The life of Benvenuto, son of maestro Giovanni Cellini, a Florentine, written by himself in Florence.

Benvenuto Cellini's memoirs are written in the first person. According to the famous jeweler and sculptor, every person who has done something valiant is obliged to tell the world about himself - but to begin this good deed should only be after forty years. Benvenuto took up the pen in the fifty-ninth year of his life, and he firmly decided to tell only about what has to do with himself. (The reader of the notes needs to remember that Benvenuto had a rare ability to distort both proper names and geographical names.)

The first book is dedicated to the period from 1500 to 1539. Benvenuto reports that he was born in a simple but noble family. In ancient times, under the leadership of Julius Caesar, a brave military leader named Fiorino of Cellino served. When the city was founded on the Arno River, Caesar decided to call it Florence, wishing to pay tribute to his comrade-in-arms, whom he singled out among all the others. Rod Cellini had many possessions, and in Ravenna even a castle. The ancestors of Benvenuto himself lived in Val d'Ambra, like nobles. Once they had to send the young man Cristofano to Florence, because he started a feud with his neighbors. His son Andrea became very versed in architecture and taught children this craft. Giovanni, the father of Benvenuto, was especially successful in it. Giovanni could choose a girl with a rich dowry, but married for love - Madonna Elizabeth Granachchi. For eighteen years they had no children, and then a girl was born. The good Giovanni did not expect a son, and when Madonna Elizabeth was relieved of the burden by a male infant, the happy father called him "Desired" (Benvenuto). The signs predicted that a great future awaited the boy. He was only three years old when he caught a huge scorpion and miraculously survived. At the age of five, he saw in the flame of the hearth of a beast that looked like a lizard, and his father explained that it was a salamander, which in his memory had never appeared to anyone alive. And by the age of fifteen, he had accomplished so many marvelous acts that it was better to keep silent about them due to lack of space.

Giovanni Cellini was famous for many arts, but most of all he loved to play the flute and tried to attract the eldest son to it. Benvenuto hated damned music and took up the instrument, only not to upset his good father. Entering the training in goldsmith master Antonio di Sandro, he surpassed all the other young men in the workshop and began to make good money with his labor. It happened that the sisters offended him, secretly giving away a new camisole and a raincoat to his younger brother, and Benvenuto left Florence to Pisa in frustration, but he continued to work hard there. Then he moved to Rome in order to study antiquities, and made some very beautiful little things, trying in everything to follow the canons of the divine Michelangelo Buonarroti, from which he never retreated. Returning at the urgent request of his father to Florence, he impressed everyone with his art, but there were envious people who began to slander him in every possible way. Benvenuto could not restrain himself: he struck one of them with his fist in the temple, and since he did not restrain himself and climbed into the fray, he waved him off with a dagger without causing much harm. The relatives of this Gerardo immediately ran to complain to the Council of Eight - Benvenuto was innocently sentenced to exile, and had to go to Rome again. One noble lady ordered him a frame for a diamond lily. And his friend Lucagnolo - a capable jeweler, but kind of low and vile - cut out a vase at that time and boasted that he would receive a lot of gold coins. However, Benvenuto was ahead of the arrogant hillbilly in everything: he was paid much more generously for the trinket than for the big thing, and when he undertook to make a vase for one bishop, he surpassed Lucagnolo in this art. Palment Clement, barely seeing the vase, ignited Benvenuto with great love. The silver jugs that he forged for the famous surgeon Yakomo da Carpi brought him even more fame: showing them, he told stories that they were the work of ancient masters. This little businessman brought Benvenuto great fame, although he did not win too much in money.

After a terrible pestilence, the survivors began to love each other - this was how the community of sculptors, painters, and jewelers formed in Rome. And the great Michelangelo from Siena publicly praised Benvenuto for his giftedness - he especially liked the medal where Hercules was depicted tearing the mouth of a lion. But then the war began, and the community fell apart. The Spaniards, led by Bourbon, approached Rome. Pala Clement in fear fled to the castle of the Holy Angel, and Benvenuto followed him. During the siege, he was assigned to the guns and accomplished many feats: with one well-aimed shot he killed Bourbon, and the second wounded the Prince of Orange. It so happened that during the kickback a barrel of stones fell down and almost hit Cardinal Farnese, Benvenuto hardly managed to prove his innocence, although it would have been much better if he had got rid of this cardinal at the same time. Pala Clement trusted his jeweler so much that he ordered the gold tiaras to be melted in order to save them from the greed of the Spaniards. When Benvenuto finally arrived in Florence, there was also a plague, and his father told him to escape in Mantua. Upon his return, he found out that all his relatives had died - only his younger brother and one of the sisters remained. The brother, who became a great warrior, served with the Florentine Duke of Lessandro. In a random skirmish, he was wounded by a bullet from an arquebus, and he died in the arms of Benvenuto, who tracked down the killer and duly avenged him.

