I had just arranged my strips, when I discovered that one of the sentries was behind me, on guard duty. Realizing that my plan was threatened and my life in danger, I decided to confront him. When he saw the determined look on my face, as I walked up to him holding a weapon in my hand, he quickened his step to keep out of the way. I had come some way from my strips, so I walked rapidly back; and although I saw another sentry it seemed that he didn’t want to see me. When I reached my bundle I tied the strips to the battlement and let myself go.
On the way down, either because I really thought I was near the ground and so let go with my hands to jump, or else because my hands were so worn out that the strain was too much for me, I fell and struck the back of my head as I hurtled down. As far as I can judge I remained stunned for more than an hour and a half.
Then, when daybreak was approaching, the slight freshness that comes an hour before sunrise revived me; but I was still dazed, imagining that my head had been cut off and that I was in purgatory. Then, little by little, my faculties were restored, I noticed that I was outside the castle, and all at once I remembered everything I had done. I became aware of the blow to the back of my head before I realized that my leg was broken; I put my hands to my head and drew them away covered with blood. Then I examined myself carefully and came to the conclusion that no great harm had been done. But when I went to get up I found my right leg broken three inches or so above the heel. Even that didn’t dismay me: I drew out my dagger, together with the sheath which was tipped at the end with a heavy, solid ball. This was the cause of my leg’s having been broken, since the bone had been forced against it and, being unable to bend, had snapped.
I threw the sheath away, used the dagger to cut off a piece of the strips that I had left, and bound up my leg as best I could. Then, holding the dagger, I went on hands and knees towards the gate, only to find it was shut. However I noticed a large stone just under the gate which did not seem to be very firmly wedged. I tried to shift it; I put my hands to it and felt it move, and then it came away easily and I drew it out. Finally I crawled through the gap I had made.
From where I fell from the wall to the gate where I entered Rome had been a distance of over five hundred yards. When I entered the city some mastiffs hurled themselves at me and started biting savagely. They came back several times, and kept on worrying me till I struck at them with my dagger and wounded one of them so severely that it howled with pain. The others, following their instincts, ran up to it, and I struggled on towards the church of the Traspontina, still on all fours.
When I arrived at the top of the street which leads to Sant’Angelo I took the road towards St Peter’s, because the sky was lightening above me and I realized that things would get dangerous. Then I ran into a water-carrier, who had his donkey loaded with pitchers of water. I called him over and begged him to lift me and take me up to the top of the steps of St Peter’s.
‘I’m an unlucky fellow,’ I said to him, ‘I was trying to get down from a window after an amorous adventure when I fell and broke a leg. The place I came from is a very important establishment, and I’m running the risk of being cut to pieces. So please lift me up quickly, and I’ll give you a gold crown.’
I shook my purse, which was fairly full, and straight away he took hold of me and was only too pleased to put me on his back. Then he carried me up to the top of the steps of St Peter’s, where I made him leave me and told him that he should run back to his donkey. Still on my hands and knees I at once set off again, going this time towards the house of the Duchess:201 she was the wife of Duke Ottavio, and the daughter of the Emperor – a natural, not a legitimate, daughter – and she had been the wife of Duke Alessandro of Florence.
I went to her, since I knew for certain that she had round her a large number of my friends who had accompanied her from Florence, and also I was in the good books of this great princess because of the efforts of the castellan. In his anxiety to help me he had told the Pope that when the Duchess made her entry into Rome I prevented more than a thousand crowns’ worth of damage. What had happened, he said, was this: there had been a heavy rainstorm and he was in despair, when I revived his spirits by directing several pieces of artillery towards where the clouds were thickest and where it was already raining heavily: I began to fire the guns, the rain stopped, and at the fourth salvo the sun came out. So, he added, it was entirely because of me that the festival had been a success. When she heard this the Duchess was led to remark:
‘This Benvenuto was one of those artists whom my husband, Duke Alessandro, thought very highly of: and I too shall not forget men like him if an occasion for helping them presents itself.’
At the same time she had spoken of me to her present husband, Duke Ottavio. Because of all this I was making straight for her Excellency’s home, which was in a very fine palace in the Borgo Vecchio; I would have been completely safe there, because the Pope himself wouldn’t have touched me. However, what I had accomplished up to then had been beyond human strength; and as God was unwilling for me to become too puffed up, He decided that for my own good He would send me a greater trial than the one I had already been through. What happened was that as I was going on all fours up the steps one of Cardinal Cornaro’s servants suddenly recognized me. The Cardinal was staying at the palace. The servant then ran to the Cardinal’s room and woke him up, saying:
‘Reverend Monsignor, your Benvenuto is down there – he’s escaped from the castle, and he’s crawling along all covered in blood: as far as we can see he’s broken one of his legs, and we have no idea where he’s going.’
The Cardinal said straight away: ‘Run and carry him in here.’
