forgiven, we beg you to grant them to us as a favour." The Pope at this, ashamed, said that he had kept me in prison at the request of certain of his people, "he being a little too bold; but knowing his talents and wanting to keep him here beside us, we had arranged to give him so much good that he should have had no cause to go back to France. I am very sorry for his great injury; tell him to attend to getting well; and when he is well, we will make him amends for his troubles." These two great men came and gave me this good news on the Pope's behalf.
Meanwhile the nobility of Rome came to visit me, young and old and of every sort. The Castellan, being out of his mind as he was, had himself carried to the Pope; and when he was before His Holiness he began to shout, saying that if the Pope did not give me back to him in prison he was doing him a great wrong, saying: "He escaped from me under the word he had given me; alas, he has flown away from me, and he promised me not to fly away!" The Pope, laughing, said: "Go, go, for I will give him back to you in any case." The Castellan added, saying to the Pope: "Send the Governor to him, to find out who helped him escape, because if it is one of my men, I want to hang him by the throat from that battlement Benvenuto escaped by." When the Castellan had gone, the Pope called the Governor, smiling, and said: "This is a brave man, and this is a marvellous thing; for all that, when I was young, I too came down from that very place." Here the Pope was telling the truth, because he had been a prisoner in the Castle for having forged a brief, when he was an abbreviator of the Parco Maggiore: Pope Alexander had kept him prisoner a long time; then, the thing being too ugly, he had made up his mind to cut off his head; but wanting to let the feast of Corpus Domini go by, Farnese, knowing all about it, had Pietro Chiavelluzzi come with several horses, and in the Castle bribed certain of those guards with money; so that on the day of Corpus Domini, while the Pope was in procession, Farnese was put in a basket and lowered by a rope right down to the ground. The circuit of walls at the Castle was not made yet, but only the tower, so that he did not have the great difficulties in escaping that I had: besides, he had been imprisoned justly and I unjustly. Enough that he chose to boast to the Governor of having been spirited and brave himself in his youth, and did not notice that he was disclosing his own great villainies. He said: "Go and tell him he may freely say who helped him: so, let it have been whoever it likes, it is enough that he is pardoned, and promise him that freely yourself."
This Governor came to me, who had been made Bishop of Iesi two days before: when he reached me, he said: "My Benvenuto, although my office is one that frightens men, I come to you to reassure you; and I have authority to promise you so by the express commission of His Holiness, who has told me that he escaped too, but that he had a great deal of help and a great deal of company, for otherwise he could not have done it. I swear to you by the Sacraments I bear — for I have been made a Bishop these two days — that the Pope has set you free and pardoned you, and is very sorry for your great injury; but attend to getting well, and take everything for the best, for this imprisonment, which you have certainly suffered as an entirely innocent man, will have been the making of you for ever, because you will tread poverty underfoot, and you will not need to go back to France, wearing out your life travelling here and there. So tell me freely how the case went, and who gave you help; then take comfort and rest and get well." I went back to the beginning and told him the whole thing exactly as it had happened, and I gave him the fullest details, down to the water carrier who had carried me on his back. When the Governor had heard the whole of it, he said: "Truly these are too great things for one man alone: they are not worthy of any man but you." So, having had my hand brought out, he said: "Be of good cheer and take comfort, for by this hand that I touch you are free and, if you live, will be happy."
Having left me, since he had kept waiting a crowd of great gentlemen and lords who were coming to visit me, saying among themselves, "Let us go and see the man who works miracles," these stayed with me; and some of them made me offers and some brought me presents. Meanwhile the Governor, having got to the Pope, began to tell over the thing I had told him; and it just happened that Signor Pier Luigi his son was present; and they all wondered greatly. The Pope said: "Certainly this is too great a thing." Signor Pier Luigi then added, saying: "Most blessed Father, if you set him free, he will do you greater ones, because this is far too bold a spirit of a man. I want to tell you another one, which you do not know. This Benvenuto of yours, before he was a prisoner, had words with a gentleman of Cardinal Santa Fiore's; which words came out of a small thing this gentleman had said to Benvenuto, so that he answered most insolently and with such daring that he even made as if to pick a quarrel; the said gentleman reported it to Cardinal Santa Fiore, who said that if he laid hands on him he would knock the madness out of his head; Benvenuto, hearing this, kept a fowling piece of his in readiness, with which he hits a farthing every time: and one day, when the Cardinal came to the window, the said Benvenuto's shop being under the Cardinal's palace, he took his fowling piece and got himself ready to fire at the Cardinal. And because the Cardinal was warned of it, he moved away at once. Benvenuto, so that the thing should not be noticed, fired at a house pigeon that was brooding in a hole high up on the palace, and hit the said pigeon in the head: a thing impossible to believe. Now let Your Holiness do with him whatever you please; I did not want to fail to have told you of it. It might also come into his head, thinking he has been in prison wrongfully, to take a shot one day at Your Holiness. This is far too fierce and too confident a spirit. When he killed Pompeo, he gave him two dagger thrusts in the throat in the middle of ten men who were guarding him, and then got away, to no small discredit of those men, who were honest men of standing."
Present at these words was that gentleman of Santa Fiore's with whom I had had words, and he confirmed to the Pope everything his son had said. The Pope sat swollen up and said nothing. I will not fail to state my case justly and honestly. This gentleman of Santa Fiore's came to me one day and handed me a little gold ring, which was all smeared with quicksilver, saying: "Get the quicksilver off this little ring for me, and be quick." I, who had before me many works in gold with jewels of the greatest importance, and also feeling myself ordered about so confidently by a man to whom I had never spoken and whom I had never seen, told him that I had no tool for the job just then, and that he should go to somebody else. The man, with no cause in the world, told me that I was an ass. To which words I answered that he was not telling the truth, and that I was in every respect a better man than he; but that if he provoked me, I would kick him harder than an ass would. The man reported it to the Cardinal and painted him a picture of hell.
Two days later I fired, behind the palace into a very high hole, at a wild pigeon that was brooding in that hole; and at that same pigeon I had seen a goldsmith called Giovan Francesco della Tacca, a Milanese, fire several times, and he had never hit it. This day when I fired, the pigeon was showing just its head, being suspicious because of the other times it had been fired at; and because this Giovan Francesco and I were rivals at shooting, some gentlemen and friends of mine being in my shop, they pointed it out to me, saying: "There up above is Giovan Francesco della Tacca's pigeon, that he has fired at so many times: now look, the poor creature is suspicious; it hardly shows its head." Raising my eyes, I said: "That little bit of head alone would be enough for me to kill it, if it would only wait until I got my gun up to my face." Those gentlemen said that the inventor of the gun himself would not hit it. To which I said: "Let there be a jug of Greek wine on it, of that good wine of Palombo the innkeeper, and if it waits until I get my marvellous Broccardo to my face" — for so I called my gun — "I will plant a shot in that little bit of head it is showing me." At once getting it up to my face, at arm's length, without a rest or anything else, I did what I had promised, thinking neither of the Cardinal nor of anybody else; on the contrary, I held the Cardinal to be very much my patron. So let the world see, when fortune wants to set about assassinating a man, how many different ways she takes. The Pope, swollen up and sulking, sat considering what his son had told him.
Two days later Cardinal Cornaro went to ask the Pope for a bishopric for a gentleman of his, who was called Messer Andrea Centano. It is true that the Pope had promised him a bishopric: one having fallen vacant in this way, when the Cardinal reminded the Pope how he had promised him the thing, the Pope agreed that it was true and that he meant to give it him; but that he wanted a favour from His most reverend Lordship, and this was that he wanted him to put Benvenuto back into his hands. Then the Cardinal said: "Oh, if Your Holiness has pardoned him and given him to me free, what will the world say both of Your Holiness and of me?" The Pope replied: "I want Benvenuto, and let everybody say what they like, if you want the bishopric." The good Cardinal said that His Holiness should give him the bishopric, and that for the rest he should consider it himself and afterwards do everything His Holiness both wanted and could do. The Pope said, still somewhat ashamed of the wicked word he had already given: "I will send for Benvenuto, and for a little satisfaction of my own I will put him down in those rooms in the private garden, where he will be able to attend to getting well, and none of his friends will be forbidden to go and see him, and I will also have his expenses paid, until this little fancy of ours passes off."
The Cardinal went home and sent word to me at once, by the man who was waiting for the bishopric, that the Pope wanted me back in his hands; but that he would keep me in a ground-floor room in the private garden; where I should be visited by everybody just as I was in his house. Then I begged this Messer Andrea to be so good as to tell the Cardinal not to give me to the Pope and to leave it to me; because I would have myself wrapped up in a mattress and have myself carried out of Rome to a safe place; because if he gave me to the Pope, most certainly he was giving me to death. The Cardinal, when he heard it, I believe would have been willing to do it, but that Messer Andrea, who was to have the bishopric, disclosed the matter. Meanwhile the Pope sent for me at once and had me put, as he had said, in a ground-floor room in his private garden. The Cardinal sent to tell me that I should eat nothing of those dishes the Pope sent me, and that he would send me food; and that what he had done he could not do otherwise, and that I should be of good cheer, for he would help me so much that I should be free.
Being in that position, I was visited every day, and many great things were offered me by many great gentlemen. From the Pope came the food, which I did not touch; instead I ate what came from Cardinal Cornaro, and so I lived. Among my other friends I had a young Greek of twenty-five years of age: this man was exceedingly strong and played at the sword better than any other man in Rome: he was faint-hearted, but he was a most faithful honest man and very ready to believe. He had heard it said that the Pope had said he wanted to make up to me for my troubles. This was true, that the Pope had said such things at the beginning, but at the end afterwards he was saying something else. On account of which I confided in this young Greek and said to him: "Dearest brother, these men mean to assassinate me, so now is the time to help me: for they think I do not see it, doing me these extraordinary favours, which are all done to betray me." This honest young man said: "My Benvenuto, it is said all over Rome that the Pope has given you an office worth five hundred scudi of income; so I beg you as a favour not to let this suspicion of yours rob you of so great a good." And still I begged him, with my arms crossed on my breast, to take me away from there, because I well knew that a Pope like that could do me a great deal of good, but that I knew for certain that he was studying to do me, secretly, for his honour's sake, a great deal of harm; so let him be quick and try to save my life from this man: for if he got me out of there in the way I would tell him, I should always owe my life to him; and if the need came, I would spend it for him. This poor young man said to me, weeping: "Oh my dear brother, you insist on ruining yourself, and I cannot fail you in what you order me; so tell me the way and I will do everything you say, even if it is against my will." So we had made up our minds and I had given him the whole plan, which was working out very easily for us. When I thought he was coming to put in practice what I had arranged with him, he came to tell me that for my own good he meant to disobey me, and that he well knew what he had heard from men who were about the Pope and who knew the whole truth of my case. I, who could not help myself in any other way, was left discontented and in despair. This was the day of Corpus Domini in 1539.
After this argument, time went by all that day until night, and from the Pope's kitchen came a plentiful meal: from Cardinal Cornaro's kitchen too came a very good supply: several friends of mine happening to be there, I made them stay to supper with me; and so, keeping my leg in splints in the bed, I made merry with them; and they stayed on with me. When an hour of the night had passed they went away; and two servants of mine settled me down to sleep, and then went into the outer room. I had a dog as black as a mulberry, one of the shaggy sort, and he served me marvellously at shooting, and never stayed a step away from me. In the night, being under my bed, three good times I called my servant to take him out from under the bed, because he was howling frighteningly. When the servants came, this dog threw himself on them to bite them. They were terrified and were afraid the dog had gone mad, because he howled continually. So we went on until four hours into the night.
At the stroke of four hours of the night the constable came into my room with a large troop: then the dog came out and threw himself on them with such fury, tearing their cloaks and their hose, and had put them into such fear that they thought he was mad. On account of which the constable, as an experienced person, said: "The nature of good dogs is this, that they always guess and foretell the harm that is coming to their masters: take a couple of sticks and defend yourselves from the dog, and let the others tie Benvenuto onto this chair, and carry him where you know." As I have said, the day of Corpus Domini had just passed, and it was about four hours of the night. They carried me gagged and covered up, and four of them went ahead, making the few men who were still to be found in the street get out of the way. So they carried me to the Torre di Nona, as the place is called, and put me in the condemned cell, laid me down on a bit of a mattress and gave me one of those guards, who all night lamented my bad fortune, saying to me: "Alas! poor Benvenuto, what have you done to these people?" So I saw very well what was going to happen to me, both because the place was what it was and also because that man had let me know it. I spent a part of that night tormenting myself with wondering what could be the reason it pleased God to give me such a penance; and because I could not find it, I struggled hard. That guard had then set about comforting me as best he knew how; on account of which I entreated him for the love of God not to say anything to me and not to speak to me, seeing that by myself I should come to such a resolution sooner and better. So he promised me.
Then I turned my whole heart to God; and I prayed Him most devoutly that it might please Him to receive me into His kingdom; and that although I had complained, this departure in this way seeming to me a very innocent one, so far as the ordinances of the laws promised; and although I had committed homicides, that Vicar of His had called me from my own country and pardoned me by the authority of the laws and of his own; and what I had done had all been done in defence of this body which His Majesty had lent me: so that I did not see, according to the ordinances by which men live in the world, that I deserved that death; but that it seemed to me there was happening to me what happens to certain unfortunate people who, going along the street, have a stone fall on their head from some great height and are killed by it: which is plainly seen to be the power of the stars: not that they are conspiring against us to do us good or harm, but it comes about in their conjunctions, to which we are subject; though I know that I have free will: and if my faith had been exercised in a holy way, I am quite certain that the angels of Heaven would carry me out of that prison and would save me surely from all my trouble; but because it does not seem to me that I have been made worthy by God of such a thing, therefore these heavenly influences must needs work out their malignity upon me. And having struggled a while with this, afterwards I made up my mind, and fell asleep at once.
When dawn came, the guard woke me and said: "Oh unlucky honest man, now it is no longer time for sleeping, because the man has come who has to give you bad news." Then I said: "The sooner I get out of this worldly prison, the more welcome it will be to me, all the more since I am sure my soul is saved, and that I am dying wrongfully. The glorious and divine Christ makes me the companion of His disciples and friends, who, both He and they, were put to death wrongfully: so wrongfully am I being put to death, and I thank God for it in all holiness. Why does the man not come forward who has to pass sentence on me?" Then the guard said: "He is too sorry for you and is weeping." Then I called him by name, whose name was Messer Benedetto da Cagli. I said: "Come forward, my Messer Benedetto, now that I am very well disposed and resolved; it is much more to my glory that I should die wrongfully than if I died justly: come forward, I beg you, and give me a priest, so that I may say four words to him; although there is no need, because I have made my holy confession to my Lord God; but only to observe what holy mother Church has ordained for us; for although she is doing me this wicked wrong, I freely forgive her. So come, my Messer Benedetto, and dispatch me before my senses begin to trouble me." When I had said these words, this honest man told the guard to shut the door, because without him the office could not be performed.
He went off to the house of the wife of Signor Pier Luigi, who was together with the Duchess I spoke of above; and coming before them, this man said: "My most illustrious patroness, be pleased, I beg you for the love of God, to send word to the Pope to send somebody else to pass that sentence on Benvenuto and do this office of mine, because I resign it and never want to do it again;" and sighing with the greatest grief he went away. The Duchess, who was there present, twisting her face aside, said: "This is the fine justice that is kept in Rome by the Vicar of God! The Duke who was my husband was very fond of this man for his goodness and for his talents, and did not want him to go back to Rome, holding him very dear about his own person;" and she went off, muttering a great many angry words. The wife of Signor Pier Luigi, who was called Signora Girolama, went off to the Pope, and throwing herself on her knees — several Cardinals were present — this woman said so many great things that she made the Pope blush, and he said: "For love of you we will let him be, though we never had any bad intention towards him." These words the Pope said because those Cardinals were present, who had heard the words that marvellous and daring woman had said.
I stayed on in the greatest discomfort, my heart beating continually. And all those men who were appointed to that ugly office stayed in discomfort too, until it was late at the hour for dinner; at which hour every man went off to his other business, so that dinner was brought to me: whereat, wondering, I said: "Here truth has been able to do more than the malignity of the heavenly influences; so I pray God, if it be His pleasure, to save me from this fury." I began to eat, and just as before I had made up my mind to my great harm, so now I made it up to the hope of my great good. I dined with a good appetite. So I stayed without seeing or hearing anybody until an hour of the night. At that hour the constable came with a good part of his troop, and put me back on that chair on which the evening before he had carried me to that place, and from there, with many kind words to me not to be afraid, he ordered his catchpoles to take care not to knock that leg of mine that I had broken, as they valued their eyes. So they did, and carried me to the Castle, from which I had escaped; and when we were up at the top of the keep, where there is a little courtyard, they stopped me there for a while.
Meanwhile the Castellan spoken of above had himself carried to the place where I was, and ill and afflicted as he was he said: "See, I have taken you again?" "Yes," I said, "but see, I escaped, as I told you I would? And if I had not been sold, under the papal word, for a bishopric by a Venetian cardinal and a Roman one by Farnese, both of whom have clawed the face of the sacred holy laws, you would never have taken me again. But since they have now set up this bad custom, do you too the worst you can, for I care about nothing in the world." This poor man began to cry out very loudly, saying: "Alas! alas! this man cares neither about living nor about dying, and he is bolder than when he was well: put him down there under the garden, and never speak to me about him again, for he is the cause of my death."
I was carried down under a garden into a very dark room, where there was a great deal of water, full of tarantulas and many venomous worms. A wretched little mattress of tow was thrown down on the ground for me, and that evening I was given no supper, and I was shut in behind four doors: so I stayed until nineteen hours the next day. Then food was brought to me: and I asked them to give me some of those books of mine to read. Not one of these men spoke to me, but they reported it to that poor man the Castellan, who had asked what I was saying. The next morning then a book of mine was brought me, a Bible in Italian, and a certain other book in which were the Chronicles of Giovanni Villani. When I asked for certain other books of mine, I was told that I should have nothing else and that I already had too many of those.
So I lived on wretchedly on that mattress, which was all rotten, for in three days everything was water; so that I was continually unable to move, because I had my leg broken; and when I had to get out of the bed for the necessity of relieving myself, I went on all fours with the greatest distress, so as not to make filth in the place where I slept. I had an hour and a half of the day of a little reflected light which came into that unhappy cave through a very small hole; and only in that little space of time did I read, and the rest of the day and the night I was always in the dark, patiently, never out of thoughts of God and of this human frailty of ours; and it seemed to me certain that within a few days I should end my unlucky life there and in that way. Still, as best I could I comforted myself, considering how much greater a suffering it would have been for me, in passing out of my life, to feel that inestimable agony of the knife, whereas being in that state I was passing out of it with a sleeping draught, which had become much pleasanter to me than the first one had been: and little by little I felt myself going out, until my good constitution had accommodated itself to that purgatory. Then, when I felt that it had accommodated and accustomed itself, I took heart to bear that inestimable suffering as long as my constitution itself bore it for me.
I began at the beginning of the Bible, and read it devoutly and thought it over, and I was so enchanted with it that if I had been able I would never have done anything but read: but as soon as the light failed me, all my miseries jumped on me at once and gave me such torment that several times I had made up my mind to put an end to myself somehow; but because they did not let me have a knife, I had little means of doing such a thing. Still, once among other times I had arranged a thick beam that was there, propped up like a trap; and I meant to make it come down on my head; which would have crushed it at the first blow: so that, when I had got this whole engine ready, and moved resolutely to set it off, when I tried to strike it with my hand, I was caught hold of by something invisible and thrown four braccia away from that place, and so terrified that I was left in a swoon: and so I lay from the dawn of day until nineteen hours, when they brought me my dinner. They must have come several times without my hearing them; because when I did hear them, Captain Sandrino Monaldi came in, and I heard him say: "Oh! unhappy man, see what an end so rare a talent has come to!" Hearing these words I opened my eyes: and so I saw priests with their gowns on, who said: "Oh, you said he was dead!" Bozza said: "I found him dead, and so I said so." At once they lifted me out of the place where I was, and lifting the mattress, which had become all rotten like macaroni, they threw it out of that room: and when these things had been repeated to the Castellan, he had another mattress given me. And so, remembering what that thing could have been which had held me back from that undertaking, I thought it must have been something divine and my defender.
Afterwards there appeared to me in a dream by night a marvellous creature in the form of a most beautiful young man, and as though scolding me he said: "Do you know who it was that lent you that body, which you meant to spoil before its time?" It seemed to me that I answered him that I acknowledged the whole of it from the God of nature. "Then," he said to me, "you despise His works, wanting to spoil them? Let yourself be guided by Him and do not lose hope in His power," with many other words so admirable that I do not remember the thousandth part of them.
I began to consider that this figure of an angel had told me the truth; and casting my eyes about the prison, I saw a bit of rotten brick; so I rubbed one piece against another and made a sort of little paste of it: then on all fours I went up to a corner of that prison door and with my teeth I worked away until I got off a little splinter; and when I had done this, I waited for that hour of light which came into my prison, which was from twenty and a half hours until twenty-one and a half. Then I began to write as best I could on certain leaves that were left over in the book of the Bible; and I reproved the spirits of my intellect, angry at their not wanting to stay alive any longer; and they answered my body, excusing themselves for their misfortune: and my body gave them hope of good: so I wrote it in dialogue:
"Afflicted spirits of mine, alas, how cruel, that life should weary you!" "If you are set against Heaven, who will be for us? who will bring us any help? Let us go, let us go to a better life." "Ah, do not go yet, for Heaven promises you more happiness and joy than you have ever known." "We will stay some little while, provided that great God grants you the grace that we come to no worse trouble."
Having taken my vigour back again, after I had comforted myself by my own means, going on with reading my Bible, my eyes had grown so used to that darkness that where before I used to read an hour and a half, I now read three whole hours. And I considered with such wonder the force of the power of God in those very simple men, who believed with such fervour that God granted them everything they imagined: promising myself too the help of God, both for His divinity and mercy and also for my innocence; and continually, now with prayer and now with reasonings turned to God, I was always in these high thoughts about God; so that there began to come to me such a great delight in these thoughts about God that I no longer remembered any unhappiness I had ever had before; on the contrary, I sang psalms all day and many other compositions of my own, all directed to God.
The only thing that gave me great distress was my nails, which kept growing; because I could not touch myself without wounding myself with them: I could not dress myself, because they turned back either inwards or outwards, giving me a great deal of pain. My teeth were dying in my mouth as well; and I knew this, because the dead teeth being pushed by the living ones, little by little they perforated the gums, and the points of the roots came through the bottom of their sockets. When I noticed it I pulled them out, like drawing them out of a sheath, without any pain or blood: so I had lost a good many of them. Still, having come to terms with these new distresses too, I spent the time now singing, now praying, and now writing with that pounded brick I have spoken of; and I began a poem in praise of the prison, and in it I told all those things that had happened to me there; which poem shall be written out later in its own place.
The good Castellan often sent secretly to find out what I was doing: and because on the last day of July I made great rejoicing by myself, remembering the great festival they hold in Rome on that first day of August, I said to myself: "All these past years I have kept this pleasant festival with the frailties of the world; this year I shall keep it from now on with the divinity of God;" and I said to myself: "Oh, how much happier I am with this one than with those!" Those who heard me say these words reported the whole of it to the Castellan; who with wonderful annoyance said: "Oh God! that man triumphs and lives in so much misery; and I suffer in so many comforts, and am dying solely because of him! Go quickly and put him in that deepest underground cave, where the preacher Foiano was starved to death: perhaps seeing himself in such wretchedness the maggot might get out of his head."
At once Captain Sandrino Monaldi came to my prison with about twenty of those servants of the Castellan; and they found me on my knees, and I did not turn towards them, but went on worshipping a God the Father adorned with Angels and a Christ rising victorious, which I had drawn for myself on the wall with a bit of charcoal I had found covered by the earth, after four months of my having lain on my back in bed with my leg broken; and so many times I dreamed that the Angels came to treat it for me, that after four months I had become as strong as if it had never been broken. Still, they came at me so heavily armed, almost as if they were afraid I was a venomous dragon. The said captain said: "You surely hear that there are a good many of us, and that we come to you with a great noise; and you do not turn towards us." At these words, imagining very well the worst that could happen to me, and having made myself practised and steady under trouble, I said to them: "To this God who carries me to the God of the heavens I have turned my soul and my contemplations and all my vital spirits; and to you I have turned exactly what belongs to you, because what is good in me you are not worthy to look at, nor can you touch it: so do to what is yours everything you can." This hard captain, in fear, not knowing what I meant to do, said to four of the strongest of them: "Take off all your weapons from your sides." When they had taken them off, he said: "Quick, quick, jump on him and take him. Is this man the devil, that so many of us should be afraid of him? Hold him tight now so that he does not get away from you."
I, forced and roughly handled by them, imagining much worse than what afterwards happened to me, raising my eyes to Christ said: "O just God, You surely paid all our debts on that high wood: why then must my innocence pay the debts of men I do not know? Oh, still let Your will be done." Meanwhile they were carrying me away with a great flaring torch alight; I thought they meant to throw me into the oubliette of Sammalò, as they call a fearful place which has swallowed a good many men alive, because they come down into the foundations of the Castle into a well. This did not happen to me: on account of which it seemed to me I had made a very good bargain; because they put me in that filthiest cave I spoke of, where Foiano died of hunger, and left me there, doing me no other harm. When they had left me, I began to sing a De profundis clamavi, a Miserere, and In te Domine speravi. All that first day of August I kept festival with God, and my heart was always jubilant with hope and faith.
The second day they drew me out of that hole and carried me back to where those first drawings of mine of those images of God were. And when I got there, in front of them I wept a great deal out of sweetness and gladness. After that the Castellan wanted to know every day what I was doing and what I was saying. The Pope, who had heard the whole business, and the doctors having already given the said Castellan up for dead, said: "Before my Castellan dies, I want him to put that Benvenuto to death in his own way, since he is the cause of his death, so that he shall not die unavenged." When the Castellan heard these words from the mouth of Duke Pier Luigi, he said to him: "Then the Pope makes me a present of Benvenuto, and wants me to take my revenge? Let him think no more about it and leave it to me." Just as the Pope's heart was bad towards me, at first sight the Castellan's was the worst and most grievous; and at that point that Invisible One, who had turned me aside from wanting to kill myself, came to me, invisibly again but with a clear voice; and shook me and lifted me from where I lay and said: "Alas! my Benvenuto, quickly, quickly turn to God with your usual prayers, and cry out loudly, loudly." At once, terrified, I got on my knees, and said many prayers of mine aloud: then all of them, and a Qui habitat in adiutorium; then after this I talked with God a while: and in an instant that same voice, open and clear, said to me: "Go and rest, and be afraid no more." And this was because the Castellan, having given the foulest order for my death, had at once taken it back and said: "Is not this Benvenuto the man I have defended so much, and the man I know for certain is innocent, and that all this harm has been done him wrongfully? Oh, how shall God ever have mercy on me and on my sins, if I do not forgive those who have done me the greatest offences? Oh, why must I offend an honest man, an innocent one, who has done me service and honour? Let him go; and instead of putting him to death, I give him life and liberty; and I leave it in my will that nobody shall ask him anything for the debt of the heavy expense he would have to pay here." The Pope heard this and took it very badly.
Meanwhile I went on with my usual prayers and wrote my poem, and I began to have every night the happiest and pleasantest dreams that can ever be imagined; and it always seemed to me that I was visibly together with the One I had heard invisibly, and heard very often, of whom I asked no other favour except that I begged Him, and pressingly, to take me where I could see the sun, telling Him that this was the whole of my desire; and that if I could see it just once, I would die content afterwards. Of all the things I had in this prison that were disagreeable, all of them had become my friends and companions, and nothing disturbed me. Although those devoted servants of the Castellan, who were expecting the Castellan to hang me from that battlement I had come down by, as he had said, seeing afterwards that the said Castellan had come to another resolution altogether contrary to that one; these men, who could not bear it, were always giving me some different fright, meant to make me take alarm for the loss of my life. As I say, I had grown so used to all these things that I was no longer afraid of anything and nothing moved me any more; only this desire, this dreaming of seeing the disc of the sun. So that, going on with my long prayers, always with my heart turned to Christ, always saying: "O true Son of God, I beg You by Your birth, by Your death on the cross and by Your glorious resurrection, to make me worthy to see the sun, if not otherwise, at least in a dream; but if You made me worthy to see it with these mortal eyes of mine, I promise to come and visit You at Your holy Sepulchre." This resolution and these greatest prayers of mine to God I made on the second day of October in 1539.
The next morning came, which was the third day of the said October, and I had woken at the point of day, almost an hour before sunrise; and getting up from that unhappy den of mine, I put on a bit of a wretched gown I had, because it had begun to turn cold: and standing up like that, I made prayers more devout than any I had ever made in the past; for in the said prayers I said with great entreaty to Christ that He would grant me at least so much grace that I might know by divine inspiration for what sin of mine I was doing so great a penance; and since His divine Majesty had not chosen to make me worthy of the sight of the sun even in a dream, I begged Him by all His power and might to make me worthy to know what was the cause of that penance.
When I had said these words, by that Invisible One I was caught up as by a wind and carried away, and I was taken into a room where that Invisible One of mine then showed himself to me visibly in human form, like a young man with his first beard; with a most marvellous face, beautiful but stern, not wanton; and he showed me things in the said room, saying to me: "All those many men you see are all those who up to now have been born and then have died." So I asked him for what reason he was taking me there: and he said to me: "Come forward with me and you will soon see." I found I had a little dagger in my hand and a coat of mail on my body; and so he led me through that great room, showing me those who in infinite thousands were walking now one way, now another. Having led me forward, he went out ahead of me by a little door into a place like a narrow street; and when he drew me after him into the said street, on coming out of that room I found myself unarmed, and I was in a white shirt with nothing on my head, and I was on the right hand of my said companion. Seeing myself like that, I wondered, because I did not recognize that street; and raising my eyes, I saw that the brightness of the sun was striking on a face of wall, like the front of a house, above my head. Then I said: "Oh my friend, how must I manage so as to raise myself high enough to see the very disc of the sun?" He showed me several steps that were there on my right hand, and said to me: "Go there by yourself."
Getting a little apart from him, I climbed those several steps backwards on my heels, and began little by little to make out the neighbourhood of the sun. I hurried to climb; and I went so far up in that way that I made out the whole disc of the sun. And because the force of its rays, as they usually do, made me shut my eyes, realizing my mistake, I opened my eyes and looking fixedly at the sun, I said: "O sun of mine, that I have wanted so much, I want never to look at anything else again, even if your rays blind me." So I stayed with my eyes fixed on it; and having been a little while like that, I saw in a moment all that force of those great rays throw itself over onto the left side of the said sun; and the sun being left clear, without its rays, with the greatest pleasure I looked at it; and it seemed to me a marvellous thing that those rays should have taken themselves off in that way. I stayed considering what a divine grace this was that I had that morning from God, and I said aloud: "Oh, how wonderful is Your power! oh, how glorious Your might! How much greater a grace You do me than I looked for!" This sun without its rays seemed to me neither more nor less than a bath of purest molten gold.
While I was considering this great thing, I saw that in the middle of the said sun there began to be a swelling; and this shape of this swelling grew, and in a moment there was made a Christ on the cross of the same substance as the sun; and He was of such beautiful grace and of so kindly an aspect that human wit could not imagine the thousandth part of it; and while I was considering the thing, I said aloud: "Miracles, miracles! O God, O Your mercy, O Your infinite power, of what things You make me worthy this morning!" And while I was considering and saying these words, this Christ moved towards that quarter where His rays had gone, and in the middle of the sun there swelled up again as it had done before; and when the swelling had grown, at once it was turned into the form of a most beautiful Madonna, who seemed to be seated very high up with the said Son in her arms in a most pleasing attitude, almost laughing; on this side and on that she had in the middle of two Angels so beautiful that the imagination does not reach them. I also saw in that same sun, on the right hand, a figure dressed like a priest: this one had his back to me and kept his face turned towards that Madonna and that Christ. All these things I saw truly, clearly and living, and continually I thanked the glory of God in the loudest voice.
When this marvellous thing had been before my eyes a little more than an eighth of an hour, it went away from me, and I was carried back to that den of mine. At once I began to shout out loud, in a loud voice saying: "The power of God has made me worthy to be shown all His glory, which perhaps no other mortal eye has ever seen: so by this I know myself to be free and happy and in the grace of God; and you rascals will remain rascals, unhappy and in the disgrace of God. Know that I am quite certain that on All Saints' day, which was the day I came into the world, in exactly 1500, the first day of November, on the night following, at four hours, that day when it comes you will be forced to take me out of this dark prison; and you will not be able to do otherwise, because I have seen it with my own eyes and in that throne of God. That priest, who was turned towards God and who showed his back to me, was Saint Peter, who was pleading for me, ashamed that in his house such foul wrongs should be done to Christians. So tell it to whom you like, that nobody has the power to do me any more harm; and tell that lord who keeps me here that if he gives me either wax or paper, and the means of my expressing to him this glory of God which has been shown me, most certainly I shall make him clear about what he is perhaps in doubt of."
The Castellan, although the doctors had no hope at all of his recovery, still had a firm spirit left in him, and those humours of madness which used to trouble him every year had gone off: and having given himself altogether and entirely to his soul, his conscience gnawed at him, and it certainly seemed to him that I had received and was receiving a very great wrong; and when he let the Pope know those great things I was saying, the Pope sent word back to him, like a man who believed in nothing, neither in God nor in anybody else, saying that I had gone mad, and that he should attend as much as he could to his own health. When the Castellan heard these answers, he sent to comfort me and sent me writing materials and some wax and certain little sticks made for working in wax, with many courteous words, which were said to me by a certain one of his servants who was fond of me. This man was quite the opposite of that faction of those other rascals, who would have liked to see me dead. I took those papers and that wax, and began to work: and while I worked I wrote this sonnet addressed to the Castellan:
If I could show you, my lord, the truth of the eternal light, here in this low life, which I have from God, then my faith in your eyes would be worth far more than any high empire.
Ah, if the great Shepherd of the fold believed that God has shown Himself in His infinite glory, as no soul ever saw Him before it left this low kingdom, harsh and unsparing;
then you would see the sacred and holy gates of Justice thrown open, and wicked fury fall bound, and send its cries up to heaven.
If I had light — alas — at least I might carve the footprints of Heaven's great worth! My great trouble would not be so heavy a cross.
When the next day that servant of the Castellan came to bring me my food, the one who was fond of me, I gave him this sonnet written out; which, secretly from those other malicious servants who wished me ill, he gave to the Castellan: who would gladly have let me go, because it seemed to him that the wrong which had been done me was a great cause of his death. He took the sonnet, and having read it more than once, said: "These are neither the words nor the ideas of a madman; but rather of a good and honest man;" and at once he ordered a secretary of his to carry it to the Pope, and to give it into his own hand, begging him to let me go. While the said secretary carried the sonnet to the Pope, the Castellan sent me light for the day and for the night, with all the comforts that could be wished for in that place; on account of which I began to improve from the disorder of my health, which had become very great. The Pope read the sonnet several times; then he sent word to the Castellan that he would very soon do something that would please him. And certainly the Pope would afterwards have let me go willingly; but the said Signor Pier Luigi, his son, almost against the Pope's will, kept me there by force.
The Castellan's death drawing near, while I had drawn and modelled that marvellous miracle, on the morning of All Saints' he sent Piero Ugolini, his nephew, to me to show me certain jewels; which, when I saw them, I said at once: "This is the sign of my deliverance." Then this young man, who was a person of very little sense, said: "Never think of that, Benvenuto." Then I said: "Take your jewels away, because I am brought to such a state that I see no light except in this dark cave, in which the quality of jewels cannot be made out; but as for getting out of this prison, this whole day will not end before you come to fetch me out: and it must needs be so, and you cannot do otherwise." The man went away and had me shut up again; and having gone, he stayed away more than two hours by the clock; then he came for me without armed men, with two boys to help hold me up, and so took me into those large rooms I had had before (this was in 1538), giving me all the comforts I asked for.
A few days later the Castellan, who thought I was outside and free, hard pressed by his great illness passed out of this present life, and in his place there remained Messer Antonio Ugolini his brother, who had given the late Castellan, his brother, to understand that he had let me go. This Messer Antonio, as far as I heard, had orders from the Pope to leave me in that roomy prison until such time as he should tell him what was to be done with me.
That Messer Durante of Brescia already spoken of came to an agreement with that soldier, the apothecary of Prato, to give me among my food some liquor to eat that should be deadly, but not at once; it should take effect within four or five months. They took to thinking of putting powdered diamond among the food; which has no poison in it of any kind, but by reason of its inestimable hardness it keeps the sharpest edges, and does not behave as other stones do; for that very fine sharpness in all stones does not survive their being pounded, but they are left as it were rounded; and the diamond alone keeps that sharpness; so that getting into the stomach along with the other food, in that turning about which the food does to make digestion, this diamond catches on the cartilages of the stomach and of the bowels, and as the new food comes pushing it always forward, that diamond caught on them in no long space of time pierces them; and for that reason a man dies; whereas every other sort of stone or glass mixed with food has not the power of catching on, and so goes off with the food. So this Messer Durante mentioned above gave a diamond of some little value to one of these guards. It was said that a certain Lione of Arezzo, a goldsmith, a great enemy of mine, had the handling of it. This Lione got the diamond to pound it; and because Lione was very poor and the diamond might be worth several tens of scudi, the man gave that guard to understand that the powder he gave him was that pounded diamond which had been ordered to be given me; and that morning when I had it, they put it in all my dishes; which was a Friday: I had it in salad and in sauces and in soup.
I set to eating with a good appetite, because in the evening I had fasted. This day was a holiday. It is quite true that I felt the food crunch under my teeth, but I never thought of such villainy. When I had finished dining, a little salad being left in the dish, my eyes fell straight on certain very fine splinters which were left over. At once I took them, and going up to the light of the window, which was very bright, while I was looking at them I was reminded of that crunching the food had made for me that morning more than usual: and having considered them well, as far as my eyes could judge, I firmly believed that this was pounded diamond. At once I gave myself up for dead, absolutely; and so, full of grief, I ran devoutly to holy prayers; and having made up my mind, it seemed to me certain that I was finished and dead: and for a whole hour I made great prayers to God, thanking Him for so pleasant a death. Since my stars had so destined me, it seemed to me I had had a good bargain in getting out of it by that easy road; and I was content, and had blessed the world and the time I had spent in it. Now I was going back to a better kingdom with the grace of God, which it seemed to me I had most surely gained: and while I was in these thoughts, I held in my hand certain very fine little grains of that supposed diamond, which I judged for a certainty to be such.
Now, because hope never dies, it seemed to me that I was prompted by a little vain hope; which was the cause of my taking a little knife, and taking some of the said little grains, and putting them on an iron bar of the prison; then setting the point of the knife on them flatwise, pressing hard, I felt the said stone break up; and looking well with my eyes, I saw that this was really so. At once I clothed myself in new hope and said: "This is not my enemy Messer Durante, but a soft bit of stone which cannot do me any harm in the world." And whereas I had made up my mind to keep quiet and to die in peace in that way, I made a new resolution, but first thanking God and blessing poverty, which just as it is often the cause of men's death, that time had itself been the cause of my life; because that Messer Durante my enemy, or whoever it was, having given a diamond worth more than a hundred scudi to Lione, to pound it for me, the man out of poverty kept it for himself, and pounded for me a yellow beryl worth two carlins, thinking perhaps that, being a stone too, it would have the same effect as the diamond.
At this time the Bishop of Pavia, brother of the Count of San Secondo, called Monsignor de' Rossi of Parma, this bishop was a prisoner in the Castle over certain troubles he had had at Pavia; and because he was a great friend of mine, I put myself out at the hole of my prison and called to him in a loud voice, telling him that to kill me those thieves had given me pounded diamond: and I had some of those little powders that were left me shown him by a servant of his; but I did not tell him that I had found out that it was not diamond; instead I told him that most certainly they had poisoned me after the death of that honest man the Castellan; and for the little while I might live, I begged him to give me one of his loaves a day, because I never wanted to eat anything again that came from them. So he promised to send me some of his own food. That Messer Antonio, who certainly knew nothing of the business, made a very great noise about it and insisted on seeing that pounded stone, thinking too that it was diamond; and supposing that such an enterprise came from the Pope, he passed it over lightly, once he had considered the case.
I set myself to eating the food the Bishop sent me, and went on continually writing that poem of mine about the prison, putting into it day by day all those things that newly happened to me, point by point. The said Messer Antonio also sent me my food by a certain Giovanni mentioned above, the apothecary from the district of Prato, and a soldier there. This man, who was my greatest enemy and who had been the one who brought me that pounded diamond, I told that I would eat nothing of what he brought me unless he first tasted it before me: on account of which he told me that tasters are provided for Popes. To whom I answered that just as gentlemen are bound to taste for the Pope, so he, a soldier, an apothecary, a peasant from Prato, was bound to taste for a Florentine like me. He said some big words, and I said some to him. That Messer Antonio, being somewhat ashamed, and also planning to make me pay those expenses which the poor dead Castellan had made me a present of, found another of those servants of his who was a friend of mine; and he sent me my food, which the man just mentioned pleasantly tasted for me with no further argument. This servant told me how the Pope was pestered every day by that Monsignor de Morluc, who on the King's behalf was continually asking for me; and that the Pope had little mind to give me up; and that Cardinal Farnese, once so much my patron and friend, had said that I should not plan on getting out of that prison for a good while: to whom I said that I would get out of it in spite of them all. This decent young man begged me to keep quiet, and not to be heard saying such a thing, because it would do me a great deal of harm; and that with that trust I had in God I ought to wait for His grace, keeping quiet. I told him that the powers of God have no need to be afraid of the malignity of injustice.
So a few days went by, and the Cardinal of Ferrara arrived in Rome; who, going to pay his respects to the Pope, was kept by the Pope so long that the supper hour came. And because the Pope was a very able man, he wanted plenty of leisure to talk with the Cardinal about French affairs. And because at table things get said which outside such an occasion would sometimes not be said; so that, that great King Francis being most generous in everything of his, and the Cardinal, who well knew the King's taste, on his side satisfied the Pope far more fully than the Pope had imagined; so that the Pope had come into such gaiety, both from this and because he was in the habit once a week of making a really heavy debauch, since afterwards he vomited it up. When the Cardinal saw the Pope's disposition, fit for granting favours, he asked for me on the King's behalf with great insistence, showing that the King had a great desire for the thing. Then the Pope, feeling the hour of his vomit coming on, and the too great abundance of wine also doing its office, said to the Cardinal with a great laugh: "This minute, this minute I want you to take him home with you;" and having given the express orders, he got up from the table; and the Cardinal sent for me at once, before Signor Pier Luigi should know of it, because he would never have let me out of prison on any account. The Pope's messenger came together with two great gentlemen of the said Cardinal of Ferrara, and at four hours past nightfall they took me out of the said prison and led me before the Cardinal; who gave me an inestimable welcome; and there, well lodged, I stayed to enjoy myself.
