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Book FirstPart XXXIV
Part XXXIV
The whole world was now in warfare. ^1 Pope Clement had sent to get some
troops from Giovanni de` Medici, and when they came, they made such
disturbances in Rome, that it was ill living in open shops. ^2 On this account
I retired to a good snug house behind the Banchi, where I worked for all the
friends I had acquired. Since I produced few things of much importance at that
period, I need not waste time in talking about them. I took much pleasure in
music and amusements of the kind. On the death of Giovanni de` Medici in
Lombardy, the Pope, at the advice of Messer Jacopo Salviati, dismissed the
five bands he had engaged; and when the Constable of Bourbon knew there were
no troops in Rome, he pushed his army with the utmost energy up to the city.
The whole of Rome upon this flew to arms. I happened to be intimate with
Alessandro, the son of Piero del Bene, who, at the time when the Colonnesi
entered Rome, had requested me to guard his palace. ^3 On this more serious
occasion, therefore, he prayed me to enlist fifty comrades for the protection
of the said house, appointing me their captain, as I had been when the
Colonnesi came. So I collected fifty young men of the highest courage, and we
took up our quarters in his palace, with good pay and excellent appointments.
[Footnote 1: War had broken out in 1521 between Charles V and Francis I,
which disturbed all Europe and involved the States of Italy in serious
complications. At the moment when this chapter opens, the Imperialist army
under the Constable of Bourbon was marching upon Rome in 1527.]
[See Francis I: Francis I visiting the studio of Cellini.]
[Footnote 2: These troops entered Rome in October 1526. They were disbanded in
March, 1527.]
[Footnote 3: Cellini here refers to the attack made upon Rome by the great
Ghibelline house of Colonna, led by their chief captain, Pompeo, in September
1526. They took possession of the city and drove Clement into the Castle of S.
Angelo, where they forced him to agree to terms favouring the Imperial cause.
It was customary for Roman gentlemen to hire bravi for the defence of their
palaces when any extraordinary disturbance was expected, as, for example, upon
the vacation of the Papal Chair.]
Bourbon`s army had now arrived before the walls of Rome, and Alessandro
begged me to go with him to reconnoitre. So we went with one of the stoutest
fellows in our Company; and on the way a youth called Cecchino della Casa
joined himself to us. On reaching the walls by the Campo Santo, we could see
that famous army, which was making every effort to enter the town. Upon the
ramparts where we took our station several young men were lying killed by the
besiegers; the battle raged there desperately, and there was the densest fog
imaginable. I turned to Alessandro and said: "Let us go home as soon as we
can, for there is nothing to be done here; you see the enemies are mounting,
and our men are in flight." Alessandro, in a panic, cried: "Would God that we
had never come here!" and turned in maddest haste to fly. I took him up
somewhat sharply with these words: "Since you have brought me here, I must
perform some action worthy of a man;" and directing my arquebuse where I saw
the thickest and most serried troop of fighting men, I aimed exactly at one
whom I remarked to be higher than the rest; the fog prevented me from being
certain whether he was on horseback or on foot. Then I turned to Alessandro
and Cecchino, and bade them discharge their arquebuses, showing them how to
avoid being hit by the besiegers. When we had fired two rounds apiece, I crept
cautiously up to the wall, and observing among the enemy a most extraordinary
confusion, I discovered afterwards that one of our shots had killed the
Constable of Bourbon; and from what I subsequently learned, he was the man
whom I had first noticed above the heads of the rest. ^4
[Footnote 4: All historians of the sack of Rome agree in saying that Bourbon
was shot dead while placing ladders against the outworks near the shop Cellini
mentions. But the honour of firing the arquebuse which brought him down cannot
be assigned to any one in particular. Very different stories were current on
the subject. See Gregorovius, Stadt Rom., vol. viii. p. 522.]
