Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini Part 18

Nor should my misery bear so grim a guise.?

CXXIV

ON the following day, when the servant of the castellan who was my friend brought me my food, I gave him this sonnet copied out in writing.

Without informing the other ill-disposed servants who were my enemies, he handed it to the castellan. At that time this worthy man would gladly have granted me my liberty, because he fancied that the great wrong done to me was a main cause of his death. He took the sonnet, and having read it more than once, exclaimed: ?These are neither the words nor the thoughts of a madman, but rather of a sound and worthy fellow.? Without delay he ordered his secretary to take it to the Pope, and place it in his own hands, adding a request for my deliverance.

While the secretary was on his way with my sonnet to the Pope, the castellan sent me lights for day and night, together with all the conveniences one could wish for in that place. The result of this was that I began to recover from my physical depression, which had reached a very serious degree.

The Pope read the sonnet several times. Then he sent word to the castellan that he meant presently to do what would be pleasing to him.

Certainly the Pope had no unwillingness to release me then; but Signor Pier Luigi, his son, as it were in the Pope?s despite, kept me there by force.

The death of the castellan was drawing near; and while I was engaged in drawing and modelling that miracle which I had seen, upon the morning of All Saint?s day he sent his nephew, Piero Ugolini, to show me certain jewels. No sooner had I set eyes on them than I exclaimed: ?This is the countersign of my deliverance!? Then the young man, who was not a person of much intelligence, began to say: ?Never think of that, Benvenuto!? I replied: ?Take your gems away, for I am so treated here that I have no light to see by except what this murky cavern gives, and that is not enough to test the quality of precious stones. But, as regards my deliverance from this dungeon, the day will not end before you come to fetch me out. It shall and must be so, and you will not be able to prevent it.? The man departed, and had me locked in; but after he had remained away two hours by the clock, he returned without armed men, bringing only a couple of lads to a.s.sist my movements; so after this fashion he conducted me to the s.p.a.cious rooms which I had previously occupied (that is to say, in 1538), where I obtained all the conveniences I asked for.

CXXV

AFTER the lapse of a few days, the castellan, who now believed that I was at large and free, succ.u.mbed to his disease and departed this life.

In his room remained his brother, Messer Antonio Ugolini, who had informed the deceased governor that I was duly released. From what I learned, this Messer Antonio received commission from the Pope to let me occupy that commodious prison until he had decided what to do with me.

Messer Durante of Brescia, whom I have previously mentioned, engaged the soldier (formerly druggist of Prato) to administer some deadly liquor in my food; [1] the poison was to work slowly, producing its effect at the end of four or five months. They resolved on mixing pounded diamond with my victuals. Now the diamond is not a poison in any true sense of the word, but its incomparable hardness enables it, unlike ordinary stones, to retain very acute angles. When every other stone is pounded, that extreme sharpness of edge is lost; their fragments becoming blunt and rounded. The diamond alone preserves its trenchant qualities; wherefore, if it chances to enter the stomach together with food, the peristaltic motion [2] needful to digestion brings it into contact with the coats of the stomach and the bowels, where it sticks, and by the action of fresh food forcing it farther inwards, after some time perforates the organs.

This eventually causes death. Any other sort of stone or gla.s.s mingled with the food has not the power to attach itself, but pa.s.ses onward with the victuals. Now Messer Durante entrusted a diamond of trifling value to one of the guards; and it is said that a certain Lione, a goldsmith of Arezzo, my great enemy, was commissioned to pound it. [3] The man happened to be very poor, and the diamond was worth perhaps some scores of crowns. He told the guard that the dust he gave him back was the diamond in question properly ground down. The morning when I took it, they mixed it with all I had to eat; it was a Friday, and I had it in salad, sauce, and pottage. That morning I ate heartily, for I had fasted on the previous evening; and this day was a festival. It is true that I felt the victuals scrunch beneath my teeth; but I was not thinking about knaveries of this sort. When I had finished, some sc.r.a.ps of salad remained upon my plate, and certain very fine and glittering splinters caught my eye among these remnants. I collected them, and took them to the window, which let a flood of light into the room; and while I was examining them, I remembered that the food I ate that morning had scrunched more than usual. On applying my senses strictly to the matter, the verdict of my eyesight was that they were certainly fragments of pounded diamond. Upon this I gave myself up without doubt as dead, and in my sorrow had recourse with pious heart to holy prayers. I had resolved the question, and thought that I was doomed. For the s.p.a.ce of a whole hour I prayed fervently to G.o.d, returning thanks to Him for so merciful a death. Since my stars had sentenced me to die, I thought it no bad bargain to escape from life so easily. I was resigned, and blessed the world and all the years which I had pa.s.sed in it. Now I was returning to a better kingdom with the grace of G.o.d, the which I thought I had most certainly acquired.