Messer Antonio, the Castellan's brother and in his place, insisted that I should pay him all the expenses, with all those extras that constables and people of that kind are in the habit of wanting, and would not observe anything of what the late Castellan had left instructions should be done for me. This thing cost me many tens of scudi, and afterwards the Cardinal told me that I should be well on my guard if I valued my life, and that if he had not got me out of that prison that evening, I should never have got out at all; for he had already heard it said that the Pope was very sorry to have let me go.
I must go back a step, because in my poem all these things I am telling come in. When I stayed those several days in the Cardinal's room and afterwards in the Pope's private garden, among my other dear friends there came to find me a cashier of Messer Bindo Altoviti, who by name was called Bernardo Galluzzi; to whom I had entrusted the value of several hundreds of scudi; and this young man came to find me in the Pope's private garden and wanted to give me back everything; and I told him that I did not know how to give my property either to a dearer friend or into a place where I could have thought it safer; and this friend of mine seemed to twist about at not wanting it, and I almost by force made him keep it. When I had come out of the Castle for the last time, I found that that poor young man Bernardo Galluzzi had been ruined; on account of which I lost my property.
Again: at the time I was in prison, a terrible dream came to me, in which as it were with a reed pen there were written on my forehead words of the greatest importance; and the one who wrote them repeated to me three good times that I should keep silent and not report them to anybody. When I woke up, I felt my forehead defiled. So in my poem about the prison a great many things of this kind come in.
Again: it came to me to say, without knowing what I was saying, everything that afterwards happened to Signor Pier Luigi, so clearly and so exactly that I have considered by myself that an Angel of Heaven must have dictated them to me.
Again: I do not want to leave out one thing, the greatest that ever happened to any other man; which is in justification of the divinity of God and of His secrets, of which He deigned to make me worthy: that from then on, since I saw that thing, there has remained a splendour — a marvellous thing! — above my head; which is plain to every sort of man to whom I have wanted to show it, and those have been very few. This can be seen above my shadow in the morning at sunrise until two hours of sun, and it is seen much better when the grass has that soft dew on it; it can also be seen in the evening at sunset. I noticed it in France, in Paris, because the air in that part of the world is so much clearer of mists that there it was seen far more distinctly than in Italy, where the mists are much more frequent; but that does not mean that I do not see it in any case; and I can show it to others, but not so well as in that part I have spoken of.
I want to write out my poem made in prison and in praise of the said prison; then I shall go on with the good and the bad things that happened to me from time to time, and those too that shall happen to me in my life.
I write this poem to Luca Martini, calling on him in it as you will hear.
Anyone who wants to know how great God's power is, and how far a man resembles that Good, had better spend time in prison, to my mind;
let him be loaded with worries and a household, and some pain in his own body, and have come a thousand miles from home.
Now if you want to be able to do something good, be arrested wrongfully, and then stay there a long while, and get help from nobody;
let them rob you as well of the little you have: danger of your life; be roughly handled, with never a hope of rescue.
And let them drive you into desperation, to break the prison, to jump the Castle: then be put back in a worse place still.
Listen, Luca, now the fine part is coming: to have broken a leg, to have been tricked, the prison soaking, and no cloak to your back.
And let nobody ever speak to you, and let your food be brought, with bad news, by a soldier, apothecary, peasant from Prato.
Now hear where the glory really shows: nowhere to sit but on the privy; and still always awake to make something new.
Express orders given to the servant not to hear you speak, nor give you anything; and to open the door the tiniest crack.
Now this is where a fine brain amuses itself: no paper, pen, ink, iron or fire, and full of fine thoughts since the cradle.
The great pity of it — little has been told of it, but for every one of them imagine a hundred, for I have kept a share and a place for them all.
Now, to come back to what we first meant, and speak the praise the prison deserves: everyone in Heaven would not be enough for it.
Good people are never put in here except by officials, or by bad government, envy, spite, or over some quarrel.
To tell the truth of what I make out about it, here a man knows God and calls on Him always, feeling all the while the pains of Hell.
Let a man be as bad in repute as the world allows, and let him stay in prison a couple of wretched years: he comes out holy and wise, and everybody loves him.
Here the soul is refined, and the body, and the clothes; and every coarse lump of a man is made fine, and Heaven is seen right up to its benches.
I want to tell you a great marvel: the fancy taking me to write a caprice, what things a man lays hold of at a pinch.
I go about the room, knitting my brows and my head, then I make for an edge of the door, and with my teeth I get off a splinter of wood;
and I took a piece of brick as it came, and broke a little of it down into powder; then I made a paste of it with stagnant water.
Just then the fire of poetry came into my body, and I think by the road the bread goes out by; for there was no other way in.
To come back to my first notion: whoever wants to know what good is must first know the evil God sends him.
The prison knows and keeps every trade: if it were the apothecary's you wanted, it makes you sweat the blood out of your veins.
Then it has a certain natural power in it: it makes you eloquent, spirited and bold, loaded with fine thoughts for good and for ill.
It is good for the man who lies a long time in a dark prison, and then at last gets out: he can talk about war, truce and peace.
Everything is bound to come out right for him; for the place fills a man so full of skill that his brain does not go dancing afterwards.
You might say to me: "You are those years the poorer." It is not true, for it teaches you a way of filling your breast and your bosom with them later.
As for me, so far as I know, I praise it; but I would like to see a law in use: that whoever deserves it most should not get off.
Every man who is given charge of the poor flock ought to take his doctorate in the prison, because then he would know how governing is done.
He would do things as people should, and would never stray out of the sown field, nor would such great confusion be seen.
In this time that I have been here I have seen friars, priests and other people, and those who deserved it most stay the least.
If you knew the great grief a man feels when one of them walks out ahead of you! He almost repents of having been born.
I will say no more: I have turned into gold, which is not spent so easily, nor would very good work be made of it.
Another thing has come into my mind which I have not told you, Luca: where I wrote it was in a book belonging to a relative of ours,
for I set down along the length of the margins this great grief that has twisted my limbs, and the paste would not run, as I told you;
so that to make one O I had to dip the stick three times; and I do not think there is grief like it in Hell among the souls wrapped up there.
Now since I am not the first here to be wronged, I say nothing of it; and come back to the prison, where I file my brain and my heart away with grief.
I praise it more than other people do; and if you want to make a learned man of one who knows nothing, without it no good work can be done.
Oh, if only there were, as I read a while ago, somebody to say as at the Pool: "Take up your clothes, Benvenuto, and go!"
I would sing the Creed and the Salve Regina and the Our Father, and then hand out alms to the blind, the poor and the lame every morning.
Oh, how many times these lilies have made my cheek pale and bloodless, so much so that I want neither Florence nor France any more!
And if I happen to go to the hospital and the Annunciation is painted there, I shall run away and look like an animal.
I do not say this against Her, worthy and consecrated, nor against her glorious and holy lilies, which have lit up heaven and earth;
but because at every hour I see, up on the street corners, some of those that have their petals hooked, I shall be afraid they belong to that great crowd.
Oh, how many go wretched as I do, some born to it, some brought to this business, spirits clear, graceful, high and divine!
I saw the deadly emblem fall swiftly from the sky among the empty people, then a new lamp lit in the stone;
I saw the Castle bell break before I got out of it; and He had told me so, He who lays the truth flat in Heaven and on earth;
after this, a bier draped in mourning and decked with broken lilies; weeping and a cross, and many laid in bed afflicted with grief.
I saw her who torments and burns souls, frightening now this man, now that; then she said: "I mean to carry in my breast whoever harms you."
Then that Worthy One wrote on my forehead words to me with Peter's reed pen, and three good times told me to keep silent.
I saw Him who drives and reins in the sun, clothed in it in the midst of His Court, as no mortal eye is ever used to seeing.
A solitary sparrow was singing loudly above the fortress; so that I said: "Certainly that bird foretells life for me, and death for you."
And I sang and wrote out my great case, asking of God only pardon and help, for I felt my eyes going out, fixed in death.
There never was wolf, lion, tiger or bear more bristling than that man for human blood, nor viper with a more venomous bite;
this was a cruel thieving captain, the greatest rascal, with certain other bad men; but so that not everyone shall know it, I will say it low.
If you have ever seen starving catchpoles going in to distrain on some poor wretch, throwing Our Ladies and Christs on the ground —
on the August day they came out of spite to move me into a more wretched tomb: "November: every one of them scattered and cursed."
I had at my ears such a truthful trumpet that it told me everything, and I told them, without thinking, because grief empties a man out.
And when they were left without hope, they gave me, to kill me, a diamond pounded up to eat, and not set in gold.
I asked that peasant rogue to taste it, the one who brought my food; and I said to myself: "That was not my enduring enemy after all."
But first I gave my thoughts up to God, begging Him to forgive my sin; and weeping I said a Miserere.
Somewhat quieted from the great grief, giving up this soul to God willingly, content to go to a better kingdom and another state,
I saw an Angel come down from Heaven with a glorious palm; and then with a glad face he promised my life a longer span,
saying to me: "By God, first every enemy of yours shall be taken away in bitter war, and you shall be left fortunate, happy and free,
in the grace of Him who is Father in heaven and on earth."
Staying in the palace of the Cardinal of Ferrara mentioned above, very well thought of by everybody in general, and visited much more than I used to be, every man wondering all the more at my having come out and stayed alive among such immeasurable troubles; while I was getting my breath back and trying to remember my trade, I took the greatest pleasure in writing out this poem given above. Then, the better to get my strength back, I decided to go out for some days into the open air, with leave and with horses from my good Cardinal, together with two young Romans, one of whom was a workman of my trade; the other, his companion, was not of the trade, but came to keep me company. Leaving Rome, I went off towards Tagliacozzo, thinking to find there Ascanio, my apprentice spoken of above; and when I got to Tagliacozzo, I found the said Ascanio together with his father and brothers and sisters and stepmother. By them for two days I was made so much of that it would be impossible to tell it: I left for Rome, and took Ascanio with me. On the road we began to talk about the trade, so that I was burning to get back to Rome to begin my works again.
When we had got to Rome, I at once set myself up to work; and I found again a silver basin which I had begun for the Cardinal before I was imprisoned: along with the said basin a very beautiful little jug had been begun: this had been stolen from me along with a great quantity of other things of much value. On the said basin I set Pagolo, mentioned above, to work. I also began the jug again, which was composed of little figures in the round and in low relief; and likewise the said basin was composed of figures in the round and fishes in low relief, so rich and so well arranged that everybody who saw it was left wondering, both for the strength of the design and for the invention and for the neatness those young men used on the said works. The Cardinal came at least twice a day to stay with me, together with Messer Luigi Alamanni and with Messer Gabriello Cesano, and there we passed some hours cheerfully. Although I had plenty to do, still new works came in on me in abundance; and he gave me to make his pontifical seal, which was the size of the hand of a boy of twelve; and on the said seal I carved two little scenes in intaglio; one of which was Saint John preaching in the desert, the other Saint Ambrose driving out those Arians, shown on horseback with a whip in his hand, with such daring and such good design, and so neatly worked, that everybody said I had surpassed that great Lautizio who did nothing but this branch of the trade; and the Cardinal, out of his own pride, compared it with the other seals of the cardinals of Rome, which were almost all from the hand of the said Lautizio.
The Cardinal further charged me, together with those two men mentioned above, to make him a model for a saltcellar; but he would have liked to get outside the usual run of those who had made saltcellars. Messer Luigi, on this subject of the salt, said many admirable things; Messer Gabriello Cesano too said very fine things to the same purpose. The Cardinal, a most kindly listener and satisfied beyond measure with the designs these two great talents had made in words, turned to me and said: "My Benvenuto, Messer Luigi's design and Messer Gabriello's please me so much that I should not know which of the two to take; so I leave it to you, who have to put it into execution." Then I said: "See, gentlemen, how important the sons of kings and emperors are, and that marvellous splendour and divinity which appears in them. Nevertheless, if you ask a poor humble shepherd which he has more love and affection for, those sons or his own, for certain he will say he has more love for his own sons. So I too have great love for my sons, whom I bring to birth in this profession of mine: so the first thing I shall show you, my most reverend Monsignor and patron, will be my own work and my own invention; because many things are fine to describe which, when you come to make them, do not go well together as a work." And turning to those two great talents, I said: "You have spoken and I shall do."
Messer Luigi Alamanni then, laughing, with the greatest pleasantness added many gracious words in my favour: and they suited him, because he was handsome in his face and in the proportion of his body, and had a gentle voice. Messer Gabriello Cesano was quite the reverse, so ugly and so disagreeable; and so he spoke according to his shape. Messer Luigi had designed in words that I should make a Venus with a Cupid, together with many pretty conceits, all to the purpose; Messer Gabriello had designed that I should make an Amphitrite, Neptune's wife, together with some of Neptune's Tritons and a great many other things very fine to describe, but not to make.
I made an oval form of a size well over half a braccio, almost two thirds, and on the said form, as the Sea shows itself embracing the Land, I made two figures well over a palm high, which sat with their legs entwined in each other, as one sees certain long arms of the sea that run into the land; and in the hand of the male Sea I put a most richly worked ship: in this ship a great deal of salt sat conveniently and well; underneath him I had arranged those four sea horses: in the right hand of the said Sea I had put his trident. The Land I had made a woman of as beautiful a form as I could and knew how, beautiful and full of grace; and in the hand of the said figure I had put a rich and adorned temple, resting on the ground; and she leaned on it with the said hand; this I had made to hold the pepper. In her other hand I had put a horn of plenty, adorned with all the beauties I knew in the world. Under this Goddess, and in that part which showed itself to be land, I had arranged all those most beautiful animals the earth produces. Under the part of the Sea I had figured all the fine sorts of fishes and little snails that the small space would allow: for the rest of the oval, in its thickness, I made many very rich ornaments.
Then, having waited for the Cardinal, who came with those two talented men, I brought out this work of mine in wax: at which the first with a great noise was Messer Gabriello Cesano, and he said: "This is a work not to be finished in the lifetime of ten men; and you, most reverend Monsignor, who would like it, will never have it in your lifetime; so Benvenuto has chosen to show you his sons, but not to give them, as we were doing, who spoke of things that could be made; and he has shown you things that cannot be made." At this, Messer Luigi Alamanni took my side. The Cardinal said that he did not want to go into so great an undertaking. Then I turned to them and said: "Most reverend Monsignor, and to you gentlemen full of talent, I say that I hope to make this work for whoever is to have it, and each of you will see it finished a hundred times richer than the model; and I hope there will still be plenty of time left us to make things much greater than this." The Cardinal said in annoyance: "If you do not make it for the King, where I am taking you, I do not think you can make it for anybody else;" and having shown me the letters in which the King wrote in one paragraph that he should soon come back, bringing Benvenuto with him, I raised my hands to heaven, saying: "Oh, when will this soon come?" The Cardinal said that I should give my orders and wind up the business I had in Rome, within ten days.
When the time of departure came, he gave me a fine good horse; and it was called Tornon, because Cardinal Tournon had given it to him. Pagolo and Ascanio too, my apprentices, were provided with mounts. The Cardinal divided his Court, which was a very large one: the nobler part he took with him: with it he took the road through the Romagna, to go and visit Our Lady of Loreto, and from there on to Ferrara, his home; the other part he directed towards Florence. This was the larger part; and it was a great number, with all the beauty of his horsemen. To me he said that if I wanted to go safely, I should go with him: if not, I was in danger of my life. I gave His most reverend Lordship to understand that I would go with him; and as what is ordained by the Heavens must needs be, it pleased God to bring back into my memory my poor sister of my own blood, who had had such great unhappiness over my great troubles. There also came back into my memory my cousins, who were nuns at Viterbo, one an abbess and the other the treasurer, so that they were the governesses of that rich convent; and they had had such heavy trouble on my account and had said so many prayers for me, that I held it for certain that it was through the prayers of those poor virgins that I had obtained from God the grace of my deliverance. So, all these things coming into my memory, I turned towards Florence; and where I should have gone free of expense either with the Cardinal or with the other part of his train, I chose to go by myself; and I joined company with a most excellent master of clocks, who was called Master Cherubino, a great friend of mine. Meeting by chance, we made that journey very pleasantly together.
Having left Rome on Holy Monday, we came along just the three of us, and at Monterosi I found the said company; and because I had given people to understand that I was going off with the Cardinal, I did not think that any of those enemies of mine would have been keeping watch on me otherwise. Certainly I came off badly at Monterosi, because ahead of us a troop of well-armed men had been sent, to do me a mischief; and God willed it that while we were dining, they, having had word that I was coming without the Cardinal's train, had got themselves in order to do me harm. At just this point the said train of the Cardinal came up, and with it I went on happily and safe as far as Viterbo; for from there onwards I saw no more danger, and all the more since I always went several miles ahead; and those better men who were in that train took a great deal of account of me. I arrived, God be thanked, safe and sound at Viterbo, and there I was made a great deal of by those sisters of mine and by the whole convent.
Having left Viterbo with the men spoken of, we came on riding, now ahead and now behind the said train of the Cardinal, so that on Holy Thursday at twenty-two hours we found ourselves near Siena at a post house; and seeing that there were some mares there to go back, and that the post men were waiting to give them to some traveller, for some small profit, so that he should take them back to the post at Siena; seeing this, I dismounted from my horse Tornon, and put my cushion and my stirrups on that mare, and gave a giulio to one of those post boys. Leaving my horse to my young men to bring on for me, I went ahead at once so as to get to Siena half an hour earlier, both to visit a friend of mine and to do some other business of my own: so, although I came on quickly, I did not race the said mare. When I got to Siena I took rooms at the inn, good ones such as we needed for five people, and by the innkeeper's boy I sent the said mare back to the post, which was outside the Camollia gate; and on the said mare I had forgotten my stirrups and my cushion.
We passed the evening of Holy Thursday very cheerfully: then in the morning, which was Good Friday, I remembered my stirrups and my cushion. When I sent for them, that postmaster said he would not give them back to me, because I had raced his mare. Several times word was sent back and forth and the man always said he would not give them back to me, with many insulting and unbearable words; and the innkeeper where I was lodged said to me: "You get off well if he does nothing worse to you than not give you back your cushion and stirrups;" and he added: "Know that he is the most brutish man this city ever had; and he has two grown sons there, very fierce soldiers, more brutish than he is; so buy again what you need and go on your way without saying anything to him." I bought a pair of stirrups again, still thinking to get my good cushion back with friendly words: and because I was very well mounted, and well armed with a coat of mail and sleeves, and with a wonderful arquebus at my saddlebow, those great brutalities the man said that mad brute had in him did not frighten me. I had also accustomed those young men of mine to wearing mail and sleeves, and I trusted very much in that young Roman, whom I thought never took his off while we were in Rome. Ascanio too, although he was still a boy, wore his as well: and because it was Good Friday, I thought the madness of madmen ought at least to keep a little holiday.
We came to the said Camollia gate; and there I saw and knew, by the marks that had been given me, being blind in the left eye, this postmaster. Coming up to him, and leaving my young men and my companions to one side, I said pleasantly: "Postmaster, if I assure you that I did not race your mare, why will you not be content to give me back my cushion and my stirrups?" To this he answered exactly in that mad, brutish way I had been told of. On account of which I said to him: "How is this? are you not a Christian? Do you want to scandalize both yourself and me on a Good Friday?" He said that neither Good Friday nor Devil's Friday was any trouble to him, and that if I did not get out of his sight, with a boar spear he had taken up he would tumble me on the ground together with that arquebus I had in my hand.
At these fierce words there came up an old gentleman of Siena, dressed in a citizen's clothes, who was coming back from performing those devotions that are usual on such a day; and having heard from a distance the whole of my case very well, he boldly came up to reprove the said postmaster, taking my side, and scolded his two sons for not doing what was right by the strangers who passed, and that in that way they were acting against God and bringing shame on the city of Siena. Those two young sons of his, shaking their heads without saying anything, went off inside their house. The furious father, envenomed by the words of that honourable gentleman, at once with abusive blasphemies lowered his boar spear, swearing that with it he meant to kill me in any case. Seeing this brutish resolution, to keep him back a little, I made as if to show him the mouth of my arquebus. The man, more furious, threw himself on me, and the arquebus which I had in my hand, although it was ready for my defence, I had not yet lowered enough for it to be pointed at him, but its mouth was still high; and it went off of itself. The ball struck the arch of the gate, and being beaten back, caught him in the windpipe, and he fell dead to the ground.
His two sons ran up quickly, and one of them took a weapon from a rack, the other took his father's boar spear; and throwing themselves on those young men of mine, that son who had the boar spear ran the first of them, Pagolo the Roman, through above the left breast; the other ran at a Milanese who was in our company, who had the face of a madman: and it did him no good to plead that he had nothing to do with me, and to defend himself from the point of a partisan with a little stick he had in his hand: with which he could not fence well enough to avoid being caught a little in the mouth. That Messer Cherubino was dressed as a priest, and although he was a most excellent master of clocks, as I have said, he had had benefices from the Pope with good incomes. Ascanio, although he was very well armed, made no sign of running away, as that Milanese had done; so that these two were not touched.
I had set spurs to my horse, and while he galloped had quickly put my arquebus in order again and loaded it, and was coming back in a rage, feeling I had been playing at it and now meaning to be in earnest; and I thought those young men of mine had been killed, and I was going, resolved, to die there too. The horse had not run many paces back before I met them coming towards me, and I asked them if they were hurt. Ascanio answered that Pagolo was wounded to death with a boar spear. Then I said: "Oh Pagolo my son! Then the spear went through your coat of mail?" "No," he said, "for I put my coat of mail in the saddlebag this morning." "So coats of mail are worn about Rome to look fine to the ladies? and in dangerous places, where there is need to have them, they are kept in the saddlebag? All the harm you have suits you very well, and you are the reason I mean to go and get killed there myself this minute;" and while I was saying these words, I kept going stoutly back. Ascanio and he begged me to be content, for the love of God, to save myself and to save them, because we were surely going to our deaths.
At this I met that Messer Cherubino, together with that wounded Milanese: at once he shouted at me, saying that nobody was hurt, and that Pagolo's blow had gone so straight along that it had not gone through; and that that old postmaster had been left dead on the ground, and that the sons, with a good many other people, had got themselves ready, and would certainly have cut us all to pieces: "So, Benvenuto, since fortune has saved us from that first fury, do not tempt her any more, for she would not save us again." Then I said: "Since you are content with it that way, I am content too;" and turning to Pagolo and Ascanio, I said to them: "Set spurs to your horses, and let us gallop as far as Staggia without ever stopping, and there we shall be safe." That wounded Milanese said: "A plague on sins! for this hurt I have came only from the sin of a little meat soup I ate yesterday, having nothing else for dinner." With all these great tribulations we were in, we were forced to make some show of laughing at that beast and at those foolish words he had said. We set spurs to our horses, and left Messer Cherubino and the Milanese to come on at their leisure.
Meanwhile the dead man's sons ran to the Duke of Melfi, to have him give them several light horsemen to overtake us and take us. The said Duke, learning that we were men of the Cardinal of Ferrara's, would give them neither horses nor leave. Meanwhile we got to Staggia, where we were safe. When we got to Staggia, we looked for a doctor, the best that could be had in that place: and when the said Pagolo had been looked at, the wound ran between skin and skin, and I saw that he would come to no harm. We had dinner got ready.
Meanwhile there appeared Messer Cherubino and that madman of a Milanese, who never left off sending a plague on quarrels, and said he was excommunicated, because on that holy morning he had not been able to say a single Our Father. Being ugly in the face, and his mouth by nature large; and then, from the wound he had got in it, his mouth had grown more than three fingers larger; and with that yowling Milanese speech of his, and with that silly tongue, the words he said gave us so much occasion to laugh that instead of grieving over our fortune, we could not help laughing at every word the man said. When the doctor wanted to sew up that wound in his mouth, having already put in three stitches, he told the doctor to hold off a bit, because he would not have liked him out of some enmity to sew the whole of it up: and he laid hold of a spoon, and said he wanted him to leave it so much open that the spoon would go in, so that he might get back alive to his own people. These words the man said, with certain shakings of the head, gave such great occasion for laughing that instead of grieving over our bad fortune, we never left off laughing; and so, laughing all the way, we got ourselves to Florence.
We went to dismount at the house of my poor sister, where we were made marvellously much of by my brother-in-law and by her. That Messer Cherubino and the Milanese went off about their business. We stayed in Florence four days, during which Pagolo got well; but it was a strange thing, that every time we spoke of that beast of a Milanese it moved us to as much laughter as the other misfortunes that had happened moved us to tears; so that continually, at one and the same time, we laughed and wept. Pagolo got well easily: then we went off towards Ferrara, and we found that our Cardinal had not yet arrived at Ferrara, and had heard all about our adventures; and grieving over them he said: "I pray God to give me grace enough to bring you alive to that King I have promised you to."
The said Cardinal made over to me in Ferrara a palace of his, a very beautiful place, called Belfiore: it borders on the walls of the city: there he had me fitted up to work. Then he gave orders to leave for France without me; and seeing that I was left very discontented, he said to me: "Benvenuto, all that I do is for your safety; because before I take you out of Italy, I want you to know very well first what you are coming to do in France: meanwhile press on as fast as you can with this basin and little jug of mine; and everything you need, I will leave orders with a steward of mine to give you." And when he had gone, I was left very discontented, and several times I had a mind to go off with God: but the only thing that held me was his having got me free from Pope Paul, because for the rest I was discontented and much out of pocket. Still, clothing myself in the gratitude the benefit received deserved, I made up my mind to have patience and to see what end this business was to have; and setting to work with those two young men of mine, I carried that jug and that basin marvellously far forward.
Where we were lodged the air was bad, and as the summer came on, we all fell a little ill. In these indispositions of ours we went looking about the place where we were, which was very large, and had almost a mile of open ground left wild, in which there were so many of our native peacocks that they brooded there like wild birds. Noticing this, I fitted up my fowling piece with a certain powder that made no noise; then I lay in wait for some of those young peacocks, and every two days I killed one, which fed us very amply, and with such virtue in it that all our illnesses left us: and for those several months we attended most cheerfully to our work, and carried forward that jug and that basin, which was a work that took a very long time.
At this time the Duke of Ferrara came to terms with Pope Paul of Rome over certain old differences of theirs, which they had about Modena and certain other cities; over which, the Church having a right in them, the Duke made this peace with the said Pope by force of money: and the amount was a great one: I believe it came to more than three hundred thousand ducats of the Chamber. The Duke at this time had an old treasurer of his, a man brought up by Duke Alfonso his father, who was called Messer Girolamo Giliolo. This old man could not bear this outrage of so much money going to the Pope, and went shouting about the streets, saying: "Duke Alfonso his father, with this money, would sooner have taken Rome with it than shown it to him;" and there was no way of making him pay it. In the end, when the Duke forced him to have it paid, this old man got such a great flux of the body that it brought him close to death.
While he was ill, the said Duke called me and wanted me to make his portrait, which I did on a round of black stone, as large as a small serving trencher. The Duke liked these labours of mine together with a great deal of pleasant conversation; which two things often caused him to stay four and five hours at the least, attentive to being portrayed, and sometimes he made me sup at his table. In the space of eight days I finished this portrait of his head for him: then he ordered me to make the reverse; which was figured as Peace, a woman with a little torch in her hand, burning a trophy of arms: which I made, this said woman, in a joyful posture, with the finest of draperies, of most beautiful grace; and under her feet I figured, afflicted and downcast, and bound with many chains, despairing Fury. This work I made with much study, and it did me the greatest honour. The Duke could not have enough of calling himself satisfied, and gave me the mottoes for the head of His Excellency and for the reverse. The one on the reverse said "Pretiosa in conspectu Domini". It meant that that peace had been sold for a price in money.
At this time, when I set about making the said reverse, the Cardinal had written to me telling me to get myself ready, because the King had asked for me: and that with his first letters there would come the order for everything he had promised me. I had my basin and my jug well packed in a case; and I had already shown them to the Duke. The Cardinal's business was managed by a gentleman of Ferrara, who was called by name Messer Alberto Bendedio. This man had been in the house twelve years without ever going out of it, because of an infirmity of his. One day with the greatest haste he sent for me, telling me that I ought to get into the post saddle at once to go and find the King, who with great insistence had asked for me, thinking I was in France. The Cardinal, as an excuse for himself, had said that I had stayed at an abbey of his in Lyons, a little ill, but that he would see to it that I should soon be with His Majesty; so he was making all this haste for me to ride post.
This Messer Alberto was a very honest man, but he was proud, and because of his illness insufferably proud; and as I say, he told me to get ready quickly, to ride post. To whom I said that my art was not carried on in the post saddle, and that if I had to go there, I wanted to go by easy stages and to take with me Ascanio and Pagolo, my workmen, whom I had brought from Rome; and besides that I wanted a servant with us on horseback, for my service, and money enough to get me there. This sick old man answered me with the most arrogant words, that in the way I described, and no otherwise, the Duke's sons travelled. To him I answered at once that the sons of my art travelled in the way I had said; and never having been the son of a duke, I did not know how they travelled; and that if he used those outlandish words to my ears, I would not go there at all, both because the Cardinal had failed of his word to me and because, with these boorish words added, I should certainly make up my mind not to want anything to do with men of Ferrara; and turning my back on him, I muttering and he blustering, I went off.
I went to find the said Duke with his medal finished; who made me the most honourable welcome ever made to a man in the world: and he had ordered that Messer Girolamo Giliolo of his to find, for these labours of mine, a ring with a diamond worth two hundred scudi, and to give it to Fiaschino his chamberlain, who should give it to me. So it was done. The said Fiaschino, on the evening of the day when I had given him the medal, at one hour of the night handed me a ring with a diamond in it, which made a great show; and he said these words on his Duke's behalf: that that matchless skilled hand, which had worked so well, should adorn itself with that diamond in memory of His Excellency. When day came, I looked at the said ring, which was a thin wretched diamond, worth about ten scudi. And because of those marvellous words that Duke had had used to me, I, not wanting them to be dressed in so poor a reward, the Duke thinking he had satisfied me well; and I, imagining that it came from that rascally treasurer of his, gave the ring to a friend of mine to give back to the chamberlain Fiaschino in whatever way he could. This was Bernardo Saliti, who did this office admirably.
The said Fiaschino came at once to find me with the greatest outcry, telling me that if the Duke knew that I was sending him back a present in that way, which he had so kindly given me, he would take it very badly, and perhaps I might repent of it. To him I answered that the ring His Excellency had given me was worth about ten scudi, and that the work I had done for His Excellency was worth more than two hundred; but that to show His Excellency that I valued the act of his courtesy, let him send me only a crab ring, of those that come from England which are worth about a carlin; I would keep that in memory of His Excellency as long as I lived, together with those honourable words His Excellency had had conveyed to me; because I reckoned that His Excellency's splendour had amply paid for my labours, whereas that low-priced jewel disgraced them. These words were such an annoyance to the Duke that he called that said treasurer of his, and abused him worse than he had ever abused him in the past; and he had orders given me, under pain of his displeasure, that I was not to leave Ferrara unless he let me know; and to his treasurer he gave orders to give me a diamond that came to three hundred scudi. The miserly treasurer found one worth a little over sixty scudi, and gave it out that the said diamond was worth far more than two hundred.
Meanwhile the said Messer Alberto had come round to the right course, and had provided me with everything I had asked for. I had made up my mind that day to leave Ferrara in any case; but that diligent chamberlain of the Duke's had arranged with the said Messer Alberto that for that day I should have no horses. I had loaded a mule with a good deal of my baggage, and with it I had packed in a case that basin and that jug I had made for the Cardinal. At this point there came up a gentleman of Ferrara, who was called by name Messer Alfonso de' Trotti. This gentleman was very old and was a most affected person, and took the greatest pleasure in works of art; but he was one of those people who are extremely hard to please; and if by chance they ever happen to see something that pleases them, they paint it so excellent in their brains that they never think to see anything else that pleases them again.
This Messer Alfonso arrived; on account of which Messer Alberto said to him: "I am sorry you have come late: because that jug and that basin we are sending to the Cardinal in France are already packed and shut up." This Messer Alfonso said that he did not care; and beckoning to a servant of his, he sent him to his house: who brought a jug of white clay, of those clays of Faenza, very delicately worked. While the servant went and came back, this Messer Alfonso said to the said Messer Alberto: "I want to tell you why I do not care to see any more vases: it is that once I saw one in silver, an antique, so beautiful and so marvellous that the human imagination would not reach to conceiving such excellence; and so I do not care to see anything else of the kind, for fear it should spoil that marvellous image of it for me. This was a great gentleman of taste, who went to Rome on some business of his own and was secretly shown this antique vase; which by force of a great quantity of scudi he got out of the man who had it, corrupting him, and brought it with him to these parts of ours; but he keeps it very secret, so that the Duke shall not know of it; because he would be afraid of losing it in any case."
This Messer Alfonso, while he was telling these long tales of his, was not on his guard against me, who was present, because he did not know me. Meanwhile, this blessed clay model appeared, uncovered with such pomposity, patter and self-importance that when I had seen it, turning to Messer Alberto, I said: "Well, I am lucky to have seen it!" Messer Alfonso, in anger, said with some insulting word: "And who are you, who do not know what you are saying?" To this I said: "Now listen to me, and then you will see which of us knows better what he is saying." Turning to Messer Alberto, a very serious and intelligent person, I said: "This is a little silver jug of such and such a weight, which I made at such and such a time for that quack Master Iacopo the surgeon of Carpi, who came to Rome and stayed there six months; and with an ointment of his he besmeared many tens of lords and poor gentlemen, from whom he drew many thousands of ducats. At that time I made him this vase and another different from this; and he paid me for both of them very badly, and now all those unlucky men he greased are in Rome, crippled and in a bad way. It is the greatest glory to me that my works should be so famous with you rich gentlemen; but I tell you plainly that in all these years since, I have attended as far as I could to learning; so that I think the vase I am taking to France is worthy of the Cardinal and of the King in a way that that little doctor of yours was not."
When I had said these words of mine, that Messer Alfonso seemed literally to be consumed with desire to see that basin and jug, which I continually refused him. When we had been at this a while, he said that he would go to the Duke and by means of His Excellency he would see it. Then Messer Alberto Bendedio, who was, as I have said, exceedingly proud, said: "Before you leave here, Messer Alfonso, you shall see it, without using the Duke's favours." At these words I went off and left Ascanio and Pagolo to show it to them; who said afterwards that they had said the greatest things in my praise. After that Messer Alfonso wanted me to be on familiar terms with him, and it seemed a thousand years to me until I could get out of Ferrara and away from them all. What I had had of good there had been the company of Cardinal Salviati and that of the Cardinal of Ravenna, and of one or two of those talented musicians, and of nobody else; because the Ferrarese are a most avaricious people and love other men's property in every way they can get it; they are all like that.
At twenty-two hours the said Fiaschino appeared, and handed me the said diamond worth about sixty scudi; telling me with a gloomy face and in few words that I should wear it for love of His Excellency. To whom I answered: "And so I will." Putting my foot in the stirrup in his presence, I took the road to go off with God. He noted the act and the words; and having reported them to the Duke, in his anger the Duke had the greatest wish to make me come back.
That evening I went on more than ten miles, trotting all the way; and when the next day I was out of the Ferrarese territory, I had the greatest pleasure in it, because apart from those young peacocks I ate there, which were the cause of my health, I found nothing else good in it. We made the journey by way of Mont Cenis, not touching the city of Milan on account of the suspicion mentioned above; so that safe and sound we arrived at Lyons. Together with Pagolo and Ascanio and a servant, we were four with four quite good mounts. Having got to Lyons, we stopped several days to wait for the muleteer, who had that basin and silver jug together with the rest of our baggage: we were lodged in an abbey belonging to the Cardinal. When the muleteer had arrived, we put all our things in a cart and started it off towards Paris: and so we went on towards Paris, and had some troubles on the road, but not very notable ones.
We found the King's court at Fontainebleau: we showed ourselves to the Cardinal, who at once had lodgings assigned us, and that evening we did well. The next day the cart appeared; and when we had taken our things, the Cardinal, having heard of it, told the King, who at once wanted to see me. I went to His Majesty with the said basin and jug, and having come into his presence, I kissed his knee and he received me most graciously. While I was thanking His Majesty for having set me free from prison, saying that he was under an obligation, every good and matchless prince in the world, as His Majesty was, to free good men who are fit for something, and all the more innocent ones as I was; and that those benefits are written down in the books of God before any other that can be done in the world; this good King listened to me until I had done, with much gratitude and with certain words worthy only of himself. When I had finished, he took the vase and the basin, and then said: "Truly I do not believe such a fine style of work was ever seen even among the ancients: for I well remember having seen all the best works, and made by the best masters, of the whole of Italy; but I never saw anything that moved me more greatly than this." These words the said King spoke in French to the Cardinal of Ferrara, with many others greater than these. Then turning to me he spoke to me in Italian, and said: "Benvenuto, pass your time cheerfully for a few days, and comfort your heart and attend to living well; and meanwhile we will think of giving you good conveniences for making some fine work for us."
The Cardinal of Ferrara mentioned above, seeing that the King had taken the greatest pleasure in my arrival; and seeing too that with those few works the King had promised himself he could satisfy his wish to make certain very great works which he had in mind; so at this time, while we were following the Court, it may be said in torment (the reason being that the King's train drags continually behind it twelve thousand horse; and that is the least of it: because when the Court in times of peace is complete, they are eighteen thousand, so that they always come to be more than twelve thousand; on account of which we went on following the said Court sometimes into places where there were barely two houses; and as the gypsies do, we made ourselves tents of canvas, and many times we suffered a great deal): I still pressed the Cardinal to urge the King to set me to work; the Cardinal told me that the best thing in this case was to wait for the King to remember it of his own accord; and that I should let myself be seen by His Majesty now and then, while he was eating.
Doing so, one morning at his dinner the King called me: he began to speak to me in Italian, and said that he had it in mind to make many great works, and that he would soon give me orders where I was to work, providing me with everything I needed; with much other pleasant talk about various things. The Cardinal of Ferrara was present, because almost continually he ate in the morning at the King's small table; and having heard all this talk, when the King had got up from the table the Cardinal of Ferrara said in my favour, as far as was reported to me: "Sacred Majesty, this Benvenuto has a very great wish to work; one might almost say it is a sin to make such a talent lose time." The King added that he had said well, and that he should settle with me everything I wanted for my salary. The said Cardinal, on the evening of the day whose morning had brought him the commission, after supper, having sent for me, told me on His Majesty's behalf that His Majesty had made up his mind that I should set my hand to work; but that first he wanted me to know what my salary was to be. On this the Cardinal said: "It seems to me that if His Majesty gives you a salary of three hundred scudi a year, you can very well keep yourself; besides, I tell you to leave the care of it to me, because every day occasion comes of being able to do well in this great kingdom, and I will always help you marvellously."
Then I said: "Without my asking Your most reverend Lordship, when you left me in Ferrara you promised me never to take me out of Italy unless I first knew all the terms on which I was to be with His Majesty; Your most reverend Lordship, instead of sending word to me of the terms I was to be on, sent express orders that I should come post, as if such an art were carried on in the post saddle: for if you had sent to tell me three hundred scudi, as you tell me now, I would not have stirred for six hundred. But for all of it I thank God and Your most reverend Lordship as well, because God has used you as an instrument for so great a good as my deliverance from prison. So I say to Your Lordship that all the great harm I might have from you now cannot come to the thousandth part of the great good I have received from you, and I thank you for it with all my heart, and take a good leave of you, and wherever I am, as long as I live, I shall pray God for you." The Cardinal, angry, said in his rage: "Go where you like, because you cannot do a man good by force." Certain of those loaf-eating courtiers of his said: "This fellow thinks himself something great, because he refuses three hundred ducats of income." Others, of those men of talent, said: "The King will never find another like him; and this Cardinal of ours wants to bargain for him as if he were a load of firewood." This was Messer Luigi Alamanni, who I was told said this. This was in the Dauphiné, at a castle whose name I do not remember: and it was the last day of October.
Having left the Cardinal, I went off to my lodging three miles away from there, together with a secretary of the Cardinal's who was coming to the same lodging. All that journey that secretary never left off asking me what I meant to do with myself, and what my fancy would have been about the salary I wanted. I never answered him a single word, except to say: "I knew the whole of it already." Then, having got to the lodging, I found Pagolo and Ascanio who were staying there; and seeing me thoroughly upset, they forced me to tell them what I had; and seeing the poor young men dismayed, I said to them: "Tomorrow morning I will give you money enough for you to be able to get back to your homes comfortably; and I shall go about a most important business of my own, without you; which I have had it in mind to do for a long time." Our room was wall to wall with that of the said secretary, and it is possible that he wrote to the Cardinal everything I had it in mind to do; although I never knew anything about it.
The night passed without my sleeping at all: it seemed a thousand years to me until day came, so that I could follow out the resolution I had made about myself. When the dawn of day came, having given orders for the horses and got myself quickly ready, I gave those two young men everything I had brought with me, and fifty gold ducats besides: and I kept as much again for myself, and besides that the diamond the Duke had given me; I took only two shirts and certain not too good riding clothes, which I had on my back. I could not get away from the two young men, who wanted to come with me in any case; on account of which I greatly belittled them, saying to them: "One of you has his first beard and the other is beginning to get his little by little, and you have learned from me so much of this poor skill that I have been able to teach you that you are today the first young men in Italy; and are you not ashamed that you have not the heart to get out of your daddy's go-cart, which has always carried you? This is surely a mean thing! And if I let you go without money, what would you say? Now get out of my sight, and God bless you a thousand times: goodbye." I turned my horse and left them weeping.
