Cellini with his broken leg went back to languish in his prison. He found the flighty Governor furious because he had "flown away," eluding his bat's eyes and wings. The rigour used towards him made him dread the worst extremities. Cast into a condemned cell, he first expected to be flayed alive; and when this terror was removed, he perceived the crystals of a pounded jewel in his food. According to his own account of this mysterious circumstance, Messer Durante Duranti of Brescia, one of Cellini's numerous enemies, had given a diamond of small value to be broken up and mixed with a salad served to him at dinner. The jeweller to whom this charge was entrusted, kept the diamond and substituted a beryl, thinking that the inferior stone would have the same murderous properties. To the avarice of this man Cellini attributed his escape from a lingering death by inflammation of the mucous membrane.[[378]]
During his first imprisonment he had occupied a fair chamber in the upper turret of the castle. He was now removed to a dungeon below ground where Fra Fojano, the reformer, had been starved to death. The floor was wet and infested with crawling creatures. A few reflected sunbeams slanting from a narrow window for two hours of the afternoon, was all the light that reached him. Here he lay, alone, unable to move because of his broken leg, with his hair and teeth falling away, and with nothing to occupy him but a Bible and a volume of Villani's "Chronicles." His spirit, however, was indomitable; and the passionate energy of the man, hitherto manifested in ungoverned acts of fury, took the form of ecstasy. He began the study of the Bible from the first chapter of Genesis, and trusting firmly to the righteousness of his own cause, compared himself to all the saints and martyrs of Scripture, men of whom the world was not worthy. He sang psalms, prayed continually, and composed a poem in praise of his prison. With a piece of charcoal he made a great drawing of angels surrounding God the Father on the wall. Once only his courage gave way: he determined on suicide, and so placed a beam that it should fall on him like a trap. When all was ready, an unseen hand took violent hold of him, and dashed him on the ground at a considerable distance. From this moment his dungeon was visited by angels, who healed his broken leg, and reasoned with him of religion.
The mention of these visions reminds us that Cellini had become acquainted with Savonarola's writings during his first imprisonment.[[379]] Impressed with the grandeur of the prophet's dreams, and exalted by the reading of the Bible, he no doubt mistook his delirious fancies for angelic visitors, and in the fervour of his enthusiasm laid claim to inspiration. One of these hallucinations is particularly striking. He had prayed that he might see the sun at least in trance, if it were impossible that he should look on it again with waking eyes. But, while awake and in possession of his senses, he was hurried suddenly away and carried to a room, where the invisible power sustaining him appeared in human shape, "like a youth whose beard is but just growing, with a face most marvellous, fair, but of austere and far from wanton beauty." In that room were all the men who had ever lived and died on earth; and thence they two went together, and came into a narrow street, one side whereof was bright with sunlight. Then Cellini asked the angel how he might behold the sun; and the angel pointed to certain steps upon the side of a house. Up these Cellini climbed, and came into the full blaze of the sun, and, though dazzled by its brightness, he gazed steadfastly and took his fill. While he looked, the rays fell away upon the left side and the disk shone like a bath of molten gold. This surface swelled, and from the glory came the figure of a Christ upon the cross, which moved and stood beside the rays. Again the surface swelled, and from the glory came the figure of Madonna and her Child; and at the right hand of the sun there knelt S. Peter in his sacerdotal robes, pleading Cellini's cause; and "full of shame that such foul wrong should be done to Christians in his house." This vision marvellously strengthened Cellini's soul, and he began to hope with confidence for liberty. When free again, he modelled the figures he had seen in gold.
