by Michael Hone
The second lucky break was being born in Florence. The Florence of that epoch was the most beautiful city in the world, 30,000 Florentines massed between walls that surrounded the town, a space so narrow it could be walked across in an hour. Divided in half by the Arno, where ruddy-cheeked lads swam naked in its refreshing waters, Florence was the birthplace of the Renaissance and home to the hallowed sextet, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Cosimo de’ Medici and his grandson Lorenzo Il Magnifico. Nothing surpassed the beauty of the Piazza della Signoria with its statue of David, nor the splendor of the immensely imposing and beautiful Palazzo Vecchio, as well as the Duomo with Brunelleschi’s dome, the Baptistery with its Gates of Paradise and the Pontevecchio Bridge, spanned by jewelry shops that would one day sell, at prices only the wealthiest could afford, Cellini creations.
At around age two--younger even than a later prodigy, Mozart--Giovanni put his boy to practicing the flute, the rigor of which Cellini hated, but nonetheless became highly proficient at playing, a proficiency that would serve him well when at the end of a long workday of sculpting or jewelry making he would take out his flute, to the wonder of those around him, many who knew nothing of his hidden talents, and enrapture them as the Pied Piper, leading any who might have been hesitant into his welcoming bed.
Cellini’s father wanted him to become a musician because all of the great courts of Italy employed them all year round, from festivals to nightly entertainment during dinners. To become a musician was to have assured employment. But when it became clear to Giovanni that his son would never give in, he allowed the boy to join the workshop of Michelangelo Brandini, but took him away after a few months. Cellini may have been removed due to the reputation of artists’ workshops, where sex between the master, the apprentices and the models was daily routine. These kinds of relationships were totally par for the course, totally accepted by parents and society as being the only way boys could learn about life, as girls were shut away. Some workshops, however, gained reputations as nothing more than whorehouses where one could go for sex as one could at any tavern that had rooms.
Florentine sexuality seemed ideal. Men like Cellini passed from boys to girls and back with disconcerting regularity. The reasons are unclear as to why this should have been. Today we’re used to a world divided sexually, where there are straights, gays and those who are bi. In Greece women served to keep the home and to produce, basically, sons. In Rome women were far better educated but were still homebodies, and homosexual encounters were frequent if somewhat smirked at. A Roman woman, unlike Greek women, could really be a helpmate and sincerely loved. In Florence, as we’ll see again and again, men--all men--were intimate with boys and other men, despite laws to the contrary, but, again, what is puzzling was the ability to go from one sex to the other with abandon and frequency. Cellini usually took his girls from behind, certainly to avoid pregnancies, perhaps for the increased pleasure of a tighter sheath. Cellini ranted about his boys, covering them with every kind of complement and the most sublime of adjectives: beautiful. He never complimented girls, although about a certain Angelica he did say, in his autobiography, ‘’I enjoyed such pleasure as I never had before or since.’’
At age 15 Cellini gained the right to enter the workshop of Antonio di Sandro di Paolo Giamberti, known simply as Marcone. He learned to draw, to work gold, silver and jewelry. As his father paid for his instruction, he was not obliged to perform menial tasks like sweeping the workshop, marketing, preparing food, cleaning the latrines and the hundred other chores involved in the daily care of boys. Cellini tells us he liked the trade so much that soon he had caught up with even the very best of Marcone’s craftsmen. But his father was not forgotten. Cellini would return home to play the flute, rejoicing in his father’s tears, fulfilling his filial duty ‘’to give my father contentment.’’
By the age of 16 Cellini knew how to protect himself with sword and dagger, as did his younger brother Giovanfrancesco, called Cecchino. ‘’At that time I had a brother, younger by two years, a youth of extreme boldness and temper.’’ In Florence a fight could begin if a boy looked at another a nanosecond too long. For some unknown reason, Cecchino got into a brawl at age 14 and Cellini came to his aid. Several boys were hurt and because boys 13 and over were considered adults, they could have been severely punished. Due to the daily violence in Florence, punishment was harsh in an attempt to keep it down. In the Cellini boys’ case, they got off easy, with an order to banish them for a period of six months. They went to Siena where the goldsmith Castoro, with Giovanni’s permission, took them in. Cellini worked on jewelry while Cecchino wandered around the town whiling away time, hooking up with boys and bothering the girls.
