I believe it was Schiller who once intimated that it took two to love anything into being. But Correggio seems to have performed the task of conjuring forth these putti all alone; yet it is quite possible that Veronica Gambara helped him. That he loved them is very sure—only love could have made them manifest. This man was a lover of children, otherwise he could not have loved putti, for he sympathized with all their baby pranks, and sorrows as well.
One cherub bumps his head against a cloud and straightway lifts a howl that must have echoed all through Paradise. His mouth is open to its utmost limit; tears start from between his closed eyes, which he gouges with chubby fists, and his whole face is distorted in intense pigmy wrath. One might really feel awfully sorry for him were it not for the fact that he sticks out one foot trying to kick a playfellow who evidently hadn't a thing to do with the accident. He's a bad, naughty cherub—that is what he is, and he deserves to have his obtrusive anatomy stung, just a little, with the back of a hairbrush, for his own good.
This same cherub appears in other places, once blowing a horn in another's ear; and again he is tickling a sleeping brother's foot with a straw. These putti play all the tricks that real babies do, and besides have a goodly list of "stunts" of their own. One thing is sure, to Correggio heaven would not be heaven without putti; and the chief difference that I see between putti and sure-enough babies is, that putti require no care and babies do.
Then putti are practical and useful—they hold up scrolls, tie back draperies, carry pictures, point out great folks, feed birds, and in one instance Correggio has ten of them leading a dog out to execution. They carry the train of the Virgin, assist the Apostles, act as ushers, occasionally pass the poorbox, make wreaths and crowns—but, I am sorry to say, sometimes get into unseemly scuffles for first place.
They have no wings, yet they soar and fly like English sparrows.
They are not troubled with nerv. pros. or introspection. What they
feed upon is uncertain, but sure it is that they are well nourished.
A putti needs nothing, not even approbation.
In the dome of the Cathedral at Parma, there is a regular flight of them to help on the Ascension. They mix in everywhere, riding on clouds, clinging to robes, perching on the shoulders of Apostles— everywhere thick in the flight and helping on that glorious anabasis. Away, away they go—movement—movement everywhere—right up into the blue dome of Heaven! As you look up at that most magnificent picture, a tinge of sorrow comes over you—the putti are all going away, and what if they should never come back!
A little girl I know once went with her Mamma to visit the Cathedral at Parma. Mother and daughter stood in silent awe for a space, looking up at that cloud of vanishing forms. At last the little girl turned to her mother and said, "Mamma, did you ever see so many bare legs in all the born days of your life?"
Some years ago in a lecture John La Farge said that the world had produced only seven painters that deserved to rank in the first class, and one of these is Correggio. The speaker did not name the other six; and although requested to do so, smilingly declined, saying that he preferred to allow each auditor to complete the list for himself.
One person present made out this list of seven Immortals, and passed the list to Edmund Russell, seated near, for comments. This is the list: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Titian, Rembrandt, Correggio, Velasquez, Corot.
Mr. Russell approved the selection, but added a note claiming the privilege to change and substitute names from time to time as his mood might prompt. This seems to me like a very sensible verdict. "Who is your favorite author?" is a question that is often asked. Just as if any one author ever got first place in the mind of a strong man and stuck there! Authors jostle each other for first place in our hearts. We may have Emerson periods and Browning periods, when they alone minister to us; and so also pictures, like music, make their appeals to mood.
This peaceful, beautiful May day, as I write this at my cabin in the woods, Correggio seems to me truly one of the world's marvelous men. He is near, very dear, and yet before him I would stand silent and uncovered.
He did his work and held his peace. He was simple, modest, unobtrusive and unpretentious. He was so big that he never knew the greatness of his work, any more than the author of Hamlet knew the immensity of his.
Correggio was never more than a day's journey from home—he toiled in obscurity and did work so grand that it made its final appeal only to the future. He never painted his own portrait, and no one else seemed to consider him worth while; his income was barely sufficient for his wants. He was so big that following fast upon his life came a lamentable decline in art: his personality being so great that his son and a goodly flock of disciples tried to paint just like him. All originality faded out of the fabric of their lives, and they were only cheap, tawdry and dispirited imitators. That is one of the penalties which Nature exacts when she vouchsafes a great man to earth—all others are condemned to insipidity. They are whipped, dispirited and undone, and spontaneity dies a-borning. No man should try to do another man's work. Note the anatomical inanities of Bernini in his attempts to out-Angelo Michelangelo.
In this "rushing-in" business, keep out, or you may count as one more fool.
Correggio struck thirteen because he was himself, and was to a great degree even ignorant and indifferent to what the world was doing. He was filled with the joy of life; and with no furtive eye on the future, and no distracting fears concerning the present, he did his work and did it the best he could. He worked to please himself, cultivated the artistic conscience—scorning to create a single figure that did not spring into life because it must. All of his pictures are born of this spirit.
Good old Guido of Parma, afar from home, once asked, with tear-
filled eyes, of a recent visitor there—"And tell me, you saw the
Cathedral and the Convent of San Paola—and are not the cherubs of
Master Correggio grown to be men yet?"
It is only life and love that give love and life. Correggio gave us both out of the fulness of a full heart. And growing weary when scarce forty years of age, he passed out into the Silence, but his work is ours.
BELLINI
And if in our day Raphael must give way to Botticelli, with how much greater reason should Titian in the heights of his art, with all his earthly splendor and voluptuous glow, give place to the lovely imagination of dear old Gian Bellini, the father of Venetian Art? —Mrs. Oliphant, in "The Makers of Venice"
[Illustration: Bellini]
It is a great thing to teach. I am never more complimented than when some one addresses me as "teacher." To give yourself in a way that will inspire others to think, to do, to become—what nobler ambition! To be a good teacher demands a high degree of altruism, for one must be willing to sink self, to die—as it were—that others may live. There is something in it very much akin to motherhood—a brooding quality. Every true mother realizes at times that her children are only loaned to her—sent from God—and the attributes of her body and mind are being used by some Power for a Purpose. The thought tends to refine the heart of its dross, obliterate pride and make her feel the sacredness of her office. All good men everywhere recognize the holiness of motherhood—this miracle by which the race survives.
There is a touch of pathos in the thought that while lovers live to make themselves necessary to each other, the mother is working to make herself unnecessary to her children. The true mother is training her children to do without her. And the entire object of teaching is to enable the scholar to do without his teacher. Graduation should take place at the vanishing-point of the teacher.
Yes, the efficient teacher has in him much of this mother-quality. Thoreau, you remember, said that genius is essentially feminine; if he had teachers in mind his remark was certainly true. The men of much motive power are not the best teachers—the arbitrary and imperative type that would bend all minds to match its own may build bridges, tunnel mountains, discover continents and capture cities, but it can not teach. In the presence of such a towering personality freedom dies, spontaneity droops, and thought slinks away into a corner. The brooding quality, the patience that endures, and the yearning of motherhood, are all absent. The man is a commander, not a teacher; and there yet remains a grave doubt whether the warrior and ruler have not used their influence more to make this world a place of the skull than the abode of happiness and prosperity. The orders to kill all the firstborn, and those over ten years of age, were not given by teachers.
The teacher is one who makes two ideas grow where there was only one before.
