We can realize a measure of Cellini’s troubles from his story of the casting of the “[Perseus]”—one of the most vigorous romances in the history of art. We take up the tale where the cast has been placed in the furnace and the metal introduced. Disaster follows disaster. Whether the details have been coloured by the vivid imagination of the artist or no matters little. We hear how the heat sets fire to the shop on the one hand. On the other, a rain-storm threatens to cool the furnace, in spite of the stacks of pine that have been piled around the statue and its metal casing. In the midst of the excitement Cellini is suddenly attacked by a violent intermitting fever. “In short, I was so ill that I was forced to take to my bed.” Cellini therefore left his ten assistants to carry on as best they could.
“In this manner did I continue for two hours in a violent fever, which I every moment perceived to increase, and I was incessantly crying out, ‘I am dying, I am dying!’
“My housekeeper, whose name was Mona Fiore da Castel del Rio, was one of the most sensible and affectionate women in the world; she rebuked me for giving way to vain fears, and at the same time attended me with the greatest kindness and care imaginable; however, seeing me so very ill and terrified to such a degree, she could not contain herself, but shed a flood of tears which she endeavoured to conceal from me. Whilst we were both in this deep affliction, I perceived a man enter the room who in his person appeared to be as crooked and distorted as a great S, and began to express himself in these terms, with a tone of voice as dismal and melancholy as those who exhort and pray with persons who are going to be executed: ‘Alas! poor Benvenuto, your work is spoiled, and the misfortune admits of no remedy.’
“No sooner had I heard the words uttered by this messenger of evil, but I cried out so loud that my voice might be heard to the skies, and got out of bed. I began immediately to dress, and giving plenty of kicks and cuffs to the maidservants and the boy as they offered to help me on with my clothes, I complained bitterly in these terms: ‘O you envious and treacherous wretches, this is a piece of villainy contrived on purpose; but I swear by the living God that I will sift it to the bottom, and before I die give such proofs who I am as shall not fail to astonish the whole world.’ Having huddled on my clothes, I went with a mind boding evil to the shop, where I found all those whom I had left so alert and in such high spirits, standing in the utmost confusion and astonishment. I thereupon addressed them thus: ‘Listen all of you to what I am going to say; and since you either would not or could not follow the method I pointed out, obey me now that I am present; my work is before us, and let none of you offer to oppose or contradict me, for such cases as this require activity and not counsel.’ Hereupon one Alessandro Lastricali had the assurance to say to me: ‘Look you, Benvenuto, you have undertaken a work which our art cannot compass, and which is not to be effected by human power.’
“Hearing these words I turned round in such a passion, and seemed so bent upon mischief that both he and all the rest unanimously cried out to me: ‘Give your orders, and we will all second you in whatever you command; we will assist you as long as we have breath in our bodies.’ These kind and affectionate words they uttered, as I firmly believe, in a persuasion that I was upon the point of expiring. I went directly to examine the furnace, and saw all the metal in it concreted. I thereupon ordered two of the helpers to step over the way to Capretta, a butcher, for a load of young oak which had been above a year drying, and had been offered me by Maria Ginevra, wife to the said Capretta.
“Upon his bringing me the first bundles of it, I began to fill the grate. This sort of oak makes a brisker fire than any other wood whatever; but the wood of alder-trees and pine-trees is used in casting artillery, because it makes a mild and gentle fire. As soon as the concreted metal felt the power of this violent fire, it began to brighten and glitter. In another quarter I made them hurry the tubes with all possible expedition, and sent some of them to the roof of the house to take care of the fire, which through the great violence of the wind had acquired new force; and towards the garden I had caused some tables with pieces of tapestry and old clothes to be placed, in order to shelter me from the rain. As soon as I had applied the proper remedy to each evil, I with a loud voice cried out to my men to bestir themselves and lend a helping hand; so that when they saw that the concreted metal began to melt again, the whole body obeyed me with such zeal and alacrity that every man did the work of three. Then I caused a mass of pewter weighing about sixty pounds to be thrown upon the metal in the furnace, which with the other helps, as the brisk wood fire, and stirring it sometimes with iron and sometimes with long poles, soon became completely dissolved. Finding that, contrary to the opinion of my ignorant assistants, I had effected what seemed as difficult as to raise the dead, I recovered my vigour to such a degree that I no longer perceived whether I had any fever, nor had I the least apprehension of death. Suddenly a loud noise was heard, and a glittering of fire flashed before our eyes, as if it had been the darting of a thunderbolt. Upon the appearance of this extraordinary phenomenon, terror seized on all present, and on none more than myself. This tremendous noise being over, we began to stare at each other, and perceived that the cover of the furnace had burst and flown off, so that the bronze began to run.
GIOVANNI BOLOGNA
RAPE OF THE SABINES
Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence