Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini Vol 1 — Chapters 104-107

CIV

DURING the agitations of this time which I have just related, King Francis received news of how the Pope was keeping me in prison, and with what injustice.

He had sent a certain gentleman of his, named Monsignor di Morluc, as his ambassador to Rome; [1] to him therefore he now wrote, claiming me from the Pope as the man of his Majesty.

The Pope was a person of extraordinary sense and ability, but in this affair of mine he behaved weakly and unintelligently; for he made answer to the King’s envoy that his Majesty need pay me no attention, since I was a fellow who gave much trouble by fighting; therefore he advised his Majesty to leave me alone, adding that he kept me in prison for homicides and other deviltries which I had played.

To this the King sent answer that justice in his realm was excellently maintained; for even as his Majesty was wont to shower rewards and favours upon men of parts and virtue, so did he ever chastise the troublesome.

His Holiness had let me go, not caring for the service of the said Benvenuto, and the King, when he saw him in his realm, most willingly adopted him; therefore he now asked for him in the quality of his own man.

Such a demand was certainly one of the most honourable marks of favour which a man of my sort could desire; yet it proved the source of infinite annoyance and hurt to me.

The Pope was roused to such fury by the jealous fear he had lest I should go and tell the whole world how infamously I had been treated, that he kept revolving ways in which I might be put to death without injury to his own credit.

The castellan of Sant’ Angelo was one of our Florentines, called Messer Giorgio, a knight of the Ugolini family.

[2] This worthy man showed me the greatest courtesy, and let me go free about the castle on parole.

He was well aware how greatly I had been wronged; and when I wanted to give security for leave to walk about the castle, he replied that though he could not take that, seeing the Pope set too much importance upon my affair, yet he would frankly trust my word, because he was informed by every one what a worthy man I was.

So I passed my parole, and he granted me conveniences for working at my trade.

I then, reflecting that the Pope’s anger against me must subside, as well because of my innocence as because of the favour shown me by the King, kept my shop in Rome open, while Ascanio, my prentice, came to the castle and brought me things to work at.

I could not indeed do much, feeling myself imprisoned so unjustly; yet I made a virtue of necessity, and bore my adverse fortune with as light a heart as I was able.

I had secured the attachment of all the guards and many soldiers of the castle.

Now the Pope used to come at times to sup there, and on those occasions no watch was kept, but the place stood open like an ordinary palace.

Consequently, while the Pope was there, the prisoners used to be shut up with great precautions; none such, however, were taken with me, who had the license to go where I liked, even at those times, about it precincts.

Often then those soldiers told me that I ought to escape, and that they would aid and abet me, knowing as they did how greatly I had been wronged.

I answered that I had given my parole to the castellan, who was such a worthy man, and had done me such kind offices.

One very brave and clever soldier used to say to me: “My Benvenuto, you must know that a prisoner is not obliged, and cannot be obliged, to keep faith, any more than aught else which befits a free man.

Do what I tell you;

escape from that rascal of a Pope and that bastard his son, for both are bent on having your life by villainy.

” I had, however, made my mind up rather to lose my life than to break the promise I had given that good man the castellan.

So I bore the extreme discomforts of my situation, and had for companion of misery a friar of the Palavisina house, who was a very famous preacher.

3 Note 1. Jean de Montluc, brother of the celebrated Marshal, Bishop of Valence, a friend of Margaret of Navarre, and, like her, a protector of the Huguenots.

He negotiated the election of the Duke of Anjou to the throne of Poland.

Note 2. It is only known of this man that he was a Knight of Jerusalem, and had been Commendatore of Prato in 1511. Note 3. Cellini means Pallavicini.

Nothing seems to be known about him, except that his imprisonment is mentioned in a letter of Caro’s under date 1540. CV

THIS man had been arrested as a Lutheran.

He was an excellent companion;

but, from the point of view of his religion, I found him the biggest scoundrel in the world, to whom all kinds of vices were acceptable.

His fine intellectual qualities won my admiration; but I hated his dirty vices, and frankly taxed him with them.

This friar kept perpetually reminding me that I was in no wise bound to observe faith with the castellan, since I had become a prisoner.

I replied to these arguments that he might be speaking the truth as a friar, but that as a man he spoke the contrary; for every one who called himself a man, and not a monk, was bound to keep his word under all circumstances in which he chanced to be.

I therefore, being a man, and not a monk, was not going to break the simple and loyal word which I had given.

Seeing then that he could not sap my honour by the subtle and ingenious sophistries he so eloquently developed, the friar hit upon another way of tempting me.

He allowed some days to pass, during which he read me the sermons of Fra Jerolimo Savonarola; and these he expounded with such lucidity and learning that his comment was even finer than the text.

I remained in ecstasies of admiration; and there was nothing in the world I would not have done for him, except, as I have said, to break my promised word.

When he saw the effect his talents had produced upon my mind, he thought of yet another method.

Cautiously he began to ask what means I should have taken, supposing my jailers had locked me up, in order to set the dungeon doors open and effect my flight.

I then, who wanted to display the sharpness of my own wits to so ingenious a man, replied that I was quite sure of being able to open the most baffling locks and bars, far more those of our prison, to do which would be the same to me as eating a bit of new cheese.