Just here, before we pass on to other themes, seems a good place to say that we live in a very stupid old world, round like an orange and slightly flattened at the poles. The proof of this seemingly pessimistic remark, made by a hopeful and cheerful man, lies in the fact that we place small premium in either honor or money on the business of teaching. As, in the olden times, barbers and scullions ranked with musicians, and the Master of the Hounds wore a bigger medal than the Poet Laureate, so do we pay our teachers the same as coachmen and coal-heavers, giving them a plentiful lack of everything but overwork.
I will never be quite willing to admit that this country is enlightened until we cease the inane and parsimonious policy of trying to drive all the really strong men and women out of the teaching profession by putting them on the payroll at one-half the rate, or less, than what the same brains and energy can command elsewhere. In this year of our Lord, Nineteen Hundred Two, in a time of peace, we have appropriated four hundred million dollars for war and war-appliances, and this sum is just double the cost of the entire public-school system in America. It is not the necessity of economy that dictates our actions in this matter of education—we simply are not enlightened.
But this thing can not always last—I look for the time when we shall set apart the best and noblest men and women of earth for teachers, and their compensation will be so adequate that they will be free to give themselves for the benefit of the race, without apprehension of a yawning almshouse. A liberal policy will be for our own good, just as a matter of cold expediency; it will be Enlightened Self-interest.
With the rise of the Bellinis, Venetian art ceased to be provincial, blossoming out into national. Jacopo Bellini was a teacher—mild, gentle, sympathetic, animated. His work reveals personality, but is somewhat stiff and statuesque: sharp in outline like an antique stained-glass window. This is because his art was descended from the glassworkers; and he himself continued to make designs for the glassworkers of Murano all his life. Considering the time in which he lived he was a great painter, for he improved upon what had gone before and prepared the way for those greater than he who were yet to come. He called himself an experimenter, and around him clustered a goodly group of young men who were treated by him more as comrades than as students. They were all boys together—learners, with the added dignity which an older head of the right sort can lend.
"Old Jacopo" they used to call him, and there was a touch of affection in the term to which several of them have testified. All of the pupils loved the old man, who wasn't so very old in years, and certainly was not in heart. Among his pupils were his two sons, Gentile and Gian, and they called him Old Jacopo, too. I rather like this—it proves for one thing that the boys were not afraid of their father. They surely did not run and hide when they heard him coming, neither did they find it necessary to tell lies in order to defend themselves. A severe parent is sure to have untruthful children, and perhaps the best recipe for having noble children is to be a noble parent.
It is well to be a companion to your children, and just where the idea came in which developed into the English boarding-school delusion, that children should be sent away among hirelings— separated from their parents—in order to be educated, I do not know. It surely was not complimentary to the parents. Old Jacopo didn't try very hard to discipline his boys—he loved them, which is better if you are forced to make choice. They worked together and grew together. Before Gian and Gentile were eighteen they could paint as well as their father. When they were twenty they excelled him, and no one was more elated over it than Old Jacopo. They were doing things he could never do: overcoming obstacles he could not overcome—he clapped his hands in gladness, did this old teacher, and shed tears of joy—his pupils were surpassing him! Gian and Gentile would not admit this, but still they kept right on, each vieing with the other. Vasari says that Gian was the better artist, but Aldus refers to Gentile as "the undisputed master of painting in all Venetia." Ruskin compromises by explaining that Gentile had the broader and deeper nature, but that Gian was more feminine, more poetic, nearer lyric, possessing a delicacy and insight that his brother never acquired. These qualities better fitted him for a teacher; and when Old Jacopo passed away, Gian drifted into his place, for every man is gravitating straight to where he belongs.
The little workshop of one room now was enlarged: the bottega became an atelier. There were groups of workrooms and studios, and a small gallery that became the meeting-place for various literary and artistic visitors at Venice. Ludovico Ariosto, greatest of Italian poets, came here and wrote a sonnet to "Gian Bellini, sublime artist, performer of great things, but best of all the loving Teacher of Men."
Gian Bellini had two pupils whose name and fame are deathless: Giorgione and Titian. There is a fine flavor of romance surrounds Giorgione, the gentle, the refined, the beloved. His was a spirit like unto that of Chopin or Shelley, and his death-dirge should have been written by the one and set to music by the other—brothers doloroso, sent into this rough world unprepared for its buffets, passing away in manhood's morning. Yet all heard the song of the skylark. Giorgione died broken-hearted, through his ladylove's inconstancy. He was exactly the same age as Titian, and while he lived surpassed that giant far, as the giant himself admitted. He died aged thirty-three, the age at which a full dozen of the greatest men of the world have died, and the age at which several other very great men have been born again—which possibly is the same thing. Titian lived to be a hundred, lacking six months, and when past seventy used to give alms to a beggar-woman at a church- door—the woman who had broken the heart of Giorgione. He also painted her portrait—this in sad and subdued remembrance of the days agone.
The Venetian School of Art has been divided by Ruskin into three parts: the first begins with Jacopo Bellini, and this part might be referred to as the budding period. The second is the flowering period, and the palm is carried by Gian Bellini. The period of ripe fruit—o'erripe fruit, touched by the tint of death—is represented by four men: Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto and Paul Veronese. Beyond these four, Venetian Art has never gone, and although four hundred years have elapsed since they laughed and sang, enjoyed and worked, all we can do is wonder and admire. We can imitate, but we can not improve.
Gian Bellini lived to be ninety-two, working to the last, always a learner, always a teacher. His best work was done after his eightieth year. The cast-off shell of this great spirit was placed in the tomb with that of his brother Gentile, who had passed out but a few years before. Death did not divide them.
Giovanni Bellini was his name. Yet when people who loved beautiful pictures spoke of "Gian," every one knew who was meant, but to those who worked at art he was "The Master." He was two inches under six feet in height, strong and muscular. In spite of his seventy summers his carriage was erect and there was a jaunty suppleness about his gait that made him seem much younger. In fact, no one would have believed that he had lived over his threescore and ten, were it not for the iron-gray hair that fluffed out all around under the close- fitting black cap, and the bronzed complexion—sun-kissed by wind and weather—which formed a trinity of opposites that made people turn and stare.
Queer stories used to be told about him. He was a skilful gondolier, and it was the daily row back and forth from the Lido that gave him that face of bronze. Folks said he ate no meat and drank no wine, and that his food was simply ripe figs in the season, with coarse rye bread and nuts. Then there was that funny old hunchback, a hundred years old at least, and stone-deaf, who took care of the gondola, spending the whole day, waiting for his master, washing the trim, graceful, blue-black boat, arranging the awning with the white cords and tassels, and polishing the little brass lions at the sides. People tried to question the old hunchback, but he gave no secrets away. The master always stood up behind and rowed, while down on the cushions rode the hunchback, the guest of honor.
There stood the master erect, plying the oar, his long black robe tucked up under the dark blue sash that exactly matched the color of the gondola. The man's motto might have been, "Ich Dien," or that passage of Scripture, "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant." Suspended around his neck by a slender chain was a bronze medal, presented by vote of the Signoria when the great picture of "The Transfiguration" was unveiled. If this medal had been a crucifix, and you had met the wearer in San Marco, one glance at the finely chiseled features, the black cap and the flowing robe and you would have said at once the man was a priest, Vicar-General of some important diocese. But seeing him standing erect on the stern of a gondola, the wind caressing the dark gray hair, you would have been perplexed until your gondolier explained in serious undertone that you had just passed "The greatest Painter in all Venice, Gian, the Master."
