The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini

by Benvenuto Cellini

  He immediately resumed his trade and he made a mirror of bone and ivory, about a cubit in diameter and ornamented with figures and foliage. It was exquisitely designed and executed, in the shape of a wheel, with the glass in the middle; and round it were seven circles in which he had carved in ivory and black bone the seven Virtues. The looking-glass itself and these Virtues were balanced in such a way that when the wheel was spun all the Virtues revolved with it but, as they were weighted at the base, stayed upright all the time. As he knew a little Latin he had inscribed around the mirror a verse in Latin which ran: ‘For all the turns of Fortune’s wheel, Virtue remains erect.’

  Rota sum; semper, quoquo me verto, stat virtus.

  Shortly afterwards he was restored to his post among the fifers. Some of these things took place before I was born, but as I remember being told about them I do not want to leave them out.

  In those days the musicians were all members of the most respected trades, and some of them belonged to the greater guilds of silk and wool. That was why my father was not ashamed to follow such a profession. And his greatest ambition as far as I was concerned was to turn me into an accomplished musician; and I was never more miserable than when he used to talk to me about it, saying that I showed so much promise that if I wanted I would outshine anyone in the world.

  As I said, my father was a devoted and very loyal follower of the House of Medici; and when Piero was banished4 he entrusted my father with very many extremely important matters. And then when subsequently the magnificent Piero Soderini was elected, he remained in his post as a musician, and Soderini, knowing his tremendous abilities, began to make use of him in a large number of important undertakings as an engineer. For as long as Soderini was at Florence he treated my father with every possible mark of favour.

  It was at that time, when I was still very young, that my father had me carried to the Signory and made me play the flute as a soprano accompaniment to the palace musicians. I played away at my music and was held up by one of the palace officials. Afterwards the Gonfalonier, that is Soderini, made me talk to him and, delighted at my chatter, gave me some sweets and said to my father:

  ‘Giovanni, besides music teach him some of the other splendid arts you’re so good at.’

  ‘I don’t want him to learn anything,’ answered my father, ‘except playing and composing, because if God lets him live I hope to turn him into the greatest musician in the whole world.’

  Then one of the old counsellors had his say, ‘No, Giovanni,’ he said, ‘do what the Gonfalonier suggests. Will he never be anything other than a good musician?’

  Some time went by, and then the Medici came back to Florence.5 As soon as they had returned, the Cardinal, who later became Pope Leo, began to treat my father with special favour. Now, while the Medici had been in exile the balls on their coat of arms at the palace had been removed and a great red cross – the arms and emblem of the Commune – had been painted on in their place. So when the Medici reappeared the red cross was at once scraped off and the shield repainted with the red balls on a field of gold, and finished off very beautifully.

  My father, who was something of a natural poet and also had in him a touch of the prophet that certainly came from heaven, wrote these four lines under the coat of arms as soon as it was uncovered:

  These arms long buried here

  Beneath the gentle Cross and holy

  Now wait in joy and glory

  For Peter’s mantle to appear.

  This epigram was read by all Florence. A few days later Pope Julius II died.6 When Cardinal de’ Medici went to Rome, against everyone’s expectation he was elected Pope, becoming the great and generous Pope Leo. My father sent him the four prophetic lines he had written. In return he had a message back from the Pope saying that he would find it well worth his while to come to Rome. But my father had no wish to leave Florence, and indeed instead of a reward as soon as Jacopo Salviati7 was elected Gonfalonier his position at the palace was taken from him. This was the reason why I began to learn the goldsmith’s art. Some of the time I was studying how to be a goldsmith and some of the time – much against my will – how to play the flute.

  When my father insisted that I was to become a musician I begged him to let me spend a few hours a day at designing, and I promised that just to please him I would give the rest of my time to practising music. When he heard this he said: ‘So you get no pleasure out of playing?’ I replied that I did not and that I thought it a despicable art compared with the one I was set on.

  My good father, in despair, sent me along as an apprentice to Cavaliere Bandinello’s father, who was called Michelagnolo and was a very competent goldsmith from Pinzi di Monte. His family was very undistinguished and he was the son of a charcoal-burner. There is no blame attached to Bandinello because of this, and after all he founded the fortunes of his family.8 But it is a pity he did it so dishonourably. However that may be, I have no need to say anything about him here. I had only been there a few days when my father took me away again as he could not bear living without seeing me all the time. So I had to go on playing the flute, very unhappily, till I was fifteen. If I set out to describe all the great events in my life up to then and all the great perils that came my way, I would astonish anyone reading about them. But as I must not write too much and have a great deal to say I shall leave them out.

  When I reached the age of fifteen, against my father’s will I placed myself in a goldsmith’s shop with a man called Antonio di Sandro, who was known as Marcone the goldsmith. He was a first-rate craftsman and a very fine man, high-minded and generous in everything he did. My father would not let me be paid like the other apprentices, in order that, as I had adopted this craft from choice, I might be able to spend as much of my time designing as I liked. I was only too glad to do so, and that excellent master I was serving took incredible pleasure in my work: he had an only son, who was illegitimate, and he often used to give him his orders, in order to spare me.

