IT is true that men who have laboured with some show of excellence, have
already given knowledge of themselves to the world; and this alone ought
to suffice them; I mean the fact that they have proved their manhood and
achieved renown. Yet one must needs live like others; and so in a work
like this there will always be found occasion for natural bragging,
which is of divers kinds, and the first is that a man should let others
know he draws his lineage from persons of worth and most ancient origin.
I am called Benvenuto Cellini, son of Maestro Giovanni, son of Andrea,
son of Cristofano Cellini; my mother was Madonna Elisabetta, daughter to
Stefano Granacci; both parents citizens of Florence. It is found written
in chronicles made by our ancestors of Florence, men of old time and of
credibility, even as Giovanni Villani writes, that the city of Florence
was evidently built in imitation of the fair city of Rome; and certain
remnants of the Colosseum and the Baths can yet be traced. These things
are near Santa Croce. The Capitol was where is now the Old Market. The
Rotonda is entire, which was made for the temple of Mars, and is now
dedicated to our Saint John. That thus is was, can very well be seen,
and cannot be denied, but the said buildings are much smaller than those
of Rome. He who caused them to built, they say, was Julius Cæsar, in
concert with some noble Romans, who, when Fiesole had been stormed and
taken, raised a city in this place, and each of them took in hand to
erect one of these notable edifices.
Julius Cæsar had among his captains a man of highest rank and valour,
who was called Fiorino of Cellino, which is a village about two miles
distant from Monte Fiascone. Now this Fiorino took up his quarters under
the hill of Fiesole, on the ground where Florence now stands, in order
to be near the river Arno, and for the convenience of the troops. All
those soldiers and others who had to do with the said captain, used then
to say: “Let us go to Fiorenze;” as well because the said captain was
called Fiorino, as also because the place he had chosen for his quarters
was by nature very rich in flowers. Upon the foundation of the city,
therefore, since this name struck Julius Cæsar as being fair and apt,
and given by circumstance, and seeing furthermore that flowers
themselves bring good augury, he appointed the name of Florence for the
town. He wished besides to pay his valiant captain this compliment; and
he loved him all the more for having drawn him from a very humble place,
and for the reason that so excellent a man was a creature of his own.
The name that learned inventors and investigators of such etymologies
adduce, as that Florence is flowing at the Arno, cannot hold; seeing
that Rome is flowing at the Tiber, Ferrara is flowing at the Po, Lyons
is flowing at the Saone, Paris is flowing at the Seine, and yet the
names of all these towns are different, and have come to them by other
ways. [1]
Thus then we find; and thus we believe that we are descended from a man
of worth. Furthermore, we find that there are Cellinis of our stock in
Ravenna, that most ancient town of Italy, where too are plenty of gentle
folk. In Pisa also there are some, and I have discovered them in many
parts of Christendom; and in this state also the breed exists, men
devoted to the profession of arms; for not many years ago a young man,
called Luca Cellini, a beardless youth, fought with a soldier of
experience and a most valorous man, named Francesco da Vicorati, who had
frequently fought before in single combat. This Luca, by his own valour,
with sword in hand, overcame and slew him, with such bravery and
stoutness that he moved the folk to wonder, who were expecting quite the
contrary issue; so that I glory in tracing my descent from men of valour.
As for the trifling honours which I have gained for my house, under the
well-known conditions of our present ways of living, and by means of my
art, albeit the same are matters of no great moment, I will relate these
in their proper time and place, taking much more pride in having been
born humble and having laid some honourable foundation for my family,
than if I had been born of great lineage and had stained or overclouded
that by my base qualities. So then I will make a beginning by saying how
it pleased God I should be born.
Note 1. He is alluding to the name 'Fluenzia,' which some antiquaries of
his day thought to have been the earliest name of the city, derived from
its being near 'Arno Fluente.' I have translated the word 'fluente' in
the text literally, though of course it signifies “situated on a flowing
river.” I need not call attention to the apocryphal nature of Cellini’s
own derivation from the name of his supposed ancestor.