‘Just wait a while, Benvenuto, and the reward your ability receives from me will be worth far more than the thousand crowns that Gaio says your work deserves.’
After I had left the Pope went on to praise me in the presence of his attendants, among whom was that Latino Juvinale to whom I had spoken before. As I had made an enemy of him he tried as hard as he could to do me harm; and when he saw the affection and enthusiasm with which the Pope was talking about me, he said:
‘No one doubts that Benvenuto is an extremely clever man. But although everyone is naturally meant to love people from his own homeland more than others, all the same one should be careful of the way one talks about a pope. He has been heard to say that Pope Clement was the finest-looking ruler that ever was, and as brilliant as he was handsome, but that he was unlucky. And he says that your Holiness is quite the opposite, and that it’s a tight squeeze to get the tiara on your head; that you look like a dolled-up bundle of straw, and that there’s nothing more to you than your good luck.’
These words, coming from a man who knew only too well how to express himself, carried such force that the Pope believed them. In fact not only had I never said them but such thoughts had never entered my head. If the Pope could have done so without harming his reputation he would have dealt me a very hard blow; but, like the shrewd man he was, he pretended to laugh it off. All the same he began to cherish such bitter hatred of me that words fail to describe it; and I became aware of this when instead of being allowed in with the same freedom as before I could only see him with the greatest difficulty.
As I had been about the court for a good many years, I guessed that someone had done me this bad turn; and after making some astute inquiries I discovered everything that had happened, except the name of the man behind it. If I had known that there would have been no half-measures about my revenge.
I gave all my attention to finishing the little book; and when I had done so I carried it to the Pope who, as a matter of fact, found it impossible not to praise me to the skies. I asked him to send me off with it, as he had promised. He replied that he would do what he thought fitting and that my part in the business was finished. Then he gave orders that I was to be well paid. For the work I had done, in a little over two months, I made five hundred crowns; for the diamond, I was paid at the rate of a hundred and fifty crowns and no more; all the rest was given me for my work on the book174 which in fact was worth more than a thousand, seeing that it was richly embellished with figures, foliage, enamelling, and jewels. I took what I could get and made up my mind to clear out of Rome.
Meanwhile the Pope sent the book to the Emperor through his grandson, Signor Sforza.175 When he presented it the Emperor was tremendously grateful and at once asked after me. The young Sforza, who had been told what to say, replied that I had not come myself because I was ill. I was told about this later.
In the meantime I prepared to set off for France; I wanted to go by myself, but this proved impossible because of a young man I had, called Ascanio.176 He was extremely young, and he was the most splendid servant imaginable; when I took him in he had just left a Spanish goldsmith called Francesco. I had been reluctant to take him, for fear of crossing the Spaniard’s path, so I said to him: ‘I don’t want you, because I may offend your master.’
But he so arranged matters that his master wrote me a note saying that I was quite free to have him. So he had been with me for a good few months. When he first came to me he had been very thin and pale, and we called him ‘the little old man’; and in fact that was how I regarded him, because he was such a capable assistant and because he was so knowing that it hardly seemed credible for a boy of thirteen, which he said was his age, to be so intelligent.
To return to what I was saying: in the few months he was with me he filled out and became so robust that he ended up the most handsome young fellow in Rome. He was such a good assistant, as I said before, and he made such progress at the trade, that I began to love and look after him as if he were my own son. When he saw how his fortunes had mended he reckoned himself very lucky to have come my way. Very often he used to go along and thank his former master for having been the cause of this good fortune of his. As it happened this Spaniard was married to a very beautiful young girl, who on one of these occasions said to him:
‘Surgetto,’ (that was what they used to call him when he stayed with them) ‘what have you been doing to become so handsome?’
Ascanio replied: ‘Madonna Francesca, that’s my master’s doing, and he’s made me much more good, as well.’
Her spiteful character was such that what he said made her furious; besides this she had the reputation of being a loose woman, and so she knew how to fondle him in a way that was probably far from decent. I began to notice that he was going along to see her far more than he used to. Then one day it happened that Ascanio gave one of the shopboys a beating; and when I returned home, with tears in his eyes the boy complained that Ascanio had waded into him for no reason at all.
When I heard this I turned to Ascanio and said: ‘With or without reason, don’t you ever set about anyone in my household, or you’ll have me to deal with.’
He answered me back; and at that I immediately threw myself on him, and with plenty of punches and kicks gave him the severest beating he had ever had. As soon as he could escape he ran out without his hat or coat, and for two days I had no idea where he was, let alone go and look for him. But then a Spanish gentleman, called Don Diego, came to see me. He was the most generous-hearted man I’ve ever known. I had already done some work for him and I was doing some at the time, so we were on very good terms. He told me that Ascanio had gone back to his old master, and asked me, if I would, to send along the coat and hat I had given him. My reply to this was that Francesco had behaved very badly, just like a boor; for if he had told me as soon as Ascanio had gone back to his house, I would have been only too pleased to let him go; but as he had kept him for two days without saying a word I had no intention of letting him stay, and he should take care that I did not catch sight of the boy in his house. Don Diego reported what I had said, and Francesco made a joke of it.