In order then to gain my secret, the friar now made light of these assertions, averring that persons who have gained some credit by their abilities, are wont to talk big of things which, if they had to put their boasts in action, would speedily discredit them, and much to their dishonour.

Himself had heard me speak so far from the truth, that he was inclined to think I should, when pushed to proof, end in a dishonourable failure.

Upon this, feeling myself stung to the quick by that devil of a friar, I responded that I always made a practice of promising in words less than I could perform in deeds; what I had said about the keys was the merest trifle; in a few words I could make him understand that the matter was as I had told it; then, all too heedlessly, I demonstrated the facility with which my assertions could be carried into act.

He affected to pay little attention; but all the same he learned my lesson well by heart with keen intelligence.

As I have said above, the worthy castellan let me roam at pleasure over the whole fortress.

Not even at night did he lock me in, as was the custom with the other prisoners.

Moreover, he allowed me to employ myself as I liked best, with gold or silver or with wax according to my whim.

So then, I laboured several weeks at the bason ordered by Cardinal Ferrara, but the irksomeness of my imprisonment bred in me a disgust for such employment, and I took to modelling in wax some little figures of my fancy, for mere recreation.

Of the wax which I used, the friar stole a piece; and with this he proceeded to get false keys made, upon the method I had heedlessly revealed to him.

He had chosen for his accomplice a registrar named Luigi, a Paduan, who was in the castellan’s service.

When the keys were ordered, the locksmith revealed their plot;

and the castellan who came at times to see me in my chamber, noticing the wax which I was using, recognised it at once and exclaimed: “It is true that this poor fellow Benvenuto has suffered a most grievous wrong;

yet he ought not to have dealt thus with me, for I have ever strained my sense of right to show him kindness.

Now I shall keep him straitly under lock and key, and shall take good care to do him no more service.

” Accordingly, he had me shut up with disagreeable circumstances, among the worst of which were the words flung at me by some of his devoted servants, who were indeed extremely fond of me, but now, on this occasion, cast in my teeth all the kind offices the castellan had done me; they came, in fact, to calling me ungrateful, light, and disloyal.

One of them in particular used those injurious terms more insolently than was decent; whereupon I, being convinced of my innocence, retorted hotly that I had never broken faith, and would maintain these words at the peril of my life, and that if he or any of his fellows abused me so unjustly, I would fling the lie back in his throat.

The man, intolerant of my rebuke, rushed to the castellan’s room, and brought me the wax with the model of the keys.

No sooner had I seen the wax than I told him that both he and I were in the right; but I begged him to procure for me an audience with the castellan, for I meant to explain frankly how the matter stood, which was of far more consequence than they imagined.

The castellan sent for me at once, and I told him the whole course of events.

This made him arrest the friar, who betrayed the registrar, and the alter ran a risk of being hanged.

However, the castellan hushed the affair up, although it had reached the Pope’s ears; he saved his registrar from the gallows, and gave me the same freedom as I had before.

CVI

WHEN I saw how rigorously this affair was prosecuted, I began to think of my own concerns, and said: “Supposing another of these storms should rise, and the man should lose confidence in me, I should then be under no obligation to him, and might wish to use my wits a little, which would certainly work their end better than those of that rascally friar.

” So I began to have new sheets of a coarse fabric brought me, and did not send the dirty ones away.

When my servants asked for them, I bade them hold their tongues, saying I had given the sheets to some of those poor soldiers; and if the matter came to knowledge, the wretched fellows ran risk of the galleys.

This made my young men and attendants, especially Felice, keep the secret of the sheets in all loyalty.

I

meanwhile set myself to emptying a straw mattress, the stuffing of which I burned, having a chimney in my prison.

Out of the sheets I cut strips, the third of a cubit in breadth; and when I had made enough in my opinion to clear the great height of the central keep of Sant’ Angelo, I told my servants that I had given away what I wanted; they must now bring me others of a finer fabric, and I would always send back the dirty ones.

This affair was presently forgotten.

Now my workpeople and serving-men were obliged to close my shop at the order of the Cardinals Santi Quattro [1] and Cornaro, who told me openly that the Pope would not hear of setting me at large, and that the great favours shown me by King Francis had done far more harm that good.

It seems that the last words spoken from the King by Monsignor di Morluc had been to this effect, namely, that the Pope ought to hand me over to the ordinary judges of the court; if I had done wrong, he could chastise me; but otherwise, it was but reason that he should set me at liberty.

This message so irritated the Pope that he made his mind up to keep me a prisoner for life.

At the same time, the castellan most certainly did his utmost to assist me.

When my enemies perceived that my shop was closed, they lost no opportunity of taunting and reviling those servants and friends of mine who came to visit me in prison.

It happened on one occasion that Ascanio, who came twice a day to visit me, asked to have a jacket cut out for him from a blue silk vest of mine I never used.

I had only worn it once, on the occasion when I walked in procession.

I replied that these were not the times nor was I in the place to wear such clothes.

The young man took my refusal of this miserable vest so ill that he told me he wanted to go home to Tagliacozzo.