Then if you showed curiosity and wanted to know further, your gondolier would have told you more about this strange man.
The canals of Venice are the highways, and the gondoliers are like 'bus-drivers in Piccadilly—they know everybody and are in close touch with all the secrets of State. When you get to the Giudecca and tie up for lunch, over a bottle of Chianti, your gondolier will tell you this: The hunchback there in the gondola, rowed by the Master, is the Devil, who has taken that form just to be with and guard the greatest artist the world has ever seen. Yes, Signor, that clean-faced man with his frank, wide-open, brown eyes is in league with the Evil One. He is the man who took young Tiziano from Cadore into his shop, right out of a glass-factory, and made him a great artist, getting him commissions and introducing him everywhere! And how about the divine Giorgione who called him father? Oho!
And who is Giorgione? The son of some unknown peasant woman. And if
Bellini wanted to adopt him, treat him as his son indeed, kissing
him on the cheek when he came back just from a day's visit to
Mestre, whose business was it? Oho!
Besides that, his name isn't Giorgione—it is Giorgio Barbarelli. And didn't this Giorgio Barbarelli, and Tiziano from Cadore, and Espero Carbonne, and that Gustavo from Nuremberg, and the others paint most of Gian's pictures? Surely they did. The old man simply washes in the backgrounds and the boys do the work. About all old Gian does is to sign the picture, sell it and pocket the proceeds. Carpaccio helps him, too—Carpaccio, who painted the loveliest little angel sitting crosslegged playing the biggest mandolin you ever saw in your life.
That is genius, you know—the ability to get some one else to do the work, and then capture the ducats and the honors for yourself. Of course Gian knows how to lure the boys on—something has to be done in order to hold them. Gian buys a picture from them now and then; his studio is full of their work—better than he can do. Oh, he knows a good thing when he sees it. These pictures will be valuable some day, and he gets them at his own price. It was Antonello of Messina who introduced oil-painting into Venice. Before that they mixed their paints with water, milk or wine. But when Antonello came along with his dark, lustrous pictures, he set all artistic Venice astir. Gian Bellini discovered the secret, they say, by feigning to be a gentleman and going to the newcomer and sitting for his picture. He it was who discovered that Antonello mixed his colors with oil. Oho!
Of course not all of the pictures in his studio are painted by the boys—some are painted by that old Dutchman what's-his-name—oh, yes, Durer, Alberto Durer of Nuremberg. Two Nuremberg painters were in that very gondola last week just where you sit—they are here in Venice now, taking lessons from Gian, they said. Gian was up there at Nuremberg and lived a month with Durer—they worked together, drank beer together, I suppose, and caroused. Gian is very strict about what he does in Venice, but you can never tell what a man will do when he is away from home. The Germans are a roystering lot—but they do say they can paint. Me? I have never been there—and do not want to go, either—there are no canals there. To be sure, they print books in Nuremberg. It was up there somewhere that they invented type, a lazy scheme to do away with writing. They are a thrifty lot—those Germans—they give me my fare and a penny more, just a single penny, and no matter how much I have talked and pointed out the wonderful sights, and imparted useful information, known to me alone—only one penny extra—think of it!
Yes, printing was first done at Mayence by a German, Gutenberg, about sixty years ago. One of Gutenberg's workmen went up to Nuremberg and taught others how to design and cast type. This man Alberto Durer helped them, designing the initials and making title- pages by cutting the design on a wooden block, then covering this block with ink, laying a sheet of paper upon it, and placing it in a press; then when the paper is lifted off it looks exactly like the original drawing. In fact, most people couldn't tell the difference, and here you can print thousands of them from the one block!
Gian Bellini makes drawings for title-pages and initials for Aldus and Nicholas Jenson. Venice is the greatest printing-place in the world, and yet the business began here only thirty years ago. The first book printed here was in Fourteen Hundred Sixty-nine, by John of Speyer. There are nearly two hundred licensed printing-presses here, and it takes usually four men to a press—two to set the type and get things ready, and two to run the press. This does not count, of course, the men who write the books, and those who make the type and cut the blocks from which they print the pictures for illustrations. At first, you know, the books they printed in Venice had no title-pages, initials or illustrations. My father was a printer and he remembers when the first large initials were printed —before that, the spaces were left blank and the books were sent out to the monasteries to be completed by hand.
Gian and Gentile had a good deal to do about cutting the first blocks for initials—they got the idea, I think, from Nuremberg. And now there are Dutchmen down here from Amsterdam learning how to print books and paint pictures. Several of them are in Gian's studio, I hear—every once in a while I get them for a trip to the Lido or to Murano.
Gentile Bellini is his brother and looks very much like him. The Grand Turk at Constantinople came here once and saw Gian Bellini at work in the Great Hall. He had never seen a good picture before and was amazed. He wanted the Senate to sell Gian to him, thinking he was a slave. They humored the Pagan by hiring Gentile Bellini to go instead, loaning him out for two years, so to speak.
Gentile went, and the Sultan, who never allowed any one to stand before him, all having to grovel in the dirt, treated Gentile as an equal. Gentile even taught the old rogue to draw a little, and they say the painter had a key to every room in the palace, and was treated like a prince.
Well, they got along all right, until one day Gentile drew the picture of the head of John the Baptist on a charger.
"A man's head doesn't look like that when it is cut off," said the Turk contemptuously. Gentile had forgotten that the Turk was on familiar ground.
"Perhaps the Light of the Sun knows more about painting than I do!" said Gentile, as he kept right on at his work.
"I may not know much about painting, but I'm no fool in some other things I might name," was the reply. The Sultan clapped his hands three times: two slaves appeared from opposite doors. One was a little ahead of the other, and as this one approached, the Sultan with a single swing of the snickersnee snipped off his head. This teaches us that obedience to our superiors is its own reward. But the lesson was wholly lost on Gentile Bellini, for he did not remain even to examine the severed head for art's sake. The thought that it might be his turn next was supreme, and he leaped through a window, taking the sash with him. Making his way to the docks he found a sailing-vessel loading with fruit, bound for Venice. A small purse of gold made the matter easy—the captain of the boat secreted him, and in four days he was safely back in Saint Mark's giving thanks to God for his deliverance.
No, I didn't say Gian was a rogue—I only told you what others say. I am only a poor gondolier—why should I trouble myself about what great folks do? I simply tell you what I hear—it may be so, and it may not; God knows! There is that Pascale Salvini. He has a rival studio, and when that Genoese, Cristoforo Colombo, was here and made his stopping-place at Bellini's studio, Pascale told every one that Colombo was a lunatic and Bellini another, for encouraging him to show his foolish maps and charts. Now, they do say that Colombo has discovered a new world, and Italians are feeling troubled in conscience because they did not fit him out with ships instead of forcing him to go to Spain.
No, I didn't say Bellini was a hypocrite—Pascale's pupils say so, and once they followed him over to Murano—three barca-loads and my gondola besides. You see it was like this: Twice a week, just after sundown, we used to see Gian Bellini untie his boat from the landing there behind the Doge's palace, turn the prow, and beat out for Murano, with no companion but that deaf old caretaker. Twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays—always at just the same hour, regardless of weather—we would see the old hunchback light the lamps, and in a few moments the Master would appear, tuck up his black robe, step into the boat, take the oar, and away they would go. It was always to Murano, and always to the same landing—one of our gondoliers had followed several times, just out of curiosity.
