The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini

by Benvenuto Cellini

  Follow the honest, upright way

  In whatever house you stay.

  This letter from my father fell into the hands of my master, Ulivieri, who read it without my knowing. Later on he told me he had done so and said:

  ‘There! my dear Benvenuto, I wasn’t wrong about your honest appearance. I can prove it by a letter from your father that I came across. It shows that he’s a good upright man himself. I want you to treat my home as if it were your own and as if you were living with your father.’

  I went to see the Campo Santo while I was in Pisa, and there I discovered many beautiful antiques, that is, marble sarcophagi. In various other parts of Pisa I came across many other ancient works, and I used to study them assiduously whenever I had time off from work. My master used to get a great deal of pleasure coming into the tiny room he had given me and finding me always hard at work. He began to love me like a father. For me the year I spent with him was a very fruitful one. I made a number of important and beautiful things out of gold and silver, and these made me ambitious to do even better. Meanwhile my father kept writing me piteous letters in which he begged me to come home, and he never left off reminding me that I should not lose the skill in playing music that he had been at such pains to teach me. When I read his letters I lost any desire I had ever to go back to him, such was my hatred for that damned playing. In fact my stay at Pisa, where I never touched the flute, seemed like a year in paradise.

  At the end of the year my master Ulivieri had occasion to go to Florence to sell some of his gold and silver sweepings. The unhealthy air at Pisa had given me a touch of fever, and so along with that and along with my master I went back to Florence. My father gave him a very enthusiastic welcome and, without my knowing, pleaded with him affectionately not to take me back to Pisa.

  I was still ill and I remained so for about two months. My father had me looked after and nursed very lovingly, and he kept saying that it seemed an eternity till I should be well again and he could hear me play a little. When he used to chat to me about playing – with his fingers resting on my pulse, because he knew something about medicine and had a little Latin – as soon as he approached the subject of music he felt my pulse quicken. This was so noticeable that very often he was dumbfounded and would leave me in tears.

  Realizing how very unhappy he was I told one of my sisters to bring me a flute. Although I was continually feverish, the flute is not a very tiring instrument and it did me no harm to play it. So I began to do so, with such beautiful fingering and tonguing that when my father came in suddenly he loaded me with blessings, saying that he thought I had made tremendous progress during the time I had been away from him. He begged me to carry on with my playing and not to lose such a fine accomplishment.

  As soon as I was better I went back to the goldsmith, Marcone. He was an honest man, and he made it possible for me to earn some money out of which I helped my father and the family. About that time a sculptor called Piero Torrigiano12 came to Florence. He had returned from England after a visit lasting quite a few years, and as he was a great friend of my master he used to come and see him every day. When he saw my designs and what I had made, he said:

  ‘My reason for coming to Florence is to engage as many young craftsmen as I can, because I’ve an important piece of work to execute for my King and I want my Florentines to help me with it. Now your method of going about things and your designs are far more suitable for sculpture than for a goldsmith’s work: so as I have to make a great statue in bronze, I shall at the same time make you an expert sculptor and a rich young man.’

  This Torrigiano was an extraordinarily handsome man, and very hot-tempered, and he seemed more like a great soldier than a sculptor, especially because of his powerful gestures and his resounding voice and the habit he had of frowning in a way that would frighten the life out of even the bravest man. Every day he had stories to tell concerning his brave deeds when he was living among those brutes of Englishmen. Then one day he started to talk about Michelangelo Buonarroti, after his eye had fallen on one of my drawings copied from a cartoon by that divine artist. This cartoon was the first wonderful work in which Michelangelo13 showed his magnificent genius, and he made it in competition with another artist – with Leonardo da Vinci;14 the two cartoons were meant for the Council Hall of the palace of the Signory. The subject was the capture of Pisa by the Florentines.

  The splendid Leonardo had chosen to show a battle-scene, with horsemen fighting together and standards being captured, and he had drawn it magnificently. In his cartoon, Michelangelo depicted a number of infantrymen who because of the summer heat had gone down to bathe in the river Arno: he caught in his drawing the moment when the alarm is sounded and the naked soldiers rush for their arms. He showed all their actions and gestures so wonderfully that no ancient or modern artist has ever reached such a high standard. Leonardo’s as well, as I said, was wonderfully beautiful. One of these cartoons was in the Medici palace, and the other in the Pope’s hall: and while they remained intact they served as a school for all the world.

  Although the divine Michelangelo later on painted the great chapel of Pope Julius15 he never reached half the same perfection; his genius never again showed the power of those first studies.

  To return to Piero Torrigiano: holding my drawing in his hand, he said:

  ‘This Buonarroti and I used to go along together when we were boys to study in Masaccio’s chapel in the Church of the Carmine.16 Buonarroti had the habit of making fun of anyone else who was drawing there, and one day he provoked me so much that I lost my temper more than usual, and, clenching my fist, gave him such a punch on the nose that I felt the bone and cartilage crush like a biscuit. So that fellow will carry my signature till he dies.’