I took a very fine road through a wood, so as to get forty miles away at the least that day, to the most unknown place I could think of. And I had already got about two miles off; and in that little journey I had made up my mind never again to practise in any place where I was known, nor ever to make any other work than a Christ three braccia high, coming as near as I could to that infinite beauty which had been shown me by Himself. Having quite made up my mind, I was going off towards the Sepulchre. Thinking I had got so far off that nobody could find me any more, at this point I heard horses running behind me; and they made me somewhat suspicious, because in those parts there is a certain breed of company, who are called adventurers, who gladly rob people on the road; and although every day a good many of them are hanged, they hardly seem to care about it. When these men had come nearer me, I saw that they were a messenger of the King's, together with that young man of mine Ascanio; and coming up to me he said: "On the King's behalf I tell you to come to him at once." To which man I said: "You come on the Cardinal's behalf; and for that reason I do not want to come." The man said that since I would not come willingly, he had authority to command the country people, who would bring me bound like a prisoner. Ascanio too, as much as he could, begged me, reminding me that when the King put a man in prison, he took five years at the least afterwards to make up his mind to get him out. This word "prison", reminding me of the one in Rome, gave me such a fright that I quickly turned my horse where the King's messenger told me. He, always muttering in French, never left off all that journey until he had brought me to the Court: now he blustered at me, now he said one thing, now another, enough to make me renounce the world.
When we had got to the King's lodgings, we passed in front of those of the Cardinal of Ferrara. The Cardinal being at the door, he called me to him and said: "Our Most Christian King of his own accord has settled on you the same salary that His Majesty used to give Leonardo da Vinci the painter: which is seven hundred scudi a year; and besides that he pays you for all the works you make for him; and moreover for your coming he gives you five hundred gold scudi, which he wants paid you before you leave here." When the Cardinal had finished speaking, I answered that these were offers worthy of the King he was. That messenger of the King's, not knowing who I was, seeing such great offers made me on the King's behalf, asked my pardon many times. Pagolo and Ascanio said: "God has helped us back into so honourable a go-cart."
Then the next day I went to thank the King, who charged me to make him the models of twelve silver statues, which he wanted to serve as twelve candlesticks round his table: and he wanted six gods and six goddesses figured, of exactly the size of His Majesty, who was very little short of four braccia tall. When he had given me this commission, he turned to the treasurer of savings and asked him whether he had paid me the five hundred scudi. He said that nothing had been said to him about it. The King took it very badly, for he had ordered the Cardinal to tell him. He also told me to go to Paris, and to look for a workshop that would suit for making such works, because he would have it given to me.
I took the five hundred gold scudi and went off to Paris to a lodging of the Cardinal of Ferrara's; and there I began, in the name of God, to work, and made four small models, of two thirds of a braccio each, in wax: Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Vulcan. Meanwhile the King came to Paris; on account of which I went at once to find him, and took the said models with me, together with those two young men of mine, that is Ascanio and Pagolo. When I saw that the King was satisfied with the said models, he charged me first of all to make him the Jupiter in silver of the said height. I explained to His Majesty that I had brought those two young men from Italy for His Majesty's service; and because I had brought them up myself, I should for these beginnings get much better help from them than from the men of the city of Paris. At this the King said that I should settle for the said two young men whatever salary seemed right to me, which should be enough for them to keep themselves. I said that a hundred gold scudi each would do well, and that I would certainly make them earn such a salary. So we agreed.
I also said that I had found a place which seemed to me very suitable for making such works in; the said place belonged to His Majesty in particular, called the Petit Nesle, and at that time it was held by the provost of Paris, to whom His Majesty had given it; but because this provost did not use it, His Majesty could give it to me, who would use it for his service. The King said at once: "That place is my house; and I know very well that the man I gave it to does not live in it, and does not use it; so you shall use it for our business;" and at once he ordered his lieutenant to put me into the said Nesle. The lieutenant made some resistance, telling the King that he could not do it. To this the King answered in anger that he meant to give his own things to whom he pleased and to a man who served him, because this other man was of no use to him at all: so he should say no more to him about the matter. The lieutenant added further that it would be necessary to use a little force. To whom the King said: "Go now, and if a little force is not enough, put in a great deal of it."
He took me at once to the place and did have to use force to put me in possession: then he told me to take very good care not to get killed there. I went in, and at once took on servants, and bought several great weapons on poles, and for several days I lived in the greatest unpleasantness; because this was a great gentleman of Paris, and the other gentlemen were all my enemies, so that they did me so many insults that I could not stand up to it. I do not want to leave out that at this time when I entered His Majesty's service the year was exactly 1540, which was exactly my fortieth year.
Because of these great insults I went back to the King, begging His Majesty to settle me somewhere else: at which words the King said to me: "Who are you, and what is your name?" I was left quite bewildered and did not know what the King meant; and as I stayed quiet like that, the King repeated the same words a second time, almost angrily. Then I answered that my name was Benvenuto. The King said: "Then if you are that Benvenuto I have heard of, act after your own custom, for I give you full leave to do it." I told His Majesty that all I needed was to keep myself in his favour; for the rest I saw nothing that could hurt me. The King, laughing a little, said: "Go then, and my favour shall never fail you."
At once he gave orders to one of his chief secretaries, who was called Monsignor de Villeroy, to give orders for me to be provided for and fitted out with all I needed. This Villeroy was a very great friend of that gentleman called the provost, whose the said place of Nesle was. This place was in the shape of a triangle, and was attached to the city walls, and was an old castle, but no guard was kept in it: it was of a good size. This Monsignor de Villeroy advised me to look for something else, and to give it up in any case; because the man whose it was, was a man of the greatest power, and he would most certainly have me killed. To whom I answered that I had come from Italy to France only to serve that marvellous King, and as for dying, I knew for certain that I had to die; and a little sooner or a little later did not trouble me in the world.
This Villeroy was a man of the greatest spirit, and admirable in everything he did, and enormously rich: there is nothing in the world he would not have done to do me a mischief, but he showed nothing of it; he was a serious person, of handsome appearance, and spoke slowly. He gave charge of the matter to another gentleman, who was called Monsignor de Marmagne, who was treasurer of Languedoc. The first thing this man did was to look out the best rooms of that place and have them fitted up for himself: to whom I said that the King had given me that place so that I might serve him, and that I did not want anybody living there except me and my servants. This man was proud, bold and spirited; and he told me that he meant to do whatever he pleased, and that I was banging my head against a wall in wanting to stand up against him; and that everything he was doing, he had orders from Villeroy that he might do it. Then I said that I had orders from the King, and that neither he nor Villeroy could do such a thing. When I said this, this proud man said to me in his French tongue many foul words, to which I answered in my own tongue that he lied. Moved by anger, he made as if to lay his hand on a little dagger of his; on account of which I laid my hand on a great dagger of mine, which I always carried at my side for my defence, and said to him: "If you are bold enough to draw that weapon, I will kill you on the spot." He had two servants with him, and I had my two young men: and while the said Marmagne stood there uncertain, not knowing what to do, but rather inclined to mischief, he said, muttering: "I will never put up with such a thing." I saw the business going the bad way; at once I made up my mind and said to Pagolo and Ascanio: "As soon as you see me draw my dagger, throw yourselves on the two servants and kill them if you can: because I shall kill this man at the first blow; then we will go off with God together at once." When Marmagne heard this resolution, he thought he had done well enough to get out of that place alive. All these things, somewhat more modestly put, I wrote to the Cardinal of Ferrara, who at once told them to the King. The King in vexation gave me into the charge of another of those men of his, who was called Monsignor the Viscount of Orbec. This man, with as much pleasantness as can be imagined, provided me with everything I needed.
When I had made all the fittings of the house and of the workshop, most conveniently arranged for serving me, and most honourably, for the services of the house, I at once set my hand to making three models, of exactly the size they were to be in silver: these were Jupiter and Vulcan and Mars. I made them of clay, very well armed with iron, and then I went to the King, who had given me, if I remember rightly, three hundred pounds of silver, so that I might begin work. While I was giving orders for these things, the little vase and the oval basin were being finished, which took several months. When I had finished them, I had them very well gilded. This seemed the most beautiful work that had ever been seen in France. I took it at once to the Cardinal of Ferrara, who thanked me a great deal; then without me he took it to the King and made him a present of it. The King held it very dear, and praised me more beyond measure than a man of my sort was ever praised; and for this present he gave the Cardinal of Ferrara an abbey of seven thousand scudi of income; and he meant to make me a present too. On account of which the Cardinal hindered it, telling His Majesty that he was doing it too soon, since I had not yet given him any work. And the King, who was most generous, said: "That is just why I want to give him courage, so that he can give me some." The Cardinal, ashamed at this, said: "Sire, I beg you to leave it to me; because I will make him a pension of three hundred scudi at the least, as soon as I have taken possession of the abbey." I never had them, and it would be far too long to tell all the devilries of this Cardinal; but I want to keep myself for things of greater importance.
I went back to Paris. With so much favour done me by the King I was admired by everybody. I got the silver, and began the said statue of Jupiter. I took on many workmen, and with the greatest diligence day and night I never left off working; so that, having finished Jupiter, Vulcan and Mars in clay, and having already begun to carry the Jupiter in silver a good way forward, the workshop showed itself already very rich.
At this the King appeared in Paris: I went to visit him; and as soon as His Majesty saw me, he called me cheerfully and asked me whether there was anything fine at my house to show him, because he would come as far as there. To whom I recounted all I had done. At once the greatest wish came on him to come; and after his dinner he made arrangements with Madame d'Étampes, with the Cardinal of Lorraine, and certain others of those lords, such as the King of Navarre, brother-in-law of King Francis, and the Queen, sister of the said King Francis; the Dauphin came and the Dauphine; the fact is that on that day all the nobility of the Court came. I had gone off home, and had set myself to work. When the King appeared at the gate of my castle, hearing the beating of several hammers, he ordered everybody to be silent: in my house everybody was at work; so that I was taken by surprise by the King, whom I was not expecting. He came into my hall: and the first thing he saw, he saw me with a great plate of silver in my hand, which was to serve for the body of the Jupiter: another was making the head, another the legs, so that the noise was very great. While I was working, having a little French boy of mine about me, who had done me some little annoyance or other, on account of which I had given him a kick, and by my good luck, having caught him with my foot in the fork of his legs, I had driven him forward more than four braccia, so that at the King's entrance this boy fetched up against the King: at which the King laughed a great deal, and I was left much abashed. The King began to ask me what I was doing, and wanted me to work; then he told me that he would be much better pleased if I never tired myself, but rather took on as many men as I liked, and made them work: because he wanted me to keep myself healthy so as to be able to serve him longer. I answered His Majesty that I should fall ill at once if I did not work, nor would the works be of the kind "I wish to make for His Majesty". The King, thinking that what I said was said out of boasting, and not because it was the truth, made me say it over again to the Cardinal of Lorraine, to whom I set out my reasons so fully and so clearly that he was quite convinced by them: so he urged the King to let me work little or much, according to my own will.
The King, left satisfied with my works, went back to his palace, and left me full of so many favours that it would take long to tell them. The next day, at his dinner, he sent to call me. The Cardinal of Ferrara was present, dining with him. When I got there, the King was still at the second course: coming up to His Majesty, he at once began to talk with me, saying that since he had so fine a basin and so fine a jug from my hand, he wanted a fine saltcellar to keep them company, and that he wanted me to make him a design for it; but he would like to see it soon. Then I added: "Your Majesty shall see such a design much sooner than you ask of me; because while I was making the basin I thought that a saltcellar ought to be made to keep it company," and that such a thing was already made; and that if he liked, I would show it to him at once. The King started up with great eagerness, and turning to those lords, who were the King of Navarre, the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Cardinal of Ferrara, he said: "This is truly a man to be loved and desired by every man who does not know him;" then he said to me that he would gladly see that design I had made on such a subject.
I set off, and quickly went and came back, because I only had to cross the river, that is the Seine: I brought with me a wax model, which I had already made at the request of the Cardinal of Ferrara in Rome. When I got to the King and had uncovered the model to him, the King, wondering, said: "This is a hundred times more divine a thing than I should ever have thought. This man is a great matter! He ought never to rest." Then he turned to me with a very happy face, and told me that it was a work which pleased him greatly, and that he wanted me to make it for him in gold. The Cardinal of Ferrara, who was present, looked me in the face and made me a sign, as one who recognized that this was the model I had made for him in Rome. At this I said that I had already said I would make that work for whoever was to have it. The Cardinal, remembering those same words, almost in indignation, thinking I had wanted to take my revenge, said to the King: "Sire, this is a very great work, and so I should suspect nothing except that I should never believe I should see it finished; because these able men, who have those great conceits of this art, gladly make a beginning of them, without considering well when they are to have an end. So, if I were having works of this kind made, I should want to know when I was to have them." To this the King answered, saying that whoever looked so narrowly for the end of works would never begin any of them; and he said it in a certain way, showing that works of that kind were not matter for men of little spirit. Then I said: "All princes who give their servants courage, in the way His Majesty does and says, make every great undertaking easy; and since God has given me such a marvellous master, I hope to give him a great many great and marvellous works finished." "And I believe it," said the King; and he got up from the table.
He called me into his room and asked me how much gold was needed for that saltcellar: "A thousand scudi," I said. At once the King called a treasurer of his, who was called Monsignor the Viscount of Orbec, and told him to provide me that very moment with a thousand old scudi of good weight, in gold. When we had left His Majesty, I sent to call those two clerks who had had the silver given me for the Jupiter and many other things, and having crossed the Seine, I took a very small basket which a cousin of mine, a nun, had given me on my way through Florence, and for my good luck I took that basket and not a bag: and thinking to get the business done by daylight, because it was still a good hour, and not wanting to draw off the workmen; and neither did I care to take a servant with me.
I got to the treasurer's house, and he already had the money before him, and was picking it out as the King had told him. As far as I could see, that thieving treasurer artfully delayed until three hours into the night in counting me out the said money. I, who was not lacking in caution, sent to call several of those workmen of mine to come and keep me company, because it was a matter of great importance. Seeing that they did not come, I asked the messenger whether he had done my errand. A certain thievish little servant said he had done it, and that they had said they could not come; but that he would willingly carry that money for me: to whom I said that I meant to carry the money myself. Meanwhile the receipt was made out, the money counted and everything done. Having put it in the said little basket, I then put my arm through the two handles; and because it went in with great difficulty, they were well closed, and I carried it more conveniently than if it had been a bag. I was well armed with mail and sleeves, and with my little sword and dagger at my side I quickly put the road between my legs.
At that moment I saw certain servants who, whispering, quickly left the house too, making as if to go by another way than the one I was going by. I, walking briskly, having passed the Pont au Change, was coming along a little wall by the river, which brought me home to Nesle. When I was exactly at the Augustinians', a most dangerous place, although only five hundred paces from my house; the dwelling part of the castle being about as far again inside, my voice would not have been heard if I had set about calling out, but making up my mind in a moment when I saw four men with four swords out upon me, I quickly covered that little basket with my cloak, and laying my hand on my sword, seeing that they were closing on me briskly, I said: "From soldiers there is nothing to be got but a cloak and a sword; and this one, before I give it to you, I hope you will have it with little profit to yourselves." And fighting against them spiritedly, several times I opened my cloak, so that, if they were of those put up to it by those servants who had seen me take the money, they might have some reason to judge that I had no such sum of money on me. The fight lasted a short time, because little by little they drew back; and they said among themselves in their own tongue: "This is a brave Italian, and certainly he is not the man we were looking for; or truly, if it is he, he has nothing on him." I was speaking Italian, and I kept driving at them with thrusts and downward strokes, sometimes very close to their bodies; and because I have handled weapons very well, they judged rather that I was a soldier than anything else; and closing up together, little by little they drew away from me, always muttering under their breath in their own tongue; and I too kept saying, modestly enough, that whoever wanted my weapons and my cloak would not have them without trouble.
I began to hurry my pace, and they always came after me at a slow pace; on account of which my fear grew, thinking I might fall into some ambush of several others of the same kind, who would have put me in the middle; so that when I was within a hundred paces, I set off at a full run and shouted at the top of my voice: "To arms, to arms, out, out, for I am being murdered." At once four young men ran up with four weapons on poles: and when they wanted to follow those men, whom they could still see, I stopped them, saying, still loudly: "Those four cowards have not known how, against one man alone, to make a booty of a thousand gold scudi in gold, which have broken my arm with the weight of them; so let us first go and put them away, and then I will keep you company with my two-handed sword wherever you like."
We went to put the money away; and those young men of mine, grieving greatly over the great danger I had run, as though scolding me, said: "You trust too much in yourself, and one day you will make us all weep." I said a good many things; and they answered me back too; my adversaries had run off; and we all, merry and cheerful, had supper, laughing at those great squeezes fortune gives, as much in good as in bad; and when she misses, it is as if nothing had happened at all. It is quite true that people say: "You will learn for another time." That is worth nothing, because she always comes with different ways and never with ones you have imagined.
The next morning I at once made a beginning on the great saltcellar, and with diligence had it and the other works carried forward. By now I had taken on a great many workmen, both for the art of sculpture and for that of goldsmith's work. These workmen were Italians, French and Germans, and sometimes I had a good number of them, according as I found good ones; because from day to day I changed them, taking those who knew most, and I urged them on so that, from the continual toil (seeing what I did, whose constitution served me a little better than theirs, and being unable to stand up to the great labours, thinking to refresh themselves with plenty of drinking and eating), some of those Germans, who knew better than the others, in wanting to keep up with me, found that their nature would not bear such abuse, and it killed them.
While I was carrying the Jupiter in silver forward, seeing that I had a good deal of silver over, I set my hand, without the King's knowing, to making a large vase with two handles, of about a braccio and a half in height. I also had a wish to cast in bronze that great model I had made for the silver Jupiter; and setting my hand to this new undertaking, which I had never done before, and having talked it over with certain of those old master men of Paris, I told them all the ways we in Italy were used to carry out such an undertaking. These men told me that they had never gone by that road, but that if I let them do it in their own ways, they would give it me cast as clean and as fine as the clay one was. I chose to make a bargain, giving this work over to them: and on top of the price they had asked me, I promised them several scudi more. They set their hands to the undertaking; and seeing that they were not taking the right road, I quickly began a head of Julius Caesar, with his breast, armed, much larger than life, which I copied from a small model I had brought from Rome, taken from a most marvellous antique head. I also set my hand to another head of the same size, which I copied from a very beautiful girl whom I kept about me for my carnal pleasure. To this one I gave the name Fontainebleau, which was the place the King had chosen for his own particular delight.
Having made a very fine little furnace for melting the bronze, and got ready and baked our moulds, they the Jupiter and I my two heads, I said to them: "I do not believe your Jupiter will come out, because you have not given it enough vents underneath for the air to circulate; so you are wasting your time." These men told me that if their work did not come out, they would give me back all the money I had given them on account, and would make good the whole of the lost expense; but that I should look out well, for those fine heads of mine, which I meant to cast in my Italian way, would never come out for me. Present at this argument were those treasurers and other gentlemen, who came to see me by the King's orders; and everything that was said and done, they reported it all to the King.
These two old fellows, who wanted to cast the Jupiter, held back a while from giving the order for the pouring; because they said they would have liked to fix those two moulds of my heads; because that way I was doing it, it was not possible they should come out, and it was a great pity to lose such fine works. When this was made known to the King, His Majesty answered that they should attend to learning and not try to teach the master. These men with great laughter put their work in the pit; and I, steady, without any show either of laughter or of anger — which I had — put my two moulds in the middle of the Jupiter: and when our metal was very well melted, with the greatest pleasure we gave the said metal its way, and the mould of the Jupiter filled very well; at the same time the mould of my two heads filled: so that they were glad and I was content; because I was very pleased to have told lies about their work, and they showed themselves very pleased to have told lies about mine. They asked, in the French way, with great cheerfulness for a drink: I very willingly had a rich collation made them. Then they asked me for the money they were to have, and those extra ones I had promised them. At this I said: "You have been laughing over something which I am much afraid you may have to weep over; because I have considered that into that mould of yours far more metal has gone than it ought; so I do not want to give you any more money than what you have had, until tomorrow morning."
These poor men began to consider what I had said to them, and without saying anything they went off home. When morning came, very quietly they began to dig out of the pit; and because they could not uncover their great mould without first getting out those two heads of mine, they got them out and they were very good, and they had set them up on end, so that they could be well seen. Then, when they began to uncover the Jupiter, they had not gone two braccia down when they and four of their workmen set up such a great shout that I heard it. Thinking it was a shout of gladness, I set off running, for I was in my room more than five hundred paces away. I got to them and found them in the attitude given to those who watched the sepulchre of Christ, afflicted and terrified. I cast my eyes on my two heads, and seeing that they were good, I balanced my pleasure against my displeasure: and they excused themselves, saying: "Our bad fortune!" At which words I said: "Your fortune has been very good, but what has certainly been bad is your want of knowledge. If I had seen you put the core into the mould, with a single word I would have taught you so that the figure would have come out very well; on account of which the greatest honour would have come to me and much profit to you: but I shall be excused about my honour, whereas you have no escape either as to honour or as to profit: so another time learn to work and do not learn to make fools of people."
Still they commended themselves to me, telling me that I was right, and that if I did not help them, having to pay that heavy expense and that loss, they would go begging together with their families. At this I said that if the King's treasurers wanted to make them pay what they had bound themselves to, I promised them to pay it out of my own pocket, because I had truly seen that they had done with a good heart everything they knew. These things gained me so much goodwill with those treasurers and with those officers of the King that it was beyond reckoning. The whole of it was written to the King, who, matchless and most generous, ordered that everything I said should be done.
At this point the most marvellous and brave Piero Strozzi had arrived; and having reminded the King about his letters of naturalization, the King at once ordered that they should be made out. "And together with them," he said, "make out those for Benvenuto, mon ami, and take them at once on my behalf to his house, and give them to him without any expense." Those of the great Piero Strozzi cost him many hundreds of ducats; mine were brought me by one of his chief secretaries, who was called Messer Antonio Le Maçon. This gentleman handed me the letters with a marvellous show of ceremony on His Majesty's behalf, saying: "The King makes you a present of these, so that you may serve him with the greater courage. These are letters of naturalization;" and he told me how, after a long time and with many favours, he had given them to Piero Strozzi at his own request, and that these he was sending to present to me of his own accord: that such a favour had never been done before in that kingdom. At these words I thanked the King with great demonstrations; then I begged the said secretary to be so good as to tell me what those "letters of naturalization" meant. This secretary was very cultivated and courteous, and spoke Italian very well: first breaking into great laughter, then recovering his gravity, he told me in my own tongue, that is in Italian, what "letters of naturalization" meant, which was one of the greatest dignities given to a foreigner; and he said: "This is a greater thing than being made a Venetian gentleman." Having left me, when he got back to the King, he reported the whole of it to His Majesty, who laughed a while, then said: "Now I want him to know why I have sent him letters of naturalization. Go, and make him lord of the castle of the Petit Nesle which he lives in, which is mine by inheritance. He will find out what this is much more easily than he found out what letters of naturalization were." A messenger came to me with the said present, on account of which I wanted to show him a courtesy: he would not accept anything, saying that such were His Majesty's orders. The said letters of naturalization, together with those for the gift of the castle, when I came to Italy I brought with me; and wherever I go, and wherever I end my life, there I shall take care to have them.
Now I go on with the account of my life that I had begun. Having in hand the works spoken of above, that is the silver Jupiter, already begun, the said gold saltcellar, the great silver vase spoken of, the two bronze heads, we worked on these works diligently. I also gave orders for the casting of the base of the said Jupiter, which I made of bronze most richly, full of ornaments, among which ornaments I carved in low relief the rape of Ganymede; and on the other side Leda and the swan: this I cast in bronze, and it came out very well. I also made another like it to put the statue of Juno on, waiting to begin this one too, if the King gave me the silver to be able to make such a thing.
Working diligently, I had already put the silver Jupiter together; I had also put the gold saltcellar together; the vase was far advanced; the two bronze heads were already finished. I had also made several small works for the Cardinal of Ferrara; besides that I had made a little silver vase, richly worked, to give as a present to Madame d'Étampes; for many Italian lords, that is Signor Piero Strozzi, the Count of Anguillara, the Count of Pitigliano, the Count of Mirandola and many others, I had made a great many works.
To come back to my great King, as I have said, having carried these works of his very well forward, at this time he came back to Paris, and on the third day he came to my house with a great number of the greatest nobility of his Court, and he wondered greatly at the many works I had in hand and had brought to so good a point; and because his Madame d'Étampes was with him, they began to talk about Fontainebleau. Madame d'Étampes said to His Majesty that he ought to have me make something beautiful for the ornament of his Fontainebleau. At once the King said: "What you say is well said, and this very minute I mean to make up my mind that something beautiful shall be made there;" and turning to me, he began to ask me what seemed to me the thing to make for that beautiful fountain. At this I put forward some fancies of my own: His Majesty too said what he thought; then he told me that he wanted to go for a change of air for fifteen or twenty days to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which was twelve leagues from Paris; and that in that time I should make a model for this beautiful fountain of his with the richest inventions I knew, because that place was the greatest recreation he had in his kingdom; so he ordered and begged me to do my best to make something beautiful: and I promised him as much.
The King, seeing so many works in hand, said to Madame d'Étampes: "I have never had a man of this profession who pleased me more, nor who deserved more to be rewarded than this one; so we must think of fixing him here. Because he spends a great deal, and is a good companion and works a great deal, we must of ourselves remember him: for consider, Madame, how many times he has come to me, and how often I have come here, and he has never asked for anything: his heart is plainly wholly intent on his works; and we must do him some good soon, so that we do not lose him." Madame d'Étampes said: "I will remind you of it." They went off: I set myself with great diligence to the works I had begun, and moreover set my hand to the model of the fountain and carried it forward diligently.
Within a month and a half the King came back to Paris; and I, who had been working day and night, went to find him, and took my model with me, so beautifully sketched out that it was plainly understood. The devilries of the war between the Emperor and himself had already begun again, so that I found him much distracted; still I spoke with the Cardinal of Ferrara, telling him that I had with me certain models which His Majesty had ordered me to make: so I begged him, if he saw a time to put in a word so that these models might be shown, "I believe the King would take great pleasure in them." The Cardinal did so much; he put the said models before the King; at once the King came to where I had the models.
First of all I had made the door of the palace of Fontainebleau: so as to alter as little as I could the order of the door that was already made at the said palace, which was large and squat, in that bad French manner of theirs, in which the opening was little more than a square, and above that square a flattened half circle in the fashion of a basket handle: in this half circle the King wanted to have a figure which should represent Fontainebleau. I gave the said opening very beautiful proportions; then I put over the said opening a true half circle; and at the sides I made certain pleasing projections, under which in the lower part, which came to correspond to the one above, I put a plinth; and as much above; and instead of two columns, which the mouldings made below and above showed to be required, I had made a satyr in each of the places of the columns. This was more than half relief, and with one of his arms he seemed to hold up that part which belongs to the columns: in the other arm he had a heavy club, with his head bold and fierce, which showed terror to those who looked at it. The other figure was like it in posture, but was different and various in the head and in certain other such things: it had in its hand a scourge with three balls fixed to it by certain chains. Although I say satyrs, these had nothing of the satyr except certain little horns and the goatish head; all the rest was human form. In the half circle I had made a woman lying in a beautiful attitude: she held her left arm over the neck of a stag, which was one of the King's devices: on one side I had made in half relief little roe deer, and certain wild boars and other game in lower relief; on the other side hounds and greyhounds of several sorts, because that is what that most beautiful wood produces, where the fountain rises. I had then enclosed the whole of this work in an oblong square, and in the upper corners of the square, in each of them, I had made a Victory in low relief, with those little torches in their hands, as the ancients used. Above the said square I had made the salamander, the King's own device, with many other most pleasing ornaments suited to the said work, which showed itself to be of the Ionic order.
When the King saw this model, it at once cheered him up, and turned him aside from those tiresome discussions he had been in for more than two hours. Seeing him cheerful as I wanted, I uncovered the other model to him, which he was not expecting at all, thinking he had seen work enough in the first. This model was more than two braccia large, in which I had made a fountain in the form of a perfect square, with very beautiful stairways round it, which crossed one into the other: a thing which had never been seen in those parts, and is very rare in these. In the middle of the said fountain I had made a solid block, which stood a little higher than the said basin of the fountain: on this block I had made, to correspond with it, a naked figure of very beautiful grace. This one held a broken lance in his right hand raised on high, and his left hand he held on the hilt of a curved sword of his of a very beautiful form: he rested on his left foot and held the right on a helmet as richly worked as can be imagined; and on the four corners of the fountain I had made, on each one, a seated figure raised up, with many charming devices for each of them.
The King began to ask me to tell him what fine fancy this was that I had made, telling me that everything I had done at the door he had understood without asking me anything, but that this of the fountain, although it seemed to him most beautiful, he understood nothing of; and he well knew that I had not done as the other fools do, who, even when they make things with some little grace, make them without any meaning at all. At this I set myself in order; for having pleased him with my doing, I very much wanted my speaking to please him as much. "Know, sacred Majesty, that this whole small work is very exactly measured in small feet, so that when it is afterwards carried out, it will come out with this same grace you see. That figure in the middle is fifty-four feet" (at this word the King made a great show of wonder); "besides, it is made to figure the god Mars. These other four figures are made for the Virtues in which Your Majesty takes such delight and which you so favour: this one on the right hand is figured for the knowledge of all Letters: you see that she has her tokens, which show Philosophy with all her companion virtues. This other shows herself to be the whole Art of design, that is Sculpture, Painting and Architecture. This other is figured for Music, which is a fit companion for all these sciences. This other, who shows herself so gracious and kindly, is figured for Liberality; for without her none of these admirable Virtues that God shows us can be displayed. This great statue in the middle is figured for Your Majesty yourself, who are a god Mars, for you alone are brave in the world; and this bravery you use justly and holily in defence of your glory."
He hardly had patience enough to let me finish speaking before, raising his voice loudly, he said: "Truly I have found a man after my own heart;" and he called the treasurers appointed to me, and told them to provide me with everything I needed, and let it be as great an expense as it liked: then he clapped me on the shoulder with his hand, saying to me: "Mon ami" (which means "my friend"), "I do not know which is the greater pleasure, that of a prince who has found a man after his own heart, or that of the man of talent who has found a prince who gives him such conveniences that he can express his great and skilful conceptions." I answered that if I was the man His Majesty said, my luck had been much the greater. He answered, laughing: "Let us say it is equal." I went off in great joy, and went back to my works.
My bad fortune willed that I was not warned to make as much of a play to Madame d'Étampes, who, having heard in the evening all these things that had happened from the King's own mouth, it bred such venomous rage in her breast that in scorn she said: "If Benvenuto had shown me his fine works, he would have given me cause to remember him at the right time." The King tried to excuse me, and nothing took hold. When I heard of this, a fortnight later — for having gone round through Normandy to Rouen and to Dieppe, they had then come back to Saint-Germain-en-Laye mentioned above — I took that fine little vase which I had made at the request of the said Madame d'Étampes, thinking that by giving it to her I ought to win back her favour. So I took it with me; and having let her know by a nurse of hers, and having shown the said nurse the fine vase I had made for her Lady, and how I wanted to give it to her, the said nurse made an immense fuss of me, and told me that she would say a word to Madame, who was not yet dressed, and that as soon as she had told her, she would put me in. The nurse told the whole of it to Madame, who answered scornfully: "Tell him to wait."
Hearing this, I clothed myself in patience, which is the hardest thing in the world for me; still I had patience until after her dinner: and then, seeing the hour late, hunger caused me such anger that, not being able to hold out any longer, and having devoutly wished a plague on her heart, I left the place and went off to find the Cardinal of Lorraine, and made him a present of the said vase, only commending myself to him that he should keep me in the King's good graces. He said there was no need, and that when there was need, he would gladly do it: then, calling a treasurer of his, he spoke to him in his ear. The said treasurer waited until I had left the Cardinal's presence; then he said to me: "Benvenuto, come with me, and I will give you a glass of good wine to drink." To whom I said, not knowing what he meant: "For pity's sake, Monsignor Treasurer, have a single glass of wine and a mouthful of bread given me, because truly I am fainting away, for I have been from early this morning until this hour you see, fasting, at the door of Madame d'Étampes, to give her that fine little vase of gilt silver, and I let her know all about it, and she, always to torment me, sent to tell me to wait. Now hunger has come on me, and I felt myself failing; and, as God has willed it, I have given my goods and my labours to somebody who deserved them much better, and I ask you for nothing but a little to drink; for being somewhat too choleric, fasting affects me in such a way that it would make me fall to the ground in a faint."
In the time it took me to say these words, there had appeared marvellous wine and other pleasant things for a collation, so that I refreshed myself very well: and having got my vital spirits back, my temper had left me. The good treasurer handed me a hundred gold scudi; which I resisted, not wanting them on any account. He went and reported it to the Cardinal; who, after abusing him roundly, ordered him to make me take them by force, and not to come before him again otherwise. The treasurer came to me in vexation, saying that he had never been shouted at by the Cardinal before; and wanting to give them to me, when I made a little resistance, he told me very crossly that he would have them taken by force. I took the money. When I wanted to go and thank the Cardinal, he let me know by a secretary of his that whenever he could do me a kindness, he would do it with a good heart: I went back to Paris that same evening.
The King heard the whole of it. They made a joke of Madame d'Étampes, which was the cause of her becoming still more envenomed against me, on account of which I was in great danger of my life, as shall be told in its place.
I ought to have remembered much sooner the friendship I had gained of the most talented, the most affectionate and the most companionable honest man I ever knew in the world: this was Messer Guido Guidi, an excellent physician and doctor and a noble citizen of Florence; because of the infinite troubles put before me by perverse fortune, I had rather left him a little behind. Although this does not matter much, I thought that having him continually in my heart was enough; but seeing afterwards that my Life does not go well without him, I have brought him in among these greatest troubles of mine, so that just as he was a comfort and a help to me then, here he may put me in mind of that good.
The said Messer Guido came to Paris; and having begun to know him, I took him to my castle, and there gave him a set of rooms free to himself; and so we enjoyed ourselves together several years. There also came the Bishop of Pavia, that is Monsignor de' Rossi, brother of the Count of San Secondo. This lord I took out of the inn and put into my castle, giving him too a free set of rooms, where he was very well accommodated with his servants and horses for a great many months. At another time too I put up Messer Luigi Alamanni with his sons for some months; so God gave me the grace to be able, even I, to do some kindness to men both great and gifted. With the said Messer Guido we enjoyed our friendship for as many years as I stayed there, often glorying together that we were learning something of our arts at the expense of that so great and marvellous prince, each of us in his own profession. I can truly say that whatever I am, and whatever good and beautiful things I have made, all of it has been by reason of that marvellous King: so I pick up the thread to talk about him and the great works I made for him.
I had in this castle of mine a tennis court to play at with the cord, from which I got a good deal of profit while I had it kept up. There were in the said place some small rooms where various sorts of men lived, among whom was a very able printer of books: this man kept almost his whole shop inside my castle, and it was he who printed that first fine book of medicine for Messer Guido. Wanting to make use of those rooms, I sent him away, though with no small difficulty.
There was also a maker of saltpetre living there; and because I wanted to use these small rooms for certain good German workmen of mine, this said maker of saltpetre would not move out; and I had told him pleasantly several times that he should give me up my rooms, because I wanted to use them as lodgings for my workmen for the King's service. The more humbly I spoke, the more proudly this beast answered me: in the end I gave him three days as a term. He laughed at it, and told me that at the end of three years he would begin to think about it. I did not know that this man was a household servant of Madame d'Étampes: and if it had not been that this matter of Madame d'Étampes made me think a little more about things than I used to do, I would have sent him away at once; but I chose to have patience for those three days; and when they had passed, without saying anything more, I took Germans, Italians and Frenchmen with weapons in their hands, and many labourers I had; and in a short time I dismantled the whole house, and threw his goods out of my castle. And I did this somewhat harsh act because he had told me that he knew of no Italian's power bold enough to have shifted a link of his out of its place. So, after the deed, this man arrived; to whom I said: "I am the least of the Italians of Italy, and I have done nothing to you compared with what I should have the heart to do to you, and what I will do to you, if you say a single word;" with other insulting words I said to him.
This man, astonished and terrified, put his goods in order as best he could; then he ran to Madame d'Étampes and painted her a picture of hell; and that great enemy of mine, so much the greater as she was more eloquent and far more able, painted it to the King; who twice, I was told, meant to be angry with me and to give harsh orders against me; but because Henry the Dauphin his son, today King of France, had received some unpleasantness from that too bold woman, together with the Queen of Navarre, sister of King Francis, they favoured me with such spirit that the King turned the whole thing into a laugh: on account of which, with the true help of God, I got through a great storm.
I had to do the same again with another man like this one, but I did not pull the house down; I did throw all his goods outside. On account of which Madame d'Étampes was bold enough to say to the King: "I believe this devil will sack Paris for you one day." At these words the King, angry, answered Madame d'Étampes, telling her that I did very well to defend myself from that rabble, who wanted to hinder me in his service.
The rage of this cruel woman grew greater every hour: she called to her a painter, who lodged at Fontainebleau, where the King stayed almost continually. This painter was an Italian and a Bolognese, and was known as Il Bologna: by his own name he was called Francesco Primaticcio. Madame d'Étampes told him that he ought to ask the King for that work of the Fountain, which His Majesty had decided on for me, and that she with all her power would help him in it: so they came to an agreement. This Bologna had the greatest joy he had ever had, and promised himself the thing for certain, although it was not his profession; but because he had quite a good hand at design, and was set up with certain workmen who had been formed under the discipline of Rosso, our Florentine painter, truly a most marvellously able man: and whatever this man did that was good, he had taken it from the admirable manner of the said Rosso, who was already dead.
Those cunning arguments could do so much, with the great help of Madame d'Étampes and with the continual hammering day and night, now Madame, now Bologna, at the ears of that great King. And what was the powerful cause of making him give way, was that she and Bologna in agreement said: "How is it possible, sacred Majesty, that when you want Benvenuto to make you twelve statues in silver, he has not yet finished one of them? And if you employ him on so great an undertaking, you must certainly deprive yourself of these others which you so much desire; because a hundred most able men could not finish so many great works as this able man has laid out. It is plain to see that he has a great will to do them; which will be the cause of Your Majesty losing at one stroke both him and the works." These with many other like words, finding the King in a mood for it, obtained everything they had asked him: and as yet neither designs nor models of anything had been shown from the hand of the said Bologna.
At this same time there had been stirred up against me in Paris that second tenant whom I had driven out of my castle, and he had brought a lawsuit against me, saying that I had stolen a great quantity of his goods when I turned him out of the house. This lawsuit gave me the greatest trouble and took up so much of my time that several times I was ready to give up in despair and go off with God.
They have a custom in France of making a great capital out of a lawsuit which they bring against a foreigner or against any other person whom they see to be somewhat careless about litigating; and as soon as they begin to see some advantage in the said suit, they find people to sell it to; and some have given a suit as a dowry to certain men who follow this trade entirely, of buying lawsuits. They have another ugly thing, that the men of Normandy, almost the greater part of them, make a trade of giving false witness; so that these men who buy the suit at once instruct four of these witnesses or six, according to need, and by way of these, a man who is not warned to produce as many on the other side, one who does not know the custom, at once has sentence given against him.
And these same things happened to me: and it seeming to me a very dishonest business, I appeared in the great hall of Paris to defend my rights; where I saw a judge, the King's lieutenant for civil cases, raised up on a great tribunal. This man was tall, big and fat, and of the sternest aspect: he had round him on one side and the other many attorneys and advocates, all set in order on the right and on the left: others came, one at a time, and put a case before the said judge. Those advocates who were at the side, I saw them at times all speaking at once; whereat I was left wondering that this admirable man, a true likeness of Pluto, with a manner plain to see gave his ear now to this one and now to that, and answered them all skilfully. And because it has always delighted me to see and taste every sort of skill, this seemed to me so admirable that I would not for a great deal have missed seeing it.
It happened that, this hall being very large and full of a great quantity of people, they also took care that nobody should come in who had no business there, and they kept the door shut and a guard at the said door; which guard sometimes, in resisting somebody he did not want to let in, hindered with that great noise that marvellous judge, who in anger abused the said guard. And I several times happened on it, and considered the accident; and the very words I heard were these, which the judge himself said, catching sight of two gentlemen who were coming to look on; and this doorkeeper making the greatest resistance, the said judge said, shouting at the top of his voice: "Be quiet, be quiet, Satan, get away from there, and be quiet." These words in the French tongue sound like this: "Phe phe Satan phe phe Satan alè phe." I, who had learned the French tongue very well, hearing this phrase, remembered what Dante Alighieri meant when he entered with Publius Virgilius Maro his master inside the gates of Hell. For Dante in the time of Giotto the painter were together in France and above all in Paris, where for the said reasons the place where lawsuits are pleaded may be called a Hell: so Dante too, understanding the French tongue well, made use of that phrase; and it has seemed to me a great matter that it has never been understood as such; so that I say, and believe, that these commentators make him say things he never thought of.
To come back to my own affairs, when I saw certain sentences being given against me by the hands of these advocates, and saw no way of being able to help myself, I turned for my help to a great dagger I had, because I have always taken pleasure in keeping fine weapons; and the first man I began to notch was that principal one who had brought the unjust suit against me; and one evening I gave him so many blows, taking care all the same not to kill him, in the legs and in the arms, that I deprived him of the use of both his legs. Then I found that other man who had bought the suit, and I touched him up in such a way too that the suit came to a stop.
Thanking God for this and for everything else always, and thinking that for the moment I should be a while without being molested, I told the young men of my household, especially the Italians, that for the love of God each of them should attend to his own business and help me for some time, so that I could finish the works I had begun, because I would soon finish them; and after that I meant to go back to Italy, not being able to put up with the villainies of those Frenchmen; and that if that good King ever grew angry with me, he would have me come to a bad end, since I had done so many things of that sort in my own defence.
These Italians were: the first and the dearest, Ascanio, from the kingdom of Naples, from a place called Tagliacozzo; the next was Pagolo, a Roman, a person born very humbly and whose father was not known: these two were the ones I had brought from Rome, who in the said Rome had lived with me. Another Roman, who had also come from Rome on purpose to find me, this one too was called by name Pagolo and was the son of a poor Roman gentleman of the family of the Macaroni: this young man did not know much about the art, but he was very brave with weapons. I had another, who was of Ferrara, and by name Bartolomeo Chioccia. I had yet another: this one was a Florentine and his name was Pagolo Miccieri. And because his brother, who was called by nickname Il Gatta, was able at accounts, but had spent too much in handling the property of Tommaso Guadagni, a very rich merchant, this Gatta set in order for me certain books in which I kept the accounts of the great Most Christian King and of others; this Pagolo Miccieri, having learned from his brother the way of these books of mine, kept them up for me, and I gave him a very good salary.