When I was brought into his room he told me not to be afraid. Then without delay he sent for the best doctors in Rome, and I was treated by them. One of them was from Perugia, he was called Jacomo, and he was a first-rate surgeon. He set the bone wonderfully well, then he bound up my leg and bled me with his own hands. My veins were more swollen than usual and he wanted to make a rather wide cut, so the blood spurted out with such force that it struck him in the face. He was so covered with blood that he had to leave off treating me. He looked on this as a very bad omen, and carried on treating me with great reluctance. Several times he made up his mind to leave me, remembering that he was risking severe punishment for having attended me, or rather for carrying on with the treatment. The Cardinal had me lodged in a secret room, and then went off at once to the palace with the idea of asking the Pope for my freedom.
Meanwhile there was a tremendous uproar in Rome, since the strips attached to the great tower of the castle had already been noticed, and everyone was flocking to see this extraordinary sight. At the same time the castellan had been attacked by one of his worst fits of madness and was struggling with all his attendants in an attempt to fly off from the tower himself; he said that the only way I could be recaptured would be for him to fly in pursuit. And while all this was going on Roberto Pucci, the father of Pandolfo, having heard of the great event that had taken place, went to see it in person: then he made his way to the palace where he met Cardinal Cornaro, who told him everything that had happened and how I was in one of his rooms and had already been given medical attention. These two admirable men went along together and threw themselves on their knees in front of the Pope. But before they could utter a word, he said:
‘I know all you want from me.’
Roberto Pucci replied: ‘Holy Father, we’re asking you for that unfortunate man, as an act of grace. He deserves some kindness because of his great talents; and besides this he has displayed such courage and ingenuity that it hardly seems human. We don’t know for what crimes your Holiness has kept him so long in prison, but if they were too outrageous, your Holiness is wise and holy and may have your will done in all things. But if they can be pardoned we beg you to do so for our sake.’
The Pope felt rather ashamed at this, and he said that he had been requested to keep me in prison by some of his courtiers, becau
se I had been too big for my boots.
‘But,’ he went on, ‘knowing his great talents, and also because we want to keep him with us, we had arranged to confer on him such favours that he would have no reason for returning to France. I am very grieved that he has been so badly hurt: tell him to get better, and once he is healed we shall make it up to him for all his misfortunes.’
These two splendid men came back and told me their good news from the Pope. Meanwhile all the nobility of Rome came to visit me – young and old, of every rank. The castellan, who was beside himself, had himself carried to the Pope, and when he arrived in front of his Holiness he began to groan, saying that if the Pope did not send me back to prison he would be doing him a great wrong.
He went on: ‘He ran away from me against his word of honour. Look! he has flown away from me, and he promised not to.’
The Pope, laughing out loud, replied: ‘Go away, go away now. I shall give him up to you whatever happens.’
The castellan added: ‘Send the Governor to him to find out who helped him escape; because if it’s one of my men I shall hang him by the neck from the same battlement that Benvenuto made his get-away from.’
When the castellan had left the Pope called the Governor and said to him with a smile:
‘He’s a brave man, and this is a marvellous business, even though when I was a young man I made a descent from the same place.’
The Pope was telling the truth when he said that, because he had been thrown in prison for forging a brief when he was abbreviator of the Parco Majoris.202 Pope Alexander had kept him in prison for some time, but then, as his crime was so notorious, he had determined to cut his head off, but he wanted to wait till after the feast of Corpus Christi. Farnese knew what was intended, so he arranged for Pietro Chiavelluzzi to come with some horses and bribed some of the castle sentinels. Then, on the feast of Corpus Christi, while the Pope was going in procession, Farnese was put in a basket and lowered to the ground by a rope. The outer ring of walls had not then been built, and there was only the great tower, so he did not have so many tremendous obstacles to overcome as I did; also, he was justly and I was wrongly arrested.203 All he wanted to do was boast to the Governor that he too had been brave and adventurous when he was young, and he didn’t realize that he was revealing what a great villain he was.
He said: ‘Go and tell him he may speak freely about the man who helped him; no matter who he is, it’s enough that he is forgiven; and you can assure him of that.’
When this Governor, who had been made Bishop of Jesi two days before, came to visit me he said:
‘My dear Benvenuto, although I have a position that fills men with terror, I’ve come to reassure you. I’ve come to do this, on the express orders of his Holiness, who has told me that he too escaped from the castle, but that he had a great deal of help of various kinds and many accomplices, without which he wouldn’t have been able to do it. I swear to you by the sacraments I administer – for I was made a bishop two days ago – that the Pope has freed you and forgiven you, and is very grieved about your terrible accident. But make sure you get better, and look on everything as being for the best, because this imprisonment which you have been suffering – without doubt, innocently – will prove to have established your well-being for good and all. You will trample on poverty, and you’ll have no need to return to France and wear yourself out travelling from one place to another. So tell me without hesitation exactly what happened, and who helped you. Then you must set your mind at ease, have a rest, and get well again.’
I started at the beginning and went over everything, exactly as it had happened, going into corroboratory details down to the water-carrier who had taken me on his back. When the Governor had heard it all he said:
‘These exploits were really too great for one man to have done by himself: in fact you’re the only man capable of them.’
Then he made me hold out my hand, and he went on: ‘You have no need to worry and you must set your mind at ease, because by this hand I’m grasping I promise that you’re a free man, and if you live you shall be a happy one.’