While I stood revolving these thoughts in my mind, I held in my hand some flimsy particles of the reputed diamond, which of a truth I firmly believed to be such. Now hope is immortal in the human breast; therefore I felt myself, as it were, lured onward by a gleam of idle expectation.

Accordingly, I took up a little knife and a few of those particles, and placed them on an iron bar of my prison. Then I brought the knife?s point with a slow strong grinding pressure to bear upon the stone, and felt it crumble. Examining the substance with my eyes, I saw that it was so. In a moment new hope took possession of my soul, and I exclaimed: ?Here I do not find my true foe, Messer Durante, but a piece of bad soft stone, which cannot do me any harm whatever!? Previously I had been resolved to remain quiet and to die in peace; now I revolved other plans, but first I rendered thanks to G.o.d and blessed poverty; for though poverty is oftentimes the cause of bringing men to death, on this occasion it had been the very cause of my salvation. I mean in this way: Messer Durante, my enemy, or whoever it was, gave a diamond to Lione to pound for me of the worth of more than a hundred crowns; poverty induced him to keep this for himself, and to pound for me a greenish beryl of the value of two carlins, thinking perhaps, because it also was a stone, that it would work the same effect as the diamond.

Note 1. For Messer Durante, see above, p. 180. For the druggist of Prato employed as a warder in S. Angelo, see above, p. 216.

Note 2. 'In quel girare che e? fanno e? cibi.' I have for the sake of clearness used the technical phrase above.

Note 3. The name of Leone Leoni is otherwise known as a goldsmith and bronze-caster. He made the tomb for Giangiacomo de? Medici, Il Medighino, in the Cathedral of Milan.

CXXVI

AT this time the Bishop of Pavia, brother of the Count of San Secondo, and commonly called Monsignor de? Rossi of Parma, happened to be imprisoned in the castle for some troublesome affairs at Pavia. [1]

Knowing him to be my friend, I thrust my head out of the hole in my cell, and called him with a loud voice, crying that those thieves had given me a pounded diamond with the intention of killing me. I also sent some of the splinters which I had preserved, by the hand of one of his servants, for him to see. I did not disclose my discovery that the stone was not a diamond, but told him that they had most a.s.suredly poisoned me, after the death of that most worthy man the castellan. During the short s.p.a.ce of time I had to live, I begged him to allow me one loaf a day from his own stores, seeing that I had resolved to eat nothing which came from them. To this request he answered that he would supply me with victuals.

Messer Antonio, who was certainly not cognisant of the plot against my life, stirred up a great noise, and demanded to see the pounded stone, being also persuaded that it was a diamond; but on reflection that the Pope was probably at the bottom of the affair, he pa.s.sed it over lightly after giving his attention to the incident.

Henceforth I ate the victuals sent me by the Bishop, and continued writing my Capitolo on the prison, into which I inserted daily all the new events which happened to me, point by point. But Messer Antonio also sent me food; and he did this by the hand of that Giovanni of Prato, the druggist, then soldier in the castle, whom I have previously mentioned.

He was a deadly foe of mine, and was the man who had administered the powdered diamond. So I told him that I would partake of nothing he brought me unless he tasted it before my eyes. [2] The man replied that Popes have their meat tasted. I answered: ?n.o.blemen are bound to taste the meat for Popes; in like measure, you, soldier, druggist, peasant from Prato, are bound to taste the meat for a Florentine of my station.?

He retorted with coa.r.s.e words, which I was not slow to pay back in kind.

Now Messer Antonio felt a certain shame for his behaviour; he had it also in his mind to make me pay the costs which the late castellan, poor man, remitted in my favour. So he hunted out another of his servants, who was my friend, and sent me food by this man?s hands. The meat was tasted for me now with good grace, and no need for altercation. The servant in question told me that the Pope was being pestered every day by Monsignor di Morluc, who kept asking for my extradition on the part of the French King. The Pope, however, showed little disposition to give me up; and Cardinal Farnese, formerly my friend and patron, had declared that I ought not to reckon on issuing from that prison for some length of time. [3] I replied that I should get out in spite of them all. The excellent young fellow besought me to keep quiet, and not to let such words of mine be heard, for they might do me some grave injury; having firm confidence in G.o.d, it was my duty to await. His mercy, remaining in the meanwhile tranquil. I answered that the power and goodness of G.o.d are not bound to stand in awe before the malign forces of iniquity.

