Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini Vol 1 — Chapters 27-30

XXVII

AT that time, while I was still a young man of about twenty-three, there raged a plague of such extraordinary violence that many thousands died of it every day in Rome.

Somewhat terrified at this calamity, I began to take certain amusements, as my mind suggested, and for a reason which I will presently relate.

I had formed a habit of going on feast-days to the ancient buildings, and copying parts of them in wax or with the pencil; and since these buildings are all ruins, and the ruins house innumerable pigeons, it came into my head to use my gun against these birds.

So then, avoiding all commerce with people, in my terror of the plague, I used to put a fowling-piece on my boy Pagolino’s shoulder, and he and I went out alone into the ruins; and oftentimes we came home laden with a cargo of the fattest pigeons.

I did not care to charge my gun with more than a single ball; and thus it was by pure skill in the art that I filled such heavy bags.

I had a fowling-piece which I had made myself; inside and out it was as bright as any mirror.

I also used to make a very fine sort of powder, in doing which I discovered secret processes, beyond any which have yet been found; and on this point, in order to be brief, I will give but one particular, which will astonish good shots of every degree.

This is, that when I charged my gun with powder weighing one-fifth of the ball, it carried two hundred paces point-blank.

It is true that the great delight I took in this exercise bid fair to withdraw me from my art and studies; yet in another way it gave me more than it deprived me of, seeing that each time I went out shooting I returned with greatly better health, because the open air was a benefit to my constitution.

My natural temperament was melancholy, and while I was taking these amusements, my heart leapt up with joy, and I found that I could work better and with far greater mastery than when I spent my whole time in study and manual labour.

In this way my gun, at the end of the game, stood me more in profit than in loss.

It was also the cause of my making acquaintance with certain hunters after curiosities, who followed in the track [1] of those Lombard peasants who used to come to Rome to till the vineyards at the proper season.

While digging the ground, they frequently turned up antique medals, agates, chrysoprases, cornelians, and cameos; also sometimes jewels, as, for instance, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, and rubies.

The peasants used to sell things of this sort to the traders for a mere trifle; and I very often, when I met them, paid the latter several times as many golden crowns as they had given giulios for some object.

Independently of the profit I made by this traffic, which was at least tenfold, it brought me also into agreeable relations with nearly all the cardinals of Rome.

I will only touch upon a few of the most notable and the rarest of these curiosities.

There came into my hands, among many other fragments, the head of a dolphin about as big as a good-sized ballot-bean.

Not only was the style of this head extremely beautiful, but nature had here far surpassed art; for the stone was an emerald of such good colour, that the man who bought it from me for tens of crowns sold it again for hundreds after setting it as a finger-ring.

I will mention another kind of gem; this was a magnificent topaz; and here art equalled nature; it was as large as a big hazel-nut, with the head of Minerva in a style of inconceivable beauty.

I remember yet another precious stone, different from these; it was a cameo, engraved with Hercules binding Cerberus of the triple throat; such was its beauty and the skill of its workmanship, that our great Michel Agnolo protested he had never seen anything so wonderful.

Among many bronze medals, I obtained one upon which was a head of Jupiter.

It was the largest that had ever been seen; the head of the most perfect execution; and it had on the reverse side a very fine design of some little figures in the same style.

I might enlarge at great length on this curiosity; but I will refrain for fear of being prolix.

Note 1. 'Stavano alle velette.'

Perhaps 'lay in wait for.'

XXVIII

AS I have said above, the plague had broken out in Rome; but though I must return a little way upon my steps, I shall not therefore abandon the main path of my history.

There arrived in Rome a surgeon of the highest renown, who was called Maestro Giacomo da Carpi.

[1] This able man, in the course of his other practice, undertook the most desperate cases of the so-called French disease.

In Rome this kind of illness is very partial to the priests, and especially to the richest of them.

When, therefore, Maestro Giacomo had made his talents known, he professed to work miracles in the treatment of such cases by means of certain fumigations; but he only undertook a cure after stipulating for his fees, which he reckoned not by tens, but by hundreds of crowns.

He was a great connoisseur in the arts of design.

Chancing to pass one day before my shop, he saw a lot of drawings which I had laid upon the counter, and among these were several designs for little vases in a capricious style, which I had sketched for my amusement.