Boys then prided themselves far more on how they dressed than they do today. Some belt buckles were very large, and Cellini made his with sculpted masks and incredibly intricate foliage. Nowhere did boys like to dress up more than in the Florence under the Medici, where costumes for festivals and carnivals were magnificent: Boys’ trousers so tight they looked painted on, ample shirts that fell from the collarbones to the upper thighs, taken in by a thin belt at the waist. A headband with perhaps a feather adorned the forehead. Niccolò Machiavelli wrote, ‘’The city’s youth, being independent, spent excessive sums on clothing, feasting and debauchery. Living in idleness, it consumed its time and money on gaming and women.’’
Cellini returned to Florence for a teary reunion with his father. While there he copied a painting by Michelangelo showing soldiers bathing naked in the Arno, a copy that came to the attention of a certain Piero Torrigiano who was in Florence in search of artists needed in London where Piero was living. The story of Torrigiano was singular because Torrigiano had been a sculptor under the patronage of Lorenzo Il Magnifico. He was credited with bringing the artistic segment of the Renaissance to England. But through a quirk of human nature, he is known today as the man who broke the nose of Michelangelo. Torrigiano had been one of Michelangelo’s lovers and, in a fit of jealousy, smashed the great artist in the face. Knowing how furious Lorenzo would be at his disfiguring Michelangelo, Torrigiano fled. As Cesare Borgia was offering money to new conscripts, and since Torrigiano needed money, he joined his troops. As Michelangelo was Cellini’s hero, Torrigiano was sent packing. After working a number of years for Henry VIII Torrigiano went to Spain where he sculpted a Virgin for the Duke of Arcus, but when the duke tried to swindle him, he destroyed it. In revenge, the duke called on the Inquisition that imprisoned him for sacrilege. In prison he starved himself to death.
It was now 1517 and the seventeen-year-old Cellini had his first real love affair. The boy was Giovanni Francesco Lippi, grandson of the painter Filippo Lippi, and the same age as Cellini. About Giovanni Cellini wrote: ‘‘So much love grew up between us that we were never apart, day or night. For two years or thereabouts we lived in intimacy.’’
A new boy and a new workshop. He entered that of Francesco Salimbene. Here he created a silver belt buckle of supreme beauty, about three inches in diameter, showing leaves, vines and masks. Two years passed and he decided to change workshops again … and boyfriends. The new lover was Giambattista Tasso, a woodcarver, and one day during a stroll … but let Cellini take over: ‘’By this time we had reached the San Piero Gattolini gate--the gate by which one leaves Florence to travel towards the Holy City. We looked at each other, tied our aprons around our waists, and set off along the road. It had been God’s will that we came to the gates without noticing that we were that far. On the way I asked him, ‘Oh, I wonder what our old folks will say this evening?’‘’ Words that ring as true then as today. ‘’I had just reached nineteen, and so had the century.’’
It could have been the Yellow Brick Road, for it led to a long life of astonishing adventure.
In Rome Cellini and Tasso found work in a shop of Firenzuola. He was well received, especially as he was wearing some of the silver pieces, clasps and a belt buckle that he had made himself. He made a saltcellar that he
sold for enough money to wander around the Eternal City and copy the works of art of other artists. He joined a new workshop when his funds were low, that of Paolo Arsago. Firenzuola didn’t see things that way and went after Cellini, as he had spent time and money teaching Cellini his trade, but Cellini brushed him off with ‘’As a free man I’ll go when and where I please.’’ When Firenzuola lost his temper, Cellini put his hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘’The dispute waxed warm as Firenzuola was a far better swordsman than he was a goldsmith.’’ Luckily a passerby who had been Firenzuola’s old master stopped to find out what was going on. He got both talking, and in the end Cellini became godfather to one of Firenzuola’s children.
Cellini passed much time wandering around Rome, discovering its hidden corners, adding, always adding new knowledge and new experience to his art, drawing, learning perspective, and the incredible difficulties in making moulds and mixing and pouring molten metals. He says he also made a great deal of money that he gave his father.
Cellini landed a commission, the crafting of a silver vase, for the Bishop of Salamanca. He spent months on the oeuvre in company of a new lover, this one 14, Paulino for whom, he writes, ‘’I had a passionate love. He was honest and had the most beautiful face I’d ever seen. The love he had for me and mine for him bordered on the unbearable. His splendor was such that he would have driven the Greek gods themselves mad!’’ Paulino’s father met Cellini, and although adventures between men and boys were known and practiced by one and all, there’s no indication that he suspected Cellini’s attachment to his son. On the other hand, Paulino had a sister that his dad hoped would interest Cellini. ‘’He wanted me as a son-in-law,‘’ resumes Cellini in his autobiography. While working on the silver vase he continued his studies in sculpture, drawing and architecture.
As Paulino loved music, Cellini spent many a languorous night playing his flute for the fourteen-year-old who was entranced by his lover’s talents, artistry and expertise in the art of virile domination--acquired since Cellini himself was but 13--all of which took Paulino’s breath away.
Cellini opened his own workshop at age 23. One of his first wealthy clients was Giacomo Bergenario da Carpi, a doctor who made his fortune treating syphilis, called the French disease because it entered Italy at the same time as Charles VIII. The good doctor ordered several silver cups. Thanks to the Bishop of Salamanca’s vase and the doctor’s cups, commissions flowed in. Cellini nonetheless studied on the side, especially with Cristoforo Foppa, an expert in enamelling, thanks to whom Cellini would later make a chef-d’oeuvre for François I of France. From here on in Cellini began to make a lot of money, much of which, he says, he sent home to his father.
Cellini attended a party given by Giulio Romano, a painter notorious for his I Modi sexual-intercourse drawings. Romano thought it would be amusing to have a dinner in which the men invited their mistresses (whom Cellini reveals later as being, for the most part, whores). Cellini had none, but he did have a boy of wondrous beauty, 16, whom he dressed as a girl. ‘’Diego had a handsome figure, and a complexion of marvelous brilliancy. The outlines of his head and face were far more beautiful than those of the antique Antinous. When I begged him to let me array him in women’s clothes he readily complied.’’ Diego is recorded to have made such a splash that one of the men present fell to his knees before him and said, ‘’Behold ye of what sort are the angels of paradise!’’ One of the mistresses left in a huff, followed by another when one of the men put his hand in the little lady’s panties and discovered the truth. The men broke up in laughter and Diego, the ‘’girl’’ of wondrous beauty, was said to have passed an equally wondrous night. (The details of which, alas, are not found in Cellini’s book.) The mistress who had left in a huff was a whore named Pantasilea who decided to get revenge against Cellini by seducing one of his boyfriends, the handsome Luigi Pulci. Both Luigi and Cellini were free to go with other boys, but Cellini did not want him to go with Pantasilea. Cellini had met Luigi when the lad was sick with syphilis and provided the best doctors for him, never leaving his bedside until he was well. He, and everyone who met Luigi, fell in love with him. He was said to have had a beautiful voice and sang in public, his beauty and talent attracting even Michelangelo who followed him assiduously from performance to performance, and became his lover. It was because Cellini had nursed the boy back to health that he now got his absolute assurance that he would not sleep with Pantasilea. She nonetheless succeeded in alluring the boy into her bed, an act that infuriated the artist no end, even though, as I said, he partook of any boy who caught his fancy--and they were numerous--no matter if they were connected to one of his friends or not--meaning that if a friend’s back was turned Cellini never hesitated to steal his boy. Cellini therefore decided to waylay the couple and teach them a lesson. Several days later they had all gone to a party but Cellini left while Luigi and the whore were engaged in necking. He went to the whore’s house and waited for them outside. His ire mounted when they returned, their bodies as entwined as his and Luigi’s had been when they were going steady. Cellini jumped from behind the tree where he was hiding and hit Luigi with his sword, a glancing blow that also struck Pantasilea, ‘’hitting her full on the nose and mouth,’’ wrote Cellini. Cellini was arrested and shouted to Luigi, as he was being marched away, that if he continued seeing Pantasilea he’d break his neck. Shortly afterwards Luigi Pulci was caracoling his horse in an attempt to impress Pantasilea. It had rained and the horse slipped, falling on the boy, breaking his neck.