Note 1. Gio. Girolamo de? Rossi, known in literature as a poet and historian of secondary importance.

Note 2. 'Me ne faceva la credenza.'

Note 3. This was the Cardinal Alessandro, son of Pier Luigi Farnese.

CXXVII

A FEW days had pa.s.sed when the Cardinal of Ferrara arrived in Rome. He went to pay his respects to the Pope, and the Pope detained him up to supper-time. Now the Pope was a man of great talent for affairs, and he wanted to talk at his ease with the Cardinal about French politics.

Everybody knows that folk, when they are feasting together, say things which they would otherwise retain. This therefore happened. The great King Francis was most frank and liberal in all his dealings, and the Cardinal was well acquainted with his temper. Therefore the latter could indulge the Pope beyond his boldest expectations. This raised his Holiness to a high pitch of merriment and gladness, all the more because he was accustomed to drink freely once a week, and went indeed to vomit after his indulgence. When, therefore, the Cardinal observed that the Pope was well disposed, and ripe to grant favours, he begged for me at the King?s demand, pressing the matter hotly, and proving that his Majesty had it much at heart. Upon this the Pope laughed aloud; he felt the moment for his vomit at hand; the excessive quant.i.ty of wine which he had drunk was also operating; so he said: ?On the spot, this instant, you shall take him to your house.? Then, having given express orders to this purpose, he rose from table. The Cardinal immediately sent for me, before Signor Pier Luigi could get wind of the affair; for it was certain that he would not have allowed me to be loosed from prison.

The Pope?s mandatary came together with two great gentlemen of the Cardinal?s, and when four o?clock of the night was pa.s.sed, they removed me from my prison, and brought me into the presence of the Cardinal, who received me with indescribable kindness. I was well lodged, and left to enjoy the comforts of my situation.

Messer Antonio, the old castellan?s brother, and his successor in the office, insisted on extracting from me the costs for food and other fees and perquisites claimed by sheriffs and such fry, paying no heed to his predecessor?s will in my behalf. This affair cost me several scores of crowns; but I paid them, because the Cardinal told me to be well upon my guard if I wanted to preserve my life, adding that had he not extracted me that evening from the prison, I should never have got out. Indeed, he had already been informed that the Pope greatly regretted having let me go.

THIS CAPITOLO I WRITE TO LUCA MARTIN ADDRESSING HIM IN IT AS WILL APPEAR [1]

WHOSO would know the power of G.o.d?s dominion, And how a man resembles that high good, Must lie in prison, is my firm opinion:

On grievous thoughts and cares of home must brood, '

' Oppressed with carking pains in flesh and bone, Far from his native land full many a rood.

If you would fain by worthy deeds be known, Seek to be prisoned without cause, lie long, '

' And find no friend to listen to your moan.

See that men rob you of your all by wrong; Add perils to your life; be used with force, Hopeless of help, by brutal foes and strong. '

'Be driven at length to some mad desperate course; Burst from your dungeon, leap the castle wall; Recaptured, find the prison ten times worse.

'Now listen, Luca, to the best of all!

Your leg?s been broken; you?ve been bought and sold; Your dungeon?s dripping; you?ve no cloak or shawl.

Never one friendly word; your victuals cold '

' Are brought with sorry news by some base groom Of Prato-soldier now-druggist of old.

Mark well how Glory steeps her sons in gloom!

You have no seat to sit on, save the stool: '

' Yet were you active from your mother?s womb.

The knave who serves hath orders strict and cool To list no word you utter, give you naught, Scarcely to ope the door; such is their rule. '

'These toys hath Glory for her nursling wrought!

No paper, pens, ink, fire, or tools of steel, To exercise the quick brain?s teeming thought.

'Alack that I so little can reveal!

Fancy one hundred for each separate ill: Full s.p.a.ce and place I?ve left for prison weal!

But now my former purpose to fulfil, '

' And sing the dungeon?s praise with honour due- For this angelic tongues were scant of skill.

Here never languish honest men and true, Except by placemen?s fraud, misgovernment, '

' Jealousies, anger, or some spiteful crew.

To tell the truth whereon my mind is bent, Here man knows G.o.d, nor ever stints to pray, Feeling his soul with h.e.l.l?s fierce anguish rent. '

'Let one be famed as bad as mortal may, Send him in jail two sorry years to pine, He?ll come forth holy, wise, beloved alway.'