DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32873#0070
12 LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI [BK. i
with his own eyes the unexpected male child. Clasping
his aged hands together, he raised them and his eyes
to Heaven, and said: "Lord, I thank Thee with all my
heart. This is very acceptable to me, and may he be Wel-
come All those persons who were present
joyfully asked him how he would like to name the child.
Giovanni never answered them aught but " May he be
Welcome and having resolved upon it,
such name was given me in Holy Baptism, and so
designated I desire by the Grace of God to live.
My grandfather Andrea Cellini was still alive, when I
had already reached the age of about three; and he
was past one hundred years/ One day they had been
altering a certain pipe of a cistern, and from the same
there issued a great scorpion, which they had not
noticed, and it had dropped down from the cistern to the
ground, and went away under a bench. I saw it, and
running after it laid my hands upon its back. The said
(animal) was so large that, holding it in my little hand,
from one side there issued the tail and from the other
both the mouths/ They say that I ran to my grand-
father in great glee, crying out: "Look, grandpapa, at
my fine little crab." When he realized that it was a
scorpion, out of great fear and anxiety on my behalf, he
was like to have fallen down dead; and he begged it of
me with many endearments. I clung to it so much the
more, sobbing out that I would not give it up to any
one. My father, who was also at home, ran up at so
^ This must have been a family tradition, and, strange to say, the
same statement is made in the Income Tax Return for 1503; but
Andrea Cellini at this date could not have been more than eighty-two.
^ By AwA (lit. Cellini probably means " claws."
with his own eyes the unexpected male child. Clasping
his aged hands together, he raised them and his eyes
to Heaven, and said: "Lord, I thank Thee with all my
heart. This is very acceptable to me, and may he be Wel-
come All those persons who were present
joyfully asked him how he would like to name the child.
Giovanni never answered them aught but " May he be
Welcome and having resolved upon it,
such name was given me in Holy Baptism, and so
designated I desire by the Grace of God to live.
My grandfather Andrea Cellini was still alive, when I
had already reached the age of about three; and he
was past one hundred years/ One day they had been
altering a certain pipe of a cistern, and from the same
there issued a great scorpion, which they had not
noticed, and it had dropped down from the cistern to the
ground, and went away under a bench. I saw it, and
running after it laid my hands upon its back. The said
(animal) was so large that, holding it in my little hand,
from one side there issued the tail and from the other
both the mouths/ They say that I ran to my grand-
father in great glee, crying out: "Look, grandpapa, at
my fine little crab." When he realized that it was a
scorpion, out of great fear and anxiety on my behalf, he
was like to have fallen down dead; and he begged it of
me with many endearments. I clung to it so much the
more, sobbing out that I would not give it up to any
one. My father, who was also at home, ran up at so
^ This must have been a family tradition, and, strange to say, the
same statement is made in the Income Tax Return for 1503; but
Andrea Cellini at this date could not have been more than eighty-two.
^ By AwA (lit. Cellini probably means " claws."