hat he was obliged to flee from
Florence. He went first to Siena, and thence to Bologna, and at last
back to Florence, where he resumed his work. It was not long, however,
before he became angry again because his best clothes were given to his
brother, and he walked off to Pisa, where he remained a year. He had
even then become so skilful in his art that some of his works done there
have never been excelled either in design or execution.

When Cellini was eighteen years old Torrigiano came to Florence to
engage artists to go to England to aid him in some works he was to
execute. He wished to have Cellini in the number; but Torrigiano so
disgusted Benvenuto by his boasting of the blow that he had given
Michael Angelo, that though he had the natural youthful desire to
travel, he refused to be employed by such a man as Torrigiano. We can
safely assume that this predisposed Michael Angelo in Cellini's favor,
and was the foundation of the friendship which he afterward showed to
the younger sculptor.

From his eighteenth to his fortieth year Cellini lived mostly at Rome.
He was employed by Pope Clement VII., the cardinals and Roman nobles.
The Pope desired to have a cope button made and a magnificent diamond
set in it. This jewel had cost Julius II. thirty-six thousand ducats.
Many artists sent in designs for this button, and Clement chose that by
Cellini. He used the diamond as a throne, and placed a figure of the
Almighty upon it; the hand was raised as if in blessing, and many angels
fluttered about the folds of the drapery, while various jewels were set
around the whole. When other artists saw the design they did not believe
that it could be executed successfully; but Cellini made it a perfect
work of art and of beauty.

Cellini writes of himself as being very active in the siege of Rome, May
5th, 1527. He says that he killed the Constable de Bourbon, who led the
siege, and that he wounded the Prince of Orange, who was chosen in
Bourbon's place. No one else saw him perform these feats. Cellini went
to the Pope, who was in the Castle of St. Angelo, and he there rendered
such services to the cause of the Church that the Holy Father pardoned
him for all the sins into which his temper had led him--"for all the
homicides he had committed or might commit in the service of the
Apostolic Church." A few years later, when Cellini was called upon to
take part in the defence of his own city, he put all his property into
the care o