Ill as he was he rushed out to the furnace, to find that the fire was too low, and the metal, being cool, had ceased flowing into the mould. By almost superhuman efforts he remedied the evil, and again the bronze flowed; he prayed earnestly, and when the mould was filled he writes: "I fell on my knees and thanked God with all my heart, after which I ate a hearty meal with my assistants, and it being then two hours before dawn, went to bed with a light heart, and slept as sweetly as if I had never been ill in all my life."
Fig. 103.—Perseus.
By Benvenuto Cellini.
When the statue was unveiled Cellini's prediction that it would please all the world except Bandinelli and his friends was fulfilled. Perseus is represented just at the moment when he has cut off the head of Medusa, who was one of the Gorgons, and had turned to stone every one who looked at her. (Fig. 103.)
After the completion of the Perseus, Cellini went to Rome for a short time. While there he made a bust of Bindo Altoviti; when Michael Angelo saw this he wrote: "My Benvenuto, I have long known you as the best goldsmith in the world, and I now know you as an equally good sculptor, through the bust of Messer Bindo Altoviti." Cellini did no more important works, though he was always industrious. He made a crucifix which he intended for his own grave, but he gave it to the Duchess Eleanora; this was afterward sent to Philip II. of Spain, and is now in the Escurial.
Cellini's life was by no means a model one, but he had his good qualities. He took a widowed sister with six children to his home, and made them welcome and happy. At his death he was buried in the Church of the Annunziata, beneath the chapel of the Company of St. Luke, and many honors were paid to his memory.
His autobiography was so rich in its use of the Florentine manner of speech and so fine in its diction that it was honored as an authority by the Accademia della Crusca. He also wrote valuable works on the goldsmith's art and on bronze-casting and sculpture. He wrote poems and various kinds of verses, but his large acquaintance with popes, cardinals, kings, artists, and men of letters makes his story of his life far more interesting than his other writings.
The artists of Upper Italy were much influenced by Florentine art, as they had formerly been, and we can speak of no very great sculptor of this century who belonged to this part of the country. Alfonso Lombardo (1488-1537) was a native of Lucca; his principal works are seen in Ferrara, Bologna, and Cesena.
Properzia de' Rossi (1490-1530) was born at Bologna, and is interesting as the one Italian sculptress of that time. She was born about a year after her father had returned from the galleys, where he had worked out a sentence of eighteen years for the crime of manslaughter. Properzia seems to have inherited her father's violent temper, and was twice arraigned in court. She was very beautiful in person, and had a devoted lover in Antonio Galeazzo Malvasia de' Bottigari, who did not marry until many years after the death of Properzia.
Properzia studied drawing under Marc Antonio Raimondi, the famous engraver. She first devoted herself to the cutting of intaglios, which demanded an immense amount of patient labor. There is in the cabinet of gems in the Uffizi Gallery, at Florence, a cherry-stone carved by Properzia, on which sixty heads may be counted; the subject is a Glory of Saints. Other like works of hers exist in the Palazzo Grassi, in Bologna. Her next work was in arabesques, marble ornaments, lions, griffins, vases, eagles, and similar objects.