And because he seemed to me a very good young man, since I saw him devout, hearing him continually now muttering psalms, now with the rosary in his hand, I promised myself a great deal from his pretended goodness. Calling him aside alone, I said to him: "Pagolo, dearest brother; you see how well off you are with me, and you know that you had no start in life, and moreover you are a Florentine; on account of which I trust you more, seeing you so devout in the acts of religion, which is a thing that pleases me greatly. I beg you to help me, because I do not trust any of these others so much: so I beg you to take care of these two things above all for me, which would give me a great deal of trouble: the one is that you keep very good watch over my property, so that it is not taken from me, and so that you do not touch it yourself; and then, you see that poor girl Caterina, whom I keep chiefly for the service of my art, since without her I could not manage: besides, because I am a man, I have made use of her for my carnal pleasures, and it might be that she would give me a child; and because I do not want to bear the expense of other men's children, nor would I put up with such an injury being done me. If anybody in this house were bold enough to do such a thing, and I found it out, for certain I believe I would kill both her and him. So I beg you, dear brother, to help me; and if you see anything, tell me at once, because I will send her and her mother and whoever went after such a thing to the gallows: so be the first to keep yourself from it."
This rascal crossed himself with a sign that went from his head to his feet, and said: "Oh blessed Jesus! God keep me from ever thinking of such a thing! first, because I am not given to those filthy doings; and then, do you not think I know the great good I have from you?" At these words, seeing them said to me in a simple and affectionate way, I believed that things stood exactly as he said.
Then two days later, a holiday coming, Messer Mattia del Nazaro, also an Italian and a servant of the King's, a most able man in the same profession, had invited me with those young men of mine to enjoy ourselves in a garden. On account of which I got ready, and told Pagolo too that he ought to come out for a change and enjoy himself, since it seemed to me that I had somewhat quieted down that tiresome lawsuit. This young man answered me, saying: "Truly it would be a great mistake to leave the house so empty: see how much gold, silver and jewels you have here. Being in a city of thieves as we are, we must be on guard by day as by night: I will attend to saying certain prayers of mine, while I keep watch on the house; go with an easy mind to enjoy yourself and have a good time: another time somebody else will do this office."
Thinking I was going with an easy mind, together with Pagolo, Ascanio and Chioccia we went off to the said garden to enjoy ourselves, and passed a good part of that day cheerfully. When it began to draw on towards evening, past midday the humour took me, and I began to think about those words that wretch had said to me with pretended simplicity; I got on my horse and with two servants of mine went back to my castle; where I found Pagolo and that wretched Caterina all but in the act; because as soon as I arrived, the French bawd of a mother said in a loud voice: "Pagolo, Caterina, the master is here." Seeing the two of them come, terrified and caught out, all in confusion in front of me, not knowing what they were saying, and, like stupefied creatures, where they were going, their committed sin was plainly to be seen. On account of which, reason being overcome by anger, I laid my hand on my sword, resolved to kill them both. The one ran off, the other threw herself on the ground on her knees, and cried out for all the mercies of heaven.
I, who would rather have struck the man first, not being able to reach him at the first blow, when afterwards I had caught up with him had by then taken counsel with myself: the best thing for me was to drive them both away; because with so many other things that had happened close to this one, I should have had difficulty in saving my life. So I said to Pagolo: "If my eyes had seen what you, you rascal, make me believe, I would run this sword through your guts ten times over: now get out of my sight, and if you ever said the Our Father, know that this is Saint Julian's day for you." Then I drove the mother and the daughter out with shoves, kicks and blows of my fists.
They thought of avenging themselves for this injury, and having talked it over with a Norman advocate, he taught them that she should say that I had used her in the Italian fashion; which fashion was understood to be against nature, that is in sodomy; saying: "At the very least, as soon as this Italian hears of such a thing, and knows how great a danger it is for him, he will at once give you several hundred ducats, so that you shall not speak of it, considering the heavy punishment that is inflicted in France for that sin." So they came to an agreement: they laid the charge against me, and I was summoned.
The more I looked for rest, the more tribulations showed themselves to me. Injured by fortune every day in different ways, I began to think which of the two things I ought to do: either go off with God and leave France in its own bad hour; or truly fight this battle too and see for what end God had created me. I had tormented myself a great while over this thing; in the end I took the resolution to go off with God, so as not to tempt my perverse fortune so far that she should make me break my neck. When I was disposed to it altogether and entirely, and had made a move to find a quick place for those goods I could not take with me, and to fit the more portable ones as best I could on my own back and my servants', still it was with very heavy unhappiness that I was making such a departure.
I had stayed alone in a little study of mine; because to those young men of mine, who had urged me that I ought to go off with God, I said that it was well that I should take counsel a little by myself; although I well knew that they were largely telling the truth; because once I was out of prison and had given a little room to this fury, I could much better excuse myself to the King, telling him in letters of this attempt to murder my name, made on me only out of envy. And as I have said, I had made up my mind to do so; and having made a move, I was taken by one shoulder and turned round, and a voice said spiritedly: "Benvenuto, do as you are used to do, and have no fear."
At once taking the opposite counsel to what I had settled, I said to those Italian young men of mine: "Take good weapons and come with me, and obey what I tell you, and think of nothing else, because I mean to appear. If I went away, the next day you would all go up in smoke; so obey and come with me." All those young men said in agreement: "Since we are here and live on his bread, we must go with him and help him as long as there is life in us in whatever he proposes; because he has spoken more truly than we thought. As soon as he was out of this place, his enemies would have us all sent away. Let us consider well the great works that are begun here, and how great is their importance: we should not have the heart to finish them without him, and his enemies would say that he had gone off because he had not the heart to finish undertakings of that kind." They said a great many words besides these, of importance. That young Roman of the Macaroni was the first to put heart into the others: he also called several of those Germans and Frenchmen who wished me well. We were ten in all: I took the road, resolved and disposed not to let myself be imprisoned alive.
When I came before the criminal judges, I found the said Caterina and her mother. I came upon them while they were laughing with an advocate of theirs: I went in and boldly asked for the judge, who, swollen up, big and fat, sat raised above the others on a tribunal. When this man saw me, threatening me with his head, he said in a low voice: "Although your name is Benvenuto — Welcome — this time you will be the ill-come." I understood, and answered once more, saying: "Dispatch me quickly: tell me what I have come here to do." Then the said judge turned to Caterina and said to her: "Caterina, say everything that you have had to do with Benvenuto." Caterina said that I had used her in the Italian fashion. The judge turned to me and said: "You hear what Caterina says, Benvenuto." Then I said: "If I had used her in the Italian fashion, I should have done it only from the wish to have a son, as you people do." Then the judge replied, saying: "She means that you have used her outside the vessel where children are made." At this I said that that was not the Italian fashion; on the contrary it must be the French fashion, since she knew of it and I did not; and that I wanted her to say exactly in what fashion I had had to do with her. This wretched whore wickedly said, openly and clearly, the foul fashion she meant. I made her repeat it three times over one after another; and when she had said it, I said in a loud voice: "My lord judge, lieutenant of the Most Christian King, I ask you for justice; because I know that the laws of the Most Christian King promise the fire for such a sin, to the doer and to the sufferer alike; so this woman confesses the sin: I have no acquaintance with it in any way: the bawd of a mother is here, who for the one offence and the other deserves the fire; I ask you for justice."
And these words I repeated so often and in so loud a voice, always demanding the fire for her and for her mother: telling the judge that if he did not put her in prison in my presence, I would run to the King, and would tell him of the injustice a criminal lieutenant of his was doing me. At this great noise of mine they began to lower their voices; then I raised mine higher: the little whore fell to weeping together with her mother, and I shouted at the judge: "Fire, fire." That great coward, seeing that the thing had not gone the way he had planned, began with gentler words to excuse the weak feminine sex. At this, I considered that it seemed to me I had won a great battle, and muttering and threatening, I went off with God gladly; for certainly I would have paid five hundred scudi never to have appeared there. Out of that deep water, I thanked God with all my heart, and went back happily with my young men to my castle.
When perverse fortune, or if we would rather say that contrary star of ours, takes to persecuting a man, she never lacks new ways of bringing something into the field against him. Thinking I had come out of a deep water beyond reckoning, thinking too that for some little time this perverse star of mine ought to leave me alone, I had not yet got my breath back from that danger beyond reckoning before she gave me two more at once. Within three days two cases happened to me; in each of the two my life was in the balance.
This was that, as I was going to Fontainebleau to talk with the King, who had written me a letter by which he wanted me to make the dies for the coinage of his whole kingdom, and with that letter had sent me some little sketches to show me part of his wish; but he certainly gave me leave to do everything I pleased: I had made new designs, according to my own judgment and according to the beauty of the art. So when I got to Fontainebleau, one of those treasurers who had orders from the King to provide for me — this one was called Monsignor de la Fa — at once said to me: "Benvenuto, Bologna the painter has had orders from the King to make your great colossus, and all the commissions our King had given us for you, he has taken them all away from us and given them to him. We have been extremely sorry about it, and it has seemed to us that this Italian of yours has behaved very rashly towards you; because you had already got the work by virtue of your models and your labours; this man takes it from you only through the favour of Madame d'Étampes: and it is many months now since he had that commission, and it has not yet been seen that he gives orders about anything."
I, wondering, said: "How is it possible that I have never known anything of this?" Then he told me that the man had kept it most secret, and that he had got it with the greatest difficulty, because the King would not give it to him; but that only the pressing of Madame d'Étampes had got it for him. Feeling myself injured in this way and so wrongfully, and seeing a work taken away from me which I had won with my great labours, and disposing myself to do some great thing of consequence with weapons, I went straight off to find Bologna. I found him in his room and in his study: he had me called inside, and with certain Lombard greetings of his asked me what good business had brought me there. Then I said: "A very good and great business." This man ordered his servants to bring drink, and said: "Before we talk about anything, I want us to drink together; for that is the custom of France." Then I said: "Messer Francesco, know that the talk we have to have together does not call for drinking first: perhaps afterwards we may drink."
I began to talk with him, saying: "All men who make profession of being honest men do their works in such a way that by them they are known to be honest men; and doing the contrary, they no longer have the name of honest men. I know that you knew the King had given me that great colossus to make, which had been talked about for eighteen months, and neither you nor anybody else had ever come forward to say anything about it; on account of which with my great labours I had shown myself to the great King, who, being pleased with my models, had given me this great work to make; and it is so many months that I have heard nothing else: only this morning I have heard that you have got it and have taken it from me; which work I won for myself by my marvellous doings, and you take it from me only with your empty words."
To this Bologna answered and said: "Oh Benvenuto, everybody tries to do his own business in every way he can: if the King wants it so, what have you to say against it? for you would be throwing away your time, because I have had it made out, and it is mine. Now say whatever you like, and I will listen to you." I said this: "Know, Messer Francesco, that I should have many words to say to you, by which with admirable and true reasoning I should make you confess that such ways as these you have used and spoken are not used among rational animals; but I will come in a few words quickly to the point of my conclusion; only open your ears and understand me well, because it matters."
The man tried to get up from his seat, because he saw me dark in the face and greatly changed: I said that it was not yet time to get up: that he should stay seated and listen to me. Then I began, saying this: "Messer Francesco, you know that the work was mine first, and that, by the reason of the world, the time had gone by when anybody could speak of it any more: now I tell you that I am content that you should make a model, and I, besides the one I have made, will make another; then quietly we will take them to our great King; and whoever wins by that road the credit of having worked the better, he will deservedly be worthy of the colossus; and if it falls to you to make it, I will lay aside all this great injury you have done me, and will bless your hands as worthier than mine of so great a glory. So let us leave it at that, and we shall be friends; otherwise we shall be enemies; and God, who always helps the right, and I, who make the way for it, would show you into what great error you had fallen."
Messer Francesco said: "The work is mine, and since it has been given me, I do not want to put what is mine in question." To this I answer: "Messer Francesco, since you will not take the good course, which is just and reasonable, I will show you this other one, which will be like yours, ugly and disagreeable. I tell you this, that if I ever hear in any way that you speak of this work of mine again, I will kill you on the spot like a dog: and because we are neither in Rome, nor in Bologna, nor in Florence — here men live in another fashion — if I ever know that you speak of it to the King or to anybody else, I will kill you in any case. Think which road you want to take: either that first good one, which I spoke of, or this last bad one, which I speak of now."
This man did not know either what to say or what to do, and I was ready to carry that out then and there rather than let any more time come between. The said Bologna said no other words than these: "When I do the things an honest man ought to do, I shall have no fear in the world." At this I said: "You have spoken well; but if you do the contrary, be afraid, because it matters to you;" and at once I left him, and went off to the King, and with His Majesty I argued the matter of the coinage a great while; over which we were not much in agreement; because his Council being there, they persuaded him that the coins ought to be made in that French manner in which they had been made up to that time. To whom I answered that His Majesty had made me come from Italy so that I might make him works that should be good; and if His Majesty ordered me to the contrary, my spirit would never bear my making them. On this a time was fixed to talk about it another time: I went straight back to Paris.
I had hardly dismounted when a good person, one of those who take pleasure in seeing mischief, came to tell me that Pagolo Miccieri had taken a house for that little whore Caterina and for her mother, and that he was continually going back there, and that when he spoke of me he always said in mockery: "Benvenuto set the geese to guard the lettuce, and thought I would not eat it; it is enough that now he goes about blustering and believes I am afraid of him: I have put on this sword and this dagger at my side to let him see that my sword cuts too, and that I am a Florentine as he is, of the Miccieri, a much better family than his Cellini are." This rascal, who brought me this message, said it to me with such effect that I at once felt the fever leap on me — I mean the fever, without saying it by way of comparison. And because perhaps of such a brutish passion I should have died, I took as a remedy the giving of that outlet which the occasion had given me, according to what I felt in myself.
I told that workman of mine from Ferrara, who was called Chioccia, to come with me, and I had my horse led behind me by my servant; and when I got to the house where this wretch was, finding the door ajar, I went in: I saw him with his sword and dagger at his side, and he was sitting on a chest, and had his arm round Caterina's neck: just as I arrived, I heard him joking with her mother about my affairs. Pushing the door open and at the same moment laying my hand on my sword, I put the point of it to his throat, not having given him time to think that he too had a sword, and said all at once: "Vile coward, commend yourself to God, for you are a dead man." He, quite still, said three times: "Oh mother of mine, help me." I, who had a mind to kill him in any case, when I heard those words, so foolish, half my anger went off me. Meanwhile I had told that workman of mine Chioccia not to let either her or the mother go out, because if I struck him, I meant to do the same harm to those two whores.
Keeping the point of my sword continually at his throat, and pricking him a little now and then, always with terrifying words; then seeing that he made no defence in the world, and I not knowing what more to do, and it seeming to me that this piece of blustering had no end to it at all, it came into my head, as the least evil, to make him marry her, meaning to take my revenge afterwards. So having made up my mind, I said: "Take that ring off your finger, coward, and marry her, so that afterwards I can take the revenge you deserve." The man said at once: "Only do not kill me, and I will do everything." "Then," said I, "put the ring on her finger." Having taken the sword a little away from his throat, the man put the ring on her. Then I said: "This is not enough, because I want two notaries to be sent for, so that the thing may go through by contract." Having told Chioccia to go for the notaries, I turned at once to her and to her mother. Speaking in French I said: "The notaries and other witnesses will come here: the first of you I hear say anything about this business, I will kill her on the spot, and I will kill all three of you; so keep your wits about you." To him I said in Italian: "If you say a word against anything I put forward, at the least word you say I will give you so many dagger thrusts that I will make you empty out everything you have in your bowels." To this he answered: "It is enough for me that you do not kill me; and I will do whatever you want." The notaries and the witnesses came, the contract was made in due form and — marvellous! — my anger and my fever went off me. I paid the notaries, and went away.
The next day Bologna came to Paris on purpose, and had me called by Mattio del Nazaro: I went and found the said Bologna, who came to meet me with a cheerful face, begging me to take him for a good brother, and saying that he would never speak of that work again, because he knew very well that I was in the right.
If in some of these things that happened to me I did not admit that I had done wrong, those others where I know I did right would not pass for true; so I acknowledge that I did wrong in wanting to revenge myself so strangely on Pagolo Miccieri. Although, if I had thought he was a man of so much weakness, such a shameful revenge as I took would never have come into my mind; for it was not enough for me to have made him take so wicked a little whore for his wife; but afterwards, wanting to finish the rest of my revenge, I used to send for her and draw her: every day I gave her thirty soldi; and making her stand naked, first she wanted me to give her her money beforehand; second she wanted a very good breakfast; third I, for revenge, had my will of her, reproaching her and her husband with the various horns I was giving him; fourth I made her stay in great discomfort for hours and hours. And staying in this discomfort was a great weariness to her, as much as it delighted me, because she was of a very beautiful form and did me the greatest credit.
And because it did not seem to her that I had that consideration for her which I used to have before she was married, and it becoming very wearisome to her, she began to grumble; and in that French way of hers she blustered in words, bringing in her husband, who had gone to stay with the Prior of Capua, brother of Piero Strozzi. And as I have said, she brought in this husband of hers; and as soon as I heard him spoken of, an unspeakable rage came over me; still I put up with it, most unwillingly, as best I could, considering that for my art I could not find anything more to my purpose than she was; and I said to myself: "I am taking two different revenges here: one because she is a wife: these are not empty horns, as his were when she was a whore of mine; so if I take this revenge so complete against him and against her too such strangeness, making her stay here in such discomfort, which, besides the pleasure of it, brings me so much honour and so much profit, what more can I want?"
While I was making this reckoning of mine, this wretch multiplied those insulting words, always speaking of her husband; and she did and said so much that she drove me out of the bounds of reason; and giving myself up a prey to anger, I took her by the hair and dragged her about the room, giving her so many kicks and so many blows of my fists until I was tired. And nobody could come in there to her help. Having beaten her very thoroughly, she swore never to come back to me again; on account of which for the first time it seemed to me that I had done very wrong, because it seemed to me I was losing a marvellous opportunity of doing myself credit. Besides, I saw her all torn, livid and swollen, thinking that even if she did come back, it would be necessary to have her treated for a fortnight before I could use her.
To come back to her: I used to send a maidservant of mine to help her dress, which maidservant was an old woman called Ruberta, a most kindly one; and when she got to this wretched girl, she took her fresh food and drink; then she anointed those bad bruises I had given her with a little fat of roast bacon, and the rest of the fat that was left over they ate between them. Then when she was dressed, she went off swearing and cursing all the Italians and the King who kept them there: and so she went home weeping and muttering. Certainly this first time it seemed to me that I had done very wrong; and my Ruberta reproved me, and kept saying to me: "You are very cruel to strike so harshly at such a beautiful young girl." When I tried to excuse myself to this Ruberta of mine, telling her the villainies she and her mother had done while she was with me, at this Ruberta scolded me, saying that that was nothing, because it was the custom of France, and that she knew for certain that in France there was no husband who had not his little pair of horns. At these words I was moved to laughter, and then I told Ruberta to go and see how Caterina was, because I should have been glad to be able to finish that work of mine, making use of her.
My Ruberta reproved me, telling me that I did not know how to live; because "hardly will it be day before she will come here of her own accord, whereas, if you send to ask for her or to visit her, she will play the great lady and will not want to come." The next day came, and this said Caterina came to my door, and with great fury banged at the said door, so that, being downstairs, I ran to see whether this was a madman or somebody of the house. Opening the door, this beast, laughing, threw herself on my neck, embraced me and kissed me, and asked me whether I was still angry with her. I said no. She said: "Give me a good breakfast, then." I gave her a good breakfast, and ate with her as a sign of peace. Then I set to drawing her, and in the meantime the pleasures of the flesh came in, and then at that same hour as on the past day, she provoked me so much that I had to give her the same beating; and so we went on for several days, doing every day all these same things, as if from a stamp: it varied little more or less.
Meanwhile I, who had won myself the greatest credit and finished my figure, gave orders to cast it in bronze; in which I had some difficulty, which it would be a very fine thing to tell for the accidents of the art; but because I should go on too long, I shall pass it over. It is enough that my figure came out very well, and it was as fine a cast as was ever made.
While this work was being carried forward, I divided off certain hours of the day and worked on the saltcellar, and sometimes on the Jupiter. Because the saltcellar was worked on by many more people than I had the convenience to have working on the Jupiter, by this time I had finished it completely. The King had come back to Paris, and I went to find him, taking him the said saltcellar finished; which, as I have said above, was oval in form and was about two thirds of a braccio in size, all of gold, worked by the strength of the chisel. And as I said when I spoke of the model, I had figured the Sea and the Land seated the one and the other, and they entwined their legs, as certain arms of the sea run into the land, and the land into the said sea: I had given them that grace exactly.
Into the hand of the Sea I had put a trident in his right; and in his left I had put a boat finely worked, in which the salt was put. Under the said figure were his four sea horses, which as far as the breast and the forelegs were horse; all the part from the middle backwards was fish: these fishes' tails were twined together in a pleasing way; on which knot the said Sea sat in a most fierce attitude: he had round him many sorts of fishes and other sea creatures. The water was figured with its waves; then it was very well enamelled in its own colour.
For the Land I had figured a most beautiful woman, with the horn of her plenty in her hand, entirely naked just as the male was; in her other, left hand I had made a little temple of the Ionic order, most finely worked; and in this I had arranged the pepper. Under this woman I had made the most beautiful animals that the earth produces; and her earthy rocks I had partly enamelled and partly left in gold. I had then set this said work and fixed it in a base of black ebony: it was of a certain suitable thickness, and had a little hollow moulding, in which I had distributed four gold figures, made in more than half relief: these were figured as Night, Day, Twilight and Dawn. There were also four other figures of the same size, made for the four chief winds, worked and partly enamelled with as much neatness as can be imagined.
When I set this work before the King's eyes, he let out a cry of astonishment, and could not have enough of looking at it: then he told me to take it back home, and that he would tell me in time what I was to do with it. I took it home, and at once invited several dear friends of mine, and with them I dined in the greatest cheerfulness, putting the saltcellar in the middle of the table; and we were the first to use it. Then I went on to finish the silver Jupiter, and a great vase already spoken of, worked all over with many most pleasing ornaments and with plenty of figures.
At this time Bologna the painter mentioned above gave the King to understand that it would be well for His Majesty to let him go as far as Rome, and to give him letters of recommendation, by which he might mould those first fine antiques, that is the Laocoön, the Cleopatra, the Venus, the Commodus, the Gypsy and the Apollo. These are truly the most beautiful things there are in Rome. And he told the King that when His Majesty had afterwards seen those marvellous works, then he would know how to talk about the art of design; because everything he had seen of us moderns was very far from the good work of those ancients. The King was content, and did him all the favours he asked. So this beast went off to his own ruin. Not having had the heart to compete with me with his own hands, he took that other Lombard expedient, trying to belittle my works by making himself a moulder of antiques. And although he had them moulded very well, the effect for him came out quite contrary to what he had imagined; which shall be told later in its place.
Having driven that wretched Caterina right away, and that poor unlucky young man her husband having gone off with God out of Paris, wanting to finish cleaning up my Fontainebleau, which was already made in bronze, and also to do those two Victories well, which went in the corners at the sides of the half circle of the door, I took a poor young girl of about fifteen. She was very beautiful in the form of her body and was somewhat dark; and because she was rather wild and of very few words, quick in her going about, and with frowning eyes, these things caused me to give her the name Scorzone: her own name was Gianna. With this said girl I finished in bronze very well the said Fontainebleau, and those two Victories for the said door. This young girl was pure and a virgin, and I got her with child; she bore me a daughter on the seventh day of June, at thirteen hours of the day, 1544, which was exactly the course of my age of 44 years. To the said daughter I gave the name Costanza; and she was baptized for me by Messer Guido Guidi, the King's physician, my great friend, as I have written above. He alone was godfather, because in France it is the custom to have one godfather and two godmothers, of whom one was Signora Maddalena, wife of Messer Luigi Alamanni, a Florentine gentleman and a marvellous poet; the other godmother was the wife of Messer Ricciardo del Bene, our Florentine citizen and a great merchant there; she a great French lady. This was the first child I ever had, as far as I remember. I made over to the said girl as much money for a dowry as an aunt of hers was satisfied with, to whom I gave her back; and I never had anything to do with her again.
I pressed on with my works, and had carried them a long way forward: the Jupiter was almost at its end, the vase likewise; the door was beginning to show its beauties. At this time the King came to Paris; and although I have said 1544 for the birth of my daughter, we had not yet passed 1543; but because it has come in for me to speak of this daughter of mine now, so as not to have to interrupt myself in these other things of more importance, I shall say no more of it until its own place.
The King came to Paris, as I have said, and at once came to my house, and found those many works so far forward that his eyes could very well be satisfied; as those of that marvellous King were, whom the said works satisfied as much as anybody who takes such pains as I had done could wish; at once of his own accord he remembered that the said Cardinal of Ferrara had given me nothing, neither pension nor anything else of what he had promised me; and muttering with his Admiral, he said that the Cardinal of Ferrara had behaved very badly in not giving me anything; but that he meant to put this thing right, because he saw that I was a man to make few words about it; and, between seeing and not seeing, one day I should have gone off with God without saying anything more to him.
Having gone home, after His Majesty's dinner, he told the Cardinal to tell the treasurer of savings in his own words to pay me as soon as he could seven thousand gold scudi, in three or four payments, according to what suited him, so long as he did not fail in this; and moreover he repeated to him, saying: "I gave you Benvenuto in charge, and you have forgotten him." The Cardinal said that he would willingly do everything His Majesty said. The said Cardinal, out of his bad nature, let this wish of the King's pass off.
Meanwhile the wars were growing; and it was at the time when the Emperor with his very great army was coming towards Paris. The Cardinal, seeing that France was in great want of money, having come one day to speak about me, said: "Sacred Majesty, for the best I have not had money given to Benvenuto; the one reason is that there is too much need of it now; the other reason is that so heavy a sum of money would sooner have made you lose Benvenuto; because, thinking himself rich, he would have bought himself property in Italy, and once the whim took him, he would the more readily have left you; so I have considered that the best thing is for Your Majesty to give him something in your kingdom, if you wish him to stay a longer time in your service." The King thought these reasons good, being in want of money; nevertheless, as a most noble spirit, truly worthy of the King he was, he considered that the said Cardinal had done this thing rather to make himself agreeable than out of any necessity, or that he could have foreseen so far in advance the necessities of so great a kingdom.
And although, as I have said, the King showed that he had thought these reasons good, in his own secret mind he did not take it so; because, as I have said above, he came back to Paris, and the next day, without my going to urge him, of his own accord he came to my house: where, going to meet him, I led him through various rooms, where there were various sorts of works, and beginning with the lowest things, I showed him a great quantity of works in bronze, of which he had not seen anything like so many. Then I took him to see the silver Jupiter, and showed it to him as finished, with all its most beautiful ornaments: which seemed to him a much more admirable thing than it would have seemed to any other man, on account of a certain terrible occasion which had befallen him a few years before: that when, after the taking of Tunis, the Emperor passed through Paris on good terms with his brother-in-law King Francis, the said King, wanting to make a present worthy of so great an Emperor, had a Hercules made for him in silver, of exactly the size that I had made the Jupiter; which Hercules the King admitted was the ugliest work he had ever seen; and having said so plainly to those able men of Paris, who claimed to be the ablest men in the world in that profession, they having given the King to understand that this was all that could be done in silver, and for all that they wanted two thousand ducats for that swinish work of theirs; for this reason, having seen that work of mine, the King saw in it such neatness as he would never have believed. So he made a good judgment, and wanted my work of the Jupiter to be valued at two thousand ducats too, saying: "To those men I gave no salary at all: to this man, to whom I give about a thousand scudi of salary, he can certainly make it for me for the price of two thousand gold scudi, having the said advantage of his salary."
Next I took him to see other works of silver and gold, and many other models for inventing new works. Then, at the last of his going, in my meadow at the castle I uncovered that great giant, at which the King made a greater show of wonder than he had ever made at anything else; and turning to the Admiral, who was called Monsignor Annibale, he said: "Since this man has been provided with nothing by the Cardinal, since he is himself slow at asking, without saying anything more I want him to be provided for: for these men, who are not used to asking for anything, think it right that their labours should ask a great deal: so provide him with the first abbey that falls vacant, one worth up to two thousand scudi of income; and if it does not come in one piece, see that it is in two or three pieces, because it will be the same to him." I, being present, heard everything and thanked him at once, as if I had already had it, telling His Majesty that when this thing came, I would work for His Majesty without any other reward, neither of salary nor of any other value for my works, until such time as, forced by old age and being no longer able to work, I might rest my tired life in peace, living honourably on that income, remembering that I had served so great a King as His Majesty was. At these words of mine the King, most cheerful towards me and with great heartiness, said: "And so let it be done;" and His Majesty went away content, and I stayed behind.
Madame d'Étampes, hearing of these affairs of mine, grew still more envenomed against me, saying to herself: "I govern the world today, and a little man like this makes nothing of me!" She set up shop altogether and entirely to work against me. And a certain man coming into her hands, who was a great distiller — this man gave her certain sweet-smelling and marvellous waters, which tightened her skin, a thing never used before in France — she brought him before the King: which man set forth some of these distillations, which greatly delighted the King; and in these pleasures she brought it about that he asked His Majesty for a tennis court that I had in my castle, with certain small rooms, which he said I did not use.
That good King, who knew where the thing came from, gave no answer at all. Madame d'Étampes set about pressing it by those ways in which women can work on men, so much that this design of hers easily succeeded, since, finding the King in an amorous mood, to which he was very subject, she got as much as she wanted from him. This said man came together with the treasurer Grolier, a very great gentleman of France; and because this treasurer spoke Italian very well, he came to my castle, and went into it in my presence, speaking to me in Italian, in a joking way. When he saw his moment, he said: "I put this man here in possession, on the King's behalf, of that tennis court together with those little houses which belong to the said court." At this I said: "Everything belongs to the sacred King; so you could have come in here more freely; because in this way, done through notaries and through the court, it looks more like a way of trickery than a straightforward commission from so great a King; and I declare to you that before I go to complain to the King, I will defend myself in the way His Majesty ordered me to do the other day; and I will pitch this man, whom you have put in here, out of the windows, unless I see some other express commission in the King's own hand."
At these words of mine the said treasurer went off threatening and muttering, and I, doing the same, stayed where I was, and would not for the time make any other demonstration: then I went off to find those notaries who had put the man in possession. These were well known to me, and they told me that this was a ceremony properly done with the King's commission, but that it did not matter much; and that if I had made a little resistance, he would not have taken possession, as he did; and that these were acts and customs of the court, which touched the King's authority not at all; so that if it suited me to put him out of possession in the same way as he had come into it, it would be well done, and there would be nothing more in it.
It was enough for me to have the hint given, and the next day I began to lay my hand on my weapons; and although I had some difficulty, I had taken it on for my pleasure. Every day I made one assault, with stones, with pikes, with arquebuses, though firing without ball; but I put them into such fright that nobody wanted to come and help him any more. On account of which, finding his battle weak one day, I went into the house by force and drove him out of it, throwing outside every single thing he had brought there. Then I went to the King and told him that I had done every single thing His Majesty had ordered me, defending myself from all those who wanted to hinder me in His Majesty's service. At this the King laughed, and made me out new letters, by which I should no longer be molested.
Meanwhile with great diligence I finished the beautiful silver Jupiter, together with its gilded base, which I had set on a block of wood that showed very little; and in the said block of wood I had fitted four little balls of hard wood, which were more than half hidden in their sockets, in the fashion of the nut of a crossbow. These things were so nicely arranged that a small child could easily, in every direction and without any effort in the world, send the said statue of Jupiter backwards and forwards and turn it about. Having arranged it to my own liking, I went off with it to Fontainebleau, where the King was.
At this time the said Bologna had brought the said statues from Rome, and had with great diligence had them cast in bronze. I knew nothing of this, both because he had done this business of his very secretly, and because Fontainebleau is more than forty miles from Paris; so I could not have known anything. When I let the King know where I wanted the Jupiter put, Madame d'Étampes being present, she told the King that there was no more suitable place to put it than in his beautiful gallery. This was, as we should say in Tuscany, a loggia, or truly a hall: a hall it might better be called, because we call a loggia those rooms that are open on one side. This room was more than a hundred paces long, and was adorned and very rich with paintings from the hand of that admirable Rosso, our Florentine; and among the paintings a great many pieces of sculpture were set, some in the round, others in low relief: it was about twelve paces wide. The said Bologna had brought into this said gallery all the said antique works, made in bronze and very well brought to finish, and had set them in beautiful order, raised on their bases; and as I have said above, these were the most beautiful things taken from those antiques of Rome.
Into this said room I brought my Jupiter; and when I saw that great array, all done by design, I said to myself: "This is like running the gauntlet of the pikes. Now God help me." Having put it in its place and arranged it as well as I could, I waited for that great King to come. The said Jupiter had in his right hand his thunderbolt arranged in the attitude of about to hurl it, and in his left I had arranged the World. Among the flames I had very skilfully set a piece of a white torch. And because Madame d'Étampes had kept the King back until night, so as to bring about one of two mischiefs, either that he should not come, or truly that my work, because of the night, should show itself less beautiful; and as God promises to those creatures who have faith in Him, quite the contrary came about; because seeing that night had fallen, I lit the said torch which was in Jupiter's hand; and being somewhat raised above the head of the said Jupiter, the lights fell from above and made it a much finer sight than they would have made by day.
The said King appeared together with his Madame d'Étampes, with the Dauphin his son and with the Dauphine, today King, with the King of Navarre his brother-in-law, with Madame Marguerite his daughter, and several other great lords, who had been instructed on purpose by Madame d'Étampes to speak against me. Seeing the King come in, I had that boy of mine already spoken of, Ascanio, push it forward, so that he gently moved the fine Jupiter towards the King: and because I had made it too with a little art, that little movement given to the said figure, it being very well made, made it seem alive; and having left the said antique figures somewhat behind, I first gave great pleasure to their eyes with my work.
At once the King said: "This is a much more beautiful thing than any man ever saw, and I, who take pleasure in these things and understand them, would not have imagined the hundredth part of it." Those lords, who were to speak against me, seemed unable to have enough of praising the said work. Madame d'Étampes boldly said: "It certainly seems that you have no eyes. Do you not see how many beautiful antique figures in bronze are set further along, in which the true excellence of this art consists, and not in these modern trifles?" Then the King moved on, and the others with him; and having given a glance at the said figures, and those, because the lights were brought to them from below, not showing themselves at all well; at this the King said: "Whoever wanted to do this man a disservice has done him a great service; because by means of these admirable figures one sees and knows that this one of his is by far more beautiful and more marvellous than they are. So Benvenuto is to be greatly esteemed, since his works not only stand comparison with the antiques, but even surpass them."
At this Madame d'Étampes said that seeing such a work by day, it would not seem a thousandth part as beautiful as it seems by night; besides, it was to be considered that I had put a veil on the said figure, to cover the faults. This was a very fine veil which I had put with fine grace on the said Jupiter, so that it should increase his majesty: which at those words I took hold of, lifting it from below, uncovering those fine genital members, and with a little show of anger I tore the whole of it off. She thought I had uncovered that part in mockery of her. The King, noticing her anger and that I was overcome with passion, when I tried to begin to speak, at once the wise King said these very words in his own tongue: "Benvenuto, I cut off your speech; so be quiet, and you shall have a thousand times more treasure than you desire." Not being able to speak, I twisted about in great passion: which caused her to mutter still more scornfully; and the King, much sooner than he would have done, went away, saying loudly, to give me courage, that he had brought out of Italy the greatest man ever born, full of so many professions.
Leaving the Jupiter there, and wanting to go away in the morning, he had a thousand gold scudi given me: part were of my salary, and part on accounts which I showed I had spent of my own. Having taken the money, happy and content I went back to Paris; and as soon as I arrived, having made merry in the house, after dinner I had all my clothes brought out, which were a great quantity of silk, of the finest furs and likewise of the finest cloth. These I made a present of to all those workmen of mine, giving to each according to the merits of those servants, down to the maids and the stable boys, giving them all courage to help me with a good heart.
Having taken up my vigour again, with the greatest study and diligence I set myself to finishing that great statue of Mars, which I had made of very well joined wood for an armature; and over that, its flesh was a crust an eighth of a braccio thick, made of plaster and carefully worked; then I had arranged to mould the said figure in many pieces, and afterwards to join them dovetailed, as the art requires; which I managed very easily.
I do not want to leave out giving one token of this great work, a thing truly worth a laugh: because I had commanded all those whose expenses I paid that they should not bring prostitutes into my house or into my castle; and about this I was very careful that such a thing should not happen. That young man of mine Ascanio was in love with a very beautiful girl, and she with him: on account of which this said girl having run away from her mother, and having come one night to find Ascanio, and then not wanting to go away, and he not knowing where to hide her, as a last remedy, being an ingenious person, he put her inside the figure of the said Mars, and arranged her a place to sleep in the very head; and there she stayed a good while, and at night he sometimes quietly got her out.
Having left that head very near its finish, and out of a little vanity of mine, I left the said head uncovered, so that it could be seen from most of the city of Paris: those who lived nearest had begun to climb up on the roofs, and a great many people went on purpose to see it. And because there was a report about Paris that in that castle of mine a spirit had lived from of old, of which thing I saw one or two tokens that made me believe it was so — the said spirit was universally called by the common people of Paris by the name of Lemmonio Boreo — and because this girl, who lived in the said head, could sometimes not help a certain little movement being seen through the eyes; whereat some of those foolish people said that the said spirit had entered into the body of that great figure, and that it made the eyes of that head move, and the mouth, as if it wanted to speak; and many went away terrified, and some cunning ones, having come to see and not being able to persuade themselves out of that flickering of the eyes which the said figure made, they too maintained that there was a spirit in there, not knowing that there was a spirit and good flesh besides.
In the meantime I was attending to putting together my beautiful door, with all the things described. And because I do not want to trouble to write in this Life of mine things which belong to those who write chronicles, I have left out the coming of the Emperor with his great army, and the King with all his armed force. And at these times he asked my advice about fortifying Paris quickly: he came to my house on purpose for me, and took me round the whole city of Paris; and having heard with what good reason I would quickly fortify Paris for him, he gave me express orders to do at once everything I had said; and he ordered his Admiral to command those people to obey me, on pain of his displeasure.
The Admiral, who had been made such by the favour of Madame d'Étampes and not by his own good works, being a man of little wit, and his name being Monsignor d'Annebault, although in our tongue it means Monsignor Annibale, in that tongue of theirs it sounds in such a way that most of the people called him Monsignor Ass-and-Ox; this beast, having reported the whole thing to Madame d'Étampes, she ordered him quickly to send for Girolamo Bellarmati. This was a Sienese engineer and was at Dieppe, little more than a day's journey from Paris. He came at once, and having set to work on the longest way of fortifying, I withdrew from the undertaking; and if the Emperor had pushed forward, Paris could very easily have been taken. It was indeed said that in that agreement made afterwards, Madame d'Étampes, who more than anybody else had put herself in the middle of it, had betrayed the King. I have nothing else to say about this, because it is not to my purpose.
I set myself with great diligence to putting together my bronze door, and to finishing that great vase, and two other middling ones made of my own silver. After these tribulations the good King came to rest a while in Paris. This cursed woman having been born almost for the ruin of the world, it seems to me that I must be something after all, since she took me for her mortal enemy. Having fallen to talking about my affairs with that good King, she said so much ill of me that this good man, to please her, set about swearing that he would never again take any account of me in the world, as if he had never known me. These words were told me at once by a page of the Cardinal of Ferrara's, who was called Il Villa, and he told me that he himself had heard them from the King's mouth.
This thing put me into such anger that, throwing all my tools aside, and all my works too, I got ready to go off with God, and went at once to find the King. After his dinner, I went into a room where His Majesty was with very few people; and when he saw me come in, and I had made him that due reverence that belongs to a King, at once with a cheerful face he bowed his head to me. On account of which I took hope, and little by little came near His Majesty, because certain things of my profession were being shown; and when we had talked a little while over the said things, His Majesty asked me whether I had anything fine to show him at my house, then he said when did I want him to come and see them. Then I said that I was in a position to show him something, if he had a mind for it, at that very moment. At once he said that I should set off home, and that he wanted to come then.
I set off, waiting for this good King, who had gone to take leave of Madame d'Étampes. She wanting to know where he was going, since she said she would keep him company, when the King had told her where he was going, she told His Majesty that she did not want to go with him, and that she begged him to do her so much favour as not to go himself either that day. She had to come back to it more than twice, wanting to turn the King away from that undertaking: for that day he did not come to my house.
The next day I went back to the King at that same hour: as soon as he saw me, he swore he would come to my house at once. Having gone as usual to take leave of his Madame d'Étampes, and she seeing that with all her power she had not been able to turn the King aside, she set about with her biting tongue saying as much ill of me as can be said of a man who was a mortal enemy of that worthy Crown. At this that good King said that he wanted to come to my house only to scold me in such a way as would have terrified me; and so he gave his word to Madame d'Étampes to do.
And at once he came to the house, where I led him into certain great ground-floor rooms, in which I had put together all that great door of mine; and when he got to it the King was left so astonished that he could not find the way to say to me that great abuse he had promised Madame d'Étampes. Nor even so would he give up finding the occasion to say to me that promised abuse, and he began by saying: "It is a very great matter, Benvenuto, that you men, although you are talented, ought to know that you cannot show those talents by yourselves; and you only show yourselves great by means of the opportunities you receive from us. Now you ought to be a little more obedient, and not so proud and self-willed. I remember expressly ordering you to make me twelve statues in silver; and that was my whole desire. You have wanted to make me a saltcellar, and vases and heads and doors, and so many other things, that I am much bewildered, seeing all the desires of my wishes left behind, and you attending to satisfying all your own wishes: so if you think of going on in this fashion, I shall let you see how I am used to act when I want a thing done in my way. Therefore I tell you: attend to obeying what you are told, because if you stay obstinate in these fancies of yours, you will bang your head against a wall." And while he was saying these words, all those lords stood attentive, seeing that he shook his head, knitted his brows, and made gestures now with one hand and now with the other; so that all those men who were there present trembled with fear for me, because I had made up my mind not to have any fear in the world.
And as soon as he had finished giving me that scolding which he had promised his Madame d'Étampes, I put one knee on the ground, and having kissed his robe on his knee, I said: "Sacred Majesty, I acknowledge everything you say to be true; only I say to you that my heart has been continually day and night with all my vital spirits intent only on obeying you and on serving you; and everything which to Your Majesty may seem contrary to what I say, let Your Majesty know that this has not been Benvenuto, but may have been some bad fate of mine or evil fortune, which has wanted to make me unworthy of serving the most marvellous prince the earth ever had: so I beg you to forgive me.
