|
Book FirstPart XXXV
Part XXXV
During the course of my artillery practice, which I never intermitted
through the whole month passed by us beleaguered in the castle, I met with a
great many very striking accidents, all of them worthy to be related. But
since I do not care to be too prolix, or to exhibit myself outside the sphere
of my profession, I will omit the larger part of them, only touching upon
those I cannot well neglect, which shall be the fewest in number and the most
remarkable. The first which comes to hand is this: Messer Antonio Santacroce
had made me come down from the Angel, in order to fire on some houses in the
neighbourhood, where certain of our besiegers had been seen to enter. While I
was firing, a cannon shot reached me, which hit the angle of a battlement, and
carried off enough of it to be the cause why I sustained no injury. The whole
mass struck me in the chest and took my breath away. I lay stretched upon the
ground like a dead man, and could hear what the bystanders were saying. Among
them all, Messer Antonio Santacroce lamented greatly, exclaiming: "Alas, alas!
we have lost the best defender that we had." Attracted by the uproar, one of
my comrades ran up; he was called Gianfrancesco, and was a bandsman, but was
far more naturally given to medicine than to music. On the spot he flew off,
crying for a stoop of the very best Greek wine. Then he made a tile red-hot,
and cast upon it a good handful of wormwood; after which he sprinkled the
Greek wine; and when the wormwood was well soaked, he laid it on my breast,
just where the bruise was visible to all. Such was the virtue of the wormwood
that I immediately regained my scattered faculties. I wanted to begin to
speak; but could not; for some stupid soldiers had filled my mouth with earth,
imagining that by so doing they were giving me the sacrament; and indeed they
were more like to have excommunicated me, since I could with difficulty come
to myself again, the earth doing me more mischief than the blow. However, I
escaped that danger, and returned to the rage and fury of the guns, pursuing
my work there with all the ability and eagerness that I could summon.
Pope Clement, by this, had sent to demand assistance from the Duke of
Urbino, who was with the troops of Venice; he commissioned the envoy to tell
his Excellency that the Castle of S. Angelo would send up every evening three
beacons from its summit accompanied by three discharges of the cannon thrice
repeated, and that so long as this signal was continued, he might take for
granted that the castle had not yielded. I was charged with lighting the
beacons and firing the guns for this purpose; and all this while I pointed my
artillery by day upon the places where mischief could be done. The Pope, in
consequence, began to regard me with still greater favour, because he saw that
I discharged my functions as intelligently as the task demanded. Aid from the
Duke of Urbino ^1 never came; on which, as it is not my business, I will make
no further comment.
[Footnote 1: Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, commanded a
considerable army as general of the Church, and was now acting for Venice. Why
he effected no diversion while the Imperial troops were marching upon Rome,
and why he delayed to relieve the city, was never properly explained. Folk
attributed his impotent conduct partly to a natural sluggishness in warfare,
and partly to his hatred for the house of Medici. Leo X had deprived him of
his dukedom, and given it to a Medicean prince. It is to this that Cellini
probably refers in the cautious phrase which ends the chapter.]
|