Finally it came to the ears of Pascale that Gian took this regular trip to Murano. "It is a rendezvous," said Pascale; "worse than that, an orgy among those lacemakers and the rogues of the glassworks. Oh, to think that Gian should stoop to such things at his age—his pretended asceticism is but a mask—and at his age!"
The Pascale students took it up, and once came in collision with that Tiziano of Cadore, who they say broke a boat-hook over the head of one of them who had spoken ill of the Master.
But this did not silence the talk, and one dark night, when the air was full of flying mist, one of Pascale's students came to me and told me that he wanted me to take a party over to Murano. The weather was so bad that I refused to go—the wind blew in gusts, sheet-lightning filled the eastern sky, and all honest men, but poor belated gondoliers, had hied them home.
I refused to go.
Had I not seen Gian the painter go not half an hour before? Well, if he could go, others could, too.
I refused to go—except for double fare.
He accepted and placed the double fare in silver in my palm. Then he gave a whistle and from behind the corners came trooping enough swashbuckler students to swamp my gondola. I let in just enough to fill the seats and pushed off, leaving several standing on the stone steps cursing me and everything and everybody.
As my good boat slid away into the fog and headed on our course, I glanced back and saw the three barca-loads following in my wake.
There was much muffled talk, and orders from some one in charge to keep silence. But there was passing of strong drink, and then talk, and from it I gathered that these were all students from Pascale's, out on one of those student carousals, intent on heaven knows what! It was none of my business.
We shipped considerable water, and several of the students were down on their knees praying and bailing, bailing and praying.
At last we reached the Murano landing. All got out, the barcas tied up, and I tied up, too, determined to see what was doing. The strong drink was passed, and a low heavy-set fellow who seemed to be captain charged all not to speak, but to follow him and do as he did. We took a side-street where there was little travel and followed through the dark and dripping way, fully a half-mile, down there in that end of the island called the sailors' bagnio, where they say no man's life is safe if he has a silver coin or two. There was much music in the wine-shops and shouts of mirth and dancing feet on stone floors, but the rain had driven every one from the streets.
We came to a long, low stone building that used to be a theater, but was now a dance-hall upstairs and a warehouse below. There were lights upstairs and sounds of music. The stairway was dark, but we felt our way up, and on tiptoe advanced to the big double door, from under which the light streamed.
We had received our orders, and when we got to the landing we stood there just an instant. "Now we have him—Gian the hypocrite!" whispered the stout man in a hoarse breath. We burst in the doors with a whoop and a bang. The change from the dark to the light sort of blinded us at first. We all supposed that there was a dance in progress of course, and the screams from women were just what we expected, but when we saw several overturned easels and an old man, half-nude, and too scared to move, seated on a model throne, we did not advance into the hall as we intended. That one yell we gave was all the noise we made. We stood there in a bunch, just inside the door, sort of dazed and uncertain. We did not know whether to retreat or to charge on through the hall as we had intended. We just stood there like a lot of driveling fools.
"Keep right at your work, my good people! Keep right at your work!" called a pleasant voice. "I see we have some visitors."
And Gian Bellini came forward. His robe was still tucked up under the blue sash, but he had laid aside his black cap, and his tumbled gray hair looked like the aureole of a saint. "Keep right at your work," he said again, and then came forward and bade us welcome and begged us to have seats.
I dared not run away, so I sat down on one of the long seats that were ranged around the wall. My companions did the same. There must have been fifty easels, all ranged in a semicircle around the old man who posed as a model. Several of the easels had been upset, and there was much confusion when we entered.
"Just help us to arrange things—that is right, thank you," said Gian to the stout man who was captain of our party. To my astonishment the stout man was doing just as he was bid, and was pacifying the women students and straightening up their easels and stools.
I was interested in watching Gian walking around, helping this one with a stroke of his crayon, saying a word to that, smiling and nodding to another. I just sat there and stared. These students were not regular art-students, I could see that plainly. Some were children, ragged and barelegged; others were old men who worked in the glass-factories, and surely with hands too old and stiff to ever paint well. Still others were young girls and women of the town. I rubbed my eyes and tried to make it out!
The music we heard I could still hear—it came from the wine-shop across the way. I looked around—and what do you believe? My companions had all gone. They had sneaked out one by one and left me alone.
I watched my chance, and when the Master's back was turned I tiptoed out, too. When I got down on the street I found I had left my cap, but I dare not go back after it. I made my way down to the landing, half running, and when I got there not a boat was to be seen—the three barcas and my gondola were gone.
I thought I could see them, out through the mist, a quarter of a mile away. I called aloud, but no answer came back but the hissing wind. I was in despair—they were stealing my boat, and if they did not steal it, it would surely be wrecked—my all, my precious boat!
I cried and wrung my hands. I prayed! And the howling winds only ran shrieking and laughing around the corners of the buildings.
I saw a glimmering light down the beach at a little landing. I ran to it, hoping some gondolier might be found who would row me over to the city. There was one boat at the landing and in it a hunchback, sound asleep, covered with a canvas. It was Gian Bellini's boat. I shook the hunchback into wakefulness and begged him to row me across to the city. I yelled into his deaf ears, but he pretended not to understand me. Then I showed him the silver coin, the double fare, and tried to place it in his hand. But no, he only shook his head.
I ran up the beach, still looking for a boat.
An hour had passed.
I got back to the landing just as Gian came down to his boat. I approached him and explained that I was a poor worker in the glass- factory, who had to work all day and half the night, and as I lived over in the city and my wife was dying, I must get home. Would he allow me to ride with His Highness? "Certainly—with pleasure, with pleasure!" he answered, and then pulling something from under his sash he said, "Is this your cap, signor?" I took my cap, but my tongue was paralyzed for the moment so I could not thank him.
We stepped into the boat, and as my offer to row was declined, I just threw myself down by the hunchback, and the prow swung around and headed toward the city.
The wind had died down, the rain had ceased, and from between the blue-black clouds the moon shone out. Gian rowed with a strong, fine stroke, singing a "Te Deum Laudamus" softly to himself the while. I lay there and wept, thinking of my boat, my all, my precious boat!
We reached the landing—and there was my boat, safely tied up, not a cushion or a cord missing. Gian Bellini? He may be a rogue as Pascale says—God knows! How can I tell—I am only a poor gondolier.
CELLINI
It is a duty incumbent upon upright and credible men of all ranks, who have performed anything noble or praiseworthy, to truthfully record, in their own writing, the principal events of their lives. —Benvenuto Cellini
[Illustration: Cellini]
"The man who is thoroughly interested in himself is interesting to other people," Wendell Phillips once said.
Good healthy egotism in literature is the red corpuscle that makes the thing live. Cupid naked and unashamed is always beautiful; we turn away only when some very proper person perceives he is naked and attempts to better the situation by supplying him a coat of mud. The Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff, wherein are many morbid musings and information as to the development of her mind and anatomy, is intensely interesting; Amiel's Journal holds us with a tireless grasp; the Confessions of Saint Augustine can never die; Jean Jacques Rousseau's book was the favorite of such a trinity of opposites as Emerson, George Eliot and Walt Whitman; Pepys' Diary is so dull it is entertaining; and the Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini have made a mediocre man immortal.
