"I had formed a resolution to set out for France, as well because I perceived that the Pope's favor was withdrawn from me by means of slanderers who misrepresented my services, as for fear that those of my enemies who had most influence might still do me some greater injury. For these reasons I was desirous to remove to some other country, and see whether fortune would there prove more favorable to me. Leaving Rome, I bent my course to Florence, whence I travelled on to Bologna, Venice, and Padua."
He reached Paris, with two workmen whom he took with him from Rome, "without meeting any ill accident, and travelling on in uninterrupted mirth." But being dissatisfied with his reception there, he returned instantly to Rome, where his fears were realized; for he was arrested by order of the Pope, and made a prisoner in the Castle of St. Angelo.
"This was the first time I ever knew the inside of a prison, and I was then in my thirty-seventh year. The constable of the Castle of St. Angelo was a countryman of mine, a Florentine, named Signor Giorgio Ugolini. This worthy gentleman behaved to me with the greatest politeness, permitting me to walk freely about the castle on my parole of honor, and for no other reason but because he saw the severity and injustice of my treatment.
"Finding I had been treated with so much rigor in the affair, I began to think seriously about my escape. I got my servants to bring me new thick sheets, and did not send back the dirty ones. Upon their asking me for them, I answered that I had given them away to some of the poor soldiers. I pulled all the straw out of the tick of my bed, and burned it; for I had a chimney in the room where I lay. I then cut those sheets into a number of slips each about one third of a cubit in width; and when I thought I had made a sufficient quantity to reach from the top to the bottom of the lofty tower of the Castle of St. Angelo, I told my servants that I had given away as much of my linen as I thought proper, and desired they would take care to bring me clean sheets, adding that I would constantly return the dirty ones.
"The constable of the castle had annually a certain disorder which totally deprived him of his senses; and when the fit came upon him, he was talkative to excess. Every year he had some different whim: one time he fancied himself metamorphosed into a pitcher of oil; another time he thought himself a frog, and began to leap as such; another time he imagined he was dead, and it was found necessary to humor his conceit by making a show of burying him; thus he had every year some new frenzy. This year he fancied himself a bat, and when he went to take a walk, he sometimes made just such a noise as bats do; he likewise used gestures with his hands and body, as if he were going to fly. His physicians and his old servants, who knew his disorder, procured him all the pleasures and amusements they could think of, and as they found he delighted greatly in my conversation, they frequently came to me to conduct me to his apartment, where the poor man often detained me three or four hours chatting with him.
"He asked me whether I had ever had a fancy to fly. I answered that I had always been very ready to attempt such things as men found most difficult; and that with regard to flying, as God had given me a body admirably well calculated for running, I had even resolution enough to attempt to fly. He then proposed to me to explain how I could contrive it. I replied that when I attentively considered the several creatures that fly, and thought of effecting by art what they do by the force of nature, I did not find one so fit to imitate as the bat. As soon as the poor man heard mention made of a bat, he cried out aloud, 'It is very true! a bat is the thing.' He then addressed himself to me, and said, 'Benvenuto, if you had the opportunity, would you have the heart to make an attempt to fly?' I answered that if he would give me leave, I had courage enough to attempt to fly by means of a pair of wings waxed over. He said thereupon, 'I should like to see you fly; but as the Pope has enjoined me to watch over you with the utmost care, I am resolved to keep you locked up with a hundred keys, that you may not slip out of my hands.' I said, before all present, 'Confine me as close as you please, I will contrive to make my escape, notwithstanding.'"
At night, with a pair of pincers which he had secured, he removed the nails which fastened the plates of iron fixed upon the door, imitating with wax the heads of the nails he took out, so that their absence need not be seen.
"One holiday evening, the constable being very much disordered, he scarce said anything else but that he was become a bat, and desired his people that if Benvenuto should happen to escape, they should take no notice of it, for he must soon catch me, as he should doubtless be better able to fly by night than I; adding, 'Benvenuto is only a counterfeit bat, but I am a bat in real earnest.'
"As I had formed a resolution to attempt my escape that night, I began by praying fervently to Almighty God that it would please him to assist me in the enterprise. Two hours before daybreak, I took the iron plates from the door with great trouble. I at last forced the door, and having taken with me my slips of linen, which I had rolled up in bundles with the utmost care, I went out and got upon the right side of the tower, and leaped upon two tiles of the roof with the greatest ease. I was in a white doublet, and had on a pair of white half-hose, over which I wore a pair of little light boots, that reached half-way up my legs, and in one of these I put my dagger. I then took the end of one of my bundles of long slips, which I had made out of the sheets of my bed, and fastened it to one of the tiles of the roof that happened to jut out. Then letting myself down gently, the whole weight of my body being sustained by my arm, I reached the ground. It was not a moonlight night, but the stars shone with resplendent lustre. When I had touched the ground, I first contemplated the great height which I had descended with so much courage, and then walked away in high joy, thinking I had recovered my liberty. But I soon found myself mistaken, for the constable had caused two pretty high walls to be erected on that side. I managed to fix a long pole against the first wall, and by the strength of my arms to climb to the top of it. I then fastened my other string of slips, and descended down the steep wall.
"There was still another one; and in letting myself down, being unable to hold out any longer, I fell, and, striking my head, became quite insensible. I continued in that state about an hour and a half, as nearly as I can guess. The day beginning to break, the cool breeze that precedes the rising of the sun brought me to my senses; but I conceived a strange notion that I had been beheaded, and was then in purgatory. I recovered by degrees my strength and powers, and, perceiving that I had got out of the castle, I soon recollected all that had befallen me. Upon attempting to rise from the ground, I found that my right leg was broken, three inches above the heel, which threw me into a terrible consternation. Cutting with my dagger the part of my string of slips I had left, I bandaged my leg as well as I could. I then crept on my hands and knees towards the gate with my dagger in my hand, and effected my egress. It was about five hundred paces from the place where I had had my fall to the gate by which I entered the city. It was then broad daylight. As I happened to meet with a water-carrier, who had loaded his ass, and filled his vessels with water, I called to him, and begged he would put me upon the beast's back, and carry me to the landing-place of the steps of St. Peter's Church. I offered to give him a gold crown, and, so saying, I clapped my hand upon my purse, which was very well lined. The honest waterman instantly took me upon his back, and carried me to the steps before St. Peter's Church, where I desired him to leave me and run back to his ass.