DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32873#0080
20 LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI [BK. i
insignia of the Commune:' so that directly after their
return the red cross was erased, and upon the said
shield was replaced their red balls, set moreover in a
golden held, with very fine adornments. My father,
who had a certain amount of genuine natural poetic
instinct,' together with something of the prophetic (which
was certainly a divine attribute in him), beneath the said
scutcheon, as soon as it was uncovered, wrote these
four lines. They ran as follows:
These noble arms that, buried out of sight
Beneath the Holy Cross so long have lain,
With a new joy and glory shine again,
Awaiting Peter's sacred mantle bright.
This epigram was read by all Florence. A few days
later Pope Julio the Second died. Cardinal de' Medici
having gone to Rome, was, contrary to the expectation
of everyone, made Pope Leone X, the liberal and mag-
nanimous.^ My father sent to him his four prophetic
^ The Medici arms were "zw, six pellets (y5a//<?Lgzz/A, three, two
and one." Those of the Florentine Commune, "zz/^wzZ, a cross<g"zz/A
which blazon, it is supposed, was adopted in 1292 at the time when
the office of Gonfalonier of Justice was created.
* Besides this four-line fragment, C. MiLANESi (7 TAz/Az/z <777
^ <7Wz -Skzz/Zzzrzz, Firenze, Le Monnier, 1857, pp. lvii,
lviii), quotes a sonnet by Giovanni Cellini upon "TAzfzkzzzz?." (/-
also A. MABELLINI, TTwz? <7z A*. Lk/7z'?zz' 75zz<W. <? zzzzzzcZ. 1891,
pp. 12-13. Later on Benvenuto puts into his father's mouth a well-
known proverbial distich, which is, however, no proof of his poetic
abilities.
^ Giovanni de' Medici was elected Pope under the name of Leo X
on March 14th 1513. He had been created a cardinal at fourteen
and was at this time thirty-seven years of age. Like his father,
Lorenzo the Magnificent, he was a distinguished patron of Art and
Letters. He died in 1521 at the early age of forty-four.
insignia of the Commune:' so that directly after their
return the red cross was erased, and upon the said
shield was replaced their red balls, set moreover in a
golden held, with very fine adornments. My father,
who had a certain amount of genuine natural poetic
instinct,' together with something of the prophetic (which
was certainly a divine attribute in him), beneath the said
scutcheon, as soon as it was uncovered, wrote these
four lines. They ran as follows:
These noble arms that, buried out of sight
Beneath the Holy Cross so long have lain,
With a new joy and glory shine again,
Awaiting Peter's sacred mantle bright.
This epigram was read by all Florence. A few days
later Pope Julio the Second died. Cardinal de' Medici
having gone to Rome, was, contrary to the expectation
of everyone, made Pope Leone X, the liberal and mag-
nanimous.^ My father sent to him his four prophetic
^ The Medici arms were "zw, six pellets (y5a//<?Lgzz/A, three, two
and one." Those of the Florentine Commune, "zz/^wzZ, a cross<g"zz/A
which blazon, it is supposed, was adopted in 1292 at the time when
the office of Gonfalonier of Justice was created.
* Besides this four-line fragment, C. MiLANESi (7 TAz/Az/z <777
^ <7Wz -Skzz/Zzzrzz, Firenze, Le Monnier, 1857, pp. lvii,
lviii), quotes a sonnet by Giovanni Cellini upon "TAzfzkzzzz?." (/-
also A. MABELLINI, TTwz? <7z A*. Lk/7z'?zz' 75zz<W. <? zzzzzzcZ. 1891,
pp. 12-13. Later on Benvenuto puts into his father's mouth a well-
known proverbial distich, which is, however, no proof of his poetic
abilities.
^ Giovanni de' Medici was elected Pope under the name of Leo X
on March 14th 1513. He had been created a cardinal at fourteen
and was at this time thirty-seven years of age. Like his father,
Lorenzo the Magnificent, he was a distinguished patron of Art and
Letters. He died in 1521 at the early age of forty-four.