During his visit he had been holding up a whole host of great lords and gentlemen who had come to find me, because, as they said to one another, they wanted to go and see the man who worked miracles. So when he went his way they remained with me. One offered his services, another pressed gifts on me.
Meanwhile the Governor had returned to the Pope and began to report what I had told him. The Pope’s son happened to be present; and everyone there was utterly astonished. The Pope said:
‘This is certainly too tremendous for words.’
Then Signor Pier Luigi joined in and said:
‘Holy Father, if you set him free he’ll do even more tremendous things, because he is far too audacious a man altogether. Let me tell you another exploit of his that you didn’t know about. Before he was imprisoned this Benvenuto of yours quarrelled with a gentleman in Cardinal Santa Fiore’s household204 over some trifling remark he had made to him. Because of this remark Benvenuto retorted with such violent ferocity that it seemed as if he wanted to force a fight. The gentleman took the matter to Cardinal Santa Fiore who said that if he laid hands on Benvenuto he would knock the nonsense out of him. When he heard about this Benvenuto loaded his gun and kept practising with it, firing at a coin. Then one day, when the Cardinal happened to be looking out of the window, Benvenuto, whose shop is under the Cardinal’s palace, seized his gun and prepared to fire. But the Cardinal was warned and made a quick disappearance. To provide himself with an alibi Benvenuto fired at a wood-pigeon which was brooding in a hole at the top of the palace; and he hit it in the head – an incredible feat. Now, your Holiness may do whatever you like with him; I only thought that I ought to tell you about this incident. One day, persuaded that he has been wrongly imprisoned, he may even decide to fire at your Holiness. He is altogether too fierce and too sure of himself. When he killed Pompeo he stabbed him twice in the throat with his dagger, and he did this surrounded by ten men who were guarding him, and then – to their great shame, they were all fine outstanding men – he got away safely.’
While all this was being said that gentleman of Santa Fiore’s, with whom I had had the tiff, was standing near by: he confirmed all that the Pope’s son had told him. The Pope swelled with fury, but did not say a word.
Now I think I ought to give, fairly and honestly, my own explanation of this affair. One day that gentleman of Santa Fiore’s household came to me bringing a little gold ring that was all stained with quicksilver. ‘Clean away this ring,’ he said, ‘and be quick about it.’ I happened to have on hand a great number of important works, in gold and precious stones, so what with that and being given orders so arrogantly by a man I had never spoken to or seen before, I told him he should go to someone else, as I had no ‘cleaning-away’ tool ready at the moment.
Then, for no reason at all, he told me I was an ass. I replied that he was wrong there and that I was a better man than him on every count, but if he provoked me, I said, he’d find that I could kick much harder than an ass. He told the Cardinal what had happened, and painted me as if I had been the devil himself.
Two days later I was behind the palace, firing up towards a hole where there was a pigeon brooding: I had seen a Milanese goldsmith called Giovan Francesco della Tacca fire at the same bird several times without success. On this occasion, when I was firing, the pigeon – which had become wary because of the other times it had been shot at – just let its head peep out. Now, as this Giovan Francesco and I were rival gamesmen, some noblemen and friends of mine, who were in the shop, called me and said:
‘Look up there – it’s Giovan Francesco della Tacca’s pigeon – the one he’s forever shooting at. Just look, the poor creature’s so suspicious it’s hardly showing its head.’
I glanced up and said: ‘It’s showing enough to let me hit it, if it only waits till I take aim.’
The noblemen said that even the inventor of the
fowling-piece couldn’t do that. ‘Well,’ I replied, ‘let’s bet a bottle of Palombo’s good Greek wine that if it stays put till I take aim with my splendid Broccardo’ (that was the name I had given my gun) ‘I shall knock its little head off.’
So, without giving a thought to the Cardinal or anyone else, I took aim, using my arms and no other support, and I did what I had promised. As a matter of fact I looked on the Cardinal as a good patron of mine. So let everyone witness how many different cards Fortune has up her sleeve when she wants to ruin a man.
So there was the Pope, swelling with fury and muttering to himself, brooding over what his son had told him.
Two days later Cardinal Cornaro went to ask the Pope for a bishopric for one of his gentlemen called Andrea Centano. The Pope, it is true, had promised him a bishopric, and now that one was vacant the Cardinal reminded him of his promise. The Pope admitted that this was so and said that he intended to keep his word but that he wanted his reverend lordship to do a favour for him: and what he wanted was the Cardinal to put me into his hands.
The Cardinal said: ‘Oh, but seeing that your Holiness has forgiven him and made him over to me as a free man, what would everyone say of us?’
The Pope retorted: ‘I want Benvenuto and you want the bishopric; so let them say what they like.’
The good Cardinal begged his Holiness to give him the bishopric, but to think the rest over by himself and then do all that his Holiness wanted and was able to order. The Pope, who was half-ashamed at the wicked way he was going back on his word, added:
‘I shall send for Benvenuto, and to please myself a little I shall put him down below in the rooms of my private garden where he’ll be able to recover his health. I shan’t prevent him from having all his friends coming to see him, and as well I shall pay all his expenses till I’ve satisfied this little whim of mine.’
The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini Page 27