"It only seemed to me that Your Majesty gave me silver for a single statue: and having none of my own, I could not make more than that one; and out of that little silver which was left me over from the said figure, I made that vase, to show Your Majesty that beautiful manner of the ancients; which perhaps you had not seen of that kind before. As to the saltcellar, it seemed to me, if I remember rightly, that Your Majesty of your own accord asked me for one one day, having fallen to talking of one that was brought before you; on account of which, when I had shown you a model, which I had already made in Italy, only at your request you had a thousand gold ducats given me at once, so that I should make it, saying that you were much obliged to me for such a thing: and still more it seemed to me that you thanked me greatly when I gave it to you finished. As to the door, it seemed to me that, talking of it by chance, Your Majesty gave the orders to Monsignor de Villeroy your chief secretary, who ordered Monsignor de Marmagne and Monsignor de la Fa to press on this work with me, and to provide for me; and without these orders, by myself I could never have carried forward such great undertakings.
"As to the bronze heads and the base of the Jupiter and the rest, the heads I truly made of my own accord, to make trial of these clays of France, which I, as a foreigner, did not know at all; and without making trial of the said clays I would not have set about casting these great works. As to the bases, I made them because it seemed to me that such a thing was very fitting to keep those figures company; so everything I have done, I have thought to do for the best, and never to depart from Your Majesty's will. It is quite true that that great colossus I have made entirely, up to the point it has got to, at the expense of my own purse; only it seemed to me that you, so great a King, and I, the poor artist that I am, ought to make for your glory and mine a statue such as the ancients never had. Now, knowing that it has not pleased God to make me worthy of so honourable a service, I beg you that, instead of that honourable reward which Your Majesty had destined for my works, you would only give me a little of your good grace and with it your good leave to go; because at this moment, if you make me worthy of such things, I shall go, returning to Italy, always thanking God and Your Majesty for those happy hours I have been in your service."
He took me with his hands, and raised me with great gentleness from my knees; then he told me that I should be content to serve him, and that everything I had done was good, and was most acceptable to him. And turning to those lords he said these very words: "I certainly believe that if Paradise were to have doors, it would never have a more beautiful one than this." When I saw the heartiness of those words a little settled, all of which were in my favour, again with the greatest reverence I thanked him, still repeating that I wanted my leave; because my anger had not yet gone off me. When that great King saw that I had not made the account those unusual and great caresses of his deserved, he ordered me with a great and terrible voice not to say another word, for it would go ill with me; and then he added that he would drown me in gold, and that he gave me leave, so that, after the works ordered by His Majesty, he was quite content with everything I did in between of my own accord, and that I should never have any difference with him again, because he had come to know me; and that I too should try to know His Majesty, as was only right. I said that I thanked God and His Majesty for everything, then I begged him to come and see the great figure, and how far I had carried it forward: so he came after me. I had it uncovered: which gave him such wonder as could never be imagined; and he at once ordered a secretary of his that he should immediately repay me all the money I had spent of my own, and let it be whatever sum I liked, so long as I gave it in writing in my own hand. Then he went away, and said to me: "Adieu, mon ami": which great word is not usual for a king.
Having got back to his palace, he came to repeat those great words, so marvellously humble and so loftily proud, which I had used with His Majesty, which words had made him very angry; and he told some of the particulars of such words in the presence of Madame d'Étampes, where there was Monsignor de Saint-Pol, a great baron of France. This man had in the past made a great profession of being a friend of mine; and certainly this time he showed it very finely, in the French manner. For, after much talking, the King complained of the Cardinal of Ferrara, that having given me into his charge, he had never thought about my affairs again, and that it had not been his fault that I had not gone off with God out of his kingdom, and that he would truly think of giving me into the charge of somebody who knew me better than the Cardinal of Ferrara had done, because he did not want to give me any more occasion to be lost to him.
At these words Monsignor de Saint-Pol at once offered himself, telling the King to give me into his keeping, and that he would certainly do something that would give me no more cause to leave his kingdom. At this the King said that he was very content, if Saint-Pol would tell him the way he meant to take so that I should not leave. Madame, who was present, was very much put out, and Saint-Pol stood on his dignity, not wanting to tell the King the way he meant to take. The King asking him again, and he, to please Madame d'Étampes, said: "I would hang him by the throat, this Benvenuto of yours; and in that way you would not lose him out of your kingdom." At once Madame d'Étampes broke into a great laugh, saying that I well deserved it. At this the King for company set to laughing, and said that he was very content that Saint-Pol should hang me, if he first found another man like me; for although I had never deserved it, he gave him full leave. In the way described this day was ended, and I was left safe and sound; for which God be praised and thanked.
At this time the King had quieted the war with the Emperor, but not with the English, so that these devils kept us in great tribulation. The King having his head on other things than pleasures, had ordered Piero Strozzi to take certain galleys into those seas of England; which was a very great and difficult thing to take them there, even for that admirable soldier, matchless in his time in such a profession, and as matchless in his ill luck.
Several months had gone by in which I had had neither money nor any orders to work; so that I had sent away all my workmen, except those two Italians, whom I set to make two little vases out of my own silver, because they did not know how to work in bronze. When they had finished the two vases, I went off with them to a city which belonged to the Queen of Navarre: this is called Argentan, and is many days' journey from Paris. I got to the said place and found that the King was unwell; the Cardinal of Ferrara told His Majesty that I had arrived in that place. At this the King answered nothing at all, which was the cause of my having to stay many days in discomfort. And truly I never had greater unhappiness: still at the end of several days I came before him one evening, and set those two fine vases before his eyes: which pleased him beyond measure.
When I saw the King very well disposed, I begged His Majesty to be content to do me so much favour as to let me go for a change as far as Italy, and that I would leave the seven months' salary I was owed, which money His Majesty would deign to have paid me afterwards, if I should need it for my return. I begged His Majesty to grant me such a favour, seeing that it was truly a time for making war, and not yet for making statues, and since His Majesty had granted such a thing to his Bologna the painter, so I most devoutly begged him to be content to make me worthy of it too.
The King, while I was saying these words to him, was looking with the greatest attention at those two vases, and now and then he wounded me with a terrible look of his; still I, as best I could and knew how, begged him to grant me this favour. All at once I saw him angry, and he got up from his seat and said to me in Italian: "Benvenuto, you are a great fool; take these vases off to Paris, because I want them gilded;" and giving me no other answer, he went away.
I went up to the Cardinal of Ferrara, who was present, and begged him that, since he had done me so much good in getting me out of prison in Rome, together with so many other benefits, he would grant me this too, that I might go as far as Italy. The said Cardinal told me that he would most willingly do everything he could to do me that kindness, and that I should freely leave the care of it to him; and also that, if I wished, I could freely go, because he would settle it very well with the King. I said to the said Cardinal that I knew His Majesty had given me into the charge of His most reverend Lordship, and that if he gave me leave, I would gladly go, to come back at a single least sign from His most reverend Lordship. Then the Cardinal told me that I should go off to Paris, and stay there a week, and in that time he would get leave from the King for me to go: and in case the King was not content that I should leave, he would without fail send me word; on account of which, if he wrote me nothing else, it would be a sign that I might freely go.
Having gone off to Paris, as the Cardinal had told me, I made marvellous cases for those three silver vases. When twenty days had passed, I got myself ready, and put the three vases on a mule's pack, which had been lent me as far as Lyons by the Bishop of Pavia, whom I had lodged once more in my castle. I set off in my ill hour, together with Signor Ippolito Gonzaga, which lord was in the King's pay and maintained by Count Galeotto della Mirandola, and with certain other gentlemen of the said count. Leonardo Tedaldi, our Florentine, also joined company with us.
I left Ascanio and Pagolo in charge of my castle and of all my property, among which were certain little vases that had been begun, which I left so that those two young men should not be idle. There was also a great deal of household furniture of great value, because I lived very honourably: the value of these said goods of mine was more than fifteen hundred scudi. I told Ascanio to remember how many great benefits he had had from me, and that up to then he had been a boy of little sense: that it was time now to have a man's sense; so I meant to leave in his keeping all my property, together with all my honour; and that if he heard so much as one thing or another from those beasts of Frenchmen, he should let me know at once, because I would get into the post saddle and fly from wherever I was, both for the great obligation I had to that good King and for my own honour. The said Ascanio with pretended and thievish tears said to me: "I never knew a better father than you, and everything a good son ought to do towards his good father, I will always do towards you." So in agreement I set off with a servant and with a small French boy.
When midday had gone by, there came to my castle certain of those treasurers, who were not friends of mine at all. This rascally rabble said at once that I had gone off with the King's silver, and told Messer Guido and the Bishop of Pavia to send quickly for the King's vases; if not, they would send after me for them, to my very great unpleasantness. The Bishop and Messer Guido were much more frightened than there was any need for, and quickly sent that traitor Ascanio after me by post, who appeared about midnight. And I, who was not sleeping, was grieving to myself, saying: "To whom am I leaving my property, my castle? Oh what a destiny of mine this is, which forces me to make this journey? If only the Cardinal is not in agreement with Madame d'Étampes, who desires nothing else in the world except that I should lose that good King's favour!"
While I was having this dispute with myself, I heard Ascanio call me; and at the first sound I got up out of bed and asked him whether he brought me good news or bad. The thief said: "I bring good news; but you only need to send back the three vases, because those rascals of treasurers are raising a hue and cry, so that the Bishop and Messer Guido say that you should send them back in any case: and for the rest let nothing trouble you, and go and enjoy this journey happily." I gave him back the vases at once, two of which were my own, with the silver and everything.
I was taking them to the Cardinal of Ferrara's abbey in Lyons; because although they gave out that I meant to take them off to Italy, everybody knows well that neither money, nor gold, nor silver can be taken out without great leave. Now it is well worth considering whether I could have taken out those three great vases, which with their cases took up a whole mule. It is quite true that, they being a very beautiful thing and of great value, I feared for the King's death, because certainly I had left him very unwell; and I said to myself: "If such a thing happened, having them in the Cardinal's hands, I cannot lose them."
Now, in conclusion, I sent back the said mule with the vases and other things of importance; and with the said company the next morning I attended to going on my way, nor could I ever, in all the journey, keep myself from sighing and weeping. Still, sometimes I comforted myself with God, saying: "Lord God, You who know the truth, know that this going of mine is only to carry alms to six poor wretched virgins and to their mother, my sister of my own blood; that although they have their father, he is so old and his trade earns nothing; and they might easily go the bad way; whereas by doing this pious work, I hope for help and counsel from Your Majesty." This was all the recreation I took as I went on.
Finding ourselves one day within a day's journey of Lyons, near twenty-two hours the sky began to make certain dry claps of thunder, and the air was very white: I was a crossbow shot ahead of my companions; after the thunder the sky made so great and so fearful a noise that I judged to myself that it was the day of Judgment; and having stopped a little, there began to fall a hail without a drop of water. This was larger than pellets from a blowpipe, and, striking on me, it hurt me a great deal: little by little this began to grow larger so that it was like crossbow bolts. Seeing that my horse was greatly frightened, I turned him back with the greatest fury at a gallop, until I found my companions, who from the same fear had stopped inside a pine wood. The hail grew as large as big lemons: I sang a Miserere; and while I was saying this devoutly to God, there came one of those stones so large that it broke off a very thick branch of that pine where I thought I was safe. Another of those stones struck the head of my horse, which made as if to fall to the ground; one caught me, but not full on, because it would have killed me. Likewise one caught that poor old Leonardo Tedaldi, in such a way that he, who was on his knees like me, was made to put his hands on the ground. Then I quickly, seeing that that great branch could no longer defend me and that with the Miserere it was necessary to do something as well, began to double my clothes over my head: and so I said to Leonardo, who was crying out for help, "Jesus, Jesus," that Jesus would help him if he helped himself. I had greater trouble in saving him than in saving myself.
This thing lasted a good while, but then it stopped, and we, who were all battered, got back on our horses as best we could; and while we were going on towards our lodging, showing each other our scratches and our bruises, a mile further on we found so much greater ruin than our own that it seems impossible to tell it. All the trees were stripped and broken, with as many beasts dead as it had found there; and many shepherds dead too: we saw a great quantity of those hailstones which two hands could not have gone round. So it seemed to us that we had made a good bargain, and we knew then that calling on God and those Misereres of ours had served us better than we could have done by ourselves. So thanking God, we went on to Lyons the next day, and there we rested for a week. When the week had passed, having refreshed ourselves very well, we took up the journey again, and very happily crossed the mountains. There I bought a small horse, because some little baggage had rather tired out my horses.
When we had been a day in Italy, Count Galeotto della Mirandola came up with us, who was travelling post, and having stopped with us, he told me that I had made a mistake in leaving, and that I ought not to go any further, because my affairs, if I went straight back, would go better than ever; but if I went on, I was giving my enemies room and the chance of doing me harm; whereas, if I went straight back, I would have blocked their way to what they had planned against me; and those men in whom I had most faith were the ones who were deceiving me. He would not tell me any more, though he knew it very well: and the Cardinal of Ferrara had come to an agreement with those two rascals of mine whom I had left in charge of everything of mine. The said young count repeated to me several times that I ought to go back in any case. Having got into the post saddle he went on ahead, and I, because of the company I was in, made up my mind to go on too.
I had a torment in my heart, now to get to Florence very quickly, and now to go back to France. I was in such passion, undecided in that way, that in the end I made up my mind to take post so as to get quickly to Florence. I could not come to terms at the first post house; and so I settled my purpose absolutely to come and be tormented in Florence. Having left the company of Signor Ippolito Gonzaga, who had taken the road to go to Mirandola, and I that of Parma and Piacenza, when I got to Piacenza I met in a street Duke Pier Luigi, who looked me over and knew me. And I, who knew that all the harm I had had in the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, he had been the entire cause of it, felt great passion at seeing him; and knowing no remedy for getting out of his hands, I made up my mind to go and visit him; and I arrived just as the meat had been taken away, and with him were those men of the Landi family, who were afterwards the ones who killed him.
When I came to His Excellency, this man made the most immoderate fuss of me that can ever be imagined: and among these caresses he fell of himself into the subject, telling those who were present that I was the first man in the world of my profession and that I had been a long time in prison in Rome. And turning to me he said: "My Benvenuto, what happened to you grieved me a great deal; and I knew that you were innocent, and I could not help you otherwise, because my father, to satisfy certain enemies of yours, who had also given him to understand that you had spoken ill of him: which thing I know for a certainty was never true; and I was very sorry about your case;" and with these words he multiplied so many others like them that it seemed almost as if he were asking my pardon. Next he asked me about all the works I had made for the Most Christian King; and while I told him of them, he stayed attentive, giving me the most gracious audience possible in the world. Then he asked me whether I would serve him: to this I answered that with my honour I could not do it; that if I had left finished those many great works I had begun for that great King, I would leave any great lord, only to serve His Excellency.
Now here it is seen how the great power of God never leaves unpunished any sort of men who do wrongs and injustices to the innocent. This man asked my pardon, as it were, in the presence of those who a little afterwards took my revenge, together with that of many others who had been murdered by him; so let no lord, however great he may be, make a mockery of the justice of God, as certain of those men do whom I know, who have so foully murdered my name, of which I shall speak in its place. And these things of mine I do not write out of worldly boasting, but only to thank God, who has saved me from so many great troubles. And of those too who present themselves before me day by day, I complain of all of them to Him, and call on Him as my own defender and commend myself to Him. And always, besides helping myself as much as I can, when afterwards I am brought low where my weak forces do not reach, at once that great courage of God shows itself to me, which comes unlooked for upon those who wrongfully injure others, and upon those who take little care of the great and honourable charge which God has given them.
I went back to the inn and found that the said Duke had sent me most abundant presents of food and drink, most honourable ones: I took my meal with a good appetite; then, having got on horseback, I came on towards Florence; where when I arrived, I found my sister of my own blood with six little daughters, one of whom was of an age to marry and one still at nurse: I found her husband, who because of various accidents in the city no longer worked at his trade. I had sent more than a year before jewels and French gilt work worth more than two thousand ducats, and with me I had brought about a thousand scudi' worth. I found that, although I gave them four gold scudi a month continually, they were also continually taking a good deal of money from those gilt works of mine which they sold from day to day. That brother-in-law of mine was such an honest man that, for fear I might grow angry with him, the money I sent him for his keep not being enough, and giving it him as alms, he had pawned almost everything he had in the world, letting the interest eat him up, only so as not to touch that money which was not meant for him. By this I knew that he was a very honest man and my wish grew to give him more alms: and before I left Florence I meant to make arrangements for all his little daughters.
Our Duke of Florence at this time, which was the month of August in 1545, being at Poggio a Caiano, a place ten miles from Florence, I went to find him, only to do my duty, since I too was a Florentine citizen and because my forefathers had been great friends of the house of Medici, and I more than any of them loved this Duke Cosimo. As I say, I went to the said Poggio only to pay him my respects and never with any intention of settling with him, though as God, who does everything well, was pleased that it should be: for when the said Duke saw me, after making infinite fuss of me, he and the Duchess asked me about the works I had made for the King; on which I willingly, and all in order, told them.
When he had heard me, he said that he had already heard as much and that it was true; and then he added in an attitude of compassion, and said: "Oh, small reward for so many fine and great labours! My Benvenuto, if you would make something for me, I would pay you very differently from what that King of yours has done, whom out of your good nature you praise so much." To these words I added the great obligations I had to His Majesty, who had taken me out of so unjust a prison, and then had given me the chance of making the most marvellous works that any craftsman of my sort ever born had made. While I was speaking so, my Duke twisted about and seemed as if he could not bear to hear me. Then when I had finished, he said to me: "If you will make something for me, I will make so much of you that perhaps you will be left wondering, provided that your works please me; of which I have no doubt at all."
I, poor unlucky man, wishing to show in this marvellous School that since I had been away from it I had laboured in a profession other than that which the said school reckoned with, answered my Duke that I would willingly, either in marble or in bronze, make him a great statue for that fine square of his. To this he answered that he would have liked from me, as a first work, only a Perseus. This was what he had already wanted for a good while; and he begged me to make him a little model of it. I willingly set to making the said model, and in a few weeks I had finished it, about a braccio high: this was of yellow wax, quite well finished: it was certainly made with the greatest study and art.
The Duke came to Florence and before I could show him this said model, several days went by; so that it really seemed as if he had never seen or known me, so that I made a bad judgment of my affairs with His Excellency. Still afterwards, one day after dinner, having taken it into his wardrobe, he came to see it together with the Duchess and with a few other lords. As soon as he saw it he liked it and praised it beyond measure: on account of which he gave me a little hope that he understood something about it. After he had considered it a good while, his pleasure in it growing greatly, he said these words: "If you carried out this little model on a great scale, my Benvenuto, this would be the finest work in the square." Then I said: "My most excellent lord, in the square are the works of the great Donatello and of the marvellous Michelangelo, who have been the two greatest men since the ancients. So Your most illustrious Excellency gives great courage to my model, because I am confident I can make the work better than the model, more than three times over."
At this there was no small dispute, because the Duke kept saying that he understood these things very well and that he knew exactly what could be done. At this I told him that my works would decide that question and that doubt of his, and that most certainly I would perform for His Excellency far more than I promised him, and that he should only give me the conveniences for being able to do such a thing, because without those conveniences I could not perform for him the great thing I promised. At this His Excellency told me to make a petition of what I asked of him, and to put in it all my needs, for he would give the fullest orders about it.
Certainly if I had been shrewd enough to bind by contract everything I needed for these works of mine, I should not have had the great troubles which have come on me through my own fault: because his will was plainly very great both in wanting works made and in giving good orders about them. But not knowing that this lord had more of the ways of a merchant than of a duke, I proceeded most freely with His Excellency as with a duke and not as with a merchant. I made him the petitions, to which His Excellency answered most freely. At this I said: "My most singular patron, the true petitions and the true agreements between us do not consist in these words nor in these writings, but the whole of it consists in my succeeding with my works in what I have promised you; and if I succeed, then I promise myself that Your most illustrious Excellency will remember very well what you promise me." At these words His Excellency, taken with both my doing and my saying, he and the Duchess showed me the most immoderate favours that can be imagined in the world.
Having the greatest desire to begin work, I told His Excellency that I needed a house, of such a kind that I could set myself up in it with my little furnaces, and work in it in clay and bronze, and then, separately, in gold and silver; because I knew that he knew how well fitted I was to serve him in these professions; and I needed convenient rooms to be able to do such a thing. And so that His Excellency should see how much I wanted to serve him, I had already found the house which suited my purpose, and it was in a place which pleased me greatly. And because I did not want to touch His Excellency for money or anything else before he had seen my works, I had brought two jewels from France, with which I begged His Excellency to buy me the said house, and to keep them until with my works and my labours I had earned it. The said jewels were very well worked by the hands of my workmen, under my designs.
When he had looked at them a good while, he said these spirited words, which clothed me in false hope: "Take back your jewels, Benvenuto, because I want you and not them; and you shall have your house free." Next he made me a rescript on a petition of mine, which I have always kept. The said rescript ran thus: "Let the said house be seen, and who has it to sell, and the price asked for it; because we wish to oblige Benvenuto in this." It seemed to me from this rescript that I was sure of the house; because I confidently promised myself that my works would please much more than I had promised.
Next to this, His Excellency had given express orders to a certain majordomo of his who was called Ser Pier Francesco Riccio. He was from Prato, and had been the said Duke's little schoolmaster. I spoke to this beast, and told him everything I needed, because where there was a garden in the said house I meant to make a workshop. At once this man gave the orders to a certain dry, thin paymaster, who was called Lattanzio Gorini. This little manikin, with certain little spidery hands of his and with a little gnat's voice, as quick as a little snail, in an unlucky hour had brought to the house stones, sand and lime enough as would have served, and grudgingly, to build a pigeon hole. Seeing things go so miserably cold, I began to be dismayed; but still I said to myself: "Small beginnings sometimes have great ends;" and I also took a little hope from seeing how many thousands of ducats the Duke had thrown away on certain ugly wretched sculptures, made by the hand of that beast Baccio Bandinello.
Having put heart into myself, I blew up the backside of that Lattanzio Gorini to make him move; I shouted at certain lame asses and at a little blind man who drove them; and with these difficulties, and then with my own money, I had marked out the site of the workshop, and had grubbed up trees and vines: still, as I usually do, boldly, and with a little fury, I went on getting things done.
On the other hand, I was in the hands of Tasso the carpenter, a great friend of mine, and I was having him make certain wooden armatures for beginning the great Perseus. This Tasso was a most excellent able man, I believe the greatest there ever was of his profession: on the other side he was pleasant and cheerful, and every time I went to him, he came to meet me laughing, with a little song in falsetto. And I, who was already more than half in despair, both because I was beginning to hear that things in France were going badly, and because I promised myself little of these things here for their coldness, forced myself always to listen to at least half of that little song of his: still in the end I cheered up somewhat with him, forcing myself to lose as much as I could of four of those desperate thoughts of mine.
Having given orders for all the things spoken of above, and beginning to push on so as to get myself ready the sooner for this said undertaking — part of the lime was already slaked — all at once I was sent for by the said majordomo; and going to him, I found him after His Excellency's dinner in the hall called the Clock Hall; and when I came before him, I with the greatest reverence to him, and he with the greatest stiffness to me, he asked me who it was that had put me in that house, and by what authority I had begun building inside it; and that he wondered greatly at me, that I should be so bold and presumptuous. To this I answered that it was His Excellency who had put me in the house, and in the name of His Excellency his own Lordship, who had given the orders to Lattanzio Gorini; and the said Lattanzio had brought stone, sand and lime, and had given the orders for the things I had asked for — "and he said he had orders to that effect from Your Lordship."
When I had said these words, that said beast turned on me with greater sourness than before, and told me that neither I nor any of those I had cited were telling the truth. Then I took offence and said to him: "Majordomo, so long as Your Lordship speaks according to that most noble rank in which you are wrapped, I shall revere you and speak to you with that submission I use to the Duke; but if you do otherwise, I shall speak to you as to a Ser Pier Francesco Riccio." This man fell into such anger that I thought he would go mad on the spot, and gain time on what the heavens had determined for him; and he told me, along with some insulting words, that he wondered greatly at having made me worthy to speak to a man of his sort. At these words I was moved and said: "Now listen to me, Ser Pier Francesco Riccio, and I will tell you who are men of my sort, and who are men of your sort, masters at teaching children to read."
When I had said these words, this man with a hooked-up face raised his voice, repeating those same words more rashly. To which I too, setting my face in fighting order, clothed myself on his account with a little presumption, and said that men of my sort were worthy to speak to popes and to emperors and to great kings; and that of men of my sort perhaps one went about the world, but of men of his sort ten went to a doorway. When he heard these words, he got up on a window ledge that is in that hall; then he told me to repeat once more the words I had said to him; which I repeated more boldly than I had done before, and moreover I said that I no longer cared to serve the Duke, and that I would go back to France, where I could freely return. This beast was left stupefied and the colour of earth, and I in a rage went off with the intention of going off with God; would to God that I had carried it out.
His Excellency the Duke cannot have known at once about this devilment that had happened, because I stayed some few days having laid aside all thought of Florence, except those of my sister and of my little nieces, whom I was setting in order; for with the little I had brought I wanted to leave them settled as best I could, and as soon as possible afterwards I meant to go back to France, and never care to see Italy again. Having made up my mind to get myself away as quickly as I could, and to go without leave of the Duke or of anybody else, one morning the said majordomo of his own accord very humbly sent for me, and set his hand to a certain schoolmasterly oration of his, in which I never heard either method or grace, or skill, or beginning, or end: I only gathered that he said he made profession of being a good Christian, and that he did not want to bear hatred against anybody, and he asked me on the Duke's behalf what salary I wanted for my keep. At this I stayed a little within myself and did not answer, with the plain intention of not wanting to stay. Seeing me hold back without an answer, he still had enough sense to say: "Oh Benvenuto, one answers dukes; and what I say to you I say on His Excellency's behalf." Then I said that since he was saying it on His Excellency's behalf, I would very willingly answer; and I told him to tell His Excellency that I did not want to be made second to any of those men he kept of my profession. The majordomo said: "Bandinello is given two hundred scudi for his keep, so if you are content with that, your salary is settled." I answered that I was content, and that what I deserved beyond it should be given me after my works had been seen, and left the whole of it to the good judgment of His most illustrious Excellency: so against my will I picked up the thread and set myself to work, the Duke continually doing me the most immoderate favours that can be imagined in the world.
I had had letters very often from France from that most faithful friend of mine Messer Guido Guidi: these letters as yet told me nothing but good; that Ascanio of mine also sent me word telling me to attend to giving myself a good time, and that if anything happened, he would let me know. It was reported to the King that I had set myself to work for the Duke of Florence; and because this man was the best in the world, he said several times: "Why does Benvenuto not come back?" And when those young men of mine were asked about it in particular, both of them told him that I wrote to them that I was so well off, and that they thought I no longer had any wish to come back and serve His Majesty. Finding the King in anger, and hearing these rash words, which never came from me, he said: "Since he has left us with no cause at all, I shall never ask for him again; so let him stay where he is." These thieving murderers, having brought the thing to the point they wanted, because every time I came back to France they went back to being workmen under me as they had been before, whereas, if I did not come back, they were left free and in my place, for this they made every effort so that I should not come back.
While I was having the workshop built, so as to begin the Perseus in it, I worked in a ground-floor room, in which I made the Perseus in plaster, of the size it was to be, with the idea of moulding it from that plaster one. When I saw that doing it this way was taking me rather a long time, I took another expedient, because by now a bit of a wretched little workshop had been set up, brick upon brick, made with such meanness that it offends me too much to remember it. I began the figure of the Medusa, and made a skeleton of iron; then I began to make it in clay, and when I had made it in clay, I baked it. I was alone with a few little assistants, among whom there was one very beautiful: this was the son of a prostitute, called La Gambetta. I made use of this boy to draw from, because we have no other books that teach us the art except the natural model. I tried to get workmen so as to get this work of mine done quickly, and I could not find any, and by myself alone I could not do everything. There were a few in Florence who would gladly have come, but Bandinello at once prevented their coming; and after making me struggle like this a good while, he told the Duke that I was going about looking for his workmen, because by myself it was never possible that I should know how to put together a large figure. I complained to the Duke of the great annoyance this beast was giving me, and begged him to get me some of those workmen of the Cathedral Works. These words of mine were the cause of making the Duke believe what Bandinello was telling him. Realizing this, I disposed myself to do by myself as much as I could.
And having set myself down to the most extreme labours that can be imagined, while I was toiling day and night at this, my sister's husband fell ill, and in a few days he died. He left me my sister, a young woman, with six daughters small and grown: this was the first great trouble I had in Florence: to be left the father and guide of such a wreck.
Wanting nothing to go wrong, my garden being loaded with a great deal of rubbish, I called two labourers, who were brought me from the Ponte Vecchio: of these one was an old man of sixty, the other a young man of eighteen. Having kept them about three days, that young man told me that the old man did not want to work and that I would do better to send him away, because not only did he not want to work, he prevented the young man from working: and he told me that the little there was to do, he could do it himself, without throwing money away on other people: this one was called Bernardino Mannellini of the Mugello. Seeing him work so willingly, I asked him whether he would take service with me: at the first word we agreed. This young man looked after a horse for me, worked in the garden, and then set himself to help me in the workshop, so that little by little he began to learn the art with such fineness that I never had a better helper than he.
And making up my mind to do everything with this man, I began to show the Duke that Bandinello was telling lies, and that I would do very well without Bandinello's workmen. At this time I got a little trouble in my kidneys; and because I could not work, I was glad to stay in the Duke's wardrobe with certain young goldsmiths, who were called Gianpagolo and Domenico Poggini, whom I set to making a little gold vase, worked all over in low relief, with figures and other fine ornaments: this was for the Duchess, and Her Excellency had it made to drink water from. She also asked me to make her a gold girdle; and this work too most richly, with jewels and with many pleasing inventions of little masks and other things: this was made for her.
The Duke came into this wardrobe every little while, and took the greatest pleasure in seeing the work go on, and in talking with me. Beginning to get a little better of my kidneys, I had some clay brought to me, and while the Duke was staying there passing the time, I made his portrait, making a head a good deal bigger than life. His Excellency took the greatest pleasure in this work and conceived such affection for me that he told me it would be the greatest pleasure to him if I would settle down to work in the Palace, looking for rooms in the said palace large enough, which I should have fitted up with the furnaces and with everything I needed; because he took the greatest pleasure in such things. To this I told His Excellency that it was not possible, because I should not have finished my works in a hundred years.
The Duchess did me favours beyond reckoning, and would have liked me to attend to working for her, and not to care either about the Perseus or about anything else. I, who saw myself in these empty favours, knew for certain that my perverse and biting fortune could not hold off from doing me some new murder; because at every hour there came before me the great harm I had done in trying to do so great a good: I mean as to my affairs in France. The King could not swallow that great unhappiness he had at my leaving, and would indeed have liked me to come back, but with his own honour expressly saved: it seemed to me I had many great rights on my side, and I would not humble myself; because I thought that if I had humbled myself to write submissively, those men in the French way would have said that I had been a sinner and that certain foul charges, which had been wrongly laid on me, were true. For this I stood on my dignity, and, as a man who is in the right, wrote stiffly, which was the greatest pleasure those two traitors I had brought up could have: because in writing to them I boasted of the great caresses which had been made me in my own country by a Lord and a Lady, absolute masters of the city of Florence, my own country. As soon as they had one of these letters, they went to the King and pressed His Majesty to give them my castle, in the same way as he had given it to me.
The King, who was a good and admirable person, would never consent to the rash demands of these great little thieves, because he had begun to see what they were maliciously aiming at: and to give them a little hope and to give me occasion to come back at once, he had me written to somewhat angrily by a treasurer of his, who was called Messer Giuliano Buonaccorsi, a Florentine citizen. The letter contained this: that if I wanted to keep up that name of an honest man which I had carried there, since I had gone away with no cause at all, I was truly bound to render an account of everything I had handled and done for His Majesty.
When I had this letter, it gave me such pleasure that if I could have asked with my tongue, I would not have asked either more or less. Setting myself to write, I filled nine sheets of ordinary paper; and in them I narrated in detail all the works I had made and all the accidents I had had over them, and the whole quantity of money that had been spent on the said works, all of which had been paid out by the hands of two notaries and of a treasurer of his, and signed by all those very men who had had it, some of whom had given their goods and the others their labours; and that of this money I had not put a single farthing in my purse, and that for my finished works I had had nothing in the world; only I had brought with me to Italy certain favours and most royal promises, truly worthy of His Majesty. And although I could not boast of having got anything else out of my works except certain salaries appointed me by His Majesty for my keep, and of those too I was still owed more than seven hundred gold scudi, which I left there on purpose, so that they might be sent me for my good return; "so, knowing that certain malicious people out of their own envy have done me some ill service, the truth must always be uppermost: I glory in His Most Christian Majesty, and greed does not move me. Although I know that I have performed for His Majesty much more than I offered to do: and although the promised recompense has not come to me, I care for nothing else in the world, except to remain, in His Majesty's opinion, an honest and clean man, such as I always was. And if any doubt of this were in Your Majesty, at the least sign I will come flying to give account of myself, with my own life: but seeing so little account made of me, I have not wanted to come back and offer myself, knowing that I shall always have bread to spare wherever I go: and when I am called, I shall always answer." There were in the said letter many other particulars worthy of that marvellous King and of the saving of my honour. This letter, before I sent it, I took to my Duke, who was very pleased to see it; then I sent it at once to France, directed to the Cardinal of Ferrara.
At this time Bernardone Baldini, His Excellency's broker in jewels, had brought from Venice a great diamond, of more than thirty-five carats in weight: Antonio di Vittorio Landi too had an interest in getting the Duke to buy it. This diamond had once been a point stone, but because it did not come out with that shining clearness which is to be desired in such a jewel, the owners of the said diamond had had this said point sliced off, which truly made it good neither for a table stone nor for a point stone. Our Duke, who took great pleasure in jewels, but did not understand them, gave this great rascal Bernardaccio sure hopes of wanting to buy this said diamond. And because this Bernardo was trying to have the honour of it to himself alone, of this cheat he meant to work on the Duke of Florence, he never told anything to his partner, the said Antonio Landi.
This said Antonio had been a great friend of mine ever since boyhood, and because he saw that I was so familiar with my Duke, one day among others he called me aside — it was near midday, and it was at the corner of the Mercato Nuovo — and said this to me: "Benvenuto, I am certain that the Duke will show you a diamond which he shows a wish to buy: you will see a great diamond. Help the sale on; and I tell you that I can let it go for seventeen thousand scudi: I am certain the Duke will want your advice; if you see him well inclined to wanting it, something will be done to enable him to take it." This Antonio showed that he had great confidence in being able to make a bargain of this jewel. I promised him that, if it were shown me and my opinion then asked, I would say everything I understood, without damaging the jewel.
As I have said above, the Duke came every day into that goldsmith's room for several hours; and more than a week after the day Antonio Landi had spoken to me, the Duke one day after dinner showed me this said diamond, which I recognized by the tokens Antonio Landi had told me of, both of the form and of the weight. And because this said diamond was of a water, as I said above, rather cloudy, and for that reason they had had that point sliced off, when I saw it to be of that kind I would certainly have advised against making such an outlay; so, when he showed it me, I asked His Excellency what he wanted me to say, because it was one thing for jewellers to price a jewel after a lord had bought it, and another to put a price on it so that he might buy it. Then His Excellency told me that he had bought it and that I should only say what I thought.
I did not want to fail to point out to him modestly the little I understood of that jewel. He told me to consider the beauty of those great facets it had. Then I said that this was not that great beauty His Excellency imagined and that it was a point stone with its point sliced off. At these words my lord, who saw that I was telling the truth, made a bad grimace and told me to attend to valuing the jewel and to judge what I thought it was worth. I, thinking that, Antonio Landi having offered it me for seventeen thousand scudi, I believed the Duke had had it for fifteen thousand at most, and because of this I, seeing that he took it badly that I told him the truth, thought to keep him in his false opinion, and handing him the diamond, I said: "Eighteen thousand scudi you have spent." At these words the Duke made an outcry, making an O bigger than the mouth of a well, and said: "Now I believe you know nothing about it." I said to him: "Certainly, my lord, you believe wrong: attend to keeping your jewel in credit and I will attend to understanding these things. Tell me at least what you have spent on it, so that I may learn to understand them according to the ways of Your Excellency." The Duke got up with a slightly scornful sneer, and said: "Twenty-five thousand scudi and more, Benvenuto, it costs me;" and went away.
At these words there were present Gianpagolo and Domenico Poggini, goldsmiths; and Bachiacca the embroiderer, who worked in a room next to ours, ran up too at that noise; where I said: "I would never have advised him to buy it; but if he had a mind for it all the same, Antonio Landi eight days ago offered it me for seventeen thousand scudi; I believe I could have got it for fifteen or less. But the Duke wants to keep his jewel in credit; for since Antonio Landi offered it to me for such a price, the devil that Bernardone should have played the Duke so shameful a trick!" And never believing that such a thing was true, as it was, we passed off that simplicity of the Duke's with a laugh.
Having by now brought the figure of the great Medusa to that point, as I said, I had made its skeleton of iron: then having made it in clay, like an anatomy, and lean by half a finger, I baked it very well; then I put the wax over it and finished it in the way I wanted it to be. The Duke, who had come to see it several times, was so anxious lest it should not come out in bronze for me, that he would have liked me to call in some master to cast it for me. And because His Excellency spoke continually and with the greatest favour of my clever talk, his majordomo, who was continually looking for some snare to make me break my neck, and because he had the authority to command the constables and all the offices of the poor unlucky city of Florence — that a man of Prato, an enemy of ours, the son of a cooper, most ignorant, for having been a rotten schoolmaster to Cosimo de' Medici before he was duke, should have come into such great authority, as I have said — being as watchful as he could to do me harm, and seeing that in no way could he get a hook into me, he thought of a way of doing something.
And going to find the mother of that little assistant of mine, whose name was Cencio, and hers La Gambetta, they arranged, that rascally schoolmaster and that rogue of a whore, to give me a fright, so that by it I should have gone off with God. La Gambetta, following her own trade, came out on the orders of that mad rascal of a schoolmaster majordomo: and because they had also put up the constable, who was a certain Bolognese, whom the Duke afterwards drove out for doing things of this kind; on a Saturday evening, at three hours of the night, the said Gambetta came to find me with her son, and told me that she had kept him shut up several days for my safety. To whom I answered that on my account she should not keep him shut up: and laughing at her whorish trade, I turned to the son in her presence and said to him: "You know, Cencio, whether I have sinned with you;" and he, weeping, said no. Then the mother, shaking her head, said to her son: "Ah, you little rascal, do you think I do not know how it is done?" Then she turned to me, telling me to keep him hidden in the house, because the constable was looking for him, and would take him in any case outside my house; but that in my house they would not touch him. To this I told her that in my house I had my widowed sister with six holy little daughters, and that I did not want anybody in my house. Then she said that the majordomo had given the orders to the constable and that I would be arrested in any case; but since I would not take her son into the house, if I gave her a hundred scudi I need have no further fear of anything, because the majordomo being such a very great friend of hers, I might be sure that she would have him do everything she pleased, provided I gave her the hundred scudi.
I had come into such a fury that I said to her: "Get out of my sight, you shameful whore, for if it were not for the honour of the world and for the innocence of that unhappy son you have there, I would already have cut your throat with this little dagger, which I have laid my hand on two or three times." And with these words, with many rough shoves, I pushed her and her son out of the house.
Then, having considered the villainy and the power of that bad schoolmaster, I judged that my best course was to give a little room to that devilment, and early in the morning, having made over to my sister jewels and things worth close on two thousand scudi, I got on horseback and went off towards Venice, and took with me that Bernardino of the Mugello. And when I got to Ferrara, I wrote to His Excellency the Duke that although I had gone without being sent, I would come back without being called.
Then, having got to Venice, considering in how many different ways my cruel fortune tormented me, nevertheless finding myself sound and strong, I made up my mind to skirmish with her as I usually do. And while I was going about thinking over my affairs like this, passing my time in that beautiful and very rich city, having paid my respects to that marvellous painter Titian and to Jacopo Sansovino, an able sculptor and architect of ours from Florence, very well kept by the Signory of Venice, and because we had known each other in our youth in Rome and in Florence as a Florentine of ours, these two men of talent made a great deal of me. The next day I met Messer Lorenzo de' Medici, who at once took me by the hand with the greatest welcome that can be seen in the world, because we had known each other in Florence when I was making the coins for Duke Alessandro, and afterwards in Paris, when I was in the King's service. He was staying in the house of Messer Giuliano Buonaccorsi, and having nowhere else to go and pass the time without the greatest danger to himself, he stayed most of the time in my house, watching me work at those great works.
And as I say, because of this old acquaintance, he took me by the hand and led me to his house, where there was the Prior of the Strozzi, brother of Signor Piero, and rejoicing, they asked me how long I meant to stay in Venice, believing that I meant to go back to France. To which lords I said that I had left Florence for such an occasion as I have described above, and that within two or three days I meant to go back to Florence to serve my great Duke. When I said these words, the Prior and Messer Lorenzo turned on me with such sternness that I was greatly afraid, and they said to me: "You would do better to go back to France, where you are rich and known; for if you go back to Florence, you will lose everything you had gained in France, and out of Florence you will get nothing but unhappiness." I did not answer their words, and having left the next day as secretly as I could, I went back towards Florence.
Meanwhile the devilments had ripened, because I had written to my great Duke all about the occasion which had carried me off to Venice. And with his usual prudence and severity, I visited him without any ceremony; having stayed a while with the said severity, he then turned to me pleasantly and asked me where I had been. To whom I answered that my heart had never moved a finger's breadth away from His most illustrious Excellency, though for certain just occasions it had been necessary for me to take my body a little way off wandering. Then, becoming more pleasant, he began to ask me about Venice and so we talked a while; then at last he told me to attend to working and to finish his Perseus for him. So I went home cheerful and happy, and cheered my family, that is my sister with her six daughters, and having taken up my works again, I carried them forward with as much diligence as I could.
And the first work I cast in bronze was that great head, the portrait of His Excellency, which I had made in clay in the goldsmith's room while I had trouble in my back. This was a work that pleased, and I made it for no other reason than to make trial of the clays for casting bronze. And although I saw that that admirable Donatello had made his works in bronze, which he had cast with the clay of Florence, it seemed to me that he had brought them off with the greatest difficulty; and thinking that this came from a defect in the clay, before I set about casting my Perseus, I chose to take these first pains; by which I found that the clay was good, although it had not been well understood by that admirable Donatello, because I saw his works brought off with the greatest difficulty. So, as I say above, by the strength of art I compounded the clay, which served me very well; and, as I say, with it I cast the said head; but because I had not yet made the furnace, I made use of the furnace of Master Zanobi di Pagno the bellfounder.
