THE WHOLE world was now in warfare. [1] Pope Clement had sent to get
some troops from Giovanni de’ Medici, and when they came, they made such
disturbances in Rome, that it was ill living in open shops. [2] On this
account I retired to a good snug house behind the Banchi, where I worked
for all the friends I had acquired. Since I produced few things of much
importance at that period, I need not waste time in talking about them.
I took much pleasure in music and amusements of the kind. On the death
of Giovanni de’ Medici in Lombardy, the Pope, at the advice of Messer
Jacopo Salviati, dismissed the five bands he had engaged; and when the
Constable of Bourbon knew there were no troops in Rome, he pushed his
army with the utmost energy up to the city. The whole of Rome upon this
flew to arms. I happened to be intimate with Alessandro, the son of
Piero del Bene, who, at the time when the Colonnesi entered Rome, had
requested me to guard his palace. [3] On this more serious occasion,
therefore, he prayed me to enlist fifty comrades for the protection of
the said house, appointing me their captain, as I had been when the
Colonnesi came. So I collected fifty young men of the highest courage,
and we took up our quarters in his palace, with good pay and excellent
appointments.
Bourbon’s army had now arrived before the walls of Rome, and Alessandro
begged me to go with him to reconnoitre. So we went with one of the
stoutest fellows in our Company; and on the way a youth called Cecchino
della Casa joined himself to us. On reaching the walls by the Campo
Santo, we could see that famous army, which was making every effort to
enter the town. Upon the ramparts where we took our station several
young men were lying killed by the besiegers; the battle raged there
desperately, and there was the densest fog imaginable. I turned to
Alessandro and said: “Let us go home as soon as we can, for there is
nothing to be done here; you see the enemies are mounting, and our men
are in flight.” Alessandro, in a panic, cried: “Would God that we had
never come here!” and turned in maddest haste to fly. I took him up
somewhat sharply with these words: “Since you have brought me here, I
must perform some action worthy of a man;” and directing my arquebuse
where I saw the thickest and most serried troop of fighting men, I aimed
exactly at one whom I remarked to be higher than the rest; the fog
prevented me from being certain whether he was on horseback or on foot.
Then I turned to Alessandro and Cecchino, and bade them discharge their
arquebuses, showing them how to avoid being hit by the besiegers. When
we had fired two rounds apiece, I crept cautiously up to the wall, and
observing among the enemy a most extraordinary confusion, I discovered
afterwards that one of our shots had killed the Constable of Bourbon;
and from what I subsequently learned, he was the man whom I had first
noticed above the heads of the rest. [4]
Quitting our position on the ramparts, we crossed the Campo Santo, and
entered the city by St. Peter’s; then coming out exactly at the church
of Santo Agnolo, we got with the greatest difficulty to the great gate
of the castle; for the generals Renzo di Ceri and Orazio Baglioni were
wounding and slaughtering everybody who abandoned the defence of the
walls. [5] By the time we had reached the great gate, part of the foemen
had already entered Rome, and we had them in our rear. The castellan had
ordered the portcullis to be lowered, in order to do which they cleared
a little space, and this enabled us four to get inside. On the instant
that I entered, the captain Pallone de’ Medici claimed me as being of
the Papal household, and forced me to abandon Alessandro, which I had to
do, much against my will. I ascended to the keep, and at the same
instant Pope Clement came in through the corridors into the castle; he
had refused to leave the palace of St. Peter earlier, being unable to
believe that his enemies would effect their entrance into Rome. [6]
Having got into the castle in this way, I attached myself to certain
pieces of artillery, which were under the command of a bombardier called
Giuliano Fiorentino. Leaning there against the battlements, the unhappy
man could see his poor house being sacked, and his wife and children
outraged; fearing to strike his own folk, he dared not discharge the
cannon, and flinging the burning fuse upon the ground, he wept as though
his heart would break, and tore his cheeks with both his hands. [7] Some
of the other bombardiers were behaving in like manner; seeing which, I
took one of the matches, and got the assistance of a few men who were