These vases were in quite a different fashion from any which had been seen up to that date.

He was anxious that I should finish one or two of them for him in silver; and this I did with the fullest satisfaction, seeing they exactly suited my own fancy.

The clever surgeon paid me very well, and yet the honour which the vases brought me was worth a hundred times as much; for the best craftsmen in the goldsmith’s trade declared they had never seen anything more beautiful or better executed.

No sooner had I finished them than he showed them to the Pope; and the next day following he betook himself away from Rome.

He was a man of much learning, who used to discourse wonderfully about medicine.

The Pope would fain have had him in his service, but he replied that he would not take service with anybody in the world, and that whoso had need of him might come to seek him out.

He was a person of great sagacity, and did wisely to get out of Rome; for not many months afterwards, all the patients he had treated grew so ill that they were a hundred times worse off than before he came.

He would certainly have been murdered if he had stopped.

He showed my little vases to several persons of quality; amongst others, to the most excellent Duke of Ferrara, and pretended that he had got them from a great lord in Rome, by telling this nobleman that if he wanted to be cured, he must give him those two vases; and that the lord had answered that they were antique, and besought him to ask for anything else which it might be convenient for him to give, provided only he would leave him those; but, according to his own account, Maestro Giacomo made as though he would not undertake the cure, and so he got them.

I was told this by Messer Alberto Bendedio in Ferrara, who with great ostentation showed me some earthenware copies he possessed of them.

[2] Thereupon I laughed, and as I said nothing, Messer Alberto Bendedio, who was a haughty man, flew into a rage and said: “You are laughing at them, are you?

And I tell you that during the last thousand years there has not been born a man capable of so much as copying them.

” I then, not caring to deprive them of so eminent a reputation, kept silence, and admired them with mute stupefaction.

It was said to me in Rome by many great lords, some of whom were my friends, that the work of which I have been speaking was, in their opinion of marvellous excellence and genuine antiquity; whereupon, emboldened by their praises, I revealed that I had made them.

As they would not believe it, and as I wished to prove that I had spoken truth, I was obliged to bring evidence and to make new drawings of the vases; for my word alone was not enough, inasmuch as Maestro Giacomo had cunningly insisted upon carrying off the old drawings with him.

By this little job I earned a fair amount of money.

Note 1. Giacomo Berengario da Carpi was, in fact, a great physician, surgeon, and student of anatomy.

He is said to have been the first to use mercury in the cure of syphilis, a disease which was devastating Italy after the year 1495. He amassed a large fortune, which, when he died at Ferrara about 1530, he bequeathed to the Duke there.

Note 2. See below, Book II.

Chap.

viii.

, for a full account of this incident at Ferrara.

XXIX

THE PLAGUE went dragging on for many months, but I had as yet managed to keep it at bay; for though several of my comrades were dead, I survived in health and freedom.

Now it chanced one evening that an intimate comrade of mine brought home to supper a Bolognese prostitute named Faustina.

She was a very fine woman, but about thirty years of age; and she had with her a little serving-girl of thirteen or fourteen.

Faustina belonging to my friend, I would not have touched her for all the gold in the world; and though she declared she was madly in love with me, I remained steadfast in my loyalty.

But after they had gone to bed, I stole away the little serving-girl, who was quite a fresh maid, and woe to her if her mistress had known of it!

The result was that I enjoyed a very pleasant night, far more to my satisfaction than if I had passed it with Faustina.

I rose upon the hour of breaking fast, and felt tired, for I had travelled many miles that night, and was wanting to take food, when a crushing headache seized me; several boils appeared on my left arm, together with a carbuncle which showed itself just beyond the palm of the left hand where it joins the wrist.

Everybody in the house was in a panic; my friend, the cow and the calf, all fled.

Left alone there with my poor little prentice, who refused to abandon me, I felt stifled at the heart, and made up my mind for certain I was a dead man.

Just then the father of the lad went by, who was physician to the Cardinal Iacoacci, [1] and lived as member of that prelate’s household.

[2] The boy called out: “Come, father, and see Benvenuto; he is in bed with some trifling indisposition.

” Without thinking what my complaint might be, the doctor came up at once, and when he had felt my pulse, he saw and felt what was very contrary to his own wishes.

