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Book FirstPart XLVI
Part XLVI
I was still working in the shop of Raffaello del Moro. This worthy man
had a very beautiful young daughter, with regard to whom he had designs on me;
and I, becoming partly aware of his intentions, was very willing; but, while
indulging such desires, I made no show of them: on the contrary, I was so
discreet in my behaviour that I made him wonder. It so happened that the poor
girl was attacked by a disorder in her right hand, which ate into the two
bones belonging to the little finger and the next. ^1 Owing to her father`s
carelessness, she had been treated by an ignorant quack-doctor, who
predicted that the poor child would be crippled in the whole of her right arm,
if even nothing worse should happen. When I noticed the dismay of her father,
I begged him not to believe all that this ignorant doctor had said. He replied
that he had no acquaintance with physicians or with surgpons, and entreated
me, if I knew of one, to bring him to the house. ^2 I sent at once for a
certain Maestro Giacomo of Perugia, a man of great skill in surgery, who
examined the poor girl. ^3 She was dreadfully frightened through having gained
some inkling of the quack`s predictions; whereas, my intelligent doctor
declared that she would suffer nothing of consequence, and would be very well
able to use her right hand; also that though the two last fingers must remain
somewhat weaker than the others, this would be of no inconvenience at all to
her. So he began his treatment; and after a few days, when he was going to
extract a portion of the diseased bones, her father called for me, and begged
me to be present at the operation. Maestro Giacomo was using some coarse steel
instruments; and when I observed that he was making little way and at the same
time was inflicting severe pain on the patient, I begged him to stop and wait
half a quarter of an hour for me. I ran into the shop, and made a little
scalping-iron of steel, extremely thin and curved; it cut like a razor. On
my return, the surgeon used it, and began to work with so gentle a hand that
she felt no pain, and in a short while the operation was over. In consequence
of this service, and for other reasons, the worthy man conceived for me as
much love, or more, as he had for two male children; and in the meanwhile he
attended to the cure of his beautiful young daughter.
[Footnote 1: Ossicina che seguitano il dito, &c. Probably metacarpal bones.]
[Footnote 2: Che gnene avviasse.]
[Footnote 3: Giacomo Rastelli was a native of Rimini, but was popularly known
as of Perugia, since he had resided long in that city. He was a famous surgeon
under several Popes until the year 1566, when he died at Rome, age
seventy-five.]
I was on terms of the closest intimacy with one Messer Giovanni Gaddi,
who was a clerk of the Camera, and a great connoisseur of the arts, although
he had no practical acquaintance with any. ^4 In his household were a certain
Messer Giovanni, a Greek of eminent learning, Messer Lodovico of Fano, no less
distinguished as a man of letters, Messer Antonio Allegretti, and Messer
Annibale Caro, ^5 at that time in his early manhood. Messer Bastiano of
Venice, a most excellent painter, and I were admitted to their society; and
almost every day we met together in Messer Giovanni`s company. ^6
[Footnote 4: Giovanni Gaddi of the Florentine family was passionately attached
to men of art and letters. Yet he seems to have been somewhat disagreeable in
personal intercourse; for even Annibale Caro, who owed much to his patronage,
and lived for many years in his house, never became attached to him. We shall
see how he treated Cellini during a fever.]
[Footnote 5: Some poems of Allegretti`s survive. He was a man of mark in the
literary society of the age. Giovanni Greco may have been a Giovanni Vergezio,
who presented Duke Cosimo with some Greek characters of exquisite finish.
Lodovico da Fano is mentioned as an excellent Latin scholar. Annibale Caro was
one of the most distinguished writers of Italian prose and verse in the later
Renaissance. He spent the latter portion of his life in the service of the
Farnesi.]
[Footnote 6: Messer Bastiano is the celebrated painter Sebastian del Piombo,
born 1485, died 1547.]
Being aware of this intimacy, the worthy goldsmith Raffaello said to
Messer Giovanni: "Good sir, you know me; now I want to marry my daughter to
Benvenuto, and can think of no better intermediary than your worship. So I am
come to crave your assistance, and to beg you to name for her such dowry from
my estate as you may think suitable." The light-headed man hardly let my good
friend finish what he had to say, before he put in quite at random: "Talk no
more about it, Raffaello; you are farther from your object than January from
mulberries." The poor man, utterly discouraged, looked about at once for
another husband for his girl; while she and the mother and all the family
lived on in a bad humour with me. Since I did not know the real cause of
this - I imagined they were paying me with bastard coin for the many
kindnesses I had shown them - I conceived the thought of opening a workshop
of my own in their neighbourhood. Messer Giovanni told me nothing till the
girl was married, which happened in a few months.
Meanwhile, I laboured assiduously at the work I was doing for the Pope,
and also in the service of the Mint; for his Holiness had ordered another
coin, of the value of two carlins, on which his own portrait was stamped,
while the reverse bore a figure of Christ upon the waters, holding out his
hand to S. Peter, with this inscription Quare dubitasti? My design won such
applause that a certain secretary of the Pope, a man of the greatest talent,
called Il Sanga, ^7 was moved to this remark: "Your Holiness can boast of
having a currency superior to any of the ancients in all their glory." The
Pope replied: "Benvenuto, for his part, can boast of serving an emperor like
me, who is able to discern his merit." I went on at my great piece in gold,
showing it frequently to the Pope, who was very eager to see it, and each time
expressed greater admiration.
[Footnote 7: Battista Sanga, a Roman, secretary to Gianmatteo Giberti, the
good Archbishop of Verona, and afterwards to Clement VII. He was a great
Latinist, and one of those ecclesiastics who earnestly desired a reform of the
Church. He died, poisoned, at an early age.]
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