I REACHED Florence in due course, and paid my respects to the Duke
Alessandro, who greeted me with extraordinary kindness and pressed me to
remain in his service. There was then at Florence a sculptor called Il
Tribolino, and we were gossips, for I had stood godfather to his son.
[1] In course of conversation he told me that a certain Giacopo del
Sansovino, his first master, had sent for him; and whereas he had never
seen Venice, and because of the gains he expected, he was very glad to
go there. [2] On his asking me if I had ever been at Venice, I said no;
this made him invite me to accompany him, and I agreed. So then I told
Duke Alessandro that I wanted first to go to Venice, and that afterwards
I would return to serve him. He exacted a formal promise to this effect,
and bade me present myself before I left the city. Next day, having made
my preparations, I went to take leave of the Duke, whom I found in the
palace of the Pazzi, at that time inhabited by the wife and daughters of
Signor Lorenzo Cibo. [3] Having sent word to his Excellency that I
wished to set off for Venice with his good leave, Signor Cosimino de’
Medici, now Duke of Florence, returned with the answer that I must go to
Niccolò de Monte Aguto, who would give me fifty golden crowns, which his
Excellency bestowed on me in sign of his good-will, and afterwards I
must return to serve him.
I got the money from Niccolò, and then went to fetch Tribolo, whom I
found ready to start; and he asked me whether I had bound my sword. I
answered that a man on horseback about to take a journey ought not to
bind his sword. He said that the custom was so in Florence, since a
certain Ser Maurizio then held office, who was capable of putting S.
John the Baptist to the rack for any trifling peccadillo. [4]
Accordingly one had to carry one’s sword bound till the gates were
passed. I laughed at this, and so we set off, joining the courier to
Venice, who was nicknamed Il Lamentone. In his company we travelled
through Bologna, and arrived one evening at Ferrara. There we halted at
the inn of the Piazza, which Lamentone went in search of some Florentine
exiles, to take them letters and messages from their wives. The Duke had
given orders that only the courier might talk to them, and no one else,
under penalty of incurring the same banishment as they had. Meanwhile,
since it was a little past the hour of twenty-two, Tribolo and I went to
see the Duke of Ferrara come back from Belfiore, where he had been at a
jousting match. There we met a number of exiles, who stared at us as
though they wished to make us speak with them. Tribolo, who was the most
timorous man that I have ever known, kept on saying: “Do not look at
them or talk to them, if you care to go back to Florence.” So we stayed,
and saw the Duke return; afterwards, when we regained our inn, we found
Lamentone there. After nightfall there appeared Niccolò Benintendi, and
his brother Piero, and another old man, whom I believe to have been
Jacopo Nardi, [5] together with some young fellows, who began
immediately to ask the courier news, each man of his own family in
Florence. [6] Tribolo and I kept at a distance, in order to avoid
speaking with them. After they had talked a while with Lamentone,
Niccolò Benintendi [7] said: “I know those two men there very well;
what’s the reason they give themselves such beastly airs, and will not
talk to us?” Tribolo kept begging me to hold my tongue, while Lamentone
told them that we had not the same permission as he had. Benintendi
retorted it was idiotic nonsense, adding “Pox take them,” and other
pretty flowers of speech. Then I raised my head as gently as I could,
and said: “Dear gentlemen, you are able to do us serious injury, while
we cannot render you any assistance; and though you have flung words at
us which we are far from deserving, we do not mean on that account to
get into a rage with you.” Thereupon old Nardi said that I had spoken
like a worthy young man as I was. But Niccolò Benintendi shouted: “I
snap my fingers at them and the Duke.” [8] I replied that he was in the
wrong toward us, since we had nothing to do with him or his affairs. Old
Nardi took our part, telling Benintendi plainly that he was in the
wrong, which made him go on muttering insults. On this I bade him know
that I could say and do things to him which he would not like, and
therefore he had better mind his business, and let us alone. Once more
he cried out that he snapped his fingers at the Duke and us, and that we
were all of us a heap of donkeys. [9] I replied by giving him the lie
direct and drawing my sword. The old man wanting to be first upon the
staircase, tumbled down some steps, and all the rest of them came
huddling after him. I rushed onward, brandishing my sword along the
walls with fury, and shouting: “I will kill you all!” but I took good
care not to do them any harm, as I might too easily have done. In the
midst of this tumult the innkeeper screamed out; Lamentone cried, “For
God’s sake, hold!” some of them exclaimed, “Oh me, my head!” others,
“Let me get out from here.” In short, it was an indescribable confusion;
they looked like a herd of swine. Then the host came with a light, while
I withdrew upstairs and put my sword back in its scabbard. Lamentone
told Niccolò Benintendi that he had behaved very ill. The host said to
him: “It is as much as one’s life is worth to draw swords here; and if
the Duke were to know of your brawling, he would have you hanged. I will
not do to you what you deserve; but take care you never show yourself
again in my inn, or it will be the worse for you.” Our host then came up
to me, and when I began to make him my excuses, he would not suffer me
to say a word, but told me that he knew I was entirely in the right, and
bade me be upon my guard against those men upon my journey.
Note 1. Niccolò de’ Pericoli, a Florentine, who got the nickname of
Tribolo in his boyhood, was a sculptor of some distinction. He worked on
the bas-reliefs of San Petronio at Bologna, and helped Michel Agnolo da
Siena to execute the tomb of Adrian VI. at Rome. Afterwards he was
employed upon the sculpture of the Santa Casa at Loreto. He also made
some excellent bronzework for the Medicean villas at Cestello and
Petraja. All through his life Tribolo served the Medici, and during the
siege of Florence in 1530 he constructed a cork model of the town for
Clement VII. Born 1485, died 1550.
Note 2. This is the famous Giacopo Tatti, who took his artist’s surname
from his master, Andrea da Monte a Sansovino. His works at Florence,
Rome, and Venice are justly famous. He died in 1570, aged ninety-three.
Note 3. A brother of the Cardinal, and himself Marquis of Massa.
Note 4. Ser Maurizio was entitled Chancellor, but really superintended
the criminal magistracy of Florence. Varchi and Segni both speak of him
as harsh and cruel in the discharge of his office.
Note 5. Jacopo Nardi was the excellent historian of Florence, a strong
anti-Medicean partisan, who was exiled in 1530.
Note 6. I have translated the word 'brigata' by 'family' above, because
I find Cellini in one of his letters alluding to his family as 'la mia
brigatina.'
Note 7. Niccolò Benintendi, who had been a member of the Eight in 1529,
was exiled by the Medici in 1530.