With regard to his pedigree Cellini tells a ridiculous story about a certain Fiorino da Cellino, one of Julius Cæsar's captains, who gave his name to Florence. For the arms of the Cellini family, see lib. i. cap. 50.
To enlarge upon this point is hardly necessary; or it would be easy to prove from documentary evidence that artists so eminent as Simone Martini, Gentile da Fabriano, Perugino, and Ghirlandajo kept open shops, where customers could buy the products of their craft from a highly-finished altar-piece down to a painted buckler or a sign to hang above the street-door. The commercial status of fine art in Italy was highly beneficial to its advancement, inasmuch as it implied a thorough technical apprenticeship for learners. The defective side of the system was apparent in great workshops like that of Raphael, who undertook painting-commissions quite beyond his powers of conscientious execution.
See above, p. [91].