All in a rage, I answered that he could not please me better than by taking himself off; and he swore with passion that he would never show his face to me again.

When these words passed between us, we were walking round the keep of the castle.

It happened that the castellan was also taking the air there; so just when we met his lordship Ascanio said: “I am going away; farewell for ever!

” I added: “For ever, is my wish too; and thus in sooth shall it be.

I shall tell the sentinels not to let you pass again!

” Then, turning to the castellan, I begged him with all my heart to order the guards to keep Ascanio out, adding: “This little peasant comes here to add to my great trouble; I entreat you, therefore, my lord, not to let him enter any more.

” The castellan was much grieved, because he knew him to be a lad of marvellous talents; he was, moreover, so fair a person that every one who once set eyes on him seemed bound to love him beyond measure.

The boy went away weeping.

That day he had with him a small scimitar, which it was at times his wont to carry hidden beneath his clothes.

Leaving the castle then, and having his face wet with tears, he chanced to meet two of my chief enemies, Jeronimo the Perugian, [2] and a certain Michele, goldsmiths both of them.

Michele, being Jeronimo’s friend and Ascanio’s enemy, called out: “What is Ascanio crying for?

Perhaps his father is dead; I mean that father in the castle!

” Ascanio answered on the instant: “He is alive, but you shall die this minute.

” Then, raising his hand, he struck two blows with the scimitar, both at the fellow’s head; the first felled him to earth, the second lopped three fingers off his right hand, though it was aimed at his head.

He lay there like a dead man.

The matter was at once reported to the Pope, who cried in a great fury: “Since the King wants him to be tried, go and give him three days to prepare his defence!

” So they came, and executed the commission which the Pope had given them.

The excellent castellan went off upon the spot to his Holiness, and informed him that I was no accomplice in the matter, and that I had sent Ascanio about his business.

So ably did he plead my cause that he saved my life from this impending tempest.

Ascanio meanwhile escaped to Tagliacozzo, to his home there, whence he wrote begging a thousand times my pardon, and acknowledging his wrong in adding troubles to my grave disaster; but protesting that if through God’s grace I came out from the prison, he meant never to abandon me.

I let him understand that he must mind his art, and that if God set me a large again I would certainly recall him.

Note 1. Antonio Pucci, a Florentine, Cardinal de’ Quattro Santi Coronati.

Note 2. 'I. e. ,' Girolamo Pascucci.

CVII

THE CASTELLAN was subject to a certain sickness, which came upon him every year and deprived him of his wits.

The sign of its, approach was that he kept continually talking, or rather jabbering, to no purpose.

These humours took a different shape each year; one time he thought he was an oiljar; another time he thought he was a frog, and hopped about as frogs do; another time he thought he was dead, and then they had to bury him; not a year passed but he got some such hypochondriac notions into his head.

At this season he imagined that he was a bat, and when he went abroad to take the air, he used to scream like bats in a high thin tone; and then he would flap his hands and body as though he were about to fly.

The doctors, when they saw the fit coming on him, and his old servants, gave him all the distractions they could think of; and since they had noticed that he derived much pleasure from my conversation, they were always fetching me to keep him company.

At times the poor man detained me for four or five stricken hours without ever letting me cease talking.

He used to keep me at his table, eating opposite to him, and never stopped chatting and making me chat; but during those discourses I contrived to make a good meal.

He, poor man, could neither eat nor sleep; so that at last he wore me out.

I was at the end of my strength; and sometimes when I looked at him, I noticed that his eyeballs were rolling in a frightful manner, one looking one way and the other in another.

He took it into his head to ask me whether I had ever had a fancy to fly.

I answered that it had always been my ambition to do those things which offer the greatest difficulties to men, and that I had done them;

as to flying, the God of Nature had gifted me with a body well suited for running and leaping far beyond the common average, and that with the talents I possessed for manual art I felt sure I had the courage to try flying.

He then inquired what methods I should use; to which I answered that, taking into consideration all flying creatures, and wishing to imitate by art what they derived from nature, none was so apt a model as the bat.

No sooner had the poor man heard the name bat, which recalled the humour he was suffering under, than he cried out at the top of his voice: “He says true-he says true; the bat’s the thing-the bat’s the thing!

” Then he turned to me and said: “Benvenuto, if one gave you the opportunity, should you have the heart to fly?

” I said if he would set me at liberty, I felt quite up to flying down to Prati, after making myself a pair of wings out of waxed linen.

Thereupon he replied: “I too should be prepared to take flight; but since the Pope has bidden me guard you as though you were his own eyes, and I know you a clever devil who would certainly escape, I shall now have you locked up with a hundred keys in order to prevent you slipping through my fingers.

” I then began to implore him, and remind him that I might have fled, but that on account of the word which I had given him I would never have betrayed his trust: therefore I begged him for the love of God, and by the kindness he had always shown me, not to add greater evils to the misery of my present situation.

While I was pouring out these entreaties, he gave strict orders to have me bound and taken and locked up in prison.

On seeing that it could not be helped, I told him before all his servants: “Lock me well up, and keep good watch on me; for I shall certainly contrive to escape.

” So they took and confined me with the utmost care.