Turning round to his son, he said: “O traitor of a child, you’ve ruined me; how can I venture now into the Cardinal’s presence?

” His son made answer: “Why, father, this man my master is worth far more than all the cardinals in Rome.

” Then the doctor turned to me and said: “Since I am here, I will consent to treat you.

But of one thing only I warn you, that if you have enjoyed a woman, you are doomed.

” To this I replied: “I did so this very night.

” He answered: “With whom, and to what extent?

” [3] I said: “Last night, and with a girl in her earliest maturity.

” Upon this, perceiving that he had spoken foolishly, he made haste to add: “Well, considering the sores are so new, and have not yet begun to stink, and that the remedies will be taken in time, you need not be too much afraid, for I have good hopes of curing you.

” When he had prescribed for me and gone away, a very dear friend of mine, called Giovanni Rigogli, came in, who fell to commiserating my great suffering and also my desertion by my comrade, and said: “Be of good cheer, my Benvenuto, for I will never leave your side until I see you restored to health.

” I told him not to come too close, since it was all over with me.

Only I besought him to be so kind as to take a considerable quantity of crowns, which were lying in a little box near my bed, and when God had thought fit to remove me from this world, to send them to my poor father, writing pleasantly to him, in the way I too had done, so far as that appalling season of the plague permitted.

[4] My beloved friend declared that he had no intention whatsoever of leaving me, and that come what might, in life or death, he knew very well what was his duty toward a friend.

And so we went on by the help of God: and the admirable remedies which I had used began to work a great improvement, and I soon came well out of that dreadful sickness.

The sore was still open, with a plug of lint inside it and a plaster above, when I went out riding on a little wild pony.

He was covered with hair four fingers long, and was exactly as big as a well-grown bear;

indeed he looked just like a bear.

I rode out on him to visit the painter Rosso, who was then living in the country, toward Civita Vecchia, at a place of Count Anguillara’s called Cervetera.

I found my friend, and he was very glad to see me; whereupon I said: “I am come to do to you that which you did to me so many months ago.

” He burst out laughing, embraced and kissed me, and begged me for the Count’s sake to keep quiet.

I stayed in that place about a month, with much content and gladness, enjoying good wines and excellent food, and treated with the greatest kindness by the Count; every day I used to ride out alone along the seashore, where I dismounted, and filled my pockets with all sorts of pebbles, snail shells, and sea shells of great rarity and beauty.

On the last day (for after this I went there no more) I was attacked by a band of men, who had disguised themselves, and disembarked from a Moorish privateer.

When they thought that they had run me into a certain passage, where it seemed impossible that I should escape from their hands, I suddenly mounted my pony, resolved to be roasted or boiled alive at that pass perilous, seeing I had little hope to evade one or the other of these fates; [5] but, as God willed, my pony, who was the same I have described above, took an incredibly wide jump, and brought me off in safety, for which I heartily thanked God.

I told the story to the Count; he ran to arms; but we saw the galleys setting out to sea.

The next day following I went back sound and with good cheer to Rome.

Note 1. Probably Domenico Iacobacci, who obtained the hat in 1517. Note 2. 'A sua provisione stava, i. e. ,' he was in the Cardinal’s regular pay.

Note 3. 'Quanto.'

Perhaps we ought to read 'quando-when?'

Note 4. 'Come ancora io avevo fatto secondo l’usanza che promettava quell’ arrabbiata stagione.'

I am not sure that I have given the right sense in the text above.

Leclanché interprets the words thus: “that I too had fared according to the wont of that appalling season,” 'i. e. ,' had died of the plague.

But I think the version in my sense is more true both to Italian and to Cellini’s special style.

Note 5. 'I. e. ,' to escape either being drowned or shot.

XXX

THE PLAGUE had by this time almost died out, so that the survivors, when they met together alive, rejoiced with much delight in one another’s company.

This led to the formation of a club of painters, sculptors, and goldsmiths, the best that were in Rome; and the founder of it was a sculptor with the name of Michel Agnolo.

[1] He was a Sienese and a man of great ability, who could hold his own against any other workman in that art; but, above all, he was the most amusing comrade and the heartiest good fellow in the universe.

Of all the members of the club, he was the eldest, and yet the youngest from the strength and vigour of his body.

We often came together; at the very least twice a week.

