TOBBIA the goldsmith meanwhile worked at the setting and the decoration
of the unicorn’s horn. The Pope, moreover, commissioned him to begin the
chalice upon the model he had seen in mine. But when Tobbia came to show
him what he had done, he was very discontented, and greatly regretted
that he had broken with me, blaming all the other man’s works and the
people who had introduced them to him; and several times Baccino della
Croce came from him to tell me that I must not neglect the reliquary. I
answered that I begged his Holiness to let me breathe a little after the
great illness I had suffered, and from which I was not as yet wholly
free, adding that I would make it clear to him that all the hours in
which I could work should be spent in his service. I had indeed begun to
make his portrait, and was executing a medal in secret. I fashioned the
steel dies for stamping this medal in my own house; while I kept a
partner in my workshop, who had been my prentice and was called Felice.
At that time, as is the wont of young men, I had fallen in love with a
Sicilian girl, who was exceedingly beautiful. On it becoming clear that
she returned my affection, her mother perceived how the matter stood,
and grew suspicious of what might happen. The truth is that I had
arranged to elope with the girl for a year to Florence, unknown to her
mother; but she, getting wind of this, left Rome secretly one night, and
went off in the direction of Naples. She gave out that she was gone by
Cività Vecchia, but she really went by Ostia. I followed them to Cività
Vecchia, and did a multitude of mad things to discover her. It would be
too long to narrate them all in detail; enough that I was on the point
of losing my wits or dying. After two months she wrote to me that she
was in Sicily, extremely unhappy. I meanwhile was indulging myself in
all the pleasures man can think of, and had engaged in another love
affair, merely to drown the memory of my real passion.