CHAPTER IX--LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI
His Fame—His Autobiography—Its Value for the Student of History, Manners, and Character, in the Renaissance—Birth, Parentage, and Boyhood—Flute-playing—Apprenticeship to Marcone—Wanderjahr—The Goldsmith's Trade at Florence—Torrigiani and England—Cellini leaves Florence for Rome—Quarrel with the Guasconti—Homicidal Fury—Cellini a Law to Himself—Three Periods in his Manhood—Life in Rome—Diego at the Banquet—Renaissance Feeling for Physical Beauty—Sack of Rome—Miracles in Cellini's Life—His Affections—Murder of his Brother's Assassin—Sanctuary—Pardon and Absolution—Incantation in the Colosseum—First Visit to France—Adventures on the Way—Accused of Stealing Crown Jewels in Rome—Imprisonment in the Castle of S. Angelo—The Governor—Cellini's Escape—His Visions—The Nature of his Religion—Second Visit to France—The Wandering Court—Le Petit Nesle—Cellini in the French Law Courts—Scene at Fontainebleau—Return to Florence—Cosimo de' Medici as a Patron—Intrigues of a petty Court—Bandinelli—The Duchess—Statue of Perseus—End of Cellini's Life—Cellini and Machiavelli.
Few names in the history of Italian art are more renowned than that of Benvenuto Cellini. This can hardly be attributed to the value of his extant works; for though, while he lived, he was the greatest goldsmith of his time, a skilled medallist and an admirable statuary, few of his many masterpieces now survive. The plate and armour that bear his name, are only in some rare instances genuine; and the bronze "Perseus" in the Loggia de' Lanzi at Florence remains almost alone to show how high he ranked among the later Tuscan sculptors. If, therefore, Cellini had been judged merely by the authentic productions of his art, he would not have acquired a celebrity unique among his fellow-workers of the sixteenth century. That fame he owes to the circumstance that he left behind him at his death a full and graphic narrative of his stormy life. The vivid style of this autobiography dictated by Cellini while still engaged in the labour of his craft, its animated picture of a powerful character, the variety of its incidents, and the amount of information it contains, place it high both as a life-romance and also as a record of contemporary history. After studying the laboured periods of Varchi, we turn to these memoirs, and view the same events from the standpoint of an artisan conveying his impressions with plebeian raciness of phrase. The sack of Rome, the plague and siege of Florence, the humiliation of Clement VII., the pomp of Charles V. at Rome, the behaviour of the Florentine exiles at Ferrara, the intimacy between Alessandro de' Medici and his murderer, Lorenzino, the policy of Paul III., and the method pursued by Cosimo at Florence, are briefly but significantly touched upon—no longer by the historian seeking causes and setting forth the sequence of events, but by a shrewd observer interested in depicting his own part in the great game of life. Cellini haunted the private rooms of popes and princes; he knew the chief actors of his day, just as the valet knows the hero; and the picturesque glimpses into their life we gain from him, add the charm of colour and reality to history.
At the same time this book presents an admirable picture of an artist's life at Rome, Paris, and Florence. Cellini was essentially an Italian of the Cinque-cento. His passions were the passions of his countrymen; his vices were the vices of his time; his eccentricity and energy and vital force were what the age idealised as virtù. Combining rare artistic gifts with a most violent temper and a most obstinate will, he paints himself at one time as a conscientious craftsman, at another as a desperate bravo. He obeys his instincts and indulges his appetites with the irreflective simplicity of an animal. In the pursuit of vengeance and the commission of murder he is self-reliant, coolly calculating, fierce and fatal as a tiger. Yet his religious fervour is sincere; his impulses are generous; and his heart on the whole is good. His vanity is inordinate; and his unmistakable courage is impaired, to Northern apprehension, by swaggering bravado.