Cellini was released from prison, in time to participate in what is known in history as the Sack of Rome. The sack was carried out by the mutinous troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. France, Milan, Venice, Florence and Clement VII joined forces to counterman the growing power of Charles. As far as Clement was concerned, he wanted the papacy to be totally free from Charles V’s continual intercessions. Charles’s troops were persistently victorious but armies cost enormous funds and Charles was late in paying them. The troops were a heteroclite mixture of mercenaries, thieves and deserters, even former soldiers leagued against Charles but who now thought the wages would be better under the emperor. There were also a number of followers of Martin Luther who wished to see the anti-Christ, Clement, at the end of a sword. Before reaching Rome they destroyed other towns, pillaging, raping and massacring. So inured had they become to blood that even the screams of children and babies left them unmoved. In defense of Rome were an estimated 5,000 militiamen and 500 Swiss Guard, mercenaries so valiant and fearless that the popes had taken them as their personal protectors and Michelangelo had dressed them, like a Renaissance Yves St. Laurent. Rome also had artillery, heavy cannon, which was lacking in the rebellious troops. Cellini was present: ‘’Let it suffice that it was I who saved the castle.’’ Somewhere outside the Castel Cellini’s brother Cecchino was also wielding arms, but as a professional. In his book Cellini wrote that he too was now trying to decide whether to give up art in favor of arms, as he was thoroughly enjoying himself. It was during this period that a number of jewels went missing, the theft of which would be blamed on Cellini, at a later time, with dire consequences. Cellini claimed that it was he himself who fatally shot the leader of the rebels, Charles the Duke of Bourbon, who prided himself on his all-white cloak, a marksman’s perfect target. Another of Cellini’s comments, ‘’I pursued my business of artilleryman, and every day performed some extraordinary feat.’’ The attack was terrible and the Swiss lived up to their reputation by fighting until all were dispatched, except the forty-two who accompanied the pope to the redoubtable fortification Castel Sant’Angelo. As for Cellini, ‘’During just one blast from my cannon I slaughtered more than thirty men.’’
The city was looted, every church, palace and wealthy home. Even peasants from surrounding villages joined in, so great was their hatred of Clement VII whose armies had pillaged their farms and taken their women in order to feed their bellies and satisfy their groins. Clement finally gave in and p
aid a ransom of 400,000 ducati for his life. The sack continued on for eight months, until there was literally no more to steal, no more undiseased women to rape and no more food to eat.
In Florence Alessandro de’ Medici, age 19, whose specialty was robbing girls of their virginity, was named ruler of the city by his purported father, none other than Pope Clement VII. To thank the pope and to gain his blessing, Alessandro went to Rome accompanied by a group of boys, louts like him, who came up against even trashier men, the pope’s own guard. Among Alessandro’s boys was none other than Cecchino, Cellini’s brother. The pope’s guard arrested one of Alessandro’s men--we don’t know under what pretense, but Alessandro and his ruffians were known for everything vile, including the mass rape of nuns. The arrested boy, Bertino Aldobrandi, was a friend of Cecchino’s--who, like his brother, nurtured extremely intimate friendships with his pals. Cecchino learned, falsely as it turned out, that his friend had been killed by one of the guards. Mad with fury, Cecchino got a description of the man he thought to be the murderer, found him, and ‘’ran him right through the guts,’’ says Cellini. Another guard then shot Cecchino in the leg with a harquebus. The wound festered and Cecchino died. Clement wanted Cellini to return to work despite his mourning, saying that Ceccino was now gone and nothing more could be done. But Italians are extremely bound to their families, and Cellini no less so. He found out who had shot the boy and, as he wrote, ‘’followed him as closely as though he were a girl I was in love with.’’ He attacked him with a dagger, a first blow that grazed the neck as the man, aware of an approaching figure, was able to move slightly out of the way. He tried to run but Cellini was on him like a lion on a fleeing antelope, downing him with another blow, to the back, and as he lay on the ground, another and still another to the neck and upper back. He then ran to Alessandro’s palace near the Piazza Navona where guards caught up with him. Alessandro explained the motive for the killing and the guards left. Later, the pope simply asked him if he ‘’had gotten over it now’’, and gave him a commission. Cellini had again murdered, and again gotten off scot-free.