And seeing that the head had come out clean, I at once set about making a little furnace in the workshop the Duke had made me, by my own order and design, in the very house he had given me; and having made the furnace at once, with all the diligence I could, I got ready to cast the statue of the Medusa, which is that twisted woman who is under the feet of the Perseus. And this cast being a most difficult thing, I did not want to fail in all those cares I had learned, so that no error should be made; and so the first cast I made in that little furnace of mine came out well in the highest degree, and it was so clean that it did not seem right to my friends that I should have to clean it up at all; a thing which certain Germans and Frenchmen have found, who talk and boast of very fine secrets for casting bronzes without cleaning up; a thing truly for madmen; because bronze, after it is cast, has to be closed up with hammers and with chisels, as the most marvellous ancients did, and as the moderns have done too, I mean those moderns who have known how to work in bronze.
This cast pleased His most illustrious Excellency greatly, and he came several times as far as my house to see it, giving me great courage to do well. But that raging envy of Bandinello's was able to do so much, with so much pressing at the ears of His most illustrious Excellency, that he made him think that even if I cast some of these statues, I should never put them together, because it was a new art with me; and that His Excellency ought to look out well not to throw away his money. These words were able to do so much in those glorious ears that some of my expenses for workmen were cut down; on account of which I was forced to complain boldly to His Excellency: and one morning, waiting for him in the Via de' Servi, I said to him: "My lord, I am not helped in my needs, so that I suspect Your Excellency has no confidence in me; therefore I tell you again that I am confident I can bring off this work three times better than the model was, just as I promised you."
Having said these words to His Excellency, and seeing that they bore no fruit at all, because I got no answer out of them, at once my anger grew, together with an unbearable passion, and I began to speak to the Duke again and said to him: "My lord, this city has truly always been the school of the greatest talents; but once a man is known, having learned something, if he wishes to increase the glory of his city and of his glorious Prince, it is well for him to go and work elsewhere. And that this is true, my lord, I know that Your Excellency has known who Donatello was, and who the great Leonardo da Vinci was, and who the admirable Michelangelo Buonarroti is now. These men increase the glory of Your Excellency by their talents; on account of which I too hope to do my part; so, my lord, let me go. But let Your Excellency take good care not to let Bandinello go, rather give him always more than he asks you for; because if he goes abroad, his ignorance is so presumptuous that he is fit to bring disgrace on this most noble School. Now give me leave, my lord, and I ask nothing else for my labours up to now than the favour of Your most illustrious Excellency."
Seeing me so resolute, His Excellency turned to me with a little scorn, saying: "Benvenuto, if you have a mind to finish the work, nothing shall be wanting." Then I thanked him, and said that my only desire was to show those envious men that I was confident I could carry out the work I had promised. So having got away from His Excellency, I was given a little help; on account of which I was forced to put my hand in my own purse, wanting my work to go a little more than at a walk.
And because in the evening I always went to sit up in His Excellency's wardrobe, where there were Domenico and Gianpagolo Poggini, his brother, who were working on a gold vase, which has been spoken of before, for the Duchess, and a gold girdle; His Excellency had also had me make a little model of a pendant, in which that great diamond was to be set which Bernardone and Antonio Landi had made him buy. And although I dodged wanting to do such a thing, the Duke with so many fine pleasantries made me work on it every evening until four hours of the night. He also pressed me in the most pleasant ways to work on it by day as well; to which I would never consent; and for this I believed for certain that His Excellency was angry with me. And one evening among others, having arrived somewhat later than usual, the Duke said to me: "You are the ill-come." At which words I said: "My lord, that is not my name, because my name is Benvenuto, the welcome; and because I think Your Excellency is joking with me, I will go no further into it." At this the Duke said that he spoke in cursed earnest and was not joking, and that I should take good care what I was doing, because it had come to his ears that, taking advantage of his favour, I was having now this and now that got for me.
At these words I begged His most illustrious Excellency to be so good as to name me one single man from whom I had ever got anything in the world. At once he turned on me in anger and said: "Go and give back what you have of Bernardone's: there is one for you." At this I said: "My lord, I thank you, and I beg you to be so good as to hear me for four words: it is true that he lent me a pair of old scales and two anvils and three little hammers, which pieces of gear it is fifteen days ago today that I told his Giorgio of Cortona to send for them; on which the said Giorgio came for them himself; and if Your most illustrious Excellency ever finds that, from the day I was born until now, I have ever had anything of anybody's in that fashion, whether in Rome or in France, let those who have reported those things to you, or others, be asked; and if you find it true, punish me by the measure of the coals."
Seeing me in the greatest passion, the Duke, as a most discerning and affectionate Lord, turned to me and said: "It is not said to those who do not commit the faults; so, if it is as you say, I shall always be glad to see you, as I have been in the past." At this I said: "Let Your Excellency know that Bernardone's villainies force me to ask you and to beg you to tell me what you spent on the great diamond, the point stone with its point sliced off: because I hope to show you why this bad wretch of a man is trying to put me in your disgrace." Then His Excellency said to me: "The diamond cost me 25 thousand ducats: why do you ask me?" "Because, my lord, on such a day, at such an hour, at the corner of the Mercato Nuovo, Antonio di Vittorio Landi told me to try to make a bargain with Your most illustrious Excellency, and at the first asking he asked sixteen thousand ducats for it: now Your Excellency knows what you bought it for. And that this is true, ask Ser Domenico Poggini and Gianpagolo his brother, who are here; for I told them at once, and afterwards I never spoke of it again, because Your Excellency said that I knew nothing about it; and I thought you wanted to keep it in credit. Know, my lord, that I do understand these things; and as to the other matter, I make profession of being as honest a man as any born into the world, be he who he may. I shall not try to rob you of eight or ten thousand ducats at a time; rather I shall try to earn them by my labours: and I settled to serve Your Excellency as sculptor, goldsmith and master of the mint; and as for reporting other men's affairs to you, never. And what I am telling you now, I tell you in my own defence, and I do not want a quarter of it: and I tell you of it in the presence of so many honest men who are here, so that Your most illustrious Excellency may not believe everything Bernardone says."
At once the Duke rose in anger and sent for Bernardone, who was forced to run as far as Venice, he and Antonio Landi; which Antonio told me that he had not meant to speak of that diamond. They went and came back from Venice, and I found the Duke, and said: "My lord, what I told you is true, and what Bernardone told you about the gear was not true; and you would do well to make trial of it, and I will set off for the constable's." At these words the Duke turned to me, saying: "Benvenuto, attend to being an honest man, as you have done in the past, and never fear anything." The thing went off in smoke and I never heard it spoken of again.
I attended to finishing his jewel; and having taken it finished to the Duchess one day, she herself told me that she valued my workmanship as much as the diamond, which that wretch Bernardone had made her buy, and she wanted me to fasten it on her breast with my own hand, and she gave me a thickish pin into my hand, and with that I fastened it on her, and I went away with much good favour from her. Afterwards I heard that they had had it reset by a German or some other foreigner, if the truth be told, because the said Bernardone said that the said diamond would show better set with less work about it.
Domenico and Gianpagolo Poggini, goldsmiths and brothers, were working, as I think I have said, in the wardrobe of His most illustrious Excellency, from my designs, on certain little gold vases chased with scenes of little figures in low relief and other things of much importance. And because I said several times to the Duke: "My lord, if Your most illustrious Excellency would pay me several workmen, I would make you the coins for your mint and the medals with the head of Your most illustrious Excellency, which I would make in competition with the ancients and would hope to surpass them: because since the time I made the medals of Pope Clement I have learned so much that I would do much better than those: and so I would do better than the coins I made for Duke Alessandro, which are still held to be beautiful; and so I would make you great vases of gold and silver, as I made so many for that admirable King Francis of France, only because of the great conveniences he gave me, and no time was ever lost over the great colossi or over the other statues." To these words of mine the Duke said: "Do it, and I shall see;" and he never gave me either conveniences or any help.
One day His most illustrious Excellency had several pounds of silver given me and said: "This is silver from my mines, make me a fine vase." And because I did not want to leave my Perseus behind and yet had a great wish to serve him, I gave it to be made, with my designs and little wax models, to a certain rascal called Piero di Martino, a goldsmith: who began it badly and moreover did not work at it, so that I lost more time over it than if I had made the whole of it with my own hand. So having tormented me for several months, and seeing that the said Piero was not working at it, nor having it worked at either, I had it given back to me, and I had great difficulty in getting back, along with the body of the vase badly begun, as I said, the rest of the silver I had given him. The Duke, who heard something of these disputes, sent for the vase and for the models and never told me either why or how; it is enough that with certain designs of mine he had them made by various people both in Venice and elsewhere, and he was very badly served.
The Duchess often told me to work for her at goldsmith's work: to whom I said several times that the world knew very well, and all Italy, that I was a good goldsmith; but that Italy had never seen works of sculpture from my hand: "and in the profession certain raging sculptors, laughing at me, call me the new sculptor; to whom I hope to show that I am an old sculptor, if God will give me so much grace that I may show my Perseus finished in that honoured square of His most illustrious Excellency."
And having withdrawn home, I attended to working day and night, and did not let myself be seen at the Palace. And thinking still to keep myself in the good graces of the Duchess, I had made for her certain little vases, as big as a two-farthing pot, in silver, with fine little masks in a very rare fashion, in the antique style; and having taken her the said little vases, she gave me the most gracious welcome that can be imagined in the world and paid me for my silver and gold that I had put into them. And I still commended myself to Her most illustrious Excellency, begging her to tell the Duke that I had little help for so great a work, and that Her most illustrious Excellency ought to tell the Duke not to give so much credit to that evil tongue of Bandinello's, with which he hindered me from finishing my Perseus. At these tearful words of mine the Duchess shrugged her shoulders and still said to me: "Certainly the Duke ought surely to know that this Bandinello of his is worth nothing."
I stayed at home, and rarely presented myself at the Palace, and worked with great diligence to finish my work; and I had to pay the workmen out of my own pocket; because, the Duke having had certain workmen paid me by Lattanzio Gorini for about eighteen months, and having grown tired of it, he had the orders taken away from me, on account of which I asked the said Lattanzio why he did not pay me. He answered me, waving certain little spidery hands of his, with a little gnat's voice: "Why do you not finish this work of yours? People believe you will never finish it." I answered him at once in anger and said: "May a plague come on you and on all those who do not believe that I shall finish it."
And so in despair I went back home to my ill-fortuned Perseus, and not without tears, because there came back into my memory the fine state I had left in Paris in the service of that marvellous King Francis, with whom I had everything to spare, and here everything was wanting to me. And several times I was ready to throw myself into despair: and once among others I got on a good little horse of mine, and put a hundred scudi at my side, and went off to Fiesole to see a natural son of mine, whom I kept at nurse with a woman who was godmother to him, the wife of a workman of mine. And when I got to my little son I found him in good health, and I, so discontented, kissed him; and when I wanted to leave, he would not let me, because he held me tight with his little hands and with a fury of weeping and screaming, which at that age of about two years was a more than marvellous thing.
And because I had made up my mind that, if I found Bandinello, who used to go every evening to that farm of his above San Domenico, in my desperation I meant to throw him to the ground, so I tore myself away from my baby, leaving him with that broken weeping. And coming on towards Florence, when I got to the square of San Domenico, just then Bandinello was coming into the square from the other side. Having at once made up my mind to do that bloody work, I came up to him, and raising my eyes I saw him without weapons, on a wretched mule like an ass, and he had with him a little boy of about ten; and as soon as he saw me, he turned the colour of death, and trembled from his head to his feet. I, seeing how base the work would be, said: "Have no fear, vile coward, for I do not want to make you worthy of my blows." He looked at me submissively and said nothing. Then I took my courage back, and thanked God, who by His true power had not chosen that I should commit such a disorder.
So, freed from that devilish fury, my spirit rose and I said to myself: "If God gives me the grace to finish my work, I hope with it to kill all my rascally enemies; whereby I shall take a much greater and more glorious revenge than if I had vented myself on one alone;" and with this good resolution I went back home.
At the end of three days I heard that that woman, my child's godmother, had smothered my only little son; which gave me such grief as I never felt greater. Yet I knelt on the ground, and not without tears, as I usually do, thanked my God, saying: "My Lord, You gave him to me, and now You have taken him from me, and for all of it I thank You with all my heart." And although the great grief had all but bewildered me, still, as I usually do, making a virtue of necessity, I went about settling myself as best I could.
At this time a young man had left Bandinello, whose name was Francesco, son of Matteo the smith. This said young man had me asked whether I would give him work; and I was content, and set him to cleaning up the figure of the Medusa, which was already cast. This young man, a fortnight later, told me that he had spoken with his master, that is Bandinello, and that he said to me on his behalf that, if I wanted to make a figure in marble, he sent to offer me the present of a fine piece of marble. At once I said: "Tell him that I accept it; and the marble might turn out ill for him, because he goes on provoking me, and does not remember the great danger he was in with me in the square of San Domenico: now tell him that I want it in any case. I never speak of him and this beast is always troubling me: and I believe that you have come to work with me sent by him, only to spy on my affairs. Oh go, and tell him that I shall want the marble in spite of him; and go back to him."
Having gone many days without letting myself be seen at the Palace, I went there one morning, when that whim took me, and the Duke had almost finished dining, and, from what I heard, His Excellency had that morning been talking and speaking very well of me, and among other things he had praised me greatly for setting jewels; and because of this, as soon as the Duchess saw me, she had me called by Messer Sforza; and when I came near Her most illustrious Excellency, she begged me to set a little point diamond in a ring for her, and told me that she meant to wear it always on her finger; and she gave me the measure and the diamond, which was worth about a hundred scudi, and begged me to do it quickly.
At once the Duke began to talk with the Duchess and said to her: "Certainly Benvenuto was without an equal in that art; but now that he has left it off, I believe that making a little ring as you would want it would be too great a labour for him: so I beg you not to tire him with this small thing, which for him would be a great one, since he is out of practice." At these words I thanked the Duke, and then begged him to let me do this little service for the lady Duchess: and having set my hands to it at once, in a few days I had it finished. The ring was for the little finger of the hand: so I made four round boys with four little masks, which things made up the said little ring: and I also fitted in some enamelled fruits and little bindings; so that the jewel and the ring showed themselves very well together. And I took it at once to the Duchess: who with kindly words told me that I had made her a very beautiful piece of work, and that she would remember me. The said little ring she sent as a present to King Philip, and afterwards she was always ordering something from me, but so affectionately that I always did my best to serve her, although I saw little money; and God knows whether I had great need of it, because I wanted to finish my Perseus, and I had found certain young men who helped me, whom I paid out of my own pocket; and I began again to let myself be seen more often than I had done in the past.
One holiday among others I went to the Palace after dinner, and having got to the Clock Hall, I saw the door of the wardrobe open, and having come a little nearer, the Duke called me, and with a pleasant welcome said to me: "You are welcome: look at that case, which Signor Stefano da Palestrina has sent me as a present; open it and let us see what it is." Opening it at once, I said to the Duke: "My lord, this is a figure of Greek marble and it is a marvellous thing: I say that for a boy figure I do not remember ever having seen among the antiques so beautiful a work, nor of so beautiful a manner; so that I offer Your most illustrious Excellency to restore it for you, both the head and the arms and the feet. And I will make it an eagle, so that it may be christened for a Ganymede. And although it is not fitting for me to patch up statues, because it is an art for certain cobblers, who do it very badly; still the excellence of this great master calls me to serve him." It pleased the Duke greatly that the statue should be so beautiful, and he asked me about a great many things, saying to me: "Tell me, my Benvenuto, exactly in what such great excellence of this master consists, which gives you such wonder." Then I showed His most illustrious Excellency in the best way I knew, so as to make him understand such beauty and such excellence of intelligence, and such a rare manner; on which things I had discoursed a great deal, and I did it all the more willingly, knowing that His Excellency took the greatest pleasure in it.
While I was so pleasantly entertaining the Duke, it happened that a page came out of the wardrobe and that, as the said page came out, Bandinello came in. When the Duke saw him, he was half put out, and with a stern face said to him: "What are you doing?" The said Bandinello, without answering anything, at once cast his eyes on that case where the said statue was uncovered, and with an ugly sneer of his, shaking his head, he said, turning towards the Duke: "My lord, these are some of those things I have so often spoken of to Your most illustrious Excellency. Know that these ancients understood nothing about anatomy, and for this reason their works are all full of errors." I stayed quiet and paid no attention to anything he said, but rather turned my back on him. As soon as this beast had finished his disagreeable chatter, the Duke said: "Oh Benvenuto, this is quite the contrary of what with so many fine reasons you have just now shown me so well: so defend it a little."
At these ducal words, put to me with so much pleasantness, I answered at once and said: "My lord, Your most illustrious Excellency must know that Baccio Bandinelli is composed entirely of ill, and so he has always been; so that whatever he looks at, at once to his disagreeable eyes, although things are in the highest degree wholly good, at once they turn into the worst of ill. But I, who am drawn only to the good, see the truth more piously; so that what I have said of this most beautiful statue to Your most illustrious Excellency is all of it the pure truth, and what Bandinello has said of it is all of it that ill alone, of which he is composed." The Duke stood listening to me with much pleasure, and while I was saying these things, Bandinello twisted about and made the ugliest faces with his face, which was very ugly, that can be imagined in the world.
All at once the Duke moved off, setting out through certain ground-floor rooms, and the said Bandinello followed him. The chamberlains took me by the cloak and started me off after them and so we followed the Duke, until His most illustrious Excellency, having reached a room, sat down, and Bandinello and I stood one on the right and one on the left of His most illustrious Excellency. I stayed quiet, and those who were around, several servants of His Excellency, all stared at Bandinello, sneering a little at each other over those words I had said to him in that room upstairs.
So the said Bandinello began to speak and said: "My lord, when I uncovered my Hercules and Cacus, certainly I believe that more than a hundred wretched sonnets were made about me, which said the worst that can be imagined in the world by that vile mob." Then I answered and said: "My lord, when our Michelangelo Buonarroti uncovered his Sacristy, where so many beautiful figures were seen, this admirable and skilled School, the friend of truth and of good, made more than a hundred sonnets about it, each vying with the other to see who could say best of it: and just as Bandinello's work deserved all the ill he says was said of it, so Buonarroti's deserved all the good that was said of it."
At these words of mine Bandinello came into such a rage that he burst, and turned on me and said: "And what fault would you know how to find with it?" "I will tell you if you have patience enough to be able to listen to me." He said: "Now say on." The Duke and the others who were there all stood attentive. I began and first said: "Know that it grieves me to have to tell you the faults of that work of yours, but it is not I who will tell you such things, rather I will tell you everything that this most skilled School says." And because this wretched man now said something disagreeable and now made gestures with his hands and with his feet, he made me come into such anger that I began in a far more disagreeable fashion than, if he had behaved otherwise, I would have done:
"This skilled School says that if Hercules' hair were shorn off, there would not be skull enough left to hold his brains in; and that as for that face of his, it cannot be told whether it is a man's or a lion-ox's; and that it is not attending to what it is doing, and that it is badly stuck on the neck, with so little art and with so little grace that worse was never seen; and that those wretched shoulders of his are like the two saddlebows of an ass's packsaddle; and that his breasts and the rest of those muscles are not taken from a man, but are taken from a great sack full of melons, set upright and propped against a wall. So the back seems taken from a sack full of long gourds; the two legs, and it cannot be told in what way they are stuck onto that ugly trunk; because it cannot be told on which leg he is resting or on which he is making some show of strength; nor is it seen either that he rests on both, as those masters who know something have sometimes been used to do; it is plainly seen that it falls forward more than a third of a braccio: which alone is the greatest and the most unbearable error made by those wretched twopenny masters of the common sort. Of the arms they say that they are both of them stretched down without any grace, nor is any art seen in them, as if you had never seen living naked bodies, and that Hercules' right leg and Cacus's share the calves of their legs between them; so that if one of the two were to move away from the other, not only one of them, but both of them would be left without calves on the side where they touch; and they say that one of Hercules' feet is buried, and that the other seems to have a fire under it."
This man could not stand still enough to have patience for me to tell the great faults of the Cacus as well; one reason being that I was telling the truth, the other that I was making it plainly known to the Duke and to the others who were present with us, who made the greatest signs and gestures of wonder and of knowing then that I was telling the very truth. All at once this wretched man said: "Ah, wicked tongue, and where do you leave my draughtsmanship?" I said that whoever drew well could never work badly — "so I shall believe that your draughtsmanship is like your works." Now, seeing those ducal faces and the others, who were tearing him to pieces with their looks and with their gestures, he let himself be too much overcome by his insolence, and turning on me with that most ugly face of his, all at once he said to me: "Oh, hold your tongue, you filthy sodomite."
The Duke at that word knitted his brows sharply at him, and the others closed their mouths and frowned at him. I, who felt myself so wickedly insulted, driven by fury, and all at once, ran for a remedy and said: "You madman, you go outside all bounds: but would to God that I knew how to practise so noble an art, because we read that Jove practised it with Ganymede in paradise, and here on earth the greatest emperors and the greatest kings of the world practise it. I am a low and humble little man, who neither could nor would know how to meddle with so marvellous a thing." At this nobody could contain himself, and the Duke and the others raised the greatest roar of laughter that can be imagined in the world.
And although I showed myself so pleasant, know, kind readers, that inside my heart was bursting, considering that a man, the filthiest villain that was ever born into the world, should be so bold, in the presence of so great a prince, as to say to me so great and so gross an insult; but know that he insulted the Duke and not me; because, if I had been out of so great a presence, I would have struck him down dead.
Seeing, this filthy clumsy rascal, that the laughter of those lords did not stop, he began, to turn them aside from so much mockery of him, to start on a new subject, saying: "This Benvenuto goes about boasting that I have promised him a marble." At these words I said at once: "What! did you not send to tell me by Francesco di Matteo the smith, your workman, that if I wanted to work in marble, you wanted to give me a marble? And I have accepted it, and I want it." Then he said: "Oh, reckon that you will never have it." At once I, who was full of rage over the unjust insults said to me before, having lost my reason and being blinded by the presence of the Duke, said in great fury: "I tell you expressly that if you do not send me the marble as far as my house, look for another world, because in this one I will let the wind out of you in any case." At once, realizing that I was in the presence of so great a Duke, I turned humbly to His Excellency and said: "My lord, one madman makes a hundred; the madnesses of this man had made me lose sight of the glory of Your most illustrious Excellency and of myself; so forgive me."
Then the Duke said to Bandinello: "Is it true that you promised him the marble?" The said Bandinello said that it was true. The Duke said to me: "Go to the Cathedral Works, and take one to your liking." I said that he had promised to send it to me at my house. The words were terrible; and I would not have it in any other way. The next morning a marble was brought me at home; and I asked who was sending it me: and they said that Bandinello was sending it me, and that this was the marble he had promised me.
At once I had it carried into the workshop and began to chisel it; and while I worked, I was making the model: and so great was the wish I had to work in marble that I could not wait to settle on making a model with that judgment such an art requires. And because I heard it all creaking, I repented several times of ever having begun to work at it: still I got out of it what I could, which is the Apollo and Hyacinth, which can still be seen unfinished in my workshop. And while I was working at it, the Duke came to my house, and often said to me: "Leave the bronze alone a little and work a little in marble, so that I may see you." At once I took up the marble tools, and worked away with confidence. The Duke asked me about the model I had made for the said marble; to whom I said: "My lord, this marble is all cracked, but in spite of it I shall get something out of it; so I could not settle on a model, but I shall go on doing the best I can."
With great speed the Duke had a piece of Greek marble brought me from Rome, so that I might restore his antique Ganymede, which was the cause of the said quarrel with Bandinello. When the Greek marble came, I considered that it was a pity to make pieces of it to make the head and the arms and the other things for the Ganymede; and I provided myself with other marble, and for that piece of Greek marble I made a little model in wax, to which I gave the name Narcissus. And because this marble had two holes which went in more than a quarter of a braccio deep and were two good fingers wide, for this reason I made the attitude that is seen, to defend myself from those holes, so that I had got them out of my figure. But those many tens of years in which the rain had fallen on it, because those holes were always left full of water, the water had penetrated so far that the said marble was weakened; and as it were rotten in that part of the upper hole; and it showed itself afterwards, when there came that great flood of the Arno, which rose in my workshop more than a braccio and a half. And because the said Narcissus was set on a square of wood, the said water made it turn over, on account of which it broke across the breast, and I fastened it together again; and so that that crack of the joining should not be seen, I made it that garland of flowers which is seen that it has on its breast; and I went on finishing it at certain hours before daybreak, or truly on holidays, only so as not to lose time from my work of the Perseus.
And because one morning among others I was fitting up certain little chisels of mine to work at it, a very fine splinter of steel shot into my right eye; and it had gone so far inside the pupil that in no way could it be got out. I thought for certain that I should lose the sight of that eye. At the end of several days I called Master Raffaello de' Pilli, a surgeon, who took two live pigeons, and making me lie on my back on a table, he took the said pigeons and with a little knife pierced a small vein they have in their wings, so that the blood ran down into my eye; by which blood I at once felt myself relieved and in the space of two days the splinter of steel came out and I was left free and improved in my sight. And when the feast of Saint Lucy came, which we were within three days of, I made an eye of gold out of a French scudo, and had it presented to her by one of my six nieces, daughters of Liperata my sister, who was about ten years old, and with it I thanked God and Saint Lucy; and for a while I would not work on the said Narcissus, but carried the Perseus forward with the difficulties spoken of above, and I had made up my mind to finish it and go off with God.
Having cast the Medusa, and it having come out well, with great hope I brought my Perseus, which I had in wax, to its finish, and I promised myself that it would come out for me as well in bronze as the said Medusa had done. And because, seeing it well finished in wax, it showed itself so beautiful that (the Duke seeing it in that state and it seeming beautiful to him; whether it was that somebody had given the Duke to believe that it could not come out so in bronze, or that the Duke imagined it of himself; and coming to the house more often than he used to) once among other times he said to me: "Benvenuto, this figure cannot come out for you in bronze, because the art does not promise you so much."
At these words of His Excellency I was greatly offended, saying: "My lord, I see that Your most illustrious Excellency has this very little faith in me: and this I believe comes because Your most illustrious Excellency believes too much those who say so much ill of me, or truly you do not understand these things." He hardly let me finish my words before he said: "I make profession of understanding them, and I understand them very well." I answered at once and said: "Yes, like a Lord, and not like an artist; because if Your most illustrious Excellency understood them in the way you believe you understand them, you would believe me by means of the fine bronze head I made you, so large, the portrait of Your most illustrious Excellency, which has been sent to Elba, and by means of my having restored for you the fine marble Ganymede with such extreme difficulty, in which I have endured much greater labour than if I had made the whole of it new; and again by my having cast the Medusa, which is to be seen here in Your Excellency's presence: a cast so difficult that in it I have done what no other man ever did before me, in this devilish art.
"See, my lord: I have made the furnace new, in a way different from other men's; because I, besides many other differences and skilful contrivances that are seen in it, have made two outlets in it for the bronze, because this difficult and twisted figure could not in any other way possibly have come out; and only by these understandings of mine has it come out so well, which thing none of these practised men of this art ever believed. And know, my lord, for a certainty, that all the great and most difficult works I made in France under that most marvellous King Francis, all of them came out for me very well, only because of the great courage that good King always gave me with those great allowances, and in satisfying me with as many workmen as I asked for; there were times when I made use of more than forty workmen, all of my own choosing; and for these reasons I made you such a quantity of works in so short a time. Now, my lord, believe me and help me with the help I need, because I hope to bring to an end a work that will please you; whereas, if Your most illustrious Excellency casts down my spirit and does not give me the help I need, it is impossible that either I or any man in the world should ever make anything that would be good."
With great difficulty the Duke stood listening to these arguments of mine, for he kept turning now one way and now another; and I in despair, poor wretch, having remembered the fine state I had in France, was afflicting myself so. All at once the Duke said: "Now tell me, Benvenuto, how is it possible that that fine head of the Medusa, which is up there on high in the hand of the Perseus, can ever come out?" At once I said: "Now see, my lord, that if Your most illustrious Excellency had that knowledge of the art which you say you have, you would not be afraid for that fine head you speak of, that it should not come out; but you would rightly have to be afraid for this right foot, which is down here so far off."
At these words of mine the Duke, half angry, at once turned to certain lords who were with His most illustrious Excellency and said: "I believe this Benvenuto does it out of a know-all habit of contradicting everything;" and at once turning to me half in mockery, at which all those who were present did the same, he began to say: "I will have patience enough with you to listen to what reason you will be able to think up to give me, so that I may believe it." Then I said: "I will give you a reason so true that Your Excellency will be quite convinced by it;" and I began: "Know, my lord, that the nature of fire is to go upwards, and for this I promise you that that head of the Medusa will come out very well; but because the nature of fire is not to go downwards, and one has to force it down six braccia by strength of art, for this living reason I tell Your most illustrious Excellency that it is impossible that that foot should come out; but it will be easy for me to make it again."
The Duke said: "Oh why did you not think that that foot should come out in the way you say the head will come out?" I said: "It would have been necessary to make the furnace much larger, where I could have made a branch for the pouring, as thick as my leg, and with that weight of hot metal I would have forced it to go there, whereas my branch, which goes as far as the feet those six braccia I speak of, is not thicker than two fingers. Still, it was not worth the price; for it will easily be put right. But when my mould is more than half full, as I hope, from that middle upwards, the fire rising according to its nature, this head of the Perseus and that of the Medusa will come out very well: so be quite certain of it."
When I had said him these fine reasons of mine, with many other endless ones which, so as not to be too long, I do not write down, the Duke, shaking his head, went off with God.
Having given myself confidence out of my own good spirit, and having driven away all those thoughts which presented themselves before me from hour to hour (which often made me weep bitterly and repent of my leaving France, for having come to Florence, my sweet native place, only to give alms to my said six nieces, and for such a good deed I saw myself shown the beginning of so much evil), for all this I certainly promised myself that, on finishing my begun work of the Perseus, all my troubles ought to be turned into the highest pleasure and glorious good.
And so, having got my vigour back, with all my strength, both of my body and of my purse, although little money was left me, I began to procure for myself several stacks of pine wood, which I got from the pine wood of the Seristori, near Montelupo; and while I was waiting for it, I clothed my Perseus with those clays which I had prepared several months before, so that they should have their proper seasoning. And when I had made its coat of clay, which is called a coat in the art, and had very well armed it and girded it about with irons with great diligence, I began with a slow fire to draw out the wax, which came out through many vents I had made, since the more of them one makes, the better the moulds fill.
And when I had finished getting the wax out, I made a sleeve round my Perseus, that is round the said mould, of bricks, weaving one over the other, and I left a great many spaces, where the fire could better exhale: then I began to put wood in it, quite gently, and I kept fire on it two days and two nights continually; so that, all the wax having been got out of it, and the said mould having afterwards been very well baked, I at once began to empty out the pit to bury my mould in, with all those fine methods that the fine art commands us. When I had finished emptying out the said pit, then I took my mould, and by strength of windlasses and of good ropes I carefully set it upright; and having hung it a braccio above the level of my furnace, having got it very well upright so that it hung exactly in the middle of its pit, very gently I let it come down right to the bottom of the furnace, and it settled with all the care that can be imagined in the world.
And when I had done this fine labour, I began to pack it round with the same earth I had taken out of it; and as I raised the earth, I put in its vents, which were little pipes of baked clay that are used for sinks and other like things. As soon as I saw that I had it very well firm, and that that way of packing it with putting those pipes properly in their places, and that those workmen of mine had well understood my method, which was very different from that of all the other masters of such a profession; being sure that I could trust them, I turned to my furnace, which I had had filled with many pigs of copper and other pieces of bronze; and having arranged them one over another in the way the art shows us, that is raised up, making a way for the flames of the fire, so that the said metal takes its heat sooner and with it melts and reduces itself to a bath, so with good spirit I said that they should set fire to the said furnace.
And putting in that pine wood, which by reason of that unctuousness of the resin the pine makes, and because my little furnace was so well made, it worked so well that I was forced to run now to one side and now to another with such labour that it was unbearable for me; and still I forced myself on. And in addition it came upon me that fire caught in the workshop, and we were afraid that the roof would fall on us; on the other side, towards the garden, the sky drove so much water and wind at me that it was cooling my furnace.
So, fighting with these perverse accidents several hours, the labour forced me so much more than my strong constitution could stand up to, so that an intermittent fever leapt on me, the greatest that can be imagined in the world, on account of which I was forced to go and throw myself into bed. And so, very discontented, being forced to go, I turned to all those who were helping me, who were about ten or more, among masters of bronze casting and labourers and countrymen and my own particular workmen of the shop; among whom was one Bernardino Mannellini of the Mugello, whom I had brought up several years; and to him I said, after commending myself to them all: "See, my dear Bernardino, observe the order I have shown you, and be as quick as you can, because the metal will soon be ready: you cannot go wrong, and these other honest men will quickly make the channels, and you can confidently with these two iron rods strike into the two plugs, and I am certain that my mould will fill very well. I feel the greatest illness that I ever felt since I came into the world, and I certainly believe that in a few hours this great illness will have killed me." So, very discontented, I left them, and went off to bed.
When I had got into bed, I ordered my maidservants to carry food and drink into the workshop for everybody; and I said to them: "I shall never be alive tomorrow morning." They still gave me courage, telling me that my great illness would pass off, and that it had come on me from too much labour. So I stayed two hours in this great struggle with the fever; and continually I felt it growing, and I kept saying: "I feel myself dying." My maidservant, who managed the whole house, whose name was Monna Fiore of Castel del Rio: this woman was the ablest that was ever born and as much the kindest, and continually she scolded me for having lost heart, and on the other hand she showed me the greatest kindnesses of service that can ever be done in the world. Still, seeing me with such an immeasurable illness and so dismayed, for all her brave heart she could not keep some quantity of tears from falling from her eyes; and yet she took care as much as she could that I should not see them.
Being in these immeasurable tribulations, I see coming into my room a certain man, who in his person showed himself twisted like a capital S; and he began to say with a certain sound of voice, mournful, afflicted, like those who give the commendation of the soul to men who are going to execution, and he said: "Oh Benvenuto! your work is spoiled, and there is no remedy for it in the world." As soon as I heard the words of that wretch, I let out a cry so immeasurable that it would have been heard from the heaven of fire; and getting out of bed I took my clothes and began to dress; and to the maidservants and my boy and everybody who came near me to help me, I gave either kicks or blows, and I lamented, saying: "Ah, traitors, envious men! This is a treachery done by design; but I swear by God that I shall find it out very well, and before I die I will leave such a proof of myself in the world that more than one man will be left wondering."
When I had finished dressing, I set off in a bad state of mind towards the workshop, where I saw all those people, whom I had left with so much confidence, all standing astonished and dismayed. I began, and said: "Now then, listen to me, and since you have either not known how or not chosen to obey me in the way I taught you, obey me now that I am with you in the presence of my work; and let nobody set himself against me, because cases of this kind need help and not advice." At these words of mine a certain Master Alessandro Lastricati answered me and said: "See, Benvenuto, you want to set about an undertaking which the art never promises, nor can it be done in any way." At these words I turned with such fury and so bent on mischief that he and all the others, all with one voice said: "Come, give your orders, for we will all help you as much as you can order us, as long as we can hold out with our lives." And these affectionate words I think they said thinking that I should soon fall down dead.
At once I went to look at the furnace, and saw the metal all curdled, which thing is called having made a cake. I told two labourers to go across the way, to the house of Il Capretta the butcher, for a stack of wood of young oaks, which had been dry more than a year, which wood Madonna Ginevra, the said Capretta's wife, had offered me; and when the first armfuls came, I began to fill the ash pit. And because oak of that kind makes the most vigorous fire of all the other kinds of wood, whereas alder or pine wood is used for melting for artillery, because it is a mild fire; oh, when that cake began to feel that terrible fire, it began to clear itself, and to flash. On the other side I pressed on with the channels, and I had sent others onto the roof to keep off the fire, which by the greater force of that fire had caught the more; and on the garden side I had had certain boards set up and other carpets and cloths, which sheltered me from the water.
Then, when I had given a remedy for all these great furies, in the loudest voice I said now to this man and now to that: "Bring here, take away there;" so that, seeing the said cake beginning to liquefy, all that company obeyed me with such willingness that every one of them did the work of three. Then I had a half loaf of tin taken, which weighed about 60 pounds, and I threw it on the cake inside the furnace, which, with the other helps both of wood and of stirring now with irons and now with poles, in a short space of time became liquid. Now, seeing that I had brought a dead man back to life, against the belief of all those ignorant people, such vigour came back to me that I did not notice whether I had any fever any more or any fear of death.
All at once a noise is heard with a very great flash of fire, so that it seemed exactly as if a thunderbolt had been created there in our presence; at which unaccustomed and fearful fright everybody was dismayed, and I more than the others. When that great noise and brightness had passed, we began to look one another in the face again; and seeing that the lid of the furnace had burst and had lifted so that the bronze was spilling out, at once I had the mouths of my mould opened and at the same time had the two plugs struck.
And seeing that the metal did not run with that quickness it usually did, knowing that the cause perhaps was that the alloy had been consumed by the strength of that terrible fire, I had all my plates and bowls and dishes of tin taken, which were about two hundred, and one by one I put them in front of my channels, and part of them I had thrown into the furnace; so that, everybody seeing that my bronze had become very well liquid, and that my mould was filling, they all helped me and obeyed me spiritedly and cheerfully; and I, now here and now there, gave orders, helped, and said: "Oh God, You who by Your immense powers rose again from the dead, and gloriously ascended to heaven!" so that in a moment my mould filled; on account of which I knelt down and with all my heart thanked God for it; then I turned to a dish of salad which was there on a poor bench, and with great appetite I ate and drank together with all that company; then I went off to bed sound and cheerful, because it was two hours before day; and as if I had never had any illness in the world, so sweetly I rested.
That good maidservant of mine, without my saying anything to her, had provided me with a fat little capon; so that, when I got out of bed, which was near the dinner hour, she came to meet me cheerfully, saying: "Oh, is this the man who felt himself dying? I believe that those blows and kicks you gave us last night, when you were so furious, that with that devilish fury you seemed to have, that so immeasurable fever of yours, perhaps frightened that you might give it some too, took itself off in flight."
And so all my poor little household, freed from so much terror and from such immeasurable labours, at once sent out to buy, in place of those tin plates and bowls, as many earthenware dishes, and we all dined cheerfully, and I never remember in my life either dining with greater gladness or with a better appetite. After dinner all those who had helped me came to find me, who cheerfully rejoiced together, thanking God for everything that had happened, and saying that they had learned and seen done things which were held impossible by the other masters. I too, somewhat boastful, thinking myself a little bit clever, gloried in it; and putting my hand in my purse, I paid and satisfied them all.
That bad man, my mortal enemy, Messer Pier Francesco Riccio, the Duke's majordomo, with great diligence tried to find out how the thing had gone; so that those two men, whom I had suspected of having made that cake for me, told him that I was not a man, but rather I was an out-and-out great devil, because I had done what the art could not do; with so many other great things, which would have been too much for a devil. Since they said far more than what had happened, perhaps as an excuse for themselves, the said majordomo wrote it at once to the Duke, who was at Pisa, in still more terrible terms and fuller of greater marvels than they had told him.
Having let my cast work cool for two days, I began to uncover it very gently; and I found, first of all, the head of the Medusa, which had come out very well by virtue of the vents, as I said to the Duke that the nature of fire is to go upwards; then I went on to uncover the rest, and found the other head, that is the Perseus's, which had likewise come out very well; and this gave me much more wonder, because as is seen, it is a good deal lower than that of the Medusa. And because the mouths of the said work had been set on the top of the Perseus's head and by the shoulders, I found that at the end of the said head of the Perseus exactly all the bronze that was in my furnace had come to an end. And it was a marvellous thing that there was nothing at all left over from the pouring mouths, nor was anything wanting either; which gave me such wonder that it really seemed to be a miraculous thing, truly guided and handled by God.
I went on happily to finish uncovering it, and always found everything come out very well, until we got to the foot of the right leg that rests, where I found the heel come out; and going on, I saw it to be all full, so that on one side I greatly rejoiced and on the other I was half sorry, only because I had told the Duke that it could not come out. So, finishing uncovering it, I found that the toes of the said foot had not come out, and not only the toes, but there was a little wanting above the toes, so that nearly half of it was missing; and although it gave me that little extra labour, I was very glad of it, only to show the Duke that I understood what I was doing. And although a great deal more of that foot had come out than I had thought, the cause of it had been that from the said many various accidents the metal had been hotter than the rule of the art allows; and also from my having had to help it with the alloy in the way that has been said, with those tin plates, a thing that has never been used by anybody else.
Now, having seen my work come out so well, I went off at once to Pisa to find my Duke; who gave me as gracious a welcome as can be imagined in the world; and the Duchess did the same; and although that majordomo of theirs had told them the whole of it, it seemed to their Excellencies another and a more stupendous and marvellous thing to hear it told by me in my own voice; and when I came to that foot of the Perseus, which had not come out, as I had told His most illustrious Excellency beforehand, I saw him fill with wonder, and he told the Duchess of it, just as I had told him beforehand. Now, seeing those lords of mine so pleasant towards me, I then begged the Duke to let me go as far as Rome. So he kindly gave me leave, and told me to come back quickly to finish his Perseus, and made me letters of recommendation to his ambassador, who was Averardo Serristori: and it was the first years of Pope Julius del Monte.
Before I left, I gave orders to my workmen to go on in the way I had shown them. And the reason why I went was that, having made for Bindo d'Antonio Altoviti a portrait of his head, as large as life, in bronze, and having sent it to him as far as Rome, he had put this portrait of his in a study of his, which was very richly adorned with antiques and other fine things; but the said study was not made for sculptures, nor for paintings either, because the windows came below the said fine works, so that, those sculptures and paintings having their light the wrong way, they did not show well, in the way they would have done if they had had their reasonable lights.
One day the said Bindo happened to be at his door, and Michelangelo Buonarroti the sculptor passing by, he begged him to be so good as to come into his house to see a study of his; and so he took him in. As soon as he had gone in, and seen it, he said: "Who has been the master who has portrayed you so well and in so fine a manner? And know that that head pleases me as much as, and somewhat better than, those antiques do; and yet there are good ones among them that are seen here; and if these windows were above them, as they are below them, they would show themselves so much better, that that portrait of yours among these many fine works would do itself great honour."