The religious phase in Cellini's history requires some special comment, since it is precisely at this point that he most faithfully personifies the spirit of his age and nation. That he was a devout Catholic there is no question. He made two pilgrimages to Loreto, and another to S. Francis of Vernia. To S. Lucy he dedicated a golden eye after his recovery from an illness. He was, moreover, always anxious to get absolution from the Pope. More than this; he continually sustained himself at the great crises of his life, when in peril of imprisonment, while defending himself against assassins, and again on the eve of casting his "Perseus," by direct and passionate appeals to God. Yet his religion had but little effect upon his life; and he often used it as a source of moral strength in doing deeds repugnant to real piety. Like love, he put it off and on quite easily, reverting to it when he found himself in danger or bad spirits, and forgetting it again when he was prosperous. Thus in the dungeon of S. Angelo he vowed to visit the Holy Sepulchre if God would grant him to behold the sun. This vow he forgot until he met with disappointment at the Court of Francis, and then he suddenly determined to travel to Jerusalem. The offer of a salary of seven hundred crowns restored his spirits, and he thought no more about his vow.
While he loved his life so dearly and indulged so freely in the pleasures of this earth, he made a virtue of necessity as soon as death approached, crying, "The sooner I am delivered from the prison of this world, the better; especially as I am sure of salvation, being unjustly put to death." His good opinion of himself extended to the certainty he felt of heaven. Forgetting his murders and debaucheries, he sustained his courage with devotion when all other sources failed. As to the divine government of the world, he halted between two opinions. Whether the stars or Providence had the upper hand, he could not clearly say; but by the stars he understood a power antagonistic to his will, by Providence a force that helped him to do what he liked. There is a similar confusion in his mind about the Pope. He goes to Clement submissively for absolution from homicide and theft, saying, "I am at the feet of your Holiness, who have the full power of absolving, and I request you to give me permission to confess and communicate, that I may with your favour be restored to the divine grace." He also tells Paul that the sight of Christ's vicar, in whom there is an awful representation of the divine Majesty, makes him tremble. Yet at another time he speaks of Clement being "transformed to a savage beast," and talks of him as "that poor man Pope Clement."[[380]] Of Paul he says that he "believed neither in God nor in any other article of religion;" he sincerely regrets not having killed him by accident during the siege of Rome, abuses him for his avarice, casts his bastards in his teeth, and relates with relish the crime of forgery for which in his youth he was imprisoned in the castle of S. Angelo.[[381]] Indeed, the Italians treated the Pope as negroes treat their fetishes. If they had cause to dislike him, they beat and heaped insults on him—like the Florentines who described Sixtus IV. as "leno matris suæ, adulterorum minister, diaboli vicarius," and his spiritual offspring as "simonia, luxus, homicidium, proditio, hæresis." On the other hand, they really thought that he could open heaven and shut the gates of hell.
At the end of the year 1539, the Cardinal Ippolito d'Este appeared in Rome with solicitations from Francis I. that the Pope would release Cellini and allow him to enter his service.[[382]] Upon this the prison door was opened. Cellini returned to his old restless life of violence and pleasure. We find him renewing his favourite pastimes—killing, wantoning, disputing with his employers, and working diligently at his trade. The temporary saint and visionary becomes once more the bravo and the artist. A more complete parallel to the consequences of revivalism in Italy could not be found.[[383]] Meanwhile the first period of his history is closed and the second begins.
Cellini's account of his residence in France has much historical interest besides the charm of its romance. When he first joined the Court, he found Francis travelling from city to city with a retinue of eighteen thousand persons and twelve thousand horses. Frequently they came to places where no accommodation could be had, and the suite were lodged in wretched tents. It is not wonderful that Cellini should complain of the French being less civilised than the Italians of his time. Francis among his ladies and courtiers, pretending to a knowledge of the arts, sauntering with his splendid train into the goldsmith's workshop, encouraging Cellini's violence with a boyish love of mischief, vain and flattered, peevish, petulant, and fond of show, appears upon these pages with a life-like vividness.[[384]] When the time came for settling in Paris, the King presented his goldsmith with a castle called Le Petit Nesle, and made him lord thereof by letters of naturalisation. This house stood where the Institute has since been built; of its extent we may judge from the number of occupations carried on within its precincts when Cellini entered into possession. He found there a tennis-court, a distillery, a printing press, and a factory of saltpetre, besides residents engaged in other trades. Cellini's claims were resisted. Probably the occupiers did not relish the intrusion of a foreigner. So he stormed the place and installed himself by force of arms. Similar violence was needed in order to maintain himself in possession; but this Cellini loved, and had he been let alone, it is probable he would have died of ennui.