  This story sowed in me, who used to see Michelangelo’s divine masterpieces every day, such a hatred for Torrigiano that far from wanting to go to England with him I could not bear to look at him. All the time I was in Florence I tried to capture Michelangelo’s beautiful style and I have never stopped doing so.

  At that time I formed a close and intimate friendship with a charming young man of my own age who was also in the goldsmith’s trade. His name was Francesco17 and he was the son of Filippo, whose father was the splendid painter Fra Filippo. We came to love each other so much that we were never apart, day or night. Also, his house was still full of the wonderful studies that his brilliant father had made; there were several books of them in his own hand, taken from the beautiful antiquities of Rome. When I saw these I completely lost my heart. Francesco and I went together for about two years.

  It was at that period that I made a piece of silver in low relief. It was about the size of a little child’s hand and was meant for the buckle of a man’s belt, since in those days they used to be worn as large as that. I carved on it a bunch of leaves, in the antique style, with a number of cherubs and some very beautiful masks. I did the work in Francesco Salimbene’s shop, and when it was seen by the members of the goldsmiths’ guild they praised me as the most talented young man in the trade. Then a young man of exactly my own age, Giovanbatista, who was known as Tasso18 and who worked as a wood-carver, began saying that if I meant to go to Rome he would be only too glad to come with me. We were talking about the project just after dinner, and as I was feeling angry with my father – for the usual reason, music – I said to Tasso: ‘You only talk, you never do anything.’

  ‘Look,’ he replied, ‘I’m furious with my mother as well, and if I had enough money to get to Rome I wouldn’t even wait to lock up that hovel of a shop that I’ve got.’

  I said that if that was all that was keeping him back I had enough money on me to take us both to Rome. We were walking along and talking to each other in this way when, quite unexpectedly, we found ourselves at the gate of San Pietro Gattolini.

  At this juncture I said: ‘Tasso, it’s God’s doing – neither of us noticed where we were going. Now I’m here I feel as if I’ve done half the journey already.’r />
  So we made up our minds and set off. As we went along we kept saying: ‘Oh, what will our old folks be saying this evening?’ And then we agreed not to give them another thought till we had arrived at Rome. We tied our aprons behind our backs and, hardly speaking a word, pushed on towards Siena. When we reached the town Tasso said that he had hurt his feet and that he had gone far enough, and he asked me to lend him the money to return home. I told him that I would not have enough to carry on with the journey and that he ought to have thought of that before he left Florence.

  ‘If it’s because of your feet that you don’t want to come,’ I said, ‘we will find a horse that has to make the return journey to Rome, and then you won’t have any excuse at all.’

  Then I hired a horse and, seeing that he refused to say a word, set off towards the gate for Rome. When he realized that my mind was made up, grumbling all the time he started limping slowly along as well as he could some distance behind me. I reached the gate, and then feeling sorry for the boy waited and took him up behind me.

  ‘Tasso,’ I said, ‘what would our friends say tomorrow if after setting out for Rome we hadn’t the guts to go beyond Siena?’

  The good fellow agreed that I was right and then as he had a happy disposition he started laughing and singing. So, singing songs and joking together, we travelled on to Rome. I was exactly nineteen at the time – the same age as the century.

  As soon as we had arrived in Rome I found work with a craftsman called Firenzuola.19 His real name was Giovanni but he came from Firenzuola, in Lombardy. He was quite expert at making large plate and things of that sort. I showed him something of the design for the buckle that I had made in Florence, when I was with Salimbene, and it pleased him so tremendously that he turned to one of his apprentices, a Florentine called Giannotto Giannotti20 who had been with him several years, and said: ‘This is one of the Florentines who know something, and you’re one of the Florentines who don’t know anything.’

  When he said this I recognized Giannotto and turned to talk to him. Before he went to Rome we had often gone out drawing together and had been very close friends. But he was so annoyed at what his master had said that he protested he did not recognize me and did not know who I was. I was very indignant at this and reminded him that he had been my friend and that we had been together in such and such a place, and eaten and drunk together, and slept in his country house.

  ‘But I don’t care,’ I said, ‘if you refuse to recommend me to this honest master of yours, because I have hopes of proving what sort of man I am from the work of my hands, without any help from you.’

  When we were finished, Firenzuola, who was a bold, very quicktempered man, turned to Giannotto and cried: ‘You vile rascal, aren’t you ashamed of treating one of your best friends in this way?’

  Then acting on the same impulse he turned to me and added: ‘Come into the workshop and do what you said: let me see your hands prove what sort of man you are.’

  Then he set me to work on a very fine silver object that was being made for a cardinal. It was a little casket, designed after the porphyry sarcophagus that stands in front of the door of the Rotunda.21 Besides what I copied, I enriched it with a number of beautiful little masks of my own design, and as a result my master went round boasting and showing it off to all the other goldsmiths as an example of what fine work was turned out in his shop. It was about half a cubit in size and meant for a salt-cellar.