not overcome by their emotions. I aimed some swivels and falconets at
points where I saw it would be useful, and killed with them a good
number of the enemy. Had it not been for this, the troops who poured
into Rome that morning, and were marching straight upon the castle,
might possibly have entered it with ease, because the artillery was
doing them no damage. I went on firing under the eyes of several
cardinals and lords, who kept blessing me and giving me the heartiest
encouragement. In my enthusiasm I strove to achieve the impossible; let
it suffice that it was I who saved the castle that morning, and brought
the other bombardiers back to their duty. [8] I worked hard the whole of
that day; and when the evening came, while the army was marching into
Rome through the Trastevere, Pope Clement appointed a great Roman
nobleman named Antonio Santacroce to be captain of all the gunners. The
first thing this man did was to come to me, and having greeted me with
the utmost kindness, he stationed me with five fine pieces of artillery
on the highest point of the castle, to which the name of the Angel
specially belongs. This circular eminence goes round the castle, and
surveys both Prati and the town of Rome. The captain put under my orders
enough men to help in managing my guns, and having seen me paid in
advance, he gave me rations of bread and a little wine, and begged me to
go forward as I had begun. I was perhaps more inclined by nature to the
profession of arms than to the one I had adopted, and I took such
pleasure in its duties that I discharged them better than those of my
own art. Night came, the enemy had entered Rome, and we who were in the
castle (especially myself, who have always taken pleasure in
extraordinary sights) stayed gazing on the indescribable scene of tumult
and conflagration in the streets below. People who were anywhere else
but where we were, could not have formed the least imagination of what
it was. I will not, however, set myself to describe that tragedy, but
will content myself with continuing the history of my own life and the
circumstances which properly belong to it.
Note 1. War had broken out in 1521 between Charles V and Francis I,
which disturbed all Europe and involved the States of Italy in serious
complications. At the moment when this chapter opens, the Imperialist
army under the Constable of Bourbon was marching upon Rome in 1527.
Note 2. These troops entered Rome in October 1526. They were disbanded
in March, 1527.
Note 3. Cellini here refers to the attack made upon Rome by the great
Ghibelline house of Colonna, led by their chief captain, Pompeo, in
September 1526. They took possession of the city and drove Clement into
the Castle of S. Angelo, where they forced him to agree to terms
favouring the Imperial cause. It was customary for Roman gentlemen to
hire bravi for the defence of their palaces when any extraordinary
disturbance was expected, as, for example, upon the vacation of the
Papal Chair.
Note 4. All historians of the sack of Rome agree in saying that Bourbon
was shot dead while placing ladders against the outworks near the shop
Cellini mentions. But the honour of firing the arquebuse which brought
him down cannot be assigned to any one in particular. Very different
stories were current on the subject. See Gregorovius, 'Stadt Rom.,' vol.
viii. p. 522.
Note 5. For Renzo di Ceri see above. Orazio Baglioni, of the
semi-princely Perugian family, was a distinguished Condottiere. He
subsequently obtained the captaincy of the Bande Nere, and died fighting
near Naples in 1528. Orazio murdered several of his cousins in order to
acquire the lordship of Perugia. His brother Malatesta undertook to
defend Florence in the siege of 1530, and sold the city by treason to
Clement.
Note 6. Giovio, in his Life of the Cardinal Prospero Colonna, relates
how he accompanied Clement in his flight from the Vatican to the castle.
While passing some open portions of the gallery, he threw his violent
mantle and cap of a Monsignore over the white stole of the Pontiff, for
fear he might be shot at by the soldiers in the streets below.
Note 7. The short autobiography of Raffaello da Montelupo, a man in many
respects resembling Cellini, confirms this part of our author’s
narrative. It is one of the most interesting pieces of evidence
regarding what went on inside the castle during the sack of Rome.
Montelupo was also a gunner, and commanded two pieces.
Note 8. This is an instance of Cellini’s exaggeration. He did more than
yeoman’s service, no doubt. But we cannot believe that, without him, the
castle would have been taken.