DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32874#0322
266 LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI [BK. 11
been an evil doer and that certain faults that
had been wrongfully laid to my charge were the truth.
For this reason I stood upon my honour, and as a man
in the right, I wrote with haughtiness; which gave the
greatest satisfaction that they could have to those two
traitorous pupils of mine. For I boasted in writing to
them of the great courtesies that were shown to me in
my own country by a lord and by a lady, absolute
masters of the City of Florence, my native place. When
they had received one of these sorts of letters, they went
to the King, and constrained His Majesty to make over
to them my in the same way that he had given
it to me. The King, who was a good and admirable
person, never wished to consent to the hardy demands
of these great thieves, for he began to perceive at what
they were malignantly aiming: and in order to give
them a little expectation and me an occasion of return-
ing immediately, he caused me to be written to some-
what wrathfully by one of his treasurers, who was called
Misser Giuliano Buonaccorsi/ a Florentine citizen. The
letter contained the following (statement): "that if I
wanted to uphold that name of honest man that I had
borne (hitherto), since I had departed without any
reason, I was truly bound to render an account of
all that I had administered and done for His Majesty/'
When I received this letter it gave me so much pleasure,
that even had I asked with my own tongue <%
rz /2'73^%<2) I should have asked neither more nor less.
Setting myself to write, I filled nine sheets of ordinary
paper; and in them I set out distinctly all the works
that I had accomplished, and all the chances that had
^ 6/ Book I, Chap. XXI, VoL I, p. 378, n. 3.
been an evil doer and that certain faults that
had been wrongfully laid to my charge were the truth.
For this reason I stood upon my honour, and as a man
in the right, I wrote with haughtiness; which gave the
greatest satisfaction that they could have to those two
traitorous pupils of mine. For I boasted in writing to
them of the great courtesies that were shown to me in
my own country by a lord and by a lady, absolute
masters of the City of Florence, my native place. When
they had received one of these sorts of letters, they went
to the King, and constrained His Majesty to make over
to them my in the same way that he had given
it to me. The King, who was a good and admirable
person, never wished to consent to the hardy demands
of these great thieves, for he began to perceive at what
they were malignantly aiming: and in order to give
them a little expectation and me an occasion of return-
ing immediately, he caused me to be written to some-
what wrathfully by one of his treasurers, who was called
Misser Giuliano Buonaccorsi/ a Florentine citizen. The
letter contained the following (statement): "that if I
wanted to uphold that name of honest man that I had
borne (hitherto), since I had departed without any
reason, I was truly bound to render an account of
all that I had administered and done for His Majesty/'
When I received this letter it gave me so much pleasure,
that even had I asked with my own tongue <%
rz /2'73^%<2) I should have asked neither more nor less.
Setting myself to write, I filled nine sheets of ordinary
paper; and in them I set out distinctly all the works
that I had accomplished, and all the chances that had
^ 6/ Book I, Chap. XXI, VoL I, p. 378, n. 3.