DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32874#0044
16 LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI [BK. i
should want to employ some little portion of my wits,
which I am sure would result otherwise for me than
those of that rascal of a friar; and I began to direct them
to bring me new and coarse sheets, and I did not send
the dirty ones back. When my servants asked me for
them, I told them to be silent, for I had given them to
certain of those poor soldiers; for if they had known of
such a business, those poor fellows would have run the
risk of the galleys; to such purpose that my young men
and my domestics most faithfully, especially Felice, kept
such a matter of the said sheets most carefully secret.
I set myself to emptying a palliasse, and I burnt the
straw, for in my prison there was a chimney to enable
one to make a fire. Of these sheets I began to make
strips, a third of a in width; when I had made
that quantity which it seemed to me would be sufficient
to descend from the great height of that keep of Castel
Sant' Agniolo, I said to my servants, that I had given
away what I had wanted to do, and that they must see
to bringing me finer ones, and that I would always re-
store to them the dirty ones. This matter was forgotten.
Cardinals Santiquattro * and Cornaro made those work-
i There were three members of the Florentine family of Pucci
who at various times took their cardinal's title from the Church of
the Quattro Santi Coronati, but the one mentioned here must
have been Antonio, nephew of the Roberto Pucci referred to in
Chap. XI, Vol. I, p. 218, n. 1. He received the cardinal's hat in
1531, having been previously Bishop of Pistoia and Vice Legate in
Lombardy. SADOLETO speaks of his learning and merits in his
He died in 1 $44 at the age of sixty, after having conducted
with considerable credit embassies to the Emperor Charles V, and
to King Francis 1. ty AMMIRATO, yAwzzA, Vol. Ill, pp.
339*375) and ClACCONiO, Vol. Ill, p. 522. As regards Cardinal
Cornaro y Chap. XV, Vol. I, p. 276, n. 1.
should want to employ some little portion of my wits,
which I am sure would result otherwise for me than
those of that rascal of a friar; and I began to direct them
to bring me new and coarse sheets, and I did not send
the dirty ones back. When my servants asked me for
them, I told them to be silent, for I had given them to
certain of those poor soldiers; for if they had known of
such a business, those poor fellows would have run the
risk of the galleys; to such purpose that my young men
and my domestics most faithfully, especially Felice, kept
such a matter of the said sheets most carefully secret.
I set myself to emptying a palliasse, and I burnt the
straw, for in my prison there was a chimney to enable
one to make a fire. Of these sheets I began to make
strips, a third of a in width; when I had made
that quantity which it seemed to me would be sufficient
to descend from the great height of that keep of Castel
Sant' Agniolo, I said to my servants, that I had given
away what I had wanted to do, and that they must see
to bringing me finer ones, and that I would always re-
store to them the dirty ones. This matter was forgotten.
Cardinals Santiquattro * and Cornaro made those work-
i There were three members of the Florentine family of Pucci
who at various times took their cardinal's title from the Church of
the Quattro Santi Coronati, but the one mentioned here must
have been Antonio, nephew of the Roberto Pucci referred to in
Chap. XI, Vol. I, p. 218, n. 1. He received the cardinal's hat in
1531, having been previously Bishop of Pistoia and Vice Legate in
Lombardy. SADOLETO speaks of his learning and merits in his
He died in 1 $44 at the age of sixty, after having conducted
with considerable credit embassies to the Emperor Charles V, and
to King Francis 1. ty AMMIRATO, yAwzzA, Vol. Ill, pp.
339*375) and ClACCONiO, Vol. Ill, p. 522. As regards Cardinal
Cornaro y Chap. XV, Vol. I, p. 276, n. 1.