I NOW stayed at home, and went rarely to the palace, labouring with
great diligence to complete my statue. I had to pay the workmen out of
my own pocket; for the Duke, after giving Lattanzio Gorini orders to
discharge their wages, at the end of about eighteen months, grew tired,
and withdrew this subsidy. I asked Lattanzio why he did not pay me as
usual. The man replied, gesticulating with those spidery hands of his,
in a shrill gnat’s voice: “Why do not you finish your work? One thinks
that you will never get it done.” In a rage I up and answered: “May the
plague catch you and all who dare to think I shall not finish it!”
So I went home with despair at heart to my unlucky Perseus, not without
weeping, when I remembered the prosperity I had abandoned in Paris under
the patronage of that marvellous King Francis, where I had abundance of
all kinds, and here had everything to want for. Many a time I had it in
my soul to cast myself away for lost. One day on one of these occasions,
I mounted a nice nag I had, put a hundred crowns in my purse, and went
to Fiesole to visit a natural son of mine there, who was at nurse with
my gossip, the wife of one of my workpeople. When I reached the house, I
found the boy in good health, and kissed him, very sad at heart. On
taking leave, he would not let me go, but held me with his little hands
and a tempest of cries and tears. Considering that he was only two years
old or thereabouts, the child’s grief was something wonderful. Now I had
resolved, in the heat of my despair, if I met Bandinello, who went every
evening to a farm of his above San Domenico, that I would hurl him to
destruction; so I disengaged myself from my baby, and left the boy there
sobbing his heart out. Taking the road toward Florence, just when I
entered the piazza of San Domenico, Bandinello was arriving from the
other side. On the instant I decided upon bloodshed; but when I reached
the man and raised my eyes, I saw him unarmed, riding a sorry mule or
rather donkey, and he had with him a boy of ten years old. No sooner did
he catch sight of me than he turned the colour of a corpse, and trembled
from head to foot. Perceiving at once how base the business would be, I
exclaimed: “Fear not, vile coward! I do not condescend to smite you.” He
looked at me submissively and said nothing. Thereupon I recovered
command of my faculties, and thanked God that His goodness had withheld
me from so great an act of violence. Then, being delivered from that
fiendish fury, my spirits rose, and I said to myself: “If God but grant
me to execute my work, I hope by its means to annihilate all my
scoundrelly enemies; and thus I shall perform far greater and more
glorious revenges that if I had vented my rage upon one single foe.”
Having this excellent resolve in heart, I reached my home. At the end of
three days news was brought me that my only son had been smothered by
his nurse, my gossip, which gave me greater grief than I have ever had
in my whole life. However, I knelt upon the ground, and, not without
tears, returned thanks to God, as I was wont, exclaiming, “Lord, Thou
gavest me the child, and Thou hast taken him; for all Thy dealings I
thank Thee with my whole heart.” This great sorrow went nigh to
depriving me of reason; yet, according to my habit, I made a virtue of
necessity, and adapted myself to circumstances as well as I was able.