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Cellini doubtless believed in them; but they warn us to be cautious in accepting what he says about his exploits, since imagination and self-conceit could so far distort his judgment. It may be regretted that Cellini has not given a fuller account of the memorable sack of Borne.
The throne is an immense, heavy bedstead, the posts of which are thickly incrusted with rubies, turquoises, emeralds, and sapphires. There is a funnel-shaped chimney-piece in the room, a master-work of Benevenuto Cellini. There, half a century ago, the foreign ambassadors were presented, after having been bathed, fed, and clothed with a rich mantle in the outer apartments.
M. Moreau-Vauthier is not perhaps a modern Cellini; he has certainly never produced anything that could be classed with the "Perseus" of the Loggia de' Lanzi, or even with the Fontainebleau "Diana;" but he does more than anyone else to keep alive the tradition of Florentine preciosity, and about everything he does there is something delightful.
Of nothing that he ever did in life was he so proud as we may gather from Cellini as of having disfigured Michelangelo, and in that sentiment the naive spirit of his age again peeps forth. We shall also see Leonardo da Vinci joining the duke's army as engineer but that not until some months later.
In silence I loosened my hair and began to brush it and put it in order before the mirror, and as I did so my thoughts were very busy. I remembered distinctly all that had happened in the studio of Raffaello Cellini, and still more distinctly was I able to recall every detail of the three dreams that had visited me in my slumber.
In the Perseus of Cellini we admire the sculptor's spirit, finish of execution, and originality of design, while we deplore that want of sympathy with the heroic character which makes his type of physical beauty slightly vulgar and his facial expression vacuous.
When Benvenuto Cellini was preparing to make an image of the Virgin, he declares gravely that Our Lady appeared to him that he might know what she was like; and so real was the apparition that for many months after, he says that his friends when the room was dark could see a faint aureole about his head.
He then proposed that Cellini should return to Paris and undertake the ornamental details of the tomb. The Duke would not consent, and Catherine de' Medici did not choose to quarrel with her cousin about an artist. So this arrangement, which might have secured the completion of the statue on a splendid scale, fell through.
And when it has become cold, portray... whatever you wish, and taking a slender ductile instrument, and a small hammer, design that which you have portrayed around it by striking lightly." This process is practically, on a larger scale, what Cellini describes as that of "minuterie."
Allowance must also be made for the fact that the gospel is written in the Greek language, whilst the first-hand traditions and the actual utterances of Jesus must have been in Aramaic, the dialect of Palestine. These distinctions were important, as you will find if you read Holinshed or Froissart and then read Benvenuto Cellini.
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