  It was this salt-cellar that earned me my first money in Rome. I sent some of it to help out my good father and I kept the rest for myself. On the strength of what I had earned I went round studying the antiques, until my money ran out and I had to return to the shop and do some work. My companion, Giovanbatista del Tasso, did not stay long in Rome before returning to Florence. But I started on some new work, though I made up my mind that when I finished it I would go and work for someone else. I was tempted to do this by a certain Milanese called Pagolo Arsago.22

  The next thing that happened was that Firenzuola had a tremendous quarrel with this Arsago and began flinging insults at him. I happened to be present so I joined in to defend my new master. I protested that I was born free and meant to remain free, and that he could not complain of Arsago, still less of me, since he still owed me a few crowns of my wages. As a free workman, I said, I meant to go where I pleased, knowing full well that I was wronging no one.

  Then my new master had his say, and it was to the effect that he had not asked me to come to him and that he would be very pleased if I would return to Firenzuola. I repeated that I was not aware of having wronged Firenzuola in any way at all, and that I had finished the work he gave me: I meant to direct my own life and whoever wanted my services should apply to me. At this Firenzuola cried out that he had no intention of applying to me for my services, and he added: ‘Don’t you ever show your face here again.’ When I reminded him of my money, he laughed at me.

  ‘I can use a sword to get what’s owing to me,’ I said, ‘every bit as well as I’ve used tools for the work you’ve seen me do.’

  At this juncture an old fellow called Antonio da San Marino happened to come up. He was the finest goldsmith in all Rome and had once been Firenzuola’s master. He overheard my argument – which I took care he should understand only too clearly – took my part, and told Firenzuola to pay me. The quarrel began to get very heated, because as a matter of fact Firenzuola was a splendid swordsman, far better at arms than he was as a goldsmith. However, reason had its way – with my determination helping it to do so – and in the end I was paid. Later on Firenzuola and I became friends again; when he asked me, I stood as godfather to one of his children.

  I went on working with Pagolo Arsago and earned a good deal of money, most of which I used to send home to my good father. But at the end of two years I gave in to his pleading and made my way back to Florence, where I returned to work with Francesco Salimbene. I still earned a good deal, and I concentrated on improving my skill. I started going with Francesco di Filippo again, and that wretched music tempted me to spend a great deal of time chasing after pleasure. But I always managed to find a few hours, either in the daytime or at night, to do some studying.

  It was about that time that I made what used then to be called a heart-key. It was a silver girdle, about three inches across, to be worn by a new bride. It was in half relief, with some little figures in the round; and I made it for someone called Raffaello Lapaccini. Although I was very miserably paid for it, the honour it brought me was worth much more than the price I should have had.

  By that time I had worked with a great number of different people in Florence, and I had found among the goldsmiths some honest men, like my first master, Marcone. But there were others who had good reputations and yet tried to ruin me, and they robbed me as wickedly as they could.

  When I saw this I had nothing more to do with them and looked on them as thieves and scoundrels. One of the goldsmiths, called Giovanbatista Sogliani, was kind enough to let me use part of his workshop which was on the corner of the New Market near the Landi’s bank. There I finished many fine little pieces of work, earned a good deal, and was able to give considerable help to my family. This provoked the jealousy of two villainous men who had once been my masters – Salvadore and Michele Guasconti.23 They owned three big goldsmiths’ shops and did a very prosperous trade. When I realized that they had it in for me, I went and complained to a decent fellow I knew that they ought to have been satisfied with the way they had robbed me under the cover of their hypocritical goodness. They heard of what I had said and started boasting that they would make me eat my words. But since I never knew the meaning of fear I refused to worry about them.

  One day I happened to be leaning against the shop of one of these goldsmiths. He called out to me and began abusing and threatening me. I retorted that if they had treated me right I would have spoken about them as good, honest men, but as they had done the opposite they had themselves and not me to blame. While I was arguing,
a cousin of theirs called Gherardo Guasconti, possibly at their instigation, drove a mule loaded with bricks in my direction. When the beast lumbered up to me he gave it such a forceful push that I was very badly hurt. I turned round suddenly, caught him laughing, and gave him such a hard blow on the side of the head that he fell down senseless. Then I faced his cousins and said: ‘That’s how to treat thieving cowards like you.’

  Trusting in their numbers they began to make a show of attacking me, so I took hold of a little knife that I had and fuming with anger I cried out: ‘If one of you leaves the shop, let the other run for a priest, because there’ll be no need for a doctor.’

  This scared them so much that not one of them moved to help their cousin. Then I made off, and straight away the whole family ran complaining to the Eight that I had committed an armed assault on them in their workshops, a thing unheard of in Florence. The Eight had me called before them and when I appeared gave me a severe reprimand and began condemning me. This may have been because I was dressed like a soldier, in a cloak, while my opponents were wearing the mantle and hood of private citizens; but it was also because they had previously gone to the houses of the magistrates and had a few words on the side, unlike me who in my innocence had not said a word to any of them because I trusted in the fact that my cause was a very just one. I pleaded that in reply to all Gherardo’s insults and injuries I had completely lost my temper and only given him a slap, which I thought hardly deserved such a strong reprimand. I had hardly got the word ‘slap’ out of my mouth when Prinzivalle della Stufa, one of the magistrates, said: ‘You gave him a blow with your fist, not a slap.’