Cellini had an intense personality; he was skilful as a workman; he told the truth as he saw it, and if he ever prevaricated it was simply by failing to mention certain things that he considered were no credit to anybody. But his friendships were shallow; those he respected most, say Michelangelo and Raphael, treated him as Prince Henry finally did Falstaff, never allowing him to come within half a mile of their person on penalty. He was intimate with so many women that he apologized for not remembering them; he had no interest in his children, and most of his plans and purposes were of a pattypan order. Yet he wrote two valuable treatises: one on the art of the goldsmith and the other on the casting of bronze; there is also an essay on architecture that contains some good ideas; and courtier that he was, of course wrote some poetry, which is not so bad as it might be. But the book upon which his reputation rests is the "Memoirs," and a great book it is. All these things seem to show that a man can be a great author and yet have a small soul. Haven't we overrated this precious gift of authorship just a trifle?
Taine said that educated Englishmen all write alike—they are all equally stupid. And John Addington Symonds, an educated Englishman, and the best translator of Cellini, wrote, "Happily Cellini was unspoiled by literary training." Goethe translated Cellini's book into German and paid the doughty Italian the compliment of saying that he did the task out of pure enjoyment, and incidentally to improve his literary style.
Cellini is not exactly like us, and when we read his book we all give thanks that we are not like him, but every trait that he had large, we have in little. Cellini was sincere; he never doubted his own infallibility, but he points out untiringly the fallibilities in various popes and everybody else. When Cellini goes out and kills a man before breakfast, he absolves himself by showing that the man richly deserved his fate. The braggart and bully are really cowards at the last. A man who is wholly brave would not think to brag of it. He would be as brave in his calm moments as in moments of frenzy—take old John Brown, for instance. But when Cellini had a job on hand he first worked himself into a torrent of righteous wrath. He poses as the injured one, the victim of double, deep-dyed conspiracies, and so he goes through life afraid of every one, and is one of whom all men are afraid.
Every artist has occasional attacks of Artistic Jealousy, and happy is the man who contents himself with the varioloid variety. Cellini had three kinds: acute, virulent and chronic.
Berloiz has worked the man up into a strong and sinewy drama, several others have done the same, but it will require the combined skill of Rostand, Mansfield and Samuel Eberly Gross to ever do the character justice.
John Morley says, "There is nothing worse than mettle in a blind horse." So one might say there is nothing worse than sincerity in a superstitious person. Benvenuto Cellini is the true type of a literary and artistic Bad Man. Had he lived in Colorado in Eighteen Hundred Seventy, the Vigilance Committee would have used him to start a graveyard.
But he is so open, so simple, so candid, that we laugh at his lapses, admire his high resolves, sigh at his follies, sympathize with his spasms of repentance, and smile a misty smile at one who is humorous without meaning to be, who was deeply religious but never pious, who was highly conscientious, undoubtedly artistic, and who blundered through life, always in a turmoil, hopelessly entangled in the web of Fate, committing every crime, justifying himself in everything, and finally passing out peacefully, sincerely believing that he had lived a Christian life.
Benvenuto Cellini was born in Florence, in the year Fifteen Hundred, the day after the feast-day of All Souls, at four-thirty precisely in the afternoon.
The name Benvenuto means welcome: the world welcomed Benvenuto from the first. When five years of age he seized upon a live scorpion that he found in the yard and carried it into the house. His father seeing the deadly creature in his hand sought to get him to throw it away, but he only clung the tighter to the plaything. The parent then grabbed a pair of shears and cut off the tail, mouth and claws of the scorpion, much to the wrath of the child.
Shortly after this he was seated by his father's side looking into a brazier of coals. All at once they saw a salamander in the fire, wiggling about in playful mood, literally making its bed in hell. Many men go through life without seeing a single salamander; neither Darwin, Spencer, Huxley nor Wallace ever saw one; they are so rare that occasionally there be men who deny their existence, for we are very apt to deny the existence of anything we have not seen. In truth, Benvenuto never saw but this one salamander, but this one was enough: coupled with the incident of the scorpion it was an augury that the boy would have a great career, be in many a hot position, and march through life triumphant and unscathed—God takes care of His own.
The father of Benvenuto was a designer, a goldsmith and an engineer, and he might have succeeded in a masterly way in these sublime arts had he not early in life acquired the habit of the flute. He played the flute all day long, and often played the flute in the morning and the fife at night. As it was the flute that had won him his gracious wife, he thanked God for the gift and continued to play as long as he had breath.
Now, it was his ambition that his son should play the flute, too, as all fond fathers regard themselves as a worthy pattern on which their children should model their manners and morals. But Benvenuto despised the damnable invention of a flute—it was only blowing one's breath through a horn and making a noise—yet to please his father he mastered the instrument, and actuated by filial piety he occasionally played in a way that caused his father and mother to weep with joy. But the boy's bent was for drawing and modeling in wax. All of his spare time was spent in this work, and so great was his skill that when he was sixteen he was known throughout all Florence. About this time his brother, two years younger than himself, had the misfortune one day to be set upon by a gang of miscreants, and was nigh being killed when Benvenuto ran to his rescue and seizing his sword laid around him lustily. The miscreants were just making off when a party of gendarmes appeared and arrested all concerned. The rogues were duly tried and sentenced to banishment from the city.
Benvenuto and his brother were also banished.
Shortly after this Benvenuto found himself at Pisa on the road to Rome. He was footsore, penniless, and as he stood gazing into the window of a goldsmith the proprietor came out and asked him his business. He replied, "Sir, I am a designer and goldsmith of no mean ability."
Straightway the man, seeing the lad was likely and honest, set him to work. The motto of the boy at this time was supplied by his father. It ran thus: In whatsoever house you be, steal not and live honestlee.
Seeing this motto, the proprietor straightway trusted him with all the precious jewels in the store. He remained a year at Pisa, and was very happy and contented in his work, for never once did he have to play the flute, nor did he hear one played. Nearly every week came loving letters from his father begging him to come home, and admonishing him not to omit practise on the flute.
At the end of a year he got a touch of fever and concluded to go home, as Florence was much more healthful than Pisa.
Arriving home his father embraced him with tears of unfeigned joy. His changed and manly appearance pleased his family greatly. And straightway when their tears were dried and welcomes said, his father placed a flute in his hands and begged him to play in order that he might see if his playing had kept pace with his growth and skill in other ways.
The young man set the instrument to his lips and played an original selection in a way that made his father shout with joy, "Genius is indispensable, but practise alone makes perfect!"
Michelangelo was born twenty-five years before Cellini; their homes were not far apart. In the Gardens of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Michelangelo had received that strong impetus toward the beautiful that was to last him throughout his long and arduous life.
When Cellini was eighteen the Master was at Rome, doing the work of the Pope, the pride of all artistic Florence, and toward the Eternal City Cellini looked longingly. He haunted the galleries and gardens where broken fragments of antique and modern marbles were to be seen, and stood long before the "Pieta" of Michelangelo in the Church of Santa Croce, wondering if he could ever do as well.