The following morning I saw Ascanio, at his master’s side, working on some trifling rubbish in wire. As I walked past Ascanio bowed to me and his master started sneering. Then he sent word through that nobleman Don Diego, asking if I would be kind enough to let Ascanio have the clothes I had given him; but he added that he didn’t care one way or the other, seeing that Ascanio would never want for clothes. When I heard this I turned to Don Diego and said:
‘Signor Don Diego, you yourself show in everything you do that you’re the most generous and upright man I’ve ever come across; but this Francesco – this disreputable renegade – is completely the reverse. Tell him from me that if before vespers he himself hasn’t brought Ascanio back to my shop, I shall certainly kill him; and tell Ascanio that if he doesn’t quit his master by that time, he’ll get pretty well the same treatment.’
Don Diego said nothing, but he went along and so put the fear of God into Francesco that he was at his wits’ end what to do. Meanwhile Ascanio had gone off to look for his father, who had come to Rome from his native place, Tagliacozzo: and when his father heard about the row he too advised Francesco to take Ascanio back to me.
Francesco cried: ‘All right, go off of your own accord, and let your father go with you.’
Don Diego added: ‘Francesco, I can see some terrible trouble brewing; you know better than I do what sort of man Benvenuto is: be bold and take Ascanio back yourself, and I shall come with you.’
Back at the shop, I was all ready, and I was walking up and down waiting for vespers to sound and feeling in the mood for one of the most violent deeds I had ever done in my life. Then, in the middle of this, Don Diego, Francesco, Ascanio, and Ascanio’s father – whom I had never met before – all appeared on the scene. When Ascanio came in I stared at them with my eyes blazing, and then Francesco, pale as death, said:
‘See, I’ve brought Ascanio back. I had no idea I was annoying you by keeping him.’
Then Ascanio said, very respectfully: ‘Sir, forgive me: I’ve come to do all you order.’
‘Have you come to finish the time you promised to put in?’
He said, yes, that he had, and that he would never leave me again. At this I turned to the boy he had beaten and told him to hand Ascanio his bundle of clothes: at the same time I said:
‘Here are all the clothes I gave you; take your freedom along with them and go wherever you like.’
Don Diego, who had expected anything but this, was completely astonished. And then Ascanio, and his father as well, begged me to forgive him and take him back. I asked who the man was who was pleading on his behalf, and he told me it was his father. So after some further entreaty I said:
‘Since you’re his father, I shall take him back for your sake.’
As I said a short while ago, I had made up my mind to set off for France. My reason for this was that I realized the Pope no longer thought so highly of me, because my loyal service had been smeared by evil talk; and also I was frightened of my enemies doing even worse. So I was anxious to find another country where I could perhaps better my fortunes; and I was ready to clear off by myself. One evening I made up my mind to leave the next morning: so I told my faithful Felice that he should use all my belongings until I came back, and that, in the event of my not coming back, I left everything to him. I had a Perugian assistant,177 who had helped me finish the work I did for the Pope; so I paid him for what he had done and then dismissed him. However he begged me to let him come with me; he said that he would pay his own way, and, if it came about that I settled down to work for the King of France, that it would still be better for me to have my own Italian countrymen with me, and especially those I knew I could rely on. He got round me so well that I agreed to take him on the basis he himself had suggested.
Ascanio, who was present when this took place, was almost in tears, and he began saying: ‘When you took me back I said I wanted to stay with you as long as I lived; and so I shall.’
I answered that I would not agree on any condition; and then the poor young lad started making his preparations to follow after me on foot. When I saw what he had decided to do I got a horse for him as well. I put a bag on the crupper, and I burdened myself with far more lumber than I would otherwise have needed.
From Rome I travelled to Florence;178 from Florence to Bologna; from Bologna to Venice; and from Venice to Padua: and there my dear friend Albertaccio del Bene made me leave the inn for his own house. The next day I went along to kiss the hands of Messer Pietro Bembo,179 who had not yet been made a cardinal. Pietro gave me the most affectionate welcome imaginable; then he turned to Albertaccio and said:
‘I want Benvenuto and all his servants to stay here, even if there’re a hundred of them. If you want Benvenuto’s company as well make up your mind to stay here with me, otherwise I mean to keep him to myself.’
So I spent a very agreeable time with this brilliant gentleman. He had prepared me a room that would have been too splendid even for a cardinal; and he wanted me to take all my meals with him. Later on he began to drop delicate hints that he would like me to make his portrait: there was nothing I could have wanted more, and so I mixed some spotless white stucco in a little box and began work on it. The first day I worked two hours at a stretch, reproducing his fine head so beautifully that his lordship was astounded. He was a very great man of letters and a poet of extraordinary genius, but since he was completely ignorant about my own art he imagined that I had already finished, whereas in fact I had hardly begun.