  My desire to learn the art, or rather my natural talent for it, in fact both of them, was so impelling that within a few months I found myself rivalling not only the good but the best young craftsmen there were, and I began to profit from my labours. For all this, I remembered to cheer up my lovable old father now and then by playing the flute or the cornet. He used to weep and sigh his heart out whenever he heard me play. So out of filial affection I very often used to give him pleasure in this way, even pretending to enjoy it myself.

  At that time I had a brother who was two years younger than me. He was very high-spirited and daring, and afterwards he became one of the great soldiers in the school of that marvellous lord Giovannino de’ Medici,9 the father of Duke Cosimo. My young brother was then about fourteen and I was two years older. One Sunday just about two hours before sunset he started a fight between the San Gallo and the Pinti gates with another young fellow of about twenty. They were both carrying swords, but my brother attacked with such boldness that he wounded him badly and then went to close in.

  There was a crowd of people standing by, including a good number of the wounded man’s relations. When they saw that things were going badly for him they began using all their slings, and one of the stones struck my poor young brother on the head. Immediately he fell to the ground as if dead. Now I had happened to come on the scene, completely unarmed and unaccompanied, and had been yelling at him to beat a retreat, since what he had done was enough. In the meantime he fell down senseless in the way I said.

  Straight away I ran up, seized hold of his sword, and stationed myself in front of him, confronting a row of swords and a shower of stones. But I stayed my ground till some tough soldiers came up from the San Gallo gate and, astonished at finding such great courage in someone so young, rescued me from that furious mob. I carried my brother home for dead, and then after we went in, with a great deal of effort he came to his senses.

  When he was better, the Eight10 – who had already condemned our adversaries, banishing them
for a number of years – sentenced us to be exiled for six months at a distance of ten miles from Florence. ‘Let’s go together then,’ I said to my brother. So we left our poor father: and as he had no money to give us he gave us his blessing.

  I made my way to Siena to find a charming man I knew called Maestro Francesco Castoro. I had been with him once before, when I ran away from my father, and I had stayed with him several days, working at the goldsmith’s trade, till my father sent for me. So when I arrived Francesco recognized me at once and gave me some work. As well as this he provided me with lodgings for as long as I should be in Siena. My brother and I moved in and for several months I concentrated on my work. My brother knew a little Latin, but he was still too young to have acquired any taste for study and he used to spend all his time amusing himself.

  The next thing that happened was that Cardinal de’ Medici, who later became Pope Clement,11 was appealed to by my father and called us back to Florence. Then one of my father’s pupils, in tune with his own nasty character, suggested to the Cardinal that I should be sent to Bologna so that I could learn how to play really well from a famous professor there called Antonio. In fact this man certainly was a great musician. The Cardinal informed my father that if he sent me to Bologna he himself would provide me with useful letters of introduction. My father, who nearly died of joy at such a prospect, had no hesitation: and at the same time as I wanted to see the world I was only too willing to go.

  At Bologna I found a job with a man called Maestro Ercole del Piffero and began to earn some money for myself. All the same I used to go along every day for my music lessons, and within a few weeks I had made very good progress in that cursed art. But I reaped a great deal more from being a goldsmith, because, as the Cardinal had not given me any help at all, I went to live with a Bolognese miniaturist called Scipione Cavalletti (his house was in the street of Our Lady of Baraccan) and there I started doing designs and working very profitably for a Jew called Graziadio.

  At the end of six months I made my way back to Florence, much to the annoyance of that former pupil of my father’s, Piero. To please my father I used to go along to his house to play the cornet or the flute with his brother, Girolamo, who was a few years younger than Piero. Quite unlike his brother, Girolamo was an honest, likeable young man. One day my father turned up at Piero’s house to hear us play, and he was so pleased with my performance that he said: ‘I don’t care who tries to stop me, I shall still make a marvellous musician out of him.’

  Piero gave a true enough answer to this. ‘Your Benvenuto,’ he said, ‘will get much more honour and profit if he studies how to be a goldsmith than he will out of all this fifing nonsense.’

  My father was so furious, especially when he saw that I agreed with this, that he lost his temper and said: ‘I knew all the time that it was you who was trying to frustrate this great ambition of mine, and it was you who had me dismissed from my post at the palace. You paid me with the kind of ingratitude that is usually shown in return for great benefits. I got you your post and you lost me mine. I taught you all the music you know and you prevent my son from carrying out my wishes. But just you bear in mind these few words of prophecy: in a matter of a few weeks – not years or months – your fortunes will utterly collapse because of this shameful ingratitude of yours.’

  Then Piero answered back:

  ‘Maestro Giovanni, most men when they grow old grow soft in the head as well: and that’s what you’ve done. I’m not at all surprised, seeing the way you’ve squandered all you ever had without considering what your children might need. Now I mean to do exactly the opposite: I shall leave so much to my sons that they’ll be able to help yours out.’

  To this my father replied:

  ‘No bad tree ever bore good fruit – quite the opposite in fact. And let me add that you’re a scoundrel, and that your children will go soft in the head, and that they’ll be poor and come begging from my rich, clever sons.’

