Note 4. Cellini here alludes to the Sistine Chapel and to the Villa
Farnesina in Trastevere, built by the Sienese banker, Agostino Chigi. It
was here that Raphael painted his Galatea and the whole fable of Cupid
and Psyche.



XX

WHILE I was working at this piece, Lucagnolo, of whose ability I have
before spoken, showed considerable discontent, telling me over and over
again that I might acquire far more profit and honour by helping him to
execute large plate, as I had done at first. I made him answer that,
whenever I chose, I should always be capable of working at great silver
pieces; but that things like that on which I was now engaged were not
commissioned every day; and beside their bringing no less honour than
large silver plate, there was also more profit to be made by them. He
laughed me in the face, and said: "Wait and see, Benvenuto; for by the
time that you have finished that work of yours, I will make haste to
have finished this vase, which I took in hand when you did the jewel;
and then experience shall teach you what profit I shall get from my
vase, and what you will get from your ornament." I answered that I was
very glad indeed to enter into such a competition with so good a
craftsman as he was, because the end would show which of us was
mistaken. Accordingly both the one and the other of us, with a scornful
smile upon our lips, bent our heads in grim earnest to the work, which
both were now desirous of accomplishing; so that after about ten days,
each had finished his undertaking with great delicacy and artistic skill.

Lucagnolo's was a huge silver piece, used at the table of Pope Clement,