DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32873#0167
93
CH. v] LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI
hre that is applied at the last upon the work, finished with
great labour, which many a time spoils them and plunges
them into destruction. Upon this very different branch
I also set myself to work with all my power; and al-
though I found it very difficult, so much was the pleasure
that I took in it that the said great difficulties seemed to
me but a recreation: and this arose from a special gift
bestowed upon me by the God of nature of a tempera-
ment so good and well-balanced, that I could freely
assure myself of accomplishing everything that came
into my mind to undertake. These said branches are
many and very diverse one from another; so much so
that any one who succeeds in one of them, wishing to
try the others, hardly ever is as successful as in that
branch in which he already excels; wherefore I exerted
myself with all my power to practise all these branches
equally; and, as I say, I will in its proper place demon-
strate how I accomplished such an undertaking.
At this period, when I was still a youth of about
twenty-three years of age, a pestilential disease broke
out of such unparalleled virulence that there died in Rome
many thousands per dayd Somewhat terrified by this,
I began to take up certain amusements such as my
fancy directed, caused moreover by a circumstance that
I will relate. For I enjoyed on feast-days visiting the
antiquities (of the city), copying them either in wax
models or by drawing from them; and since these said
^ The most destructive ravages of the plague had occurred in
1522, and in the month of August 1523, when a total of some
18,000 persons succumbed to it; but since Cellini did not come to
Rome for his second visit until November in the latter year the
worst was over. It reappeared again in the summer of 1524, but
in a much less virulent form.
CH. v] LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI
hre that is applied at the last upon the work, finished with
great labour, which many a time spoils them and plunges
them into destruction. Upon this very different branch
I also set myself to work with all my power; and al-
though I found it very difficult, so much was the pleasure
that I took in it that the said great difficulties seemed to
me but a recreation: and this arose from a special gift
bestowed upon me by the God of nature of a tempera-
ment so good and well-balanced, that I could freely
assure myself of accomplishing everything that came
into my mind to undertake. These said branches are
many and very diverse one from another; so much so
that any one who succeeds in one of them, wishing to
try the others, hardly ever is as successful as in that
branch in which he already excels; wherefore I exerted
myself with all my power to practise all these branches
equally; and, as I say, I will in its proper place demon-
strate how I accomplished such an undertaking.
At this period, when I was still a youth of about
twenty-three years of age, a pestilential disease broke
out of such unparalleled virulence that there died in Rome
many thousands per dayd Somewhat terrified by this,
I began to take up certain amusements such as my
fancy directed, caused moreover by a circumstance that
I will relate. For I enjoyed on feast-days visiting the
antiquities (of the city), copying them either in wax
models or by drawing from them; and since these said
^ The most destructive ravages of the plague had occurred in
1522, and in the month of August 1523, when a total of some
18,000 persons succumbed to it; but since Cellini did not come to
Rome for his second visit until November in the latter year the
worst was over. It reappeared again in the summer of 1524, but
in a much less virulent form.