|
Book FirstPart LXIII
Part LXIII
Tobbia the goldsmith meanwhile worked at the setting and the decoration
of the unicorn`s horn. The Pope, moreover, commissioned him to begin the
chalice upon the model he had seen in mine. But when Tobbia came to show him
what he had done, he was very discontented, and greatly regretted that he had
broken with me, blaming all the other man`s works and the people who had
introduced them to him; and several times Baccino della Croce came from him to
tell me that I must not neglect the reliquary. I answered that I begged his
Holiness to let me breathe a little after the great illness I had suffered,
and from which I was not as yet wholly free, adding that I would make it clear
to him that all the hours in which I could work should be spent in his
service. I had indeed begun to make his portrait, and was executing a medal in
secret. I fashioned the steel dies for stamping this medal in my own house;
while I kept a partner in my workshop, who had been my prentice and was called
Felice.
At that time, as is the wont of young men, I had fallen in love with a
Sicilian girl, who was exceedingly beautiful. On it becoming clear that she
returned my affection, her mother perceived how the matter stood, and grew
suspicious of what might happen. The truth is that I had arranged to elope
with the girl for a year to Florence, unknown to her mother; but she, getting
wind of this, left Rome secretly one night, and went off in the direction of
Naples. She gave out that she was gone by Civita Vecchia, but she really went
by Ostia. I followed them to Civita Vecchia, and did a multitude of mad things
to discover her. It would be too long to narrate them all in detail; enough
that I was on the point of losing my wits or dying. After two months she wrote
to me that she was in Sicily, extremely unhappy. I meanwhile was indulging
myself in all the pleasures man can think of, and had engaged in another love
affair, merely to drown the memory of my real passion.
|