I must not omit to mention that our society counted Giulio Romano, the painter, and Gian Francesco, both of them celebrated pupils of the mighty Raffaello da Urbino.

After many and many merry meetings, it seemed good to our worthy president that for the following Sunday we should repair to supper in his house, and that each one of us should be obliged to bring with him his crow (such was the nickname Michel Agnolo gave to women in the club), and that whoso did not bring one should be sconced by paying a supper to the whole company.

Those of us who had no familiarity with women of the town, were forced to purvey themselves at no small trouble and expense, in order to appear without disgrace at that distinguished feast of artists.

I had reckoned upon being well provided with a young woman of considerable beauty, called Pantasilea, who was very much in love with me; but I was obliged to give her up to one of my dearest friends, called Il Bachiacca, who on his side had been, and still was, over head and ears in love with her.

[2] This exchange excited a certain amount of lover’s anger, because the lady, seeing I had abandoned her at Bachiacca’s first entreaty, imagined that I held in slight esteem the great affection which she bore me.

In course of time a very serious incident grew out of this misunderstanding, through her desire to take revenge for the affront I had put upon her; whereof I shall speak hereafter in the proper place.

Well, then, the hour was drawing nigh when we had to present ourselves before that company of men of genius, each with his own crow; and I was still unprovided; and yet I thought it would be stupid to fail of such a madcap bagatelle; [3] but what particularly weighed upon my mind was that I did not choose to lend the light of my countenance in that illustrious sphere to some miserable plume-plucked scarecrow.

All these considerations made me devise a pleasant trick, for the increase of merriment and the diffusion of mirth in our society.

Having taken this resolve, I sent for a stripling of sixteen years, who lived in the next house to mine; he was the son of a Spanish coppersmith.

This young man gave his time to Latin studies, and was very diligent in their pursuit.

He bore the name of Diego, had a handsome figure, and a complexion of marvellous brilliancy; the outlines of his head and face were far more beautiful than those of the antique Antinous: I had often copied them, gaining thereby much honour from the works in which I used them.

The youth had no acquaintances, and was therefore quite unknown; dressed very ill and negligently; all his affections being set upon those wonderful studies of his.

After bringing him to my house, I begged him to let me array him in the woman’s clothes which I had caused to be laid out.

He readily complied, and put them on at once, while I added new beauties to the beauty of his face by the elaborate and studied way in which I dressed his hair.

In his ears I placed two little rings, set with two large and fair pearls; the rings were broken; they only clipped his ears, which looked as though they had been pierced.

Afterwards I wreathed his throat with chains of gold and rich jewels, and ornamented his fair hands with rings.

Then I took him in a pleasant manner by one ear, and drew him before a great looking-glass.

The lad, when he beheld himself, cried out with a burst of enthusiasm: “Heavens!

is that Diego?

” I said: “That is Diego, from whom until this day I never asked for any kind of favour; but now I only beseech Diego to do me pleasure in one harmless thing; and it is this-I want him to come in those very clothes to supper with the company of artists whereof he has often heard me speak.

” The young man, who was honest, virtuous, and wise, checked his enthusiasm, bent his eyes to the ground, and stood for a short while in silence.

Then with a sudden move he lifted up his face and said: “With Benvenuto I will go; now let us start.

” I wrapped his head in a large kind of napkin, which is called in Rome a summer-cloth; and when we reached the place of meeting, the company had already assembled, and everybody came forward to greet me.

Michel Agnolo had placed himself between Giulio and Giovan Francesco.

I lifted the veil from the head of my beauty; and then Michel Agnolo, who, as I have already said, was the most humorous and amusing fellow in the world, laid his two hands, the one on Giulio’s and the other on Gian Francesco’s shoulders, and pulling them with all his force, made them bow down, while he, on his knees upon the floor, cried out for mercy, and called to all the folk in words like these: “Behold ye of what sort are the angels of paradise!

for though they are called angels, here shall ye see that they are not all of the male gender.

” Then with a loud voice he added: “Angel beauteous, angel best, Save me thou, make thou me blest.

” Upon this my charming creature laughed, and lifted the right hand and gave him a papal benediction, with many pleasant words to boot.

So Michel Agnolo stood up, and said it was the custom to kiss the feet of the Pope and the cheeks of angels; and having done the latter to Diego, the boy blushed deeply, which immensely enhanced his beauty.