I found it impossible to make him understand that to do it well required a long time. In the end I decided to put into it all I knew, and to give it all the time it needed: and since he wore his beard short, in the Venetian fashion, it proved very troublesome to make a head that I was satisfied with. But I finished it, and I reckoned that on every score I had produced the finest work I had ever done. He was flabbergasted at all this, because he reckoned that after I had made the wax model in two hours I ought to finish the steel one in ten; and there I was, only able to complete the wax model in two hundred hours, and asking his permission to leave for France. He was terribly upset at this and begged that I should at least do a reverse for the medal,180 showing the horse, Pegasus, with a wreath of myrtle round it. I did this in about three hours and made a lovely job of it. He was delighted with the work and commented:
‘But I think it’s ten times more difficult to do a horse like this than to do the little head that gave you so much trouble. I don’t understand the difficulty.’
Then he began pleading with me to execute it in steel.
‘I beg you to do it,’ he said, ‘as a special favour. You could do it quickly enough if you had a mind to.’
I assured him that, although I did not want to do it there, I would certainly do it for him when I settled down to work. While this debate was going on I had been along to hire three horses for the journey to France. As it happened without my knowing, Bembo, since he had great authority in Padua, was able to check up on my activities. So when I wanted to pay for the horses, having settled the price at fifty ducats, the owner said:
‘As you’re such a great artist I make you a present of them.’
‘It’s not you who’re making the present,’ I said, ‘and I don’t want to accept them from the man who is doing so, since I haven’t been able to do any work for him.’
This pleasant fellow then told me that if I did not take those horses it would be impossible for me to get any others in Padua, and so I would have to make the journey on foot. At this I went back to the illustrious Pietro, who pretended not to know what had happened, but welcomed me affectionately and told me that I should stay on in Padua. As this was utterly against my wishes, and I was thoroughly determined to leave Padua, I was forced to accept the three horses; and I started off with them.
I took the route through the Grisons, as all the other roads were unsafe because of the war that was going on. We crossed the Albula and the Bernina, which were covered with deep snow, on the eighth of May, in danger of our lives. Then we stopped in a place called, if I remember rightly, Wallenstadt. We found lodgings, and that same night we were joined by a Florentine courier called Busbacca. I had heard him spoken of as being trustworthy and capable, and I was ignorant of the fact that his rascally behaviour had lost him this good reputation. When he saw me in the inn he called me by name, and then said that he was going on important business to Lyons, and he went on to ask if I would lend him some money for the journey.
I replied that I had no money to lend him, but that if he wanted to come along with me I would pay his expenses as far as Lyons. With tears in his eyes the rogue started spinning a fine yarn, saying that when a poor courier engaged on important affairs of state found himself in need of money, a Florentine of my rank was bound to assist him: and he added that he was carrying things of very great importance belonging to Messer Filippo Strozzi. He had with him a leather-covered case, and he whispered in my ear that there was a silver goblet inside, full of jewels worth many thousands of ducats, as well as letters of great importance sent by Filippo Strozzi.
When I heard this I told him that he should let me conceal the precious stones about his person, which would be far less risky than carrying them in the goblet; and that he could let me have the goblet, which must be worth about ten crowns, and I would give him twenty-five for it. In reply the courier said that there was nothing he could do except come with me, since it would be dishonourable for him to part with the goblet.
So we left it at that: and in the morning, after we had set out, we came to a lake, in between Wallenstadt and Wesen. It stretches a distance of fifteen miles to where it reaches Wesen. I grew frightened when I saw the sort of boats they had on this lake, because they are made of pine, they’re small and insubstantial, and they are not caulked, let alone pitched. If I had not seen
four German travellers embark on one of these boats, along with their horses, I would never have done so myself; I would in fact have turned back without hesitating. But seeing their rash folly I thought to myself that these German lakes could not drown people as our Italian ones could. All the same my two young companions said:
‘Benvenuto, we’d be very rash to go with four horses on board a boat like this.’
‘Haven’t you cowards noticed that those four gentlemen have embarked in front of us, and that they’re moving off laughing?’ I remarked. ‘If this was wine, I’d reckon they were being merry at the thought of drowning in it; but seeing it’s water I’m sure they’re no more eager to drown than we are.’
The lake was fifteen miles long and about three across: one side was overshadowed by a high, cavernous mountain, the other was level and green. We had moved some four miles offshore when a storm began to blow up, and the rowers asked us to give them a hand; which we did for a while. I began to make signs to them and shouted that they should land us on the farther shore. They protested that it was impossible, as the water there was too shallow and there were shoals which would break up the boat and drown the lot of us. And they once more begged us to help them.
Then the boatmen started shouting to each other for help. When I saw what a sorry state they were in, as I had an intelligent horse I put the bridle round its neck and grasped the halter in my left hand. The horse, which had the instinct of its kind, seemed to understand what I meant to do: having turned its head towards the fresh grass, I wanted it to swim in that direction and to draw me after it. But just then a huge wave broke over the boat. Ascanio, crying: ‘Mercy, father – help me!’ was on the point of throwing himself on me, when I seized my little dagger and ordered them to follow my example. I shouted that the horses would save their lives, and that that was how I meant to escape too, but that if he clung to me again I’d kill him. So we battled forward several miles, in great danger.
The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini Page 23