As soon as the said Michelangelo had left the said Bindo's house, he wrote me a most pleasant letter which ran thus: "My Benvenuto, I have known you these many years for the greatest goldsmith that ever there was any notice of; and now I shall know you for a sculptor of the same kind. Know that Messer Bindo Altoviti took me to see a head, his portrait, in bronze, and told me that it was from your hand; I had much pleasure in it; but it grieved me much that it was put in a bad light, for if it had its reasonable light, it would show itself the fine work that it is."
This letter was full of the most affectionate words and the most favourable towards me: so that before I left to go to Rome, I had shown it to the Duke, who read it with much affection, and said to me: "Benvenuto, if you write to him and make him want to come back to Florence, I would make him one of the Forty-Eight." So I wrote him a most affectionate letter, and in it I told him on the Duke's behalf a hundred times more than I had had orders for; and so as not to make a mistake, I showed it to the Duke before I sealed it, and said to His most illustrious Excellency: "My lord, I have perhaps promised him too much." He answered and said: "He deserves more than you have promised him, and I will perform more than that for him." To that letter of mine Michelangelo never made any answer, on account of which the Duke showed himself very much displeased with him.
Now, when I had got to Rome, I went to lodge in the house of the said Bindo Altoviti: he at once told me how he had shown his bronze portrait to Michelangelo, and how he had praised it so much; so we talked about this at great length. But because he had in his hands twelve hundred gold scudi in gold of mine, which the said Bindo had kept for me along with five thousand of the same, which he had lent to the Duke, four thousand of which were his and mine were in his name, he gave me that profit of my share which came to me; which was the reason why I set about making him the said portrait. And because, when the said Bindo saw it in wax, he sent me a present of 50 gold scudi by one Ser Giuliano Paccalli a notary of his, who lived with him, which money I would not take and sent back by the same man, and afterwards I said to the said Bindo: "It is enough for me that you keep that money of mine alive; and that it earns me something" — I noticed that he had a bad mind towards me, because instead of making a fuss of me, as he was used to do, he showed himself stiff towards me; and although he kept me in the house, he never showed himself openly to me, but stayed sulky. Still with few words we settled it: I lost my workmanship on that portrait of his and the bronze too, and we came to terms that he should keep that money of mine at 15 per cent for my natural life.
First of all I had gone to kiss the Pope's feet; and while I was talking with the Pope, there came up Messer Averardo Serristori, who was our Duke's ambassador; and because I had started certain discussions with the Pope, by which I believe I should easily have come to terms with him and would gladly have gone back to Rome because of the great difficulties I had in Florence; but I noticed that the said ambassador had worked against it.
I went to find Michelangelo Buonarroti and repeated to him that letter which from Florence I had written him on the Duke's behalf. He answered me that he was employed on the fabric of Saint Peter's, and that for that reason he could not leave. Then I told him that, since he had settled on the model of the said building, he could leave his Urbino, who would obey very well when he gave him his orders; and I added many other words of promise, saying them on the Duke's behalf. He at once looked at me fixedly, and sneering said: "And how are you content with him?" Although I said that I was most content, and that I was very well treated, he showed that he knew most of my troubles; and so he answered me that it would be difficult to be able to leave. Then I added that he would do better to go back to his own country, which was governed by a most just Lord and the greatest lover of the arts of any lord that was ever born into the world.
As I have said above, he had with him a workman of his who was from Urbino, who had been with him many years and had served him more as a boy and a servant than as anything else: and one could see why, for the said man had learned nothing of the art; and because I had pressed Michelangelo with so many good arguments that he did not know what to say on the spot, he turned to his Urbino in a way of asking him what he thought about it. This Urbino of his at once, in a boorish way of his, in a very loud voice said this: "I never mean to part from my Messer Michelangelo, until either I skin him or he skins me." At these foolish words I was forced to laugh, and without saying goodbye to him, with my shoulders down I turned and went away.
After I had done my business so badly with Bindo Altoviti, by losing my bronze head and by giving him my money for my life, I was clear about what sort of thing the faith of merchants is, and so, discontented, I went back to Florence. At once I went to the Palace to visit the Duke; and His most illustrious Excellency was at Castello, above the Ponte a Rifredi. I found in the Palace Messer Pier Francesco Riccio, the majordomo, and when I wanted to come up to him to make the usual ceremonies, at once with immeasurable astonishment he said: "Oh, you are back!" and with the same astonishment, clapping his hands, he said: "The Duke is at Castello;" and turning his back on me he went off. I could neither know nor imagine why that beast had made those gestures.
At once I went off to Castello, and having gone into the garden, where the Duke was, I saw him from a distance, and when he saw me, he made a sign of being astonished, and let me know that I should go away. I, who had promised myself that His Excellency would make me the same caresses and greater still than he had made me when I went, now seeing so great an oddity, went back to Florence very discontented; and having taken up my business again, pressing on to bring my work to an end, I could not imagine from what such an accident could come: except that, noticing the way Messer Sforza and certain others of those closest to the Duke looked at me, the wish came on me to ask Messer Sforza what this meant; who, smiling, said: "Benvenuto, attend to being an honest man, and do not trouble about anything else."
A few days later I was given the chance of speaking to the Duke, and he made me certain clouded caresses and asked me what was being done in Rome: so as best I knew how I struck up a conversation, and told him of the head I had made in bronze for Bindo Altoviti, with all that had followed. I noticed that he stood listening to me with great attention: and I told him likewise the whole of the business of Michelangelo Buonarroti. At which he showed some indignation; and at the words of his Urbino, of that skinning he had spoken of, he laughed heartily; then he said: "So much the worse for him;" and I went away.
Certainly that Ser Pier Francesco, the majordomo, must have done me some ill office with the Duke, which did not succeed for him: for God, the lover of truth, defended me, as He has always up to this age of mine saved me from so many immeasurable dangers, and I hope He will save me until the end of this life of mine, troubled though it is; still I go forward, only by His power, with good spirit, and no fury of fortune or of perverse stars frightens me: only let God keep me in His grace.
Now hear a terrible thing that happened, most pleasant reader. With all the diligence I knew and could, I attended to bringing my work to an end, and in the evening I went to sit up in the Duke's wardrobe, helping those goldsmiths who worked there for His most illustrious Excellency; for most of those works they made were from my designs: and because I saw that the Duke took great pleasure both in seeing the work go on and in chatting with me, it also suited me to go there sometimes by day.
Being one day among others in the said wardrobe, the Duke came as usual and much more willingly, His most illustrious Excellency knowing that I was there; and as soon as he arrived he began to talk with me about many different and most pleasant things, and I answered him to the purpose, and I had so charmed him that he showed himself more pleasant to me than he had ever shown himself in the past. All at once one of his secretaries appeared, who, speaking in His Excellency's ear, since it was perhaps a matter of much importance, at once the Duke rose and went off into another room with the said secretary.
And because the Duchess had sent to see what His most illustrious Excellency was doing, the page said to the Duchess: "The Duke is talking and laughing with Benvenuto, and is in a thoroughly good humour." Hearing this, the Duchess at once came into the wardrobe and, not finding the Duke there, sat down beside us; and having watched us work a while, with great pleasantness she turned to me and showed me a string of large pearls, and truly very rare ones, and asking me what I thought of them, I told her that it was a very beautiful thing. Then Her most illustrious Excellency said to me: "I want the Duke to buy it for me; so, my Benvenuto, praise it to the Duke as much as you know and can in the world."
At these words I, with as much reverence as I knew, opened myself to the Duchess, and said: "My lady, I thought this string of pearls was Your most illustrious Excellency's; and because reason does not allow anybody ever to say certain things, once I know it is not Your most illustrious Excellency's, it falls to me to say them, and indeed it is necessary for me to say them; let Your most illustrious Excellency know that, this being very much my profession, I see in these pearls a great many defects, on account of which I would never advise Your Excellency to buy it." At these words of mine she said: "The merchant lets me have it for six thousand scudi: for if it had not one or two of those little defects, it would be worth more than twelve thousand." Then I said that even if that string were of altogether infinite goodness, I would never advise anybody to go as high as five thousand scudi; because pearls are not jewels; pearls are a fish bone and in the space of time they fail; but diamonds, and rubies and emeralds do not grow old, and sapphires: these four are jewels, and it is these one should buy.
At these words of mine, the Duchess, somewhat scornful, said to me: "I have a mind now for these pearls, and so I beg you to take them to the Duke, and praise them as much as you can and know in the world; and although you may seem to yourself to be telling some few lies, tell them to do me a service; for it will be good for you." I, who have always been the greatest friend of truth and the enemy of lies, and being under necessity, since I did not want to lose the favour of so great a princess, so, discontented, took those cursed pearls, and went with them into that other room, where the Duke had withdrawn. Who, as soon as he saw me, said: "Oh Benvenuto, what are you doing?" Uncovering those pearls, I said: "My lord, I come to show you a most beautiful string of pearls, most rare and truly worthy of Your most illustrious Excellency; and for eighty pearls, I do not believe that so many were ever put together that would show better in a string; so buy them, my lord, for they are miraculous." At once the Duke said: "I do not want to buy them, because they are not those pearls nor of that goodness you say, and I have seen them, and they do not please me." Then I said: "Forgive me, my lord, for these pearls exceed in infinite beauty all the pearls that were ever set in a string."
The Duchess had got up, and was standing behind a door and heard everything I said; so that, when I had said more than a thousand things beyond what I write, the Duke turned to me with a kindly look, and said to me: "Oh my Benvenuto, I know that you understand these things very well: and if these pearls were of those many rare virtues you attribute to them, it would not seem a hardship to me to buy them, both to please the Duchess and to have them; because things of this kind are necessary to me, not so much for the Duchess as for my other affairs of my sons and daughters." And I at these words of his, since I had begun to tell lies, went on telling them with still greater boldness, giving them the greatest colour of truth, so that the Duke should believe me, trusting the Duchess to help me when the time came. And because more than two hundred scudi would have come to me for making such a bargain, and the Duchess had hinted at it to me, I had made up my mind and disposed myself not to take a soldo of it, only for my own safety, so that the Duke should never think I did it out of greed.
Again the Duke with the most pleasant words went on to say to me: "I know that you understand these things very well: so if you are that honest man that I have always thought you to be, now tell me the truth." Then, my eyes reddening and becoming somewhat wet with tears, I said: "My lord, if I tell the truth to Your most illustrious Excellency, the Duchess becomes my mortal enemy, on account of which I shall be forced to go off with God, and the honour of my Perseus, which I have promised to this most noble School of Your most illustrious Excellency, my enemies will at once bring to shame; so I commend myself to Your most illustrious Excellency."
The Duke, having realized that everything I had said had been said as it were by force, said: "If you have faith in me, do not fear anything in the world." Again I said: "Alas, my lord, how can it be that the Duchess should know nothing of it?" At these words of mine the Duke raised his hand in pledge and said: "Reckon that you have buried them in a little casket of diamonds." At these honourable words, I at once told the truth of what I understood about those pearls, and that they were not worth much more than two thousand scudi.
The Duchess, having heard us grow quiet, because we were speaking as low as can be, came forward, and said: "My lord, of your grace buy me this string of pearls, because I have the greatest wish for it, and your Benvenuto has said that he never saw a finer one." Then the Duke said: "I do not want to buy it." "Why, my lord, will Your Excellency not content me by buying this string of pearls?" "Because it does not please me to throw money away." Again the Duchess said: "Oh, how throw money away, when your Benvenuto, in whom you deservedly have such faith, has told me it is a bargain by more than three thousand scudi?" Then the Duke said: "My lady, my Benvenuto has told me that if I buy it, I shall be throwing my money away, because these pearls are neither round nor equal, and there are a good many old ones among them; and that this is true, now look at this one and this other, and look here and there: so they are not the thing for me."
At these words the Duchess looked at me with the worst possible spirit, and threatening me with her head she went away, so that I was quite tempted to go off with God and vanish out of Italy; but because my Perseus was almost finished, I would not fail to bring it out: but let every man consider in what heavy trouble I found myself. The Duke had ordered his doorkeepers in my presence always to let me go in through the rooms and wherever His Excellency was; and the Duchess had ordered those same men that every time I arrived in that palace, they should drive me away; so that as soon as they saw me, they at once left those doors and drove me away; but they took care that the Duke should not see them, so that if the Duke saw me before those wretches did, either he called me or he made me a sign to come in.
The Duchess called that broker Bernardone, of whose slackness and vile worthlessness she had complained so much to me, and commended herself to him, as she had done to me; who said: "My lady, leave it to me." This great rascal went before the Duke with this string in his hand. The Duke, as soon as he saw it, told him to get out of his sight. Then the said rascal with that ugly voice of his, which he sounded through his ugly ass's nose, said: "Eh! my lord, buy this string for that poor lady, who is dying of longing for it, and cannot live without it." And adding many other foolish gross words of his, and the Duke having grown tired of him, he said to him: "Either get out of my sight, or blow yourself up on the spot." This great rascal, who knew very well what he was doing, because if either by way of blowing himself up or by singing La bella Franceschina he could get the Duke to make that purchase, he won the Duchess's favour and moreover his brokerage, which came to several hundred scudi: and so he blew himself up. The Duke gave him several slaps on those ugly cheeks of his, and to get rid of him he hit him a little harder than he usually did. At these hard blows on those ugly cheeks of his, not only did they turn too red, but the tears came down. With them he began to say: "Eh! my lord, a faithful servant of yours, who tries to do good and is content to bear every sort of unpleasantness, so long as that poor lady is content."
The Duke having grown too tired of this wretched man, both from the slaps and for love of the Duchess, whom His most illustrious Excellency always wished to content, said at once: "Get out of my sight and bad luck to you, and go, make your bargain, for I am content to do everything the lady Duchess wants." Now here one sees the rage of bad fortune against a poor man and the shameful luck that favours a wretch: I lost all the Duchess's favour, which was a good cause for taking the Duke's from me too; and he won that heavy brokerage and their favour: so it is not enough to be an honest and skilled man.
At this time the war of Siena broke out; and the Duke, wanting to fortify Florence, distributed the gates among his sculptors and architects; where to me were assigned the Porta al Prato and the little Arno gate, which is on the meadow where one goes to the mills; to the knight Bandinello the gate of San Frediano; to Pasqualino d'Ancona, the gate of San Pier Gattolini; to Giuliano di Baccio d'Agnolo, the carpenter, the gate of San Giorgio; to Il Particino, the carpenter, the gate of San Niccolò; to Francesco da Sangallo, the sculptor, called Il Margolla, was given the gate of the Croce; and to Giovanbattista, called Il Tasso, was given the gate of the Pinti: and so certain other bastions and gates to various engineers, whom I do not remember and who are not to my purpose either.
The Duke, who has truly always been of good wit, went round his city by himself; and when His most illustrious Excellency had well examined it and made up his mind, he called Lattanzio Gorini, who was a paymaster of his: and because this Lattanzio too took some pleasure in this profession, His most illustrious Excellency had him draw all the ways in which he wanted the said gates fortified, and to each of us he sent his own gate drawn out; so that, seeing the one that fell to me, and it seeming to me that the way was not according to right reason, but rather was thoroughly wrong, at once with this drawing in my hand I went off to find my Duke; and wanting to show His Excellency the defects of that drawing given me, no sooner had I begun to speak than the Duke turned on me furiously, and said: "Benvenuto, in making figures very well I shall yield to you, but in this profession I want you to yield to me; so keep to the drawing I have given you."
To these fierce words I answered as kindly as I knew how in the world and said: "Even in the fine way of making figures, my lord, I have learned from Your most illustrious Excellency; still we have always argued it a little together; so about this fortifying of your city, which matters much more than making figures, I beg Your most illustrious Excellency to be so good as to listen to me, and so, talking it over with Your Excellency, you will be the better able to show me the way I am to serve you." So that, with these most pleasant words of mine, he kindly set about disputing it with me; and when I had shown His most illustrious Excellency with living and clear reasons that in the way he had drawn for me it would not have been good, His Excellency said to me: "Oh go, and make a drawing yourself, and I shall see if it pleases me." So I made two drawings according to the reason of the true way of fortifying those two gates, and took them to him, and having recognized the true from the false, His Excellency pleasantly said to me: "Oh go, and do it your own way, for I am content." Then with great diligence I began.
There was on guard at the Porta al Prato a Lombard captain: this was a man of a terrible robust shape, and with very boorish words; and he was presumptuous and most ignorant. This man at once began to ask me what I meant to do; to whom I pleasantly showed my drawings, and with extreme labour I tried to make him understand the way I meant to take. Now this boorish beast now shook his head, and now he turned this way and now that, often changing the setting of his legs, twisting the moustaches of his beard, which he had very large, and often pulling the fold of his cap down over his eyes, often saying: "By God, a plague on it! I do not understand this business of yours." So that, this beast having become wearisome to me, I said: "Then leave it to me to do, for I do understand it;" and turning my back on him to go about my business, this man began to threaten with his head; and with his left hand, putting it on the pommel of his sword, he made the point of it rise a little, and said: "Ho there, master, you will make me have a quarrel with you to the blood." I turned on him in great anger, because he had made me lose my temper, and said: "It will seem less labour to me to have a quarrel with you than to build this bastion at this gate." In a moment we both put our hands on our swords, and we did not draw them right out before there came up a number of honest men, both of our Florentines and other courtiers; and most of them shouted at him, telling him that he was in the wrong, and that I was a man to give him a good account of himself, and that if the Duke knew it, it would go hard with him. So he went about his business: and I began my bastion.
And when I had given the orders for the said bastion, I went to the other little Arno gate, where I found a captain from Cesena, the most courteous and gallant man I ever knew of that profession: he seemed to be a gentle young lady, and at need he was one of the bravest men and the most deadly that can be imagined. This gentleman watched me so closely that many times he made me shy: he wanted to understand and I pleasantly showed him: it is enough that we vied with each other as to who could make the greater fuss of the other, so that I made this bastion a great deal better than that one.
Having nearly finished my bastions, certain of Piero Strozzi's people having made a raid, the countryside of Prato had been so frightened that everything was being moved out of it, and for this reason all the carts of that district came loaded, everybody carrying his goods into the city. And because the carts touched one another, and there were a very great number of them, seeing such a disorder, I told the guards of the gates to see that at that gate there should not be a disorder such as happened at the gates of Turin; for if there were need to make use of the portcullis, it could not do its office, because it would be left hanging on one of those carts. Hearing these words of mine, that great beast of a captain turned on me with insulting words, and I answered him as much; so that we came nearer to doing far worse than that first time: still we were parted; and I, having finished my bastions, unexpectedly got several scudi, which came in useful to me, and I gladly went back to finish my Perseus.
In these days certain antiques having been found in the district of Arezzo, among which was the Chimera, which is that bronze lion which is seen in the rooms next to the great hall of the Palace; and together with the said Chimera a quantity of small statuettes had been found, also of bronze, which were covered with earth and rust, and each of them was missing either the head or the hands or the feet; the Duke took pleasure in cleaning them up himself with certain little goldsmith's chisels. It happened that I had occasion to speak to His most illustrious Excellency; and while I was talking with him, he handed me a small hammer with which I struck those little chisels the Duke held in his hand, and in that way the said little figures were uncovered from the earth and the rust. So, going on for several evenings, the Duke set me to work, where I began to make again those limbs which were missing from the said little figures.
And His Excellency taking so much pleasure in that little bit of those small things, he made me work by day as well, and if I was slow in going there, His most illustrious Excellency sent for me. Several times I let His Excellency know that if I was drawn away from the Perseus by day, several difficulties would follow; and the first, which frightened me most, was that the long time I saw my work was taking should not be the cause of His most illustrious Excellency growing tired of it, as afterwards happened to me; the other was that I had several workmen, and when I was not present, they made two notable troubles. And the first was that they spoiled my work for me, and the other that they worked as little as possible; so that the Duke was content that I should go there only from 24 hours onwards.
And because I had so marvellously sweetened His most illustrious Excellency towards me, that in the evening when I came to him, he always increased his caresses to me. In these days they were building those new rooms towards the Lions; so that His Excellency, wanting to withdraw to a more private place, had had a certain little room fitted up for himself in these newly made rooms, and had ordered me to go through his wardrobe, where I passed secretly over the ceiling of the great hall, and through certain little passages I went most secretly to the said little room: whereas within a few days the Duchess deprived me of it, having all those conveniences of mine shut up; so that every evening when I arrived at the Palace, I had to wait a good while because the Duchess was in those antechambers through which I had to pass, at her privy; and as she was ailing, I never arrived once without disturbing her.
Now for this and for other reasons I had become so wearisome to her that in no way could she bear to see me; and with all this great discomfort and endless unhappiness of mine, I patiently went on going there; and the Duke had given such express orders that as soon as I knocked at those doors, they were opened to me, and without saying anything to me they let me go in everywhere; so that it sometimes happened that, coming in quietly and so unexpectedly through those private rooms, I found the Duchess at her privy; who at once fell out with me with such raging fury that I was frightened, and she always said to me: "When will you ever have finished mending these little figures? for by now this coming of yours has grown too wearisome to me." To whom I answered kindly: "My lady, my only patroness, I desire nothing else but to serve you with faith and with extreme obedience; and because these works, which the Duke has ordered me, will last many months, let Your most illustrious Excellency tell me if you do not want me to come here any more; I will not come in any way and let him call whom he likes; and even if the Duke calls me, I shall say that I feel ill and in no way will I ever come here." At these words of mine she said: "I do not say that you should not come here and I do not say that you should not obey the Duke; but it does seem to me that these works of yours never have an end."
Whether the Duke had got some hint of this, or however it may have been, His Excellency began again: as it came near 24 hours, he sent to call me; and the man who came to call me always said to me: "Take care not to fail to come, for the Duke is waiting for you;" and so I went on, with these same difficulties, several evenings. And one evening among others, coming in as usual, the Duke, who must have been talking with the Duchess about matters perhaps secret, turned on me with the greatest fury in the world; and I, somewhat frightened, wanting to withdraw quickly, all at once he said: "Come in, my Benvenuto, and go over there to your business, and I shall be with you shortly." While I was passing, Signor Don Grazia, a little child of very few years, took me by the cloak and made me the most pleasant little jokes such a baby can make; at which the Duke, wondering, said: "Oh, what a pleasant friendship this is that my children have with you!"
While I was working at these trifles of no moment, the prince and Don Giovanni and Don Ferrando and Don Grazia stood over me all evening, and secretly from the Duke they kept pricking me: so I begged them of their grace to keep still. They answered me, saying: "We cannot." And I said to them: "What cannot be done is not wanted; now go on, then." All at once the Duke and the Duchess broke into laughter.
Another evening, having finished those four little bronze figures which are set in the base, which are Jupiter, Mercury, Minerva, and Danae the mother of Perseus with her little Perseus sitting at her feet, having had them carried into the said room where I worked in the evening, I set them in a row, raised a little above eye level, so that they made a very beautiful sight. Having heard of it, the Duke came somewhat earlier than usual; and because the person who reported it to His most illustrious Excellency must have put it much higher than it was, for he told him: "Better than the ancients," and such like things, my Duke came along together with the Duchess cheerfully talking of nothing but my work; and I at once got up and went to meet them. Who with those ducal and fine welcomes of his raised his right hand, in which he held a bergamot pear, larger than can be seen and most beautiful, and said: "Take this, my Benvenuto, plant this pear in the garden of your house." At those words I pleasantly answered, saying: "Oh my lord, does Your most illustrious Excellency say in earnest that I should plant it in the garden of my house?" Again the Duke said: "In the garden of the house, which is yours; have you understood me?" Then I thanked His Excellency, and the Duchess likewise, with the best ceremonies I knew how to make in the world.
Then they both sat down, opposite the said little figures, and for more than two hours they never talked of anything but the beautiful little figures; so that such an immoderate wish had come on the Duchess that she said to me then: "I do not want these fine little figures to go to waste on that base down in the square, where they would be in danger of being spoiled; rather I want you to arrange them for me in a room of mine, where they will be kept with that reverence their most rare excellence deserves." At these words I set myself against her with endless reasons; and seeing that she had made up her mind that I was not to put them in the base where they are, I waited for the next day and went to the Palace at twenty-two hours; and finding that the Duke and the Duchess had ridden out, having already got my base ready, I had the said little figures carried down, and at once leaded them in, as they were to stay.
Oh! when the Duchess heard of it, such anger grew in her that if it had not been for the Duke, who nobly helped me, I should have fared very badly: and both for that anger about the string of pearls and for this she worked so much that the Duke gave up that little pleasure of his; which was the cause of my not having to go there any more, and at once I went back to those same difficulties as before, as to getting into the Palace.
I went back to the Loggia, where I had already brought the Perseus and was finishing it with the difficulties already spoken of, that is without money, and with other accidents, half of which would have dismayed a man armed in diamonds. Still going on in my usual way, one morning among others, having heard mass at San Piero Scheraggio, there came in front of me Bernardone the broker, that wretched goldsmith, and by the Duke's kindness he was overseer of the mint; and as soon as he was barely outside the door of the church, the swine let go four cracks, which must have been heard from San Miniato. To whom I said: "Ah, swine, coward, ass, is that the sound of your filthy talents?" and I ran for a stick. He quickly withdrew into the mint, and I stood at the crack of my door, and outside I kept a little boy of mine to make me a sign when this swine came out of the mint. Now, having waited a good while, and growing tired of it, and that little anger having settled, considering that blows are not struck on terms, from which some trouble might come, I made up my mind to take my revenge in another way.
And because this happened around the feast of our Saint John, a day or two before it, I made four verses about him, and stuck them up in the corner of the church where people pissed and shat, and they ran like this:
Here lies Bernardone, ass and hog, spy, thief, broker, into whom Pandora poured the greatest evils, and then that great sheep Master Bigoxen Bandinello carried them over from him.
The affair and the verses went round the palace, and the Duke and the Duchess laughed at them; and before he knew of it, a great quantity of people had stopped there, and were making the greatest laughter in the world: and because they looked towards the mint and fixed their eyes on Bernardone, his son Master Baccio, noticing it, at once in great anger tore them down and bit his finger, threatening with that ugly voice of his which comes out through his nose: he made a great show of bluster.
When the Duke heard that all my work of the Perseus could be shown as finished, one day he came to see it and showed by many plain signs that it satisfied him greatly; and turning to certain lords who were with His most illustrious Excellency he said: "Although this work seems very beautiful to us, it has still to please the people; so, my Benvenuto, before you give it its last finish I would like you for love of me to open this front part a little, for half a day, to my Square, to see what the people say of it; because there is no doubt that from seeing it shut in like this to seeing it in the open field, it will show itself in a different way from what it shows shut in as it is."
At these words I said humbly to His most illustrious Excellency: "Know, my lord, that it will show half as well again. Oh, how does Your most illustrious Excellency not remember having seen it in the garden of my house, in which it showed itself so well in such a great width of space that Bandinello came through the garden of the Innocenti to see it, and with all his bad and worst nature, it forced him and he spoke well of it, who never spoke well of anybody in his life? I see that Your most illustrious Excellency believes him too much." At these words of mine, sneering a little scornfully, but still with many pleasant words, he said: "Do it, my Benvenuto, only for a little satisfaction of mine."
And when he had gone, I began to give orders for uncovering it; and because there was still a little gold wanting, and certain varnishes and other such small things which belong to the finish of a work, I muttered scornfully and complained, cursing that accursed day which was the cause of bringing me to Florence; because by now I saw the very great and certain loss I had made by my departure from France, and I could not see or know yet what good I might hope for from this lord of mine in Florence; because from the beginning to the middle and to the end, everything I had done had always been done to my own very damaging disadvantage; and so, discontented, the next day I uncovered it.
Now, as it pleased God, as soon as it was seen, there went up a shout so immeasurable in praise of the said work that this was the cause of consoling me somewhat. And the people never left off continually sticking up papers on the shoulders of the door, which held a little screen, while I gave it its finish. I say that on that same day, on which it was kept uncovered several hours, more than twenty sonnets were stuck up, all in the most immeasurable praise of my work; after I had covered it again, every day there were stuck up on it quantities of sonnets and of Latin verses and Greek verses; because it was vacation time at the University of Pisa, all those most excellent learned men and the scholars vied with one another.
But what gave me the greatest contentment, with hope of my greater welfare with my Duke, was that those of the art, that is sculptors and painters, they too vied as to who could speak best. And among the others, whom I valued most, was the able painter Jacopo da Pontormo, and more than he his excellent Bronzino, the painter, who was not content with having several stuck up there, but sent me some as far as my house by his Sandrino, which said such good things, in that fine way of his, which is very rare, that this was the cause of consoling me somewhat. And so I covered it up again, and pressed on to finish it.
My Duke, although His Excellency had heard of this favour that had been done me over that little glimpse by this most excellent School, said: "I have great pleasure that Benvenuto has had this little contentment, which will be the reason why he will give it its wished-for finish sooner and with more diligence; but let him not think that afterwards, when it is seen wholly uncovered and when it can be seen all round, the people will speak in this way; rather all the defects in it will be discovered, and many will be laid to it that are not there; so let him arm himself with patience."
Now these were Bandinello's words said to the Duke, with which he cited the works of Andrea del Verrocchio, who made that fine Christ and Saint Thomas in bronze, which is seen on the front of Orsanmichele; and he cited many other works, right up to the admirable David of the divine Michelangelo Buonarroti, saying that it did not show well except from the front view; and then he spoke of his Hercules and Cacus and of the endless and shameful sonnets that had been stuck up on it, and he spoke ill of these people. My Duke, who believed him well enough, had prompted him to say those words, and thought for certain that it would in great part turn out that way, because that envious Bandinello never left off speaking ill; and once among many other times, that hangman Bernardone the broker being present, to bear out Bandinello's words, he said to the Duke: "Know, my lord, that making large figures is another kind of soup from making little ones: I do not mean to say that he has not made the little figures very well; but you will see that he will not succeed there." And with these gross words he mixed many others, plying his trade as a spy, in which he mixed a heap of lies.
Now as it pleased my glorious Lord and immortal God, I finished it entirely, and one Thursday morning I uncovered the whole of it. At once, when it was not yet broad day, there gathered such an infinite quantity of people that it would be impossible to tell it, and all with one voice vied with one another as to who could speak best of it. The Duke stood at a low window of the Palace, which is above the door, and so, half hidden inside the window, he heard everything that was said of the said work: and after he had listened several hours, he got up with such heartiness and such contentment that turning to his Messer Sforza he said this: "Sforza, go and find Benvenuto and tell him from me that he has contented me much more than I expected, and tell him that I shall content him in such a way that I will make him wonder; so tell him to be of good cheer."
So the said Messer Sforza did me this glorious errand, which comforted me, both that day for this good news, and because the people pointed me out with their fingers to this man and that, as a marvellous and new thing. Among the others there were two gentlemen, who were sent by the Viceroy of Sicily to our Duke on their business. Now these two pleasant men came at me in the square, since I was pointed out to them as I passed by; so that in a rush they caught me up, and at once, with their caps in their hands, they made me the most ceremonious oration, which would have been too much for a pope: I still humbled myself as much as I could; but they overwhelmed me so much that I began to beg them, of their grace, that we should agree to get out of the square, because the people were stopping to look at me more fixedly than they did at my Perseus.
And in the midst of these ceremonies they were so bold as to ask me to go to Sicily, and that they would make me such terms that I should be content; and they told me how Fra Giovanagnolo of the Servites had made them a fountain full and adorned with many figures, but that they were not of that excellence they saw in the Perseus, and that they had made him rich. I did not let them finish saying all they would have liked to say, for I said to them: "I wonder greatly at you, that you should ask me to leave so great a lord, a lover of the arts more than any other prince that was ever born, and moreover finding myself in my own country, the school of all the greatest arts. Oh! if I had an appetite for great gain, I could have stayed in France in the service of that great King Francis, who gave me a thousand gold scudi for my keep, and moreover paid me for the making of all my works, so that every year I had cleared more than four thousand gold scudi a year; and I left in Paris the labours of four past years." With these and other words I cut short the ceremonies, and thanked them for the great praises they had given me, which are the greatest rewards that can be given to a man who labours with skill; and that they had made my will to do well grow so much that I hoped within a few years to come to show another work, which I hoped would please the admirable Florentine School much more than that one. The two gentlemen would have liked to pick up the thread of the ceremonies again; but with a doffing of my cap and with great reverence I said goodbye to them.
After I had let two days go by, and seen that the great praises kept always growing, then I disposed myself to go and show myself to my lord Duke; who with great pleasantness said to me: "My Benvenuto, you have satisfied and contented me; but I promise you that I shall content you in such a way that I will make you wonder: and I tell you more, that I do not want tomorrow to go by." At these admirable promises, at once I turned all my greatest powers both of soul and of body in a moment to God, thanking Him in truth: and at the same moment I came up to my Duke, and, half weeping with joy, I kissed his robe; then I added, saying: "Oh my glorious lord, truly a most generous lover of the arts and of those men who labour in them; I beg Your most illustrious Excellency to do me the favour of letting me first go for a week to thank God; because I well know my own immeasurable great labour, and I know that my good faith has moved God to my help: for this and for every other miraculous succour, I want to go on pilgrimage for eight days, always thanking my immortal God, who always helps whoever truly calls on Him."
Then the Duke asked me where I wanted to go. To whom I said: "Tomorrow morning I shall set out and go to Vallombrosa, then to Camaldoli and to the Hermitage, and I shall go as far as the baths of Santa Maria and perhaps as far as Sestile, because I hear that there are fine antiques there: then I shall come back by way of San Francesco della Vernia, and always thanking God, contented I shall come back to serve you." At once the Duke cheerfully said to me: "Go, and come back, for you truly please me, but leave me two lines as a reminder, and leave the rest to me." At once I made four verses, in which I thanked His most illustrious Excellency, and gave them to Messer Sforza, who put them into the Duke's hand on my behalf: who took them; then he put them into the hand of the said Messer Sforza, and told him: "See that you put them before me every day, because if Benvenuto came back and found that I had not dispatched the matter, I believe he would kill me;" and so, laughing, His Excellency said that he should remind him of it. These very words Messer Sforza said to me that evening, laughing and also wondering at the great favour the Duke showed me: and pleasantly he said to me: "Go, Benvenuto, and come back, for I envy you."
In the name of God I left Florence, always singing psalms and prayers in honour and glory of God for the whole of that journey; in which I had the greatest pleasure, because the season was very beautiful, being summer, and the journey and the country where I had never been before seemed to me so beautiful that I was left wondering and content. And because a young workman of mine had come as my guide, who was from the Baths, and was called Cesare, I was greatly made much of by his father and by all his household; among whom was an old man of more than seventy, a most pleasant man: this was the said Cesare's uncle, and he made profession of being a physician and surgeon, and dabbled somewhat in alchemy. This good man showed me how those Baths had a mine of gold and silver, and had me see many very beautiful things of that country; so that I had some of the greatest pleasures I ever had.
Having grown familiar with me in his own way, one day among others he said to me: "I do not want to fail to tell you a thought of mine, to which, if His Excellency would lend his ear, I believe it would be a very useful thing: and this is that around Camaldoli there is seen a pass so open that Piero Strozzi could not only pass safely, but he could rob Poppi without any resistance;" and with that, not only had he shown it to me in words, but he drew out of his pouch a sheet of paper, on which this good old man had drawn out all that country in such a way that the great danger could very well be seen and was plainly known to be real. I took the drawing and at once left the Baths, and as fast as I could, coming back by the way of Prato Magno and by San Francesco della Vernia, I got back to Florence: and without stopping, having only pulled off my boots, I went to the Palace.
And when I was by the Badia, I met my Duke, who was coming along by the way of the Palace of the Podestà: who, as soon as he saw me, gave me a most gracious welcome together with a little wonder, saying to me: "Oh why have you come back so soon? for I was not expecting you for another week." To whom I said: "For Your most illustrious Excellency's service I have come back, for I would gladly have stayed several days going about that most beautiful country." "And what good business?" said the Duke. To whom I said: "My lord, it is necessary that I tell you and show you things of great importance." So I went off with him to the Palace. When we got to the Palace he took me privately into a room where we were alone. Then I told him the whole of it, and showed him that little drawing; which he showed himself most grateful for. And when I told His Excellency that it was necessary to find a quick remedy for such a thing, the Duke stayed a little within himself, and then said to me: "Know that we are in agreement with the Duke of Urbino, who is to take care of it himself; but keep it to yourself." And with a great show of his good favour, I went back home.
The next day I showed myself and the Duke, after a little conversation, cheerfully said to me: "Tomorrow without fail I mean to dispatch your business; so be of good cheer." I, who held it for the most certain thing, waited for the next day with great longing. When the longed-for day came, I went off to the Palace; and as by custom it always seems to happen that bad news is given with more diligence than good, Messer Iacopo Guidi, His most illustrious Excellency's secretary, called me with his mouth twisted and in a haughty voice, and having drawn himself all together, with his person all stiffened as though frozen, he began to speak in this manner: "The Duke says that he wants to know from you what you ask for your Perseus."
I was left bewildered and astonished: and I answered at once that I was never one to ask a price for my labours, and that this was not what His Excellency had promised me two days before. At once this man in a louder voice told me that he expressly commanded me on the Duke's behalf to say what I wanted for it, on pain of the entire disgrace of His most illustrious Excellency. I, who had promised myself not merely to have gained something by the great caresses made me by His most illustrious Excellency, but rather had promised myself to have gained the whole of the Duke's favour, because I never asked him for any greater thing than only his good grace: now this manner of doing it, unlooked for by me, made me come into such a fury: and all the more from its being put to me in the way that venomous toad did. I said that even if the Duke gave me ten thousand scudi, he would not be paying me for it, and that if I had ever thought of coming to such deserts, I would never have settled here. At once this spiteful fellow said a quantity of insulting words to me; and I did the like to him.
The next day after, as I was paying my respects to the Duke, His Excellency beckoned me; so I came up; and he in anger said to me: "Cities and great palaces are made with ten thousand ducats." To whom I answered at once that His Excellency would find endless men who would know how to make him cities and palaces; but that of Perseuses he would perhaps not find a man in the world who would know how to make him such a one. And at once I left without saying or doing anything else.
Some few days later, the Duchess sent for me and told me that I should refer the difference I had with the Duke to her, because she boasted that she would do something that would content me. To these kindly words I answered that I had never asked any greater reward for my labours than the good grace of the Duke, and that His most illustrious Excellency had promised it me; and that there was no need for me to refer to their most illustrious Excellencies what, from the first days when I began to serve them, I had freely referred to them altogether; and moreover I added that if His most illustrious Excellency gave me only a crazia, which is worth five farthings, for my labours, I would call myself content and satisfied, provided His Excellency did not deprive me of his good grace. At these words of mine, the Duchess, smiling a little, said: "Benvenuto, you would do best to do what I tell you;" and turning her back on me, she got up and left me. I, who thought I was doing my best in using those humble words, found that my worst came of it, because, although she had had that little anger with me, she had in her afterwards a certain way of acting, which was good.
At this time I was very familiar with Girolamo degli Albizi, who was commissary of His Excellency's militia; and one day among others he said to me: "Oh Benvenuto, it would be well to put some order into this little unpleasantness you have with the Duke; and I tell you, if you had faith in me, I would have the heart to mend it; because I know what I am saying. When the Duke gets angry in earnest, you will come off very badly: let this be enough for you; I cannot tell you everything."
And because I had been told by somebody, perhaps a mischief-maker, after the Duchess had spoken to me, who said that he had heard it said that the Duke, on some occasion or other given him, had said: "For less than two farthings I will throw away the Perseus and so all the differences will be ended" — now because of this fear I told Girolamo degli Albizi that I referred the whole thing to him, and that whatever he did, I should be quite content with all of it, provided I remained in the Duke's favour. This gallant man, who understood the soldier's art very well, especially that of the militia men, who are all countrymen, but who took no pleasure in the art of sculpture and therefore understood nothing at all about it, so that, speaking with the Duke, he said: "My lord, Benvenuto has referred himself to me, and has begged me to commend him to Your most illustrious Excellency." Then the Duke said: "And I too refer myself to you, and shall be content with everything you judge." So that the said Girolamo made out a paper very ingeniously and much in my favour, and judged that the Duke should give me three thousand five hundred gold scudi in gold, which should be enough not as a reward for such a fine work, but only for a little keep for me; it was enough that I was content; with many other words, which altogether came to the said price. The Duke signed it very willingly, as much as I was discontented with it.
When the Duchess heard of it, she said: "It would have been much better for that poor man to have referred it to me, for I would have had him given five thousand gold scudi;" and one day when I had gone to the Palace, the Duchess said the same words to me in the presence of Messer Alamanno Salviati, and mocked me, telling me that all the trouble I had served me right.
The Duke ordered that I should be paid a hundred gold scudi in gold a month, until the said sum, and so it went on for some months. Then Messer Antonio de' Nobili, who had had the said commission, began to give me fifty of them, and afterwards sometimes he gave me twenty-five and sometimes he did not give them to me at all; so that, seeing myself so drawn out, I said affectionately to the said Messer Antonio, begging him to tell me the reason why he did not finish paying me. He too answered me kindly: in which answer it seemed to me that he opened himself a little too much, because — let whoever understands judge it — first he told me that the reason why he did not go on with my payment was the too great scarcity of money the Palace had, but that he promised me that as soon as money came, he would pay me; and he added, saying: "Alas! if I did not pay you, I should be a great rascal." I wondered to hear him say such a word, and by it I promised myself that when he could, he would pay me. On account of which quite the contrary followed, so that, seeing myself tormented, I grew angry with him and said many bold and choleric words to him, and reminded him of everything he had told me would happen. Still he died, and I am still owed five hundred gold scudi up to now, when we are near the end of the year 1566.
I was also still owed a remainder of my salaries, which it seemed to me they no longer reckoned on paying me, because about three years had passed; but a dangerous illness came on the Duke, so that he was forty-eight hours without being able to pass water; and seeing that the doctors' remedies did him no good, perhaps he turned to God, and for this he wanted everybody to be paid the allowances due to them, and I too was paid; but I was not paid the remainder of my Perseus.
I had almost half made up my mind to say nothing more about my unlucky Perseus; but because there is an occasion which forces me, and a notable one, I shall pick up the thread for a little, going back somewhat. I thought I was doing my best when I told the Duchess that I could no longer make a submission of what was no longer in my power, because I had told the Duke that I was content with everything His most illustrious Excellency wished to give me: and this I said thinking to make myself somewhat agreeable; and with that little bit of humility I was trying by every fit remedy to appease the Duke somewhat, because a few days before we came to the settlement by Albizi, the Duke had shown himself much displeased with me.
