DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32874#0293
CH. viii] LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI 245
of me concerning the works of art that I had executed
for the King: whereupon I willingly and in full detail
described them. When he had heard me out, he said
that he had understood as much, and that such was the
fact: and he added afterwards in a tone of sympathy,
and said: " Oh! How small a reward for so many fine and
splendid efforts! Benvenuto mine! If you are willing to
make something for me, I will pay you after a very
different fashion than that King of yours has done,
whom out of your good nature you praise so much." To
these remarks I added the great obligations that I was
under to His Majesty, for, having withdrawn me from
so unjust an imprisonment, he had afterwards given me
the opportunity of executing more wonderful work than
any other craftsman of my standing who had ever been
born. Whilst I spake thus my Duke twisted himself
about, and seemed as if he could not stop to listen to med
Then when I had finished he said to me: " If you are
willing to make something for me, I will show you such
favours that you will perchance remain in astonishment,
provided that your work pleases me: of that I have no
doubt." I, poor unlucky creature, anxious to demon-
strate in this wondrous School (of Florence),^ that since
spite of her benevolence and many virtues she was not popular
with the Florentines on account of her Spanish manners, which
were somewhat haughty and repellent. There is a fine portrait by
Bronzino of this lady in the Uffizi Collection.
^ Cosimo was not so particularly well-disposed towards King
Francis 1; more especially on account of his promises—barren
though they proved to be—to the Florentine exiles.
^ This was the Academy of Design (now styled "of the Fine
Arts "); to which Academy CELLINI desired to demonstrate by some
fine work of art how a goldsmith could become a sculptor. It
of me concerning the works of art that I had executed
for the King: whereupon I willingly and in full detail
described them. When he had heard me out, he said
that he had understood as much, and that such was the
fact: and he added afterwards in a tone of sympathy,
and said: " Oh! How small a reward for so many fine and
splendid efforts! Benvenuto mine! If you are willing to
make something for me, I will pay you after a very
different fashion than that King of yours has done,
whom out of your good nature you praise so much." To
these remarks I added the great obligations that I was
under to His Majesty, for, having withdrawn me from
so unjust an imprisonment, he had afterwards given me
the opportunity of executing more wonderful work than
any other craftsman of my standing who had ever been
born. Whilst I spake thus my Duke twisted himself
about, and seemed as if he could not stop to listen to med
Then when I had finished he said to me: " If you are
willing to make something for me, I will show you such
favours that you will perchance remain in astonishment,
provided that your work pleases me: of that I have no
doubt." I, poor unlucky creature, anxious to demon-
strate in this wondrous School (of Florence),^ that since
spite of her benevolence and many virtues she was not popular
with the Florentines on account of her Spanish manners, which
were somewhat haughty and repellent. There is a fine portrait by
Bronzino of this lady in the Uffizi Collection.
^ Cosimo was not so particularly well-disposed towards King
Francis 1; more especially on account of his promises—barren
though they proved to be—to the Florentine exiles.
^ This was the Academy of Design (now styled "of the Fine
Arts "); to which Academy CELLINI desired to demonstrate by some
fine work of art how a goldsmith could become a sculptor. It