About this time he tells us that he copied that famous cartoon of Michelangelo's, "Soldiers Bathing in the Arno," made in competition with Leonardo for the decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio, which he declares marks the highest pitch of power attained by the Master. While at this work there appeared in Florence one Pietro Torrigiano, who had been an exile in England for over twenty years. The visitor held Cellini's drawing in his hand, studied it carefully and remarked: "I know this man Michelangelo Buonarrotti—we used to draw and work together under the tutorship of Masaccio. One day Buonarrotti annoyed me and I dealt him such a blow on the nose that I felt the flesh, cartilage and bone go down under my knuckles like a biscuit. It was a mark he will carry to his grave."
These words were truth, save that Michelangelo was struck with a mallet and not the man's hand. And it was for the blow that Torrigiano had to flee, and seemingly, with the years, he had gotten it into his head that he left Florence of his own accord, and his crime was a thing of which to boast. Voltaire once said that beyond doubt the soldier who thrust the spear into the side of the Savior went away and boasted of the deed. Torrigiano's name is forever linked with that of Michelangelo. Thus much for the pride of little men who make a virtue of a vice.
But the boast of Torrigiano caused Cellini to grow faint and sick, then to burn with hate. He snatched the drawing from the other's hand, and might have deprived Torrigiano of all the nose he possessed, had not better counsel prevailed. Ever after Cellini avoided the man—for the man's own good.
That art was a passion to this stripling is plain. It was his meat and drink—with fighting for dessert. One of his near companions was Francisco, grandson of Fra Lippo Lippi, and another chum was Tasso, at this time a youth of nineteen—his own age. Tasso became a great artist. Vasari tells of him at length, and sketches his career while in the employ of Cosimo de Medici.
One day Benvenuto and Tasso were walking after their work was done, and discussing as usual the wonderful genius of Michelangelo. They agreed that some day they must go to him at Rome. They were near the gate of the city that led out on the direct road to the Eternal City. They passed out of the gate still talking earnestly.
"Why, we are on the way now," said Tasso.
"And to turn back is an ill omen—we will go on!" answered
Benvenuto.
So they kept on, each one saying, "And what will our folks say tonight?"
By night they had traveled twenty miles. They stopped at an inn, and in the morning Tasso was so lame he declared he could not proceed. Benvenuto insisted, and even threatened.
They trudged forward, and in a week the spire of Saint Peter's (the wondrous dome was yet to be) lifted itself out of the fog, and they stood speechless and uncovered, each devoutly crossing himself.
Benvenuto had a trade, and as skilled men are always needed he got work at once. Tasso filled in the time carving wood. They did not see Michelangelo—that worthy was too busy to receive callers, or indulge the society of adventurous youths. Cellini does not say much about this, but skips two years in a page, takes part in a riot and flees back to Florence. He enters into earnest details of how 'leven rogues in buckram suits reviled him as he passed a certain shop. One of them upset a handcart of brick upon him. He dealt the miscreant a blow on the ear. The police here appeared and as usual arrested the innocent Happy Hooligan of the affair. Being taken before the Magistrates he was accused of striking a free citizen. Cellini insisted he had only boxed the man's ears, but many witnesses in chorus averred that he had struck the citizen in the face with his clenched fist. "I only boxed his ears," exclaimed Cellini above the din. The Magistrates all burst out laughing, and adjourned for dinner, warning Cellini to remain where he was until they came back —hoping he would run away.
He sat there thinking over his sad lot, when a sudden impulse seizing him he darted out of the palace, and ran swiftly for the house of his enemies. He drew his knife, and rushing in among them where they were at dinner, upset the table and yelled, "Send for a confessor, for none of you will ever need a doctor when I get through with you!"
Several women fainted, the men sprang through windows, and the chief rogue got a slash that went straight for his heart. He fell down, and Cellini thinking the man was dead started for the street. At the door he was greeted by all those who had jumped through the windows, reinforced by others. They were armed with shovels, tongs, skillets, clubs, sticks and knives. He laid about him right and left, but the missiles descended in such showers that he lost his knife and cap, first sending to the earth a full dozen of the rogues.
Running to the house of a priest Cellini begged to confess the murder, and told of how he had acted only in self-defense. Being shrived, for a consideration, he awaited the coming of the constabulary. But they did not come, for the man who thought he had been stabbed got only a slash through his jacket, and no one was seriously hurt, except one of the men who jumped through a window and sprained his ankle. But so unjust were the Magistrates that Cellini had to flee from the city or he would have been sentenced to the army and sent God knows where, to fight the Moors.
Max Nordau has a certain amount of basis for his proposition that genius and madness are near allied, but it will hardly do, however, to assume that they are the same thing. Cellini at times showed a fine flaring up of talent that might be called genius—he could do exquisite work—yet there were other times when he certainly was "queer." These queer periods might account for his occasional fusing of memory and imagination, and the lapses of recollection entirely concerning things he did not wish to remember. The Memoirs were begun when he was fifty-eight and finished when he was sixty-three: thus many years had elapsed between the doing and the recording. The Constable Bourbon was killed at the siege of Rome: Cellini was present at the siege and killed several men: therefore what more probable than that Cellini killed the Constable? Cellini calmly records that it was he who did the deed. He also tells that he killed William, Prince of Orange; in fact, he killed at least one man a day for many weeks. At this distance of time we should be quite willing to take his word for it, just as we would, most certainly, if he had told us these things face to face.
In one incidental paragraph he records that he christened a son, and adds: "So far as I can remember this was my first child." He drops the record there, never once alluding to the child's mother, nor what became of the child, which if it lived was a man grown at the time Cellini was writing.
His intense hatred toward all who were in direct competition with him, his references to them as cheese-mites, beasts, buzzards and brigands, his fears of poison, and suspicions that they had "curdled his bronze"; his visitations by spirits and angels, mark him as a man who trod the borderland of sanity. If he did not like a woman or she did not like him—the same thing—she was a troll, wench, scullion, punk, trollop or hussy. He had such a beautiful vocabulary of names for folks he did not admire, that the translator is constantly put to straits to produce a product that will not be excluded from the mails.
If you want to know how things were done when knighthood was in flower, you can find out here. Or should you be possessed of literary longing and have a desire to produce some such cheerful message for humanity as "A Gentleman of France," "Monsieur Beaucaire," or "Under the Red Robe," you can sink your shaft in Cellini's book and mine enough incidents in an hour to make a volume, with a by-product of slag for several Penny Shockers.
Yet Cellini has corroborated history on many points, and backed up the gossipy Vasari in a valuable way. It is very doubtful whether either of these gentlemen had ever the felicity of reading the other's book, unless there be books in Elysium—as Charles Lamb thought there were—but sure it is that they render sidelights on the times that are much to our profit. Vasari and Cellini had been close friends in youth, working and studying together. Vasari was a poor artist and a commonplace architect, but he seemed to have social qualities that bridged the gulf where his talent broke off short. In the Palazzo Vecchio are several large specimens of his work that must have been once esteemed for their own sake. Now their chief value lies in the fact that they are a Hop-Smith production, having been painted by a pleasing writer and a charming gentleman, and so we point them out with forefinger and bated breath.
