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Book FirstPart LXXXVI
Part LXXXVI
When eight days had come and gone, my amendment was so slight that life
itself became almost a burden to me; indeed I had been more than fifty days in
that great suffering. So I made my mind up, and prepared to travel. My dear
Felice and I went toward Florence in a pair of baskets; ^1 and as I had not
written, when I reached my sister`s house, she wept and laughed over me all in
one breath. That day many friends came to see me; among others Pier Landi, who
was the best and dearest friend I ever had. Next day there came a certain
Niccolo da Monte Aguto, who was also a very great friend of mine. Now he had
heard the Duke say: "Benvenuto would have done much better to die, because he
is come to put his head into a noose, and I will never pardon him."
Accordingly when Niccolo arrived, he said to me in desperation: "Alas! my dear
Benvenuto, what have you come to do here? Did you not know what you have done
to displease the Duke? I have heard him swear that you were thrusting your
head into a halter." Then I replied: "Niccolo, remind his Excellency that Pope
Clement wanted to do as much to me before, and quite as unjustly; tell him to
keep his eye on me, and give me time to recover; then I will show his
Excellency that I have been the most faithful servant he will ever have in all
his life; and forasmuch as some enemy must have served me this bad turn
through envy, let him wait till I get well; for I shall then be able to give
such an account of myself as will make him marvel."
[Footnote 1: Un paio di ceste, a kind of litter, here described in the plural,
because two of them were perhaps put together. I have thought it best to
translate the phrase literally. From a letter of Varchi to Bembo, we learn
that Cellini reached Florence, November 9, 1535.]
This bad turn had been done me by Giorgetto Vassellario of Arezzo, ^2 the
painter; perchance in recompense for many benefits conferred on him. I had
harboured him in Rome and provided for his costs, while he had turned my whole
house upside down; for the man was subject to a species of dry scab, which he
was always in the habit of scratching with his hands. It happened, then, that
sleeping in the same bed as an excellent workman, named Manno, who was in my
service, when he meant to scratch himself, he tore the skin from one of
Manno`s legs with his filthy claws, the nails of which he never used to cut.
The said Manno left my service, and was resolutely bent on killing him. I made
the quarrel up, and afterwards got Giorgio into Cardinal de` Medici`s
household, and continually helped him. For these deserts, then, he told Duke
Alessandro that I had abused his Excellency, and had bragged I meant to be the
first to leap upon the walls of Florence with his foes the exiles. These
words, as I afterwards learned, had been put into Vasari`s lips by that
excellent fellow, ^3 Ottaviano de` Medici, who wanted to revenge himself for
the Duke`s irritation against him, on account of the coinage and my departure
from Florence. I, being innocent of the crime falsely ascribed to me, felt no
fear whatever. Meanwhile that able physician Francesco da Monte Varchi
attended to my cure with great skill. He had been brought by my very dear
friend Luca Martini, who passed the larger portion of the day with me. ^4
[Footnote 2: This is the famous Giorgio Vasari, a bad painter and worse
architect, but dear to all lovers of the arts for his anecdotic work upon
Italian artists.]
[Footnote 3: Galantuomo, used ironically,]
[Footnote 4: Luca Martini was a member of the best literary society in his
days, and the author of some famous burlesque pieces.]
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