When this reception was over, we found the whole room full of sonnets, which every man of us had made and sent to Michel Agnolo, My lad began to read them, and read them all aloud so gracefully, that his infinite charms were heightened beyond the powers of language to describe.

Then followed conversation and witty sayings, on which I will not enlarge, for that is not my business; only one clever word must be mentioned, for it was spoken by that admirable painter Giulio, who, looking round with meaning [4] in his eyes on the bystanders, and fixing them particularly upon the women, turned to Michel Agnolo and said: “My dear Michel Agnolo, your nickname of crow very well suits those ladies to-day, though I vow they are somewhat less fair than crows by the side of one of the most lovely peacocks which fancy could have painted” When the banquet was served and ready, and we were going to sit down to table, Giulio asked leave to be allowed to place us.

This being granted, he took the women by the hand, and arranged them all upon the inner side, with my fair in the centre; then he placed all the men on the outside and me in the middle, saying there was no honour too great for my deserts.

; As a background to the women, there was spread an espalier of natural jasmines in full beauty, [5] which set off their charms, and especially Diego’s, to such great advantage, that words would fail to describe the effect.

Then we all of us fell to enjoying the abundance of our host’s well-furnished table.

The supper was followed by a short concert of delightful music, voices joining in harmony with instruments;

and forasmuch as they were singing and playing from the book, my beauty begged to be allowed to sing his part.

He performed the music better than almost all the rest, which so astonished the company that Giulio and Michel Agnolo dropped their earlier tone of banter, exchanging it for well-weighed terms of sober heartfelt admiration.

After the music was over, a certain Aurelio Ascolano, [6]remarkable for his gift as an improvisatory poet, began to extol the women in choice phrases of exquisite compliment.

While he was chanting, the two girls who had my beauty between them never left off chattering.

One of them related how she had gone wrong; the other asked mine how it had happened with her, and who were her friends, and how long she had been settled in Rome, and many other questions of the kind.

It is true that, if I chose to describe such laughable episodes, I could relate several odd things which then occurred through Pantasilea’s jealousy on my account; but since they form no part of my design, I pass them briefly over.

At last the conversation of those loose women vexed my beauty, whom we had christened Pomona for the nonce; and Pomona, wanting to escape from their silly talk, turned restlessly upon her chair, first to one side and then to the other.

The female brought by Giulio asked whether she felt indisposed.

Pomona answered, yes, she thought she was a month or so with a child; this gave them the opportunity of feeling her body and discovering the real sex of the supposed woman.

Thereupon they quickly withdrew their hands and rose from table, uttering such gibing words as are commonly addressed to young men of eminent beauty.

The whole room rang with laughter and astonishment, in the midst of which Michel Agnolo, assuming a fierce aspect, called out for leave to inflict on me the penance he thought fit.

When this was granted, he lifted me aloft amid the clamour of the company, crying: “Long live the gentleman!

long live the gentleman!

” and added that this was the punishment I deserved for having played so fine a trick.

Thus ended that most agreeable supper-party, and each of us returned to his own dwelling at the close of day.

Note 1. This sculptor came to Rome with his compatriot Baldassare Peruzzi, and was employed upon the monument of Pope Adrian VI.

, which he executed with some help from Tribolo.

Note 2. There were two artists at this epoch surnamed Bachiacca, the twin sons of Ubertino Verdi, called respectively Francesco and Antonio.

Francesco was an excellent painter of miniature oil-pictures; Antonio the first embroiderer of his age.

The one alluded to here is probably Francesco.

Note 3. 'Mancare di una sìpazza cosa.'

The 'pazza cosa' may be the supper-party or the 'cornacchia.'

Note 4. 'Virtuosamente.'

Cellini uses the word 'virtuoso' in many senses, but always more with reference to intellectual than moral qualities.

It denotes genius, artistic ability, masculine force, &c. Note 5. 'Un tessuto di gelsumini naturali e bellissimi.

Tessuto' is properly something woven, a fabric; and I am not sure whether Cellini does not mean that the ladies had behind their backs a tapestry representing jasmines in a natural manner.

Note 6. Probably Eurialo d’Ascoli, a friend of Caro, Molza, Aretino.