Cellini's hate of Vasari proves, also, that the Gossipy One stood well with the reigning powers, otherwise Benvenuto would not have thought to condemn his work and allude to the man as a dough-face, trickster, lickspittle, slanderer, vulture, vagrom, villain, vilifier and gnat's hind-foot. Cellini threatened to kill the man several times: he denounced him in public and used to call after him on the street, referring to him cheerfully as a deep-dyed rogue. Had either of these men killed the other, it would have been a loss to letters; but certain it is that Vasari was much more of a gentleman than Cellini. That Vasari was judicial in his estimates of men is shown by his references to Cellini, whom he speaks of as "A skilled artist, of active, alert and industrious habits, who produced many valuable works of art, but who unfortunately was possessed of a most unpleasant temper."
Men are so fallible in their estimates of contemporaries that one man's statement that another is a rogue does not in the slightest change our views of that man. What we are, that we see: the epithets a man applies to another usually fit himself better, and this is the thought in mind when we read what Cellini says of Vasari and Bandinelli. These men were commonplace artists, but pretty good men; Cellini was a better artist than either, but not a desirable tenant for the upper flat in your house if you chanced to reside below.
Cellini was landed behind grated bars many times, but usually managed to speedily escape. However, in his thirty-eighth year, he found himself in a dungeon of Sant' Angelo, that grim fortress that he had fought so vigorously to defend.
More than one homicide the Recording Angel had marked up against him, but men took small note of these things, and even Pope Paul had personally blessed him and granted him absolution for all the murders he had committed or might commit—this in consideration of his distinguished services in defense of the Vatican.
The charge against him now was the very humdrum one of stealing treasure that he was supposed to guard. That he was innocent there is no doubt: whatever the man was, he was no thief. The charge against him was a trumped-up one to get him out of the way. He was painfully in evidence—he talked like a windmill, and in his swaggering he had become inconvenient, if not dangerous, to some who were close to political greatness. No one caring for the job of killing him, they locked him up, for the good of himself and society. It probably was the intention to keep him under key for only a few weeks, until his choler would subside; but he was so saucy, and sent out such a stream of threats to all concerned, that things reached a point where it was unsafe to liberate him.
So he was kept in the Castle for over two years, during which time he once escaped, broke his leg in the effort, was recaptured and brought back.
A prison is not wholly bad—men in prison often have time to study and think, where before such things were impossible. At least they are free from intrusion. Cellini became deeply religious—he read his Bible and the lives of the saints. Ministering angels came to him, and spirits appeared and whispered words of comfort. The man became softened and subdued. He wrote poetry, and recorded his thoughts on many things. In the meantime, his accuser having died, he was given his liberty. He was a better and a wiser man when he came out than when he went in, although one fails to find that he was exactly grateful to his captors.
In prison he planned various statues of a religious order. It was in prison, too, that he thought out the Perseus and Medusa. In prison, works like the Pieta were his ambition, but when freedom came the Perseus was uppermost in his mind. Every great work of art is an evolution—the man sees it first as a mere germ—it grows, enlarges, evolves. The Perseus of Cellini was a thought that took years to germinate. The bloody nature of the man and his love of form united, and the world has this wonderful work of art that stands today exactly where its creator placed it, in the Loggia de' Lanzia—that beautiful out-of-door hall on the Piazza Signora at Florence. The naked man, wearing his proud helmet, one foot on the writhing body of the wretched woman, sword in right hand and in the left the dripping head, is a terrible picture. Yet so exquisite is the workmanship that our horror soon evaporates into admiration, and we gaze in wonder. Probably the history of no great work of art has ever been more painstakingly presented than the story of the making of this statue by Cellini. Again and again he was on the point of smashing the clay to chaos, but each time his hand was stayed. Months passed, years went by, and innumerable difficulties were in the way of its completion. Finally he figured out a method to cast it in bronze. And of its final casting no better taste of the man's quality can be given than to let him tell the story himself. Says Cellini:
I felt convinced that when my Perseus was accomplished, all my trials would be turned to high felicity and glorious well-being.
Accordingly I strengthened my heart, and with all the forces of my body and my purse, employing what little money still remained to me, I set to work. First I provided myself with several loads of pine- wood from the forests of Serristori. While these were on their way, I clothed my Perseus with the clay which I had prepared many months beforehand, in order that it might be duly seasoned. After making its clay tunic (for that is the term used in this art) and properly arming and fencing it with iron girders, I began to draw the wax out by means of slow fire. This melted and issued through numerous air- vents I had made; for the more there are of these, the better will the mold fill. When I had finished drawing off the wax, I constructed a funnel-shaped furnace all round the model of my Perseus. It was built of bricks, so interlaced, the one above the other, that numerous apertures were left for the fire to exhale at. Then I began to lay on wood by degrees, and kept it burning two whole days and nights.
At length, when all the wax was gone and the mold was well baked, I set to work at digging the pit in which to sink it. This I performed with scrupulous regard to all the rules of art. When I had finished that part of my work, I raised the mold by windlasses and stout ropes to a perpendicular position, and suspending it with greatest care one cubit above the level of the furnace, so that it hung exactly above the middle of the pit, I next lowered it gently down into the very bottom of the furnace, and had it firmly placed with every possible precaution for its safety. When this delicate operation was accomplished, I began to bank it up with the earth I had excavated; and ever as the earth grew higher, I introduced its proper air-vents, which were little tubes of earthenware, such as folks use for drains and such-like purposes. At length, I felt sure that it was admirably fixed, and that the filling-in of the pit and the placing of the air-vents had been properly performed. I also could see that my work-people understood my method, which differed very considerably from that of all other masters in the trade. Feeling confident, then, that I could rely upon them, I next turned to my furnace, which I had filled with numerous pigs of copper and other bronze stuff. The pieces were piled according to the laws of art, that is to say, so resting one upon another that the flames could play freely through them, in order that the metal might heat and liquefy the sooner. At last I called out heartily to set the furnace going. The logs of pine were heaped in, and, what with the unctuous resin of the wood and the good draft I had given, my furnace worked so well that I was obliged to rush from side to side to keep it from going too fast. The labor was more than I could stand; yet I forced myself to strain every nerve and muscle. To increase my anxieties, the workshop took fire, and we were afraid lest the roof should fall upon our heads; while from the garden such a storm of wind and rain kept blowing in, that it perceptibly cooled the furnace.
Battling thus with all these untoward circumstances for several hours, and exerting myself beyond even the measure of my powerful constitution, I could at last bear up no longer, and a sudden fever, of the utmost possible intensity, attacked me. I felt absolutely obliged to go and fling myself upon my bed. Sorely against my will having to drag myself away from the spot, I turned to my assistants, about ten or more in all, what with master-founders, hand-workers, country fellows, and my own special journeymen, among whom was Bernardino Mannellini, my apprentice through several years. To him in particular I spoke: "Look, my dear Bernardino, that you observe the rules which I have taught you; do your best with all dispatch, for the metal will soon be fused. You can not go wrong; these honest men will get the channels ready; you will easily be able to drive back the two plugs with this pair of iron crooks; and I am sure that mold will fill miraculously. I feel more ill that I ever did in all my life, and verily believe that it will kill me before a few hours are over." Thus with despair at heart, I left them, and betook myself to bed.
No sooner had I got to bed, than I ordered my serving-maids to carry food and wine for all the men into the workshop; at the same time I cried, "I shall not be alive tomorrow!" They tried to encourage me, arguing that my illness would pass over, since it came from excessive fatigue. In this way I spent two hours battling with the fever, which steadily increased, and calling out continually, "I feel that I am dying."