Difficulties of all kinds, due in part to his ungovernable temper, in part to his ill-regulated life, in part to his ignorance of French habits, gathered round him. He fell into disfavour with Madame d'Estampes, the mistress of the King; and here it may be mentioned that many of his troubles arose from his inability to please noble women.[[385]] Proud, self-confident, overbearing, and unable to command his words or actions, Cellini was unfitted to pay court to princes. Then again he quarrelled with his brother artists, and made the Bolognese painter, Primaticcio, his enemy. After being attacked by assassins and robbers on more than one occasion, he was involved in two lawsuits. He draws a graphic picture of the French courts of justice, with their judge as grave as Plato, their advocates all chattering at once, their perjured Norman witnesses, and the ushers at the doors vociferating Paix, paix, Satan, allez, paix. In this cry Cellini recognised the gibberish at the beginning of the seventh canto of Dante's "Inferno." But the most picturesque group in the whole scene presented to us is that made by Cellini himself, armed and mailed, and attended by his prentices in armour, as they walked into the court to browbeat justice with the clamour of their voice. If we are to trust his narrative, he fought his way out of one most dangerous trial by simple vociferation. Afterwards he took the law, as usual, into his own hands. One pair of litigants were beaten; Caterina was nearly kicked to death; and the attorneys were threatened with the sword.
In the midst of these disturbances, Cellini began some important works for Francis. At Paris the King employed him to make huge silver candelabra, and at Fontainebleau to restore the castle gate. For the château of Fontainebleau Cellini executed the nymph in bronze, reclining among trophies of the chase, which may still be seen in the Louvre. It is a long-limbed, lifeless figure, without meaning—a snuff-box ornament enlarged to a gigantic size. Francis, who cannot have had good taste in art, if what Cellini makes him say be genuine, admired these designs above the bronze copies of the Vatican marbles he had recently received. He seems to have felt some personal regard for Benvenuto, and to have done all he could to retain him in his service. The animosity of Madame d'Estampes, and a grudge against his old patron, Ippolito d'Este, however, determined the restless craftsman to quit Paris. Leaving his castle, his unfinished works, and other property behind him in the care of Ascanio, his friend and pupil, he returned alone to Italy. This step, taken in a moment of restless pique, was ever after regretted by Cellini, who looked back with yearning from Florence to the generosity of Francis.
Cosimo de' Medici was indeed a very different patron from Francis. Cautious, little-minded, meddling, with a true Florentine's love of bargaining and playing cunning tricks, he pretended to protect the arts, but did not understand the part he had assumed. He was always short of money, and surrounded by old avaricious servants, through whose hands his meagre presents passed. As a connoisseur, he did not trust his own judgment, thus laying himself open to the intrigues of inferior artists. Henceforward a large part of Cellini's time was wasted in wrangling with the Duke's steward, squabbling with Bandinelli and Ammanati, and endeavouring to overcome the coldness or to meet the vacillations of his patron. Those who wish to gain insight into the life of an artist at Court in the sixteenth century, will do well to study attentively the chapters devoted by Cellini to his difficulties with the Duchess, and his wordy warfares with Bandinelli.[[386]] This atmosphere of intrigue and animosity was not uncongenial to Benvenuto; and as far as words and blows went, he almost always got the best of it. Nothing, for example, could be keener and more cutting than the very just criticism he made in Bandinelli's presence of his "Hercules and Cacus." "Quel bestial buaccio Bandinello," as he delights to name him, could do nothing but retort with vulgar terms of insult.[[387]]