The mixture of these qualities in a personality so natural and so clearly limned renders Cellini a most precious subject for the student of Renaissance life and character. Even supposing him to have been exceptionally passionate, he was made of the same stuff as his contemporaries. We are justified in concluding this not only from collateral evidence and from what he tells us, but also from the meed of honour he received. In Europe of the present day he could hardly fail to be regarded as a ruffian, a dangerous disturber of morality and order. In his own age he was held in high esteem and buried by his fellow-citizens with public ceremonies. A funeral oration was pronounced over his grave "in praise both of his life and works, and also of his excellent disposition of mind and body."[[345]] He dictated the memoirs that paint him as bloodthirsty, sensual, and revengeful, in the leisure of his old age, and left them with complacency to serve as witness of his manly virtues to posterity. Even Vasari, whom he hated, and who reciprocated his ill-will, records that "he always showed himself a man of great spirit and veracity, bold, active, enterprising, and formidable to his enemies; a man, in short, who knew as well how to speak to princes as to exert himself in his art."
Enough has been said to prove that Cellini was not inferior to the average morality of the Renaissance, and that we are justified in accepting his life as a valuable historical document.[[346]] To give a detailed account of a book pronounced by Horace Walpole "more amusing than any novel," received by Parini and Tiraboschi as the most delightful masterpiece of Italian prose, translated into German by Goethe, and placed upon his index of select works by Auguste Comte, may seem superfluous. Yet I cannot afford to omit from my plan the most singular and characteristic episode in the private history of the Italian Renaissance. I need it for the concrete illustration of much that has been said in this and the preceding volumes of my work.
Cellini was born of respectable parents at Florence on the night of All Saints' Day in 1500, and was called Benvenuto to record his father's joy at having a son.[[347]] It was the wish of Giovanni Cellini's heart that his son should be a musician. Benvenuto in consequence practised the flute for many years attentively, though much against his will. At the age of fifteen so great was his desire to learn the arts of design that his father placed him under the care of the goldsmith Marcone. At the same time he tells us in his memoirs: "I continued to play sometimes through complaisance to my father either upon the flute or the horn; and I constantly drew tears and deep sighs from him every time he heard me." While engaged in the workshop of Marcone, Benvenuto came to blows with some young men who had attacked his brother, and was obliged to leave Florence for a time. At this period he visited Siena, Bologna, and Pisa, gaming his livelihood by working in the shops of goldsmiths, and steadily advancing in his art.
It must not be thought that this education was a mean one for so great an artist. Painting and sculpture in Italy were regarded as trades, and the artist had his bottega just as much as the cobbler or the blacksmith.[[348]] I have already had occasion to point out that an apprenticeship to goldsmith's work was considered at Florence an almost indispensable commencement of advanced art-study.[[349]] Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Orcagna, Verocchio, Ghiberti, Pollajuolo, Ghirlandajo, Luca della Robbia, all underwent this training before they applied themselves to architecture, painting, and sculpture. As the goldsmith's craft was understood in Florence, it exacted the most exquisite nicety in performance as well as design. It forced the student to familiarise himself with the materials, instruments, and technical processes of art; so that, later on in life, he was not tempted to leave the execution of his work to journeymen and hirelings.[[350]] No labour seemed too minute, no metal was too mean, for the exercise of the master-workman's skill; nor did he run the risk of becoming one of those half-amateurs in whom accomplishment falls short of first conception. Art ennobled for him all that he was called to do. Whether cardinals required him to fashion silver vases for their banquet-tables; or ladies wished the setting of their jewels altered; or a pope wanted the enamelled binding of a book of prayers; or men-at-arms sent swordblades to be damascened with acanthus foliage; or kings desired fountains and statues for their palace courts; or poets begged to have their portraits cast in bronze; or generals needed medals to commemorate their victories, or dukes new coins for their mint; or bishops ordered reliquaries for the altars of their patron saints; or merchants sought for seals and signet rings engraved with their device; or men of fashion asked for medallions of Leda and Adonis to fasten in their caps—all these commissions could be undertaken by a workman like Cellini. He was prepared for all alike by his apprenticeship to orfevria; and to all he gave the same amount of conscientious toil. The consequence was that, at the time of the Renaissance, furniture, plate, jewels, and articles of personal adornment were objects of true art. The mind of the craftsman was exercised afresh in every piece of work. Pretty things were not bought, machine-made, by the gross in a warehouse; nor was it customary, as now it is, to see the same design repeated with mechanical regularity in every house.