And the cause was that, when I was complaining to His Excellency of certain most foul robberies that were being done me by Messer Alfonso Quistello and Messer Iacopo Polverino, the fiscal, and more than all of them by Ser Giovanbattista Brandini of Volterra; so, putting these arguments of mine with some show of passion, I saw the Duke come into as great an anger as can ever be imagined. And when His most illustrious Excellency had come into this great fury, he said to me: "This case is like that of your Perseus, for which you have asked ten thousand scudi: you let yourself be too much overcome by your own interest; so I mean to have it valued, and I shall give you everything that is judged for me."
At these words I answered at once somewhat too boldly and half in anger — a thing which it is not fitting to use with great lords — and said: "Oh how is it possible that my work should be valued at its price, when there is not a man in Florence today who would know how to make it?" Then the Duke grew into a greater fury, and said a great many angry words, among which he said: "There is a man in Florence today who would know how to make one like it, and so he will know very well how to judge it." He meant Bandinello, knight of Saint James.
Then I said: "My lord, Your most illustrious Excellency has given me the means, so that I have made in the greatest School in the world a great and most difficult work, which has been praised more than any work that has ever been uncovered in this most divine School; and what makes me boldest has been that those excellent men, who know and who are of the art, such as Bronzino the painter, this man has taken pains and has made me four sonnets, saying the most choice and glorious words it is possible to say; and it is because of this admirable man, perhaps, that the whole city has been moved to such a great noise; and I say indeed that if he attended to sculpture as he does to painting, he might perhaps know very well how to do it. And I say more to Your most illustrious Excellency, that my master Michelangelo Buonarroti would indeed have made one like it, when he was younger, and would not have endured less labour than I have; but now that he is very old, he would certainly not do it; so that I do not believe that today there is notice of a man who would know how to carry it out. So my work has had the greatest reward I could wish for in the world: and all the more since Your most illustrious Excellency, not only has called yourself content with my work, but more than any other man you have praised it to me. Oh, what greater and what more honourable reward can be wished for? I say for a certainty that Your Excellency could not pay me in more glorious coin: nor with any treasure whatever can it be equalled, most certainly: so I am too well paid, and I thank Your most illustrious Excellency for it with all my heart."
At these words the Duke answered and said: "On the contrary, you do not think I have enough to be able to pay you for it; and I tell you that I shall pay you for it far more than it is worth." Then I said: "I did not imagine that I should have any other reward from Your Excellency, but I call myself most fully paid by that first one which the School has given me, and with this I mean to go off with God this very minute, without ever going back to that house Your most illustrious Excellency gave me, nor do I ever want to care to see Florence again." We were just by Santa Felicita and His Excellency was going back to the Palace. At these choleric words of mine the Duke at once turned in great anger and said to me: "Do not go, and take good care that you do not go;" so that I, half frightened, accompanied him to the Palace.
When His Excellency had got to the Palace, he called the bishop de' Bartolini, who was Archbishop of Pisa, and called Messer Pandolfo della Stufa, and told them to tell Baccio Bandinelli on his behalf to consider that work of mine, the Perseus, well, and to value it, because the Duke wanted to pay me its just price. These two honest men at once found the said Bandinello, and having done the errand to him, he told them that he had considered that work very well, and that he knew all too well what it was worth; but because he was at odds with me over other past matters, he did not want to meddle with my affairs in any way. Then these two gentlemen added and said: "The Duke has told us that, on pain of his disgrace, he commands you to set a price on it; and if you want two or three days to consider it well, take them: then tell us what you think that labour deserves." He answered that he had considered it very well, and that he could not fail in the Duke's commands, and that that work had come out very rich and beautiful, so that it seemed to him that it deserved sixteen thousand gold scudi and more. At once the good gentlemen reported it to the Duke, who was badly angered; and likewise they told it again to me. To whom I answered that in no way did I want to accept Bandinello's praises, seeing that this bad man speaks ill of everybody. These words of mine were repeated to the Duke, and it was for this that the Duchess wanted me to refer myself to her. All this is the pure truth: it is enough that I would have done best to let myself be judged by the Duchess, because I should have been paid quickly, and should have had that greater reward.
The Duke let me know by Messer Lelio Torello, his auditor, that he wanted me to make certain scenes in low relief in bronze round the choir of Santa Maria del Fiore; and because the said choir was Bandinello's undertaking, I did not want to enrich his wretched works with my labours; and although the said choir was not his design, because he understood nothing in the world about architecture (the design was Giuliano di Baccio d'Agnolo's, the carpenter, who spoiled the dome): it is enough that there is no merit in it at all; and for the one and for the other reason I did not in any way want to do such a work, but I always said humanely to the Duke that I would do everything His most illustrious Excellency commanded me, so that His Excellency charged the Wardens of Santa Maria del Fiore to come to terms with me, and that His Excellency would give me only my allowance of the two hundred scudi a year and that for everything else he wanted the said Wardens to provide out of the funds of the said Works.
So that I appeared before the said Wardens, who told me all the orders they had from the Duke; and because with them it seemed to me that I could put my arguments much more safely, I began to show them that so many scenes in bronze would be a very great expense, all of which would be thrown away: and I gave all the reasons, by which they were quite convinced. The first was that that order of the choir was altogether wrong, and was made without any reason, nor was there seen in it either art, or convenience, or grace, or design; the other was that the said scenes had to be set so low that they would come too far below the eye, and that they would be a pissing place for dogs, and would continually be full of every filth; and that for the said reasons I in no way wanted to make them.
Only so as not to throw away the rest of my best years and not to serve His most illustrious Excellency, whom I so much desired to please and to serve; so, if His Excellency wanted to make use of my labours, let him let me make the middle door of Santa Maria del Fiore, which would be a work that would be seen, and would be much more to the glory of His most illustrious Excellency; and I would bind myself by contract that, if I did not make it better than that one which is the more beautiful, of the doors of San Giovanni, I would take nothing for my labours; but if I brought it off according to my promise, I was content that it should be valued, and then they should give me a thousand scudi less than it was valued at by the men of the art.
These Wardens were much pleased with what I had proposed to them, and went to speak of it to the Duke — and among the others there was Piero Salviati — thinking to tell the Duke something that would be most welcome to him; and it was quite the contrary; and he said that I always wanted to do the opposite of everything he wished me to do: and without any other conclusion the said Piero left the Duke.
When I heard this, at once I went off to find the Duke, who showed himself somewhat displeased with me; whom I begged to be so good as to listen to me, and so he promised me: so that I began at the beginning; and with so many fine arguments I gave him to understand the truth of the matter, showing His Excellency that it was a great expense thrown away: so that I had much softened him by telling him that if it did not please His most illustrious Excellency that that door should be made, it was necessary to make two pulpits for that choir, and that these would be two great works and would be to the glory of His most illustrious Excellency, and that I would make in them a great quantity of scenes in bronze, in low relief, with many ornaments: so I softened him and he ordered me to make the models.
I made several models and endured the greatest labours: and among the others I made one with eight sides, with much greater study than I had put into the others, and it seemed to me that it was much more convenient for the service it had to do. And because I had taken them several times to the Palace, His Excellency let me know by Messer Cesare, the keeper of the wardrobe, that I should leave them. After the Duke had seen them, I saw that of these His Excellency had chosen the least beautiful. One day His Excellency had me called, and in talking of these said models I told him and showed him with many reasons that the one with eight sides would have been much more convenient for such a service, and much more beautiful to see. The Duke answered me that he wanted me to make it square, because it pleased him much more that way; and so he talked with me very pleasantly a good while. I did not fail to say everything that occurred to me, in defence of the art. Whether the Duke knew that I was telling the truth, and still wanted it done his own way, a long time went by in which nothing was said to me.
At this time the great marble for the Neptune had been brought by the river Arno and then taken along the Greve onto the road of Poggio a Caiano, so that it might afterwards be more easily brought to Florence by that level road, where I went to see it. And although I knew for a certainty that the Duchess out of her own favour had had it given to the knight Bandinello; not out of any envy I bore Bandinello, but rather moved by pity for the poor ill-fortuned marble (let a man beware, whatever the thing may be, when it is subject to a bad destiny, that in trying to save it from some plain harm, it happens that it falls into something much worse, as the said marble did into the hands of Bartolomeo Ammannati, of whom the truth shall be told in its place), when I had seen the most beautiful marble, I at once took its height and its thickness in every direction, and having gone back to Florence, I made several little models to the purpose.
Then I went to Poggio a Caiano, where the Duke was and the Duchess and the Prince their son; and finding them all at table, the Duke was eating apart with the Duchess, so that I set about entertaining the Prince. And having entertained him a good while, the Duke, who was in a room nearby, heard me, and with much favour had me called; and when I had come into their Excellencies' presences, with many pleasant words the Duchess began to talk with me: in which talk little by little I began to speak of that most beautiful marble I had seen; and I began to say how their ancestors had made their most noble School so full of excellence only by making all the talented men vie together in their professions; and in that excellent way had been made the admirable dome, and the most beautiful doors of San Giovanni, and so many other fine temples and statues, which made a crown of so much excellence for their city, which since the ancients had never had its equal.
At once the Duchess said to me in anger that she knew very well what I meant to say; and she said that in her presence I should never speak of that marble again, because I was displeasing her by it. I said: "Then do I displease you by wanting to be the advocate of your Excellencies, doing everything so that you may be better served? Consider, my lady: if your most illustrious Excellencies are content that everybody should make a model of a Neptune, even though you are resolved that Bandinello shall have it, this will be the cause of Bandinello, for his own honour, setting himself with greater study to make a fine model than he will do knowing that he has no competitors: and in this way you, my lords, will be much better served and you will not take away the spirit of the excellent School, and you will see who is roused to the good: I mean to the fine manner of this admirable art; and you, my lords, will show that you take pleasure in it and understand it."
The Duchess in great anger told me that I had made her sick of it, and that she wanted that marble to be Bandinello's, and she said: "Ask the Duke, for His Excellency too wants it to be Bandinello's." When the Duchess had spoken, the Duke, who had all this time been quiet, said: "It is twenty years since I had that fine marble quarried on purpose for Bandinello, and so I want Bandinello to have it, and let it be his."
At once I turned to the Duke, and said: "My lord, I beg Your most illustrious Excellency to do me the favour of letting me say four words to Your Excellency for your own service." The Duke told me to say everything I wanted, and that he would listen to me. Then I said: "Know, my lord, that that marble from which Bandinello made his Hercules and Cacus was quarried for that admirable Michelangelo Buonarroti, who had made a model of a Samson with four figures, which would have been the most beautiful thing in the world; and your Bandinello got out of it two figures alone, badly made and all patched together: on account of which the excellent School still cries out at the great wrong that was done to that fine marble. I believe that more than a thousand sonnets were stuck up on it, in reproach of that wretched work; and I know that Your most illustrious Excellency remembers it very well.
"And so, my worthy lord, if those men who had such a charge were so unwise that they took that fine marble from Michelangelo, for whom it had been quarried, and gave it to Bandinello, who spoiled it, as is seen; oh! will you ever allow that this still far more beautiful marble, even though it belongs to Bandinello, who would spoil it, should not be given to some other able man who would make something of it for you? See to it, my lord, that everybody who wishes may make a model and that then they may all be uncovered to the School, and Your most illustrious Excellency will hear what the School says; and Your Excellency with that good judgment of yours will know how to choose the best, and in this way you will not throw your money away, nor will you take away the excellent spirit of so admirable a School, which is today matchless in the world: which is all to the glory of Your most illustrious Excellency."
When the Duke had listened to me most kindly, he at once got up from the table and turning to me, said: "Go, my Benvenuto, and make a model, and win that fine marble for yourself, because you are telling me the truth, and I know it." The Duchess, threatening me with her head, said in scorn, muttering, I do not know what; and I made them my reverence, and went back to Florence, and it seemed a thousand years to me until I could set my hand to the said model.
When the Duke came to Florence, without letting me know anything he came to my house, where I showed him two little models different from one another; and although he praised them both to me, he told me that one of them pleased him more than the other, and that I should finish well the one that pleased him, for it would be good for me: and because His Excellency had seen the one Bandinello had made and other men's too, His Excellency praised mine by far the more, as I was told by many of his courtiers, who had heard it.
Among the other notable things worth taking great account of, was that, the Cardinal of Santa Fiore having come to Florence, and the Duke taking him to Poggio a Caiano, on the way, as they passed, and seeing the said marble, the Cardinal praised it greatly, and then asked to whom His Excellency had assigned the working of it. The Duke said at once: "To my Benvenuto, who has made a very beautiful model of it." And this was repeated to me by men of good faith: and because of this I went off to find the Duchess and took her some pleasant little things of my art, which Her most illustrious Excellency held very dear; then she asked me what I was working at: to whom I said: "My lady, I have taken it as a pleasure to make one of the most laborious works that were ever made in the world: and this is a Crucifix of the whitest marble, on a cross of the blackest marble, and it is as large as a big living man."
At once she asked me what I meant to do with it. I said to her: "Know, my lady, that I would not give it to anybody who gave me two thousand gold ducats in gold for it; because no man ever set himself to such an extreme labour as such a work; nor would I have bound myself to make it for any lord whatever, for fear of being left in shame by it. I have bought the marbles with my own money, and I have kept a young man about two years, who has helped me, and between marbles and irons on which it is fixed, and wages, it costs me more than three hundred scudi; so that I would not give it for two thousand gold scudi; but if Your most illustrious Excellency will do me one entirely lawful favour, I will willingly make you a free present of it: I only beg Your most illustrious Excellency not to disfavour me, nor to favour me either, in the models which His most illustrious Excellency has ordered to be made of the Neptune for the great marble."
She said in great scorn: "Then you make no account at all of my help or my hindrance?" "On the contrary, I make great account of it, my lady; or why do I offer to give you what I value at two thousand ducats? But I trust so much to my laborious and disciplined studies, that I promise myself to win the palm, even if that great Michelangelo Buonarroti were in it, from whom, and never from anybody else, I have learned all I know: and it would be much dearer to me that he should make a model, who knows so much, than these others who know little; because with that so great master of mine I could gain a great deal, whereas with these others there is nothing to be gained." When I had said my words, she got up half in scorn, and I went back to my work, pressing on with my model as much as I could.
And when I had finished it, the Duke came to see it, and there were with him two ambassadors, that of the Duke of Ferrara and that of the Signory of Lucca, and so it pleased him greatly, and the Duke said to those lords: "Benvenuto truly deserves it." Then both the said men favoured me greatly, and more the ambassador of Lucca, who was a lettered person, and a doctor. I, who had drawn a little apart so that they might say everything they thought, hearing myself favoured, at once came up, and turning to the Duke, said: "My lord, Your most illustrious Excellency ought to take one more admirable care: to command that whoever wishes should make another model in clay, of exactly the size that comes out of that marble; and in that way Your most illustrious Excellency will see much better who deserves it; and I tell you: that if Your Excellency gives it to one who does not deserve it, you will not do a wrong to him who deserves it, rather you will do a great wrong to yourself, because you will get harm and shame by it; whereas doing the contrary, by giving it to one who deserves it, first of all you will get the greatest glory by it and will spend your treasure well, and men of talent will then believe that you take pleasure in these things and understand them."
As soon as I had said these words, the Duke shrugged his shoulders, and having started off to go away, the ambassador of Lucca said to the Duke: "My lord, this Benvenuto of yours is a terrible man." The Duke said: "He is much more terrible than you say; and it would have been good for him if he had not been so terrible, because by now he would have had things which he has not had." These very words were repeated to me by that same ambassador, as though reproving me that I ought not to behave so. To whom I said that I wished my lord well, as his affectionate and faithful servant, and did not know how to play the flatterer.
Then, several weeks having passed, Bandinello died; and it was believed that, besides his own excesses, this unhappiness, seeing himself lose the marble, was a good part of the cause.
The said Bandinello had heard that I had made that Crucifix I spoke of above: he at once set his hand to a piece of marble, and made that Pietà which is seen in the church of the Nunziata. And because I had dedicated my Crucifix to Santa Maria Novella, and had already fixed the hooks there to put it up, I only asked to make under the feet of my Crucifix, in the ground, a little coffin, to go into after I am dead. The said friars told me that they could not grant me such a thing without asking their Wardens; to whom I said: "Oh friars, why did you not ask the Wardens first about giving a place to my fine Crucifix, since without their leave you have let me put up the hooks and the other things?" And for this reason I would no longer give my so extreme labours to the church of Santa Maria Novella, although afterwards those Wardens came to find me and begged me for it.
At once I turned to the church of the Nunziata, and talking of giving it in the way I had wanted to give it to Santa Maria Novella, those good friars of the said Nunziata all in agreement told me to put it in their church, and to make my tomb there in whatever way seemed and pleased me best. Bandinello, having got wind of this, set himself with great diligence to finishing his Pietà, and asked the Duchess to get him that chapel which had belonged to the Pazzi; which was got with difficulty: and as soon as he had it, with great haste he set up his work there, which was not altogether finished when he died. The Duchess said that she had helped him in life and that she would help him in death too; and that although he was dead, I was never to plan on having that marble. Then Bernardone the broker told me one day, when we met in the country, whom the Duchess had given the marble to; to whom I said: "Oh unlucky marble! certainly in Bandinello's hands it had come off badly, but in Ammannati's hands it has come off a hundred times worse!"
I had had orders from the Duke to make the clay model, of the size that came out of the marble, and he had had me provided with wood and clay, and had a bit of a screen made for me in the loggia, where my Perseus is, and paid me a labourer. I set my hand to it with all the diligence I could, and made the skeleton of wood by my own good rule, and carried it happily to its finish, not caring to make it in marble, because I knew that the Duchess had made up her mind that I should not have it, and for this I did not care about it: I only liked to endure that labour, with which I promised myself that, when I had finished it, the Duchess, who was after all a person of wit, seeing that she would have seen it by then, I promised myself that she would have been sorry to have done so immeasurable a wrong to the marble and to herself.
One was being made by Giovanni the Fleming in the cloisters of Santa Croce, and one was being made by Vincenzio Danti of Perugia, in the house of Messer Ottaviano de' Medici; another was begun by Moschino's son at Pisa, and another was being made by Bartolomeo Ammannati in the Loggia, for they had divided it up among them.
When I had it all well roughed out, and wanted to begin to finish the head, to which I had already given a little first working, the Duke had come down from the Palace, and Giorgetto the painter had taken him into Ammannati's room, to let him see the Neptune, on which the said Giorgino had worked with his own hand for a great many days together with the said Ammannati and with all his workmen. While the Duke was looking at it, I was told that he was very little satisfied with it; and although the said Giorgino wanted to fill him up with those chatterings of his, the Duke shook his head, and turning to his Messer Gianstefano, said: "Go and ask Benvenuto if his giant is so far forward that he would be content to give me a little sight of it."
The said Messer Gianstefano very shrewdly and most kindly did me the errand on the Duke's behalf; and moreover he told me that if it did not seem to me that my work was yet fit to be shown, I should freely say so: because the Duke knew very well that I had had little help for so great an undertaking. I said that he should come and welcome, and although my work was little advanced, His most illustrious Excellency's understanding was such that he would very well judge what it might turn out when finished.
So the said gentleman did the errand to the Duke, who came willingly: and as soon as His Excellency entered the room, casting his eyes on my work, he showed himself much satisfied with it: then he went right round it, stopping at the four views, exactly as a man would have done who was most expert in the art; then he made many great signs and gestures of showing that it pleased him, and only said: "Benvenuto, you have only to give it a final skin;" then he turned to those who were with His Excellency, and said much good of my work, saying: "The small model which I saw at his house pleased me greatly; but this work of his has surpassed the goodness of the model."
As it pleased God, who does everything for our good — I mean for those who acknowledge Him and who believe in Him, God always defends them — in these days there came before me a certain rascal from Vicchio, called Piermaria d'Anterigoli, and by nickname lo Sbietta: this man's trade is that of a shepherd, and because he is a close relative of Messer Guido Guidi, the physician and today provost of Pescia, I lent him my ears. He offered to sell me a farm of his for my natural life, which farm I did not want to go and see, because I wanted to finish my model of the giant Neptune; and also because there was no need for me to see it, since he was selling it to me by its income: which the said man had given me in a note of so many bushels of grain and of wine, oil and fodder and chestnuts and other advantages, which I reckoned that at the time we were then in, the said goods were worth much more than a hundred gold scudi in gold, and I gave him six hundred and fifty scudi counting the taxes.
So that, having left me a paper in his own hand that he meant always, for as long as I lived, to keep up the said incomes for me, I did not care to go and see the said farm; but I did inform myself, as best I could, whether the said Sbietta and Ser Filippo, his brother of the same blood, were in such good circumstances that I should be safe. So by many different persons who knew them, I was told that I was quite safe.
We called by agreement Ser Pierfrancesco Bertoldi, notary at the Merchants' Court; and the first thing I put into his hands everything that the said Sbietta meant to keep up for me, thinking that the said paper had to be named in the contract: so that the said notary, who drew it, attended to the twenty-two boundaries, which the said Sbietta named to him, and as I see it he did not remember to include in the said contract what the said seller had offered me; and I, while the notary wrote, was working; and because he took several hours to write, I did a great piece of the head of the said Neptune. So, having finished the said contract, Sbietta began to make the greatest fuss of me in the world, and I did the like to him. He made me presents of kids, cheeses, capons, curd cheeses and a great deal of fruit, so that I began to be half ashamed of it: and for these kindnesses I took him, every time he came to Florence, away from the inn; and many times he had one or another of his relatives with him, who came too; and in pleasant ways he began to tell me that it was a shame that I should have bought a farm, and that so many weeks had gone by now, and I could not make up my mind to leave my business a little to my workmen for three days and go and see it. He was able to do so much with his flattering me that in my ill hour I went to see it; and the said Sbietta received me in his house with so many caresses and with so much honour that he could not have done more for a duke; and his wife made more fuss of me than he did; and in this way we went on a good while, until everything came about that they had planned to do, he and his brother Ser Filippo.
I did not fail to press on with my work of the Neptune, and had already roughed the whole of it out, as I said above, by a very good rule, which nobody before me had ever used or known; so that, although I was sure I should not have the marble for the reasons given above, I believed I should soon have finished, and at once let it be seen in the Square, only for my own satisfaction.
The season was warm and pleasant, so that, being so made much of by these two rascals, I set out one Wednesday, which was a double feast day, from my farm at Trespiano, and I had made a good breakfast, so that it was past twenty hours when I arrived at Vicchio; and at once I found Ser Filippo at the gate of Vicchio, who seemed to know that I was coming; so many caresses did he make me, and he took me to Sbietta's house, where his shameless wife was, and she too made me immeasurable caresses; to whom I gave a hat of the finest straw; because she said she had never seen a finer one. Sbietta was not there then.
As evening drew on, we all had supper together very pleasantly: then I was given an honourable room, where I rested in a very clean bed; and to two servants of mine the like was given, according to their rank. In the morning, when I got up, the same caresses were made me. I went to see my farm, which pleased me: and so much grain and other fodder was made over to me; and then, having come back to Vicchio, the priest Ser Filippo said to me: "Benvenuto, do not fear; for even if you have not found there the whole of what has been promised you, be of good cheer, for it will be made up to you and more, because you have had to do with honest men: and know that we have dismissed that farm labourer, because he is a bad one." This labourer was called Mariano Rosegli, who several times said to me: "Look well to your own affairs, for in the end you will know which of us is the greater rogue." This countryman, when he said these words to me, sneered in a certain bad way, shaking his head, as much as to say: "Just go along, and you will find out." I made a bit of a bad judgment of it, but I did not imagine anything of what happened to me.
Having come back from the farm, which is two miles away from Vicchio, towards the mountains, I found the said priest, who with his usual caresses was waiting for me; so we went to eat all together: this was not a dinner, but was a good luncheon. Then, going about Vicchio for a stroll, the market had already begun; I saw myself looked at by all those people of Vicchio as at something unusual to see, and more than by any of the others by an honest man, who has lived for many years in Vicchio, and his wife makes bread to sell. He has near there, about a mile off, certain good holdings of his own; still he is content to live in that way. This honest man lives in a house of mine, which is in Vicchio, which was made over to me with the said farm, which is called the farm of the Fonte; and he said to me: "I am in your house, and at the proper time I shall give you your rent; or if you want it in advance, I will do it in any way you like: it is enough that you and I shall always be in agreement."
And while we were talking, I saw that this man kept fixing his eyes on me: so that I, forced by such a thing, said to him: "Now tell me, my dear Giovanni, why have you looked at me so fixedly several times?" This honest man said to me: "I will gladly tell you, if you, as the man you are, will promise me not to say that I told you." So I promised him. Then he said to me: "Know that that wretched priest Ser Filippo, not many days ago, was boasting of the cleverness of his brother Sbietta, saying how he had sold his farm to an old man for his life, who would not get through the whole year. You have had to do with a pair of rascals, so try to live as long as you can, and open your eyes, because you need to; I do not want to tell you any more."
Going about the market for a stroll, I found there Giovanbattista Santini, and he and I were taken to supper by the said priest; and, as I have said before, it was about twenty hours, and on my account we had supper at such an early hour, because I had said that in the evening I meant to go back to Trespiano: so that things were quickly got ready, and Sbietta's wife bestirred herself, and among the others a certain Cecchino Buti, their farm servant.
When the salads had been made, and we were beginning to want to sit down at table, that bad priest, giving a certain nasty little laugh of his, said: "You must forgive me, because I cannot have supper with you, for a matter of great importance has come up for me on my brother Sbietta's account: since he is not here, I must take his place." We all begged him and we could never turn him from it: he went off, and we began to have supper.
When we had eaten the salads out of certain large dishes in common, and they were beginning to give us boiled meat, a bowl came for each of us. Santini, who was at table opposite me, said: "They are giving you all crockery different from the rest: now did you ever see finer?" I told him that I had not noticed such a thing. He also told me that I should call Sbietta's wife to the table, who, she and that Cecchino Buti, were running backwards and forwards, all extraordinarily busy. At last I begged that woman so much that she came; who complained, saying to me: "My dishes have not pleased you. That is why you eat so little." When I had praised the supper several times, telling her that I had never eaten either with more appetite or better, at last I said that I was eating exactly as much as I needed. I would never have imagined why that woman pressed me so hard to eat.
When we had finished supper it was past twenty-one hours, and I wanted to get back to Trespiano that evening, so as to be able to go the next day to my work at the Loggia: so I said goodbye to them all, and having thanked the woman I set off.
I was not three miles off before it seemed to me that my stomach was burning, and I felt myself in such distress that it seemed a thousand years to me until I could reach my farm at Trespiano. As it pleased God I arrived at night, with great labour, and at once gave orders to go and rest. In the night I could never rest, and moreover my bowels were moved, which forced me several times to go to the privy, so that, when broad day had come, feeling myself burning in the fundament, I wanted to see what it was: I found the cloth very bloody.
At once I imagined I had eaten something poisonous, and over and over again I went examining myself as to what it could have been: and there came back into my memory those plates and bowls and little bowls, given me different from the others by the said wife of Sbietta; and how that bad priest, Sbietta's brother, having taken so much trouble to do me so much honour, then would not stay to supper with us; and there also came back into my memory the said priest's having said how his Sbietta had made such a fine stroke by having sold a farm to an old man for his life, who would never get through the year; for those words had been repeated to me by that honest man Giovanni Sardella. So that I made up my mind that they had given me in a little bowl of sauce, which was made very well and very pleasant to eat, a pinch of sublimate, because sublimate does all those harms which I saw I had; but because I am used to eating little sauce or seasoning with meat, other than salt, I happened to eat two mouthfuls of that sauce, because it was so good to the taste. And I went on remembering how the said wife of Sbietta pressed me many times in different ways, telling me to eat that sauce: so that I knew for a certainty that with that said sauce they had given me that little bit of sublimate.
Finding myself afflicted in that way, I still went all the same to work on my giant in the said Loggia: so that in a few days afterwards the great illness so overcame me that it laid me up in bed. As soon as the Duchess heard that I was ill, she had the work of the unlucky marble given free to Bartolomeo Ammannati, who sent to tell me by Messer —— that I might do what I liked with my begun model, because he had won the marble.
This Messer —— was one of the lovers of the wife of the said Bartolomeo Ammannati; and because he was the most favoured as being courteous and discreet, this said Ammannato gave him every convenience, of which there would be great things to tell. Still I do not want to do as Bandinello, his master, did, who with his talk went outside the art; it is enough that I said I had always guessed it; and that he should tell Bartolomeo to work hard, so that he might show himself grateful to fortune for so great a favour, which she had so undeservedly done him.
So, discontented, I stayed in bed, and had myself treated by that most excellent man Master Francesco da Montevarchi, the physician, and together with him Master Raffaello de' Pilli treated me in surgery; because that sublimate had so burned my bowel in the fundament that I could not hold my excrement at all. And because the said Master Francesco, having seen that the poison had done all the harm it could, since it had not been enough to overcome the strength of the strong nature he found in me, said to me one day: "Benvenuto, thank God, because you have won; and do not fear, for I mean to cure you, to spite the rascals who have wanted to do you harm." Then Master Raffaellino said: "This will be one of the finest and one of the most difficult cures that there has ever been notice of: know, Benvenuto, that you have eaten a mouthful of sublimate." At these words Master Francesco cut in over his voice and said: "Perhaps it was some venomous grub." I said that I knew most certainly that it was poison and who had given it me: and here every one of us was silent. They attended to treating me more than six whole months; and I was more than a year before I could make use of my life.
At this time the Duke went off to make his entry into Siena, and Ammannati had gone some months before to make the triumphal arches. A bastard son that Ammannati had, had stayed behind in the Loggia, and had taken away certain curtains that were over my model of the Neptune, which, since it was not finished, I kept covered. At once I went to complain to Signor Don Francesco, the Duke's son, who showed himself well disposed to me, and I told him how they had uncovered my figure for me, which was unfinished; that if it had been finished, I would not have cared about it. To this the said Prince answered me, threatening a little with his head, and said: "Benvenuto, do not care about its being uncovered, because they do so much the more against themselves; and if all the same you are content for me to have it covered for you, I will have it covered at once." And with these words His most illustrious Excellency added many others much in my favour, in the presence of many lords. Then I told him that I begged His Excellency to give me the means of being able to finish it, because I wanted to make a present of it together with the small model to His Excellency. He answered me that he willingly accepted the one and the other, and that he would have me given all the conveniences I asked for.
So I fed on this little bit of favour, which was the cause of the saving of my life; because, so many immeasurable troubles and unhappinesses having come on me at once, I saw myself failing: by that little bit of favour I comforted myself with some hope of life.
The year having already gone by since I had the farm of the Fonte from Sbietta, and besides all the unpleasantnesses done me both of poisons and of their other robberies, seeing that the said farm did not yield me half of what they had offered me, and I had, besides the contracts, a paper in Sbietta's own hand, in which he bound himself before witnesses to keep up the said incomes for me, I went off to the lords Councillors; for at that time Messer Alfonso Quistello was alive and was the fiscal, and he sat with the lords Councillors; and among the Councillors were Averardo Serristori and Federigo de' Ricci: I do not remember all their names: there was also one of the Alessandri: it is enough that they were a set of men of great account.
Now, having told my case to the magistracy, they all with one voice wanted the said Sbietta to give me back my money, except Federigo de' Ricci, who at that time made use of the said Sbietta; so that they all condoled with me that Federigo de' Ricci was holding them back from dispatching the matter for me; and among the others Averardo Serristori with all the rest; although he made an extraordinary noise about it, and so did the man of the Alessandri: so that the said Federigo having held the thing up so long that the magistracy had come to the end of its term of office, the said gentleman found me one morning, after they had come out onto the square of the Nunziata, and without any respect in the world said in a loud voice: "Federigo de' Ricci has been able to do so much more than all the rest of us, that you have been murdered against our will."
I do not want to say anything else about this, because it would too much offend those who hold the supreme power of the government; it is enough that I was murdered at the pleasure of a rich citizen, only because he made use of that shepherd.
The Duke being at Livorno, I went to find him, only to ask him for my leave. Feeling my strength coming back to me, and seeing that I was not employed on anything, it grieved me to do so great a wrong to my studies; so that, having made up my mind, I went off to Livorno, and found the Duke there, who gave me a most gracious welcome. And because I stayed there several days, every day I rode out with His Excellency, and had plenty of leisure to be able to say everything I wanted, because the Duke went out of Livorno and rode four miles along the sea, where he was having a small fortress made, and so as not to be troubled by too many people, he was glad that I should talk with him.
So that one day, seeing very notable favours done me, I began deliberately to speak of Sbietta, that is of Piermaria d'Anterigoli, and said: "My lord, I want to tell Your most illustrious Excellency a marvellous case, by which Your Excellency will know the cause which hindered me from being able to finish my Neptune in clay, which I was working at in the Loggia. Let Your most illustrious Excellency know that I had bought a farm for my life from Sbietta." It is enough that I told the whole of it in detail, never staining the truth with anything false.
Now when I came to the poison, I said that, if I had ever been a servant welcome in the sight of His most illustrious Excellency, he ought, instead of punishing Sbietta or those who gave me the poison, to give them something good; because the poison was not enough to kill me; but it was exactly enough to purge me of a deadly viscous humour, which I had inside my stomach and my intestines; "which has worked in such a way that whereas, being as I was, I could have lived three or four years, this kind of medicine has done so much that I believe I have gained life for more than twenty years; and for this, with more willingness than ever, I thank God the more; and so it is true what I have sometimes heard said by certain people, who say: 'God sends us evil, that He may put good in.'" The Duke stood listening to me for more than two miles of the way, always with great attention; he only said: "Oh, bad people!" I concluded that I was obliged to them and went on to other pleasant talk.
I watched for a suitable day, and finding him pleasant as I wanted, I begged His most illustrious Excellency to give me my good leave, so that I might not throw away some years while I was still good for making something, and that as for what I was still owed of my Perseus, His most illustrious Excellency might give it me when it pleased him. And with this talk I spread myself with many long ceremonies in thanking His most illustrious Excellency, who answered me nothing at all in the world, but rather it seemed to me that he showed that he had taken it badly.
The next day after, Messer Bartolomeo Concino, the Duke's secretary, one of the chief ones, found me, and half blustering, said to me: "The Duke says that if you want your leave, he will give it you; but if you want to work, he will set you to work: if only you could do as much as His Excellency will give you to do!" I answered him that I desired nothing but to have work, and above all from His most illustrious Excellency more than from all the rest of the men in the world, be they pope or emperors or kings; I would more gladly serve His most illustrious Excellency for a soldo than anybody else for a ducat. Then he said to me: "If that is your mind, you are already agreed without saying anything more; so go back to Florence and be of good cheer, because the Duke wishes you well." So I went back to Florence.
As soon as I was in Florence, there came to find me a certain man called Raffaellone Scheggia, a weaver of cloth of gold, who said this to me: "My Benvenuto, I want to bring you to an agreement with Piermaria Sbietta": to whom I said that nobody could bring us to an agreement but the lords Councillors, and that in this batch of Councillors Sbietta would not have a Federigo de' Ricci, who for a present of two fat kids, without caring either for God or for his own honour, would keep up so wicked a fight and do so foul a wrong to holy justice.
Having said these words, together with many others, this Raffaello always affectionately kept telling me that a thrush one could eat in peace was much better than a very fat capon, even if one were certain of having it, and having it in the midst of so much war: and he told me that the ways of lawsuits sometimes drag on so long that in that time I would have done better to spend it on some fine work, by which I would gain much greater honour and much greater profit. I, who knew that he was telling the truth, began to lend an ear to his words; so that in a short time he brought us to an agreement in this way: that Sbietta should take the said farm from me on lease for seventy gold scudi in gold a year, for the whole time during my natural life.
When we came to make the contract, which was drawn by Ser Giovanni di Ser Matteo da Falgano, Sbietta said that in the way we had talked of it, it would carry a heavier tax; and that he would not fail me — "and so it is well that we should make this lease from five years to five years" — and that he would keep his faith with me, without ever renewing any more lawsuits. And so that rascal of a priest, his brother, promised me too; and in the way described, of the five years, the contract was made.
Wanting to go on to another subject, and to leave off for a while talking of this immeasurable villainy, I am forced first to tell what followed on the five years of the lease, at the end of which those two rascals would not keep up any of the promises they had made me, but rather wanted to give me back my farm and would not hold it on lease any more. On account of which I began to complain, and they flung the contract in my face; so that by way of their bad faith I could not help myself.
Seeing this, I told them that the Duke and the Prince of Florence would not put up with men being murdered so foully in their cities. Now this fright was of such force that they put upon me that same Raffaello Scheggia who had made that first agreement; and they said that they did not want to give me the gold scudi in gold, as they had given me for the five past years: to whom I answered that I wanted nothing less. The said Raffaello came to find me, and said: "My Benvenuto, you know that I am on your side: now they have referred the whole thing to me;" and he showed it me written in their own hand. I, who did not know that he was a close relative of theirs, thought this very good, and so I referred myself to him altogether and entirely.
This gallant man came one evening at half an hour into the night, and it was in the month of August, and with so many words of his he forced me to have the contract drawn, only because he knew that if it had been put off until morning, that trick he meant to play me would not have succeeded for him. So the contract was made, that he should give me sixty-five scudi in money a year of rent, in two payments every year, during the whole of my natural life. And although I shook myself and would not be patient about it at all, he showed the paper in my own hand, with which he moved everybody to put me in the wrong; and he said that he had done it all for my good and that he was on my side; and neither the notary nor the others knowing that he was their relative, they all put me in the wrong: on account of which I gave way in good time, and I shall try to live as long as I possibly can.
After this I made another mistake in the month of December following, 1566. I bought half the farm of the Poggio from them, that is from Sbietta, for two hundred scudi in money, which borders on that first one of mine of the Fonte, with three years' right of redemption, and I let it to them on lease. I did it to do them good. It would take far too long a spreading out in writing if I wanted to tell the great cruelties they have done me; I mean to refer it altogether and entirely to God, who has always defended me from those who have wanted to do me harm.
Having entirely finished my marble Crucifix, it seemed to me that by setting it upright and putting it raised some braccia above the ground, it ought to show much better than keeping it on the ground; and although it showed well, once I had set it upright it showed a great deal better, so that I was very well satisfied with it: and so I began to show it to whoever wanted to see it.
As God willed, it was spoken of to the Duke and to the Duchess; so that when they came from Pisa, one day unexpectedly both their most illustrious Excellencies with all the nobility of their Court came to my house only to see the said Crucifix: which pleased them so much that the Duke and the Duchess never left off giving me endless praises; and so consequently all those lords and gentlemen who were present. Now when I saw that they were much satisfied, I began pleasantly to thank them, telling them that their having taken from me the labour of the marble of the Neptune had been the very cause of my having carried out such a work, in which nobody else had ever set himself before me; and although I had endured the greatest labour I ever endured in the world, it seemed to me that I had spent it well, and all the more since their most illustrious Excellencies praised it to me so much; and because I could never believe I should find anybody who could be worthier of it than their most illustrious Excellencies, I willingly made them a present of it; only I begged them, before they went away, to be so good as to come into the ground floor of my house.
At these words of mine they got up at once pleasantly, and left the workshop, and having come into the house they saw my little model of the Neptune and of the fountain, which the Duchess had never seen before that moment. It had such force in the Duchess's eyes that at once she raised a cry of wonder beyond reckoning; and turning to the Duke she said: "Upon my life, I did not think it a tenth part as beautiful." At these words the Duke said to her several times: "Oh, did I not tell you so?" And so between them they talked of it a good while, much to my honour; then the Duchess called me to her, and after many praises given me by way of excusing herself, for in the comment on those words she seemed almost to be asking my pardon, she then told me that she wanted me to have a marble quarried to my own liking, and wanted me to set to work on it. At those kindly words I said that if their most illustrious Excellencies gave me the conveniences, I would willingly for love of them set myself to such a laborious undertaking. To this the Duke at once answered and said: "Benvenuto, you shall be given all the conveniences you know how to ask for, and moreover what I shall give you of my own accord, which will be worth far more;" and with these pleasant words they went away, and left me quite content.
Many weeks having gone by, and nothing being said about me; so that, seeing that no orders were given to do anything, I was half in despair. At this time the Queen of France sent Messer Baccio del Bene to our Duke to ask him for money on loan; and the Duke kindly served her in it, so it was said; and because Messer Baccio del Bene and I were very familiar friends, having recognized one another in Florence, we were very glad to see each other; so that he told me all those great favours His most illustrious Excellency was doing him; and in talking he asked me how I had great works in hand. On account of which I told him, as it had happened, the whole case of the great Neptune and of the fountain, and the great wrong the Duchess had done me.
At these words he told me on the Queen's behalf how Her Majesty had the greatest desire to finish the tomb of King Henry her husband, and that Daniele da Volterra had undertaken to make a great bronze horse, and that the time he had promised it for had gone by, and that a great deal of ornament was to go on the said tomb; so that if I wanted to go back to France to my castle, she would have me given all the conveniences I knew how to ask for, provided I had a mind to serve her. I told the said Messer Baccio to ask for me from my Duke; that if His most illustrious Excellency were content with it, I would willingly go back to France. Messer Baccio cheerfully said: "We shall go back together;" and he set it down as done.
So the next day, when he was speaking with the Duke, the talk came round to me; so that he told the Duke that, if it were with his good favour, the Queen would make use of me. To this the Duke at once answered and said: "Benvenuto is that able man the world knows; but now he no longer wants to work;" and having gone on to other talk, the next day I went to find the said Messer Baccio, who told me the whole of it again. At this I, who could hold back no longer, said: "Oh, if, since His most illustrious Excellency gave me nothing to do, I of my own accord have made one of the most difficult works that were ever made by anybody in the world, and it costs me more than two hundred scudi, which I have spent out of my poverty; oh, what would I have done, if His most illustrious Excellency had set me to work! I tell you truly that a great wrong is done me." The good gentleman repeated to the Duke everything I had answered. The Duke told him that he was joking, and that he wanted me for himself; so that several times I stirred up the matter of going off with God. The Queen would not talk about it any more so as not to displease the Duke, and so I was left quite thoroughly discontented.
At this time the Duke went off, with all his Court and with all his sons, except the Prince who was in Spain: they went through the maremmas of Siena; and on that journey he came to Pisa. The Cardinal took the poison of that bad air first of all: so that a few days later a pestilential fever attacked him and in a short time killed him. This was the Duke's right eye: he was handsome and good, and it was the greatest loss. I let several days go by, until I thought that the tears would be dried: then I went off to Pisa.