DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32873#0053
LETTER OF BENVENUTO CELLINI TO
BENEDETTO VARCHId
TO THE MOST EXCELLENT (AND) TALENTED MA
BENEDETTO AND MY MOST GREATLY HONOURED
(FRIEND).
CT' INCE your Lordship tells me that this simple dis-
course regarding my life satisfies you much more
in this plain fashion than if it were repolished and re-
touched by another hand, the which thing would not
seem so like the actual truth as what I have written: for I
have taken care not to say anything about those things
whereon my memory is uncertain; rather I have related
the plain truth, leaving out a great portion of certain
remarkable chances regarding which others who had
done such things would have made much capital: but
since I have had to relate so many great matters, and
in order not to make too great a. volume, I have left out
a large portion of the small ones. I send my servant in
order that you may give him my saddle-bag and the
^ This letter which guarantees the original integrity of the^4^-
as it has come down to us, is not wholly autograph—as
it was once believed to be—but is in the handwriting of the earliest
copyist, except the postscript and the address upon the back, which
are in CELUNl'S own hand.
xxxix
BENEDETTO VARCHId
TO THE MOST EXCELLENT (AND) TALENTED MA
BENEDETTO AND MY MOST GREATLY HONOURED
(FRIEND).
CT' INCE your Lordship tells me that this simple dis-
course regarding my life satisfies you much more
in this plain fashion than if it were repolished and re-
touched by another hand, the which thing would not
seem so like the actual truth as what I have written: for I
have taken care not to say anything about those things
whereon my memory is uncertain; rather I have related
the plain truth, leaving out a great portion of certain
remarkable chances regarding which others who had
done such things would have made much capital: but
since I have had to relate so many great matters, and
in order not to make too great a. volume, I have left out
a large portion of the small ones. I send my servant in
order that you may give him my saddle-bag and the
^ This letter which guarantees the original integrity of the^4^-
as it has come down to us, is not wholly autograph—as
it was once believed to be—but is in the handwriting of the earliest
copyist, except the postscript and the address upon the back, which
are in CELUNl'S own hand.
xxxix