  Then he went off, with him and Piero muttering madly at each other. I had sided with him and I left at the same time, saying that I would get revenge for the way that ruffian had insulted him if he would let me carry on with my designing.

  ‘My dear boy,’ he said, ‘in my time I was a good draughtsman too. But as a delightful rest from the hard work it calls for, and for the sake of your father, who brought you into the world, and looked after you, and sowed the seeds of all your splendid talents, won’t you promise sometimes to take your flute and that lovely cornet and amuse yourself by playing them?’

  I said, yes, and that for his sake I would be only too glad to do so. And then that good old father of mine told me that my skill at music would be the best revenge I could take for the way his enemies had insulted him.

  Before the month was up, Piero, who was having a cellar built in one of the houses that he owned in the Via dello Studio, happened one day to be standing with a crowd of his friends in a ground-floor room just above the cellar when he began to talk about the man who had been his master. He repeated the words that my father had said about the way his fortunes would collapse, and no sooner were they out of his mouth than the floor he was standing on collapsed. Perhaps the cellar was badly built, or perhaps God – who doesn’t wait till the end of the week to pay out what’s due – was showing His hand: at any rate a load of stones and bricks crashed down with him and broke both his legs.

  The people who were with him were left standing on the edge of the cellar completely unscathed but dumbfounded with astonishment, especially in view of what he had told them with such contempt only a moment before. When my father heard what had happened he put on his sword and went round to the house. Then, in the presence of Piero’s father, a trumpeter of the Signory called Niccolaio da Volterra, he said:

  ‘Piero, my dear pupil, I’m terribly grieved at your misfortune, but, if you remember, it’s not so long since I warned you what to expect. And the relations between my sons and yours will also be exactly what I said.’

  A short time afterwards this Piero, who had been so ungrateful, died as a result of his accident. He left a slut of a wife and a son who, a few years later when I was in Rome, came and asked me for help. I gave him some assistance because I am naturally charitable, but also because, with tears, I remembered how prosperous Piero had been when my father spoke to him, that is when he said that Piero’s sons would one day come begging for help from his clever sons. I have written enough about this incident. But no one should ever make fun of the predictions of an upright man who has been unjustly abused, because such predictions are not his but those of God, who is speaking through him.

  Meanwhile I was carrying on with my work as a goldsmith and helping my father out of what I earned. Since his other son – my brother Cecchino – had as I said before some knowledge of Latin, my father wanted me, the elder, to become a great instrumentalist and musician, and Cecchino, the younger son, to become a great and erudite lawyer. But he was powerless against our own natural inclinations, which in my case were towards the art of designing, and as far as my brother, who was a well-built, handsome young man, was concerned, the profession of soldiering.

  When he was still very young Cecchino came home one day from his first lesson in the school of the wonderful Giovannino de’ Medici and, finding me out when he arrived, as he was far worse off for clothes than I was, he approached our sisters and they, without my father knowing, handed him over my beautiful new cloak and doublet. I had bought these fine clothes out of what was left over from my earnings when I had helped my father and my good, honest sisters. As soon as I found I had been cheated out of my clothes, not being able to find my brother and recover them, I asked my father why he had allowed me to be wronged so greatly, seeing how gladly I used to work in order to help him. He replied to this that I was his good son, but that Cecchino was the son he had thought lost and then found again, and that it was only right, in fact it was God’s own command, that he who had should give to him who had nothing. He added that for
his sake I should put up with the outrage and that God would load me with blessings.

  Like the raw young man I was I answered my poor, distressed father back, and, taking the few wretched clothes and the odd couple of coins that I had left, went out of the house and began walking towards one of the city gates. I had no idea which gate was the one for Rome, and I ended up at Lucca, and from Lucca I went on to Pisa.

  I was sixteen when I arrived at Pisa. I stopped by the middle bridge, where they hold a market at a place called the Fish Stone, near to a goldsmith’s shop, and I began staring attentively at what the owner of the shop was doing. Then he asked who I was and what my trade was, and I replied that I worked a little at the same art as himself. At this the good man asked me to come into his workshop, gave me some work to do straight away, and said: ‘I can see by your honest face that you’re a good, upright young man.’ Then he set me to work on gold and silver and jewels. That evening, after my first day’s work was finished, he took me back to his house, where he lived respectably with his beautiful wife and children.

  I thought of how upset my good father must be about me and I decided to write to him. I told him that I was living with a good, honest man, called Ulivieri della Chiostra, and was doing very fine and important work under his direction. I added that he was not to be unhappy, because I was intent on acquiring knowledge, and that with the skill I learned I hoped very soon to bring him profit and honour.

  My father answered my letter without delay, writing as follows:

  My dear boy, I love you so much that if it weren’t against my honour, which I cherish more than anything, I would have come for you straight away. Without any exaggeration, not to see you every day as I used to is like losing the light of my eyes. But I shall carry on here leading my family in the paths of righteousness, and you must learn to be a good craftsman. Only, you must never forget these few simple words; let them guide you always: