in my performances. He had an only son, a bastard, to whom he often gave
his orders, in order to spare me. My liking for the art was so great,
or, I may truly say, my natural bias, both one and the other, that in a
few months I caught up the good, nay, the best young craftsmen in our
business, and began to reap the fruits of my labours. I did not,
however, neglect to gratify my good father from time to time by playing
on the flute or cornet. Each time he heard me, I used to make his tears
fall accompanied with deep-drawn sighs of satisfaction. My filial piety
often made me give him that contentment, and induce me to pretend that I
enjoyed the music too.

Note 1. Baccio Bandinello, the sculptor, and a great rival of Cellini's,
as will appear in the ensuing pages, was born in 1487, and received the
honour of knighthood from Clement VII and Charles V. Posterity has
confirmed Cellini's opinion of Bandinello as an artist; for his works
are coarse, pretentious, and incapable of giving pleasure to any person
of refined intelligence.



VIII

AT that time I had a brother, younger by two years, a youth of extreme
boldness and fierce temper. He afterwards became one of the great
soldiers in the school of that marvellous general Giovannino de' Medici,
father of Duke Cosimo. [1] The boy was about fourteen, and I two years
older. One Sunday evening, just before nightfall, he happened to find
himself between the gate San Gallo and the Porta a Pinti; in this
quarter he came to duel with a young fellow of twenty or thereabouts.
They both had swords; and my brother dealt so valiantly that, after