Quitting our position on the ramparts, we crossed the Campo Santo, and
entered the city by St. Peter`s; then coming out exactly at the church of
Santo Agnolo, we got with the greatest difficulty to the great gate of the
castle; for the generals Renzo di Ceri and Orazio Baglioni were wounding and
slaughtering everybody who abandoned the defence of the walls. ^5 By the time
we had reached the great gate, part of the foemen had already entered Rome,
and we had them in our rear. The castellan had ordered the portcullis to be
lowered, in order to do which they cleared a little space, and this enabled us
four to get inside. On the instant that I entered, the captain Pallone de`
Medici claimed me as being of the Papal household, and forced me to abandon
Alessandro, which I had to do, much against my will. I ascended to the keep,
and at the same instant Pope Clement came in through the corridors into the
castle; he had refused to leave the palace of St. Peter earlier, being unable
to believe that his enemies would effect their entrance into Rome. ^6 Having
got into the castle in this way, I attached myself to certain pieces of
artillery, which were under the command of a bombardier called Giuliano
Fiorentino. Leaning there against the battlements, the unhappy man could see
his poor house being sacked, and his wife and children outraged; fearing to
strike his own folk, he dared not discharge the cannon, and flinging the
burning fuse upon the ground, he wept as though his heart would break, and
tore his cheeks with both his hands. ^7 Some of the other bombardiers were
behaving in like manner; seeing which, I took one of the matches, and got the
assistance of a few men who were not overcome by their emotions. I aimed some
swivels and falconets at points where I saw it would be useful, and killed
with them a good number of the enemy. Had it not been for this, the troops who
poured into Rome that morning, and were marching straight upon the castle,
might possibly have entered it with ease, because the artillery was doing them
no damage. I went on firing under the eyes of several cardinals and lords, who
kept blessing me and giving me the heartiest encouragement. In my enthusiasm I
strove to achieve the impossible; let it suffice that it was I who saved the
castle that morning, and brought the other bombardiers back to their duty. ^8
I worked hard the whole of that day; and when the evening came, while the army
was marching into Rome through the Trastevere, Pope Clement appointed a great
Roman nobleman named Antonio Santacroce to be captain of all the gunners. The
first thing this man did was to come to me, and having greeted me with the
utmost kindness, he stationed me with five fine pieces of artillery on the
highest point of the castle, to which the name of the Angel specially belongs.
This circular eminence goes round the castle, and surveys both Prati and the
town of Rome. The captain put under my orders enough men to help in managing
my guns, and having seen me paid in advance, he gave me rations of bread and a
little wine, and begged me to go forward as I had begun. I was perhaps more
inclined by nature to the profession of arms than to the one I had adopted,
and I took such pleasure in its duties that I discharged them better than
those of my own art. Night came, the enemy had entered Rome, and we who were
in the castle (especially myself, who have always taken pleasure in
extraordinary sights) stayed gazing on the indescribable scene of tumult and
conflagration in the streets below. People who were anywhere else but where we
were, could not have formed the least imagination of what it was. I will not,
however, set myself to describe that tragedy, but will content myself with
continuing the history of my own life and the circumstances which properly
belong to it.
[Footnote 5: For Renzo di Ceri see above. Orazio Baglioni, of the
semi-princely Perugian family, was a distinguished Condottiere. He
subsequently obtained the captaincy of the Bande Nere, and died fighting near
Naples in 1528. Orazio murdered several of his cousins in order to acquire the
lordship of Perugia. His brother Malatesta undertook to defend Florence in the
siege of 1530, and sold the city by treason to Clement.]
[Footnote 6: Giovio, in his Life of the Cardinal Prospero Colonna, relates how
he accompanied Clement in his flight from the Vatican to the castle. While
passing some open portions of the gallery, he threw his violent mantle and cap
of a Monsignore over the white stole of the Pontiff, for fear he might be shot
at by the soldiers in the streets below.]
[Footnote 7: The short autobiography of Raffaello da Montelupo, a man in many
respects resembling Cellini, confirms this part of our author`s narrative. It
is one of the most interesting pieces of evidence regarding what went on
inside the castle during the sack of Rome. Montelupo was also a gunner, and
commanded two pieces.]
[Footnote 8: This is an instance of Cellini`s exaggeration. He did more than
yeoman`s service, no doubt. But we cannot believe that, without him, the
castle would have been taken.]
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