My housekeeper, who was named Mona Fiore da Castel del Rio, a very notable manager and no less warmhearted, kept chiding me for my discouragement; but, on the other hand, she paid me every kind attention which was possible. However, the sight of my physical pain and moral dejection so affected her, that, in spite of that brave heart of hers, she could not refrain from shedding tears; and yet, so far as she was able, she took good care I should not see them. While I was thus terribly afflicted, I beheld the figure of a man enter my chamber, twisted in his body into the form of a capital S. He raised a lamentable, doleful voice, like one who announces his last hour to men condemned to die upon the scaffold, and spoke these words: "O Benvenuto! your statue is spoiled, and there is no hope whatever of saving it!" No sooner had I heard the shriek of that wretch than I gave a howl which might have been heard in hell. Jumping from my bed, I seized my clothes and began to dress. The maids, and my lad, and every one who came around to help me, got kicks or blows of the fist, while I kept crying out in lamentation: "Ah! traitors! enviers! This is an act of treason, done by malice prepense! But I swear by God that I will sift it to the bottom, and before I die will leave such witness to the world of what I can do as shall make a score of mortals marvel."
When I got my clothes on, I strode with soul bent on mischief toward the workshop; there I beheld the men, whom I had left erewhile in such high spirits, standing stupefied and downcast. I began at once and spoke: "Up with you! Attend to me! Since you have not been able or willing to obey the directions I gave you, obey me now that I am with you to conduct my work in person. Let no one contradict me, for in cases like this we need the aid of hand and hearing, not of advice."
When I had uttered these words, a certain Maestro Alessandro broke silence and said, "Look you, Benvenuto, you are going to attempt an enterprise which the laws of art do not sanction, and which can not succeed." I turned upon him with such fury that he and all the rest of them exclaimed with one voice: "Oh then! Give orders! We will obey your least commands, so long as life is left to us." I believe they spoke thus feelingly because they thought I must fall shortly dead upon the ground. I went immediately to inspect the furnace, and found that the metal was all curdled; an accident which we expressed by being "caked." I told two of the hands to cross the road, and fetch from the house of the butcher Capretta a load of young oak- wood, which had lain dry for above a year. So soon as the first armfuls arrived, I began to fill the grate beneath the furnace. Now oak-wood of that kind heats more powerfully than any other sort of tree; and for this reason, where a slow fire is wanted, as in the case of gun-foundry, alder or pine is preferred. Accordingly, when the logs took fire, oh! how the cake began to stir beneath that awful heat, to glow and sparkle in a blaze! At the same time I kept stirring up the channels, and sent men upon the roof to stop the conflagration, which had gathered force from the increased combustion in the furnace; also I caused boards, carpets, and other hangings to be set up against the garden, in order to protect us from the violence of the rain.
When I had thus provided against these several disasters, I roared out first to one man and then to another: "Bring this thing here! Take that thing there!" At this crisis, when the whole gang saw the cake was on the point of melting, they did my bidding, each fellow working with the strength of three. I then ordered half a pig of pewter to be brought, which weighed about sixty pounds, and flung it into the middle of the cake inside the furnace. By this means, and by piling on wood and stirring now with pokers and now with iron rods, the curdling mass rapidly began to liquefy. Then, knowing I had brought the dead to life again, against the firm opinion of those ignoramuses, I felt such vigor fill my veins that all those pains of fever, all those fears of death, were quite forgotten.
All of a sudden an explosion took place, attended by a tremendous flash of flame, as though a thunderbolt had formed and been discharged amongst us. Unwonted and appalling terror astonished every one, and me more even than the rest. When the din was over and the dazzling light extinguished, we began to look each other in the face. Then I discovered that the cap of the furnace had blown up, and the bronze was bubbling over from its source beneath. So I had the mouths of my mold immediately opened, and at the same time drove in the two plugs which kept back the molten metal.
But I noticed that it did not flow as rapidly as usual, the reason being probably that the fierce heat of the fire we kindled had consumed its base alloy. Accordingly I sent for all my pewter platters, porringers and dishes, to the number of some two hundred pieces, and had a portion of them cast, one by one, into the channels, the rest into the furnace. This expedient succeeded, and every one could now perceive that my bronze was in most perfect liquefaction, and my mold was filling; whereupon they all with heartiness and happy cheer assisted and obeyed my bidding, while I, now here, now there, gave orders, helped with my own hands, and cried aloud: "O God! Thou that by Thy immeasurable power didst rise from the dead, and in Thy glory didst ascend to heaven!" … even thus in a moment my mold was filled; and seeing my work finished, I fell upon my knees, and with all my heart gave thanks to God. After all was over, I turned to a plate of salad on a bench there, and ate with hearty appetite, and drank together with the whole crew. Afterwards I retired to bed, healthy and happy, for it was now two hours before morning, and slept as sweetly as though I had never felt the touch of illness. My good housekeeper, without my giving any orders, had prepared a fat capon for my repast. So that, when I rose, about the hour for breaking fast, she presented herself with a smiling countenance, and said: "Oh! is that the man who felt that he was dying? Upon my word, I think the blows and kicks you dealt us last night, when you were so enraged, and had that demon in your body as it seemed, must have frightened away your mortal fever!"
All my poor household, relieved in like measure from anxiety and overwhelming labor, went at once to buy earthen vessels in order to replace the pewter I had cast away. Then we dined together joyfully; nay, I can not remember a day in my whole life when I dined with greater gladness or a better appetite.
Though forms may change, nothing dies. Everything is in circulation. Men, as well as planets, have their orbits. Some have a wider swing than others, but just wait and they will come back. Not only do chickens come home to roost, but so does everything else. The place of Cellini's birth was also the place of his death. The limit of his stay in one place, at one time, it seems, was about two years. The man was a sort of human anachronism—he had in his heart all the beauty and passion of the Renaissance, and carried, too, the savagery and density of the Dark Ages. That his skill as a designer and artificer in the fine metals saved him from death again and again, there is no doubt. Princes, cardinals, popes, dukes and priests protected him simply because he could serve them. He designed altars, caskets, bracelets, vases, girdles, clasps, medals, rings, coins, buttons, seals—a tiara for the Pope, a diadem for an Emperor. With minute and exquisite things he was at his best. The final proof that he was human and his name frailty lies in the fact that he was a busybody.
As he worked he always knew what others about him were doing. If they were poor workmen, he encouraged them in a friendly way; if they were beyond him and out of his class, like Michelangelo, he was subservient; but if they were on his plane he hated them with a hatred that was passing speech.
There was usually art and a woman hopelessly mixed in his melees. In his migrations he swung between Florence, Pisa, Mantua and Rome, and clear to France when necessary. When he arrived in a town he would soon become a favorite with other skilled workers. Naturally he would be introduced to their lady friends. These ladies were usually "complaisant," to use his own phrase. Soon he would be on very good terms with one or more of them; then would come jealousies; he would tire of the lady, or she of him more probably; then, if she took up with a goldsmith, Benvenuto would hate the pair with a beautiful hatred. He would be sure that they were plotting to undo him: he would listen to their remarks, lie in wait for them, watch their actions, quietly question their friends. Then suddenly some dark night he would spring upon them from behind a corner and cry, "You are all dead folk!" And sometimes they were.