Dad, meanwhile, moved to Florence in a war, and friends persuaded Benvenuto to leave the city so as not to quarrel with His Holiness. At first, everything went perfectly, and Benvenuto was granted the position of a mace bearer, bringing two hundred scuds a year. But when he asked for a position of seven hundred scantily, envious people intervened, especially the Pompeo from Milan, who tried to break the cup ordered by Papa from Benvenuto. Enemies slipped the dad to the useless jeweler Tobbius, and he was commissioned to prepare a gift for the French king. Once Benvenuto accidentally hurt his friend, and Pompeo immediately ran to his dad with the news that he was killed by Tobbia. The angry pal ordered Benvenuto to be seized and hanged, so he had to hide in Naples until everything was clarified. Clement repented of his injustice, but still died and soon died, and Cardinal Farnese was elected dad. Benvenuto accidentally met Pompeo, whom he did not want to kill at all, but it just so happened. The slanderers tried to set a new dad on him, but he said that such artists, one of a kind, are not subject to the laws of the court. However, Benvenuto considered it best to temporarily retire to Florence, where the Duke of Lessandro did not want to let him go, threatening even death, but he himself fell a victim to the murderer, and Cosimo, the son of the great Giovanni de Medici, became the new Duke. Returning to Rome, Benvenuto found that envious people had achieved their goal - papa, although he granted him a pardon for the murder of Pompeo, he turned away from him with his heart. Meanwhile, Benvenuto was already so glorified that the French king called him to his service.

Together with faithful students, Benvenuto went to Paris, where he received an audience with the monarch. That, however, was the end of the matter: the insidiousness of the enemies and military operations made the stay in France impossible. Benvenuto returned to Rome and received many orders. He had to drive one worker from Perugia out of idleness, and he decided to take revenge: he whispered to his dad that Benvenuto had stolen precious stones during the siege of the castle of St. Angel and now has a fortune of eighty thousand ducats. The greed of Pagolo da Farnese and his son Pierre Luigi knew no bounds: they ordered to imprison Benvenuto in prison, and when the accusation fell apart, they decided to certainly kill him. Upon learning of this injustice, King Francis began to work through the Cardinal of Ferrara so that Benvenuto would be released to serve him. Castellan of the castle, a noble and kind man, reacted to the prisoner with the greatest participation: he made it possible to freely walk around the castle and engage in his favorite art. There was one monk in the casemate. Taking advantage of Benvenuto's oversight, he stole wax from him to make keys and escape. Benvenuto swore by all the saints that he was not guilty of the monk's malice, but the castellan became so angry that he almost lost his mind. Benvenuto began to prepare for an escape and, having arranged everything in the best way, went downstairs on a rope woven from the sheet. Unfortunately, the wall around the castle was too high, and he, breaking loose, broke his leg. The widow of the Duke of Lessandro, remembering his great works, agreed to give him shelter, but the cunning enemies did not back down and again escorted Benvenuto to the prison, despite the pope's promise to spare him. Castellan, completely crazy, subjected him to such unheard-of torments that he was already saying goodbye to his life, but then Cardinal Ferrara won the consent of the pope to free the innocent convict. In prison, Benvenuto wrote a poem about his suffering - this is the “capitol” and concludes the first book of memoirs.

In the second book, Benvenuto talks about his stay at the court of Francis I and the Florentine Duke Cosimo. After resting a little after the hardships of imprisonment, Benvenuto went to the Cardinal of Ferrara, taking with him his beloved students - Ascanio, Pagolo-Roman and Pagolo-Florentine. On the way, one postal keeper decided to start a quarrel, and Benvenuto just squealed a squeak at him, but a bullet that rebounded with a ricochet killed the insolent on the spot, and his sons, in an attempt to take revenge, slightly wounded Pagolo the Roman. Upon learning of this, Cardinal Ferrara thanked heaven, for he promised the French king to bring Benvenuto without fail. They arrived in Paris without incident.

The king received Benvenuto extremely graciously, and this aroused the envy of the cardinal, who began to covertly plot. He told Benvenuto that the king wanted to put him a salary of three hundred scanty, although for that kind of money it was not worth leaving Rome. Deceived in his expectations, Benvenuto said goodbye to his students, and they cried and asked him not to leave them, but he firmly decided to return to his homeland. However, a messenger was sent after him, and the cardinal announced that he would be paid seven hundred scant a year - the same amount as the painter Leonardo da Vinci received. After seeing the king, Benvenuto spoke out a hundred scantily to each of the students, and also asked him to give him Little Nel Castle for the workshop. The king readily agreed, as the people who lived in the castle ate their bread for nothing. Benvenuto had to drive away these loafers, but the workshop turned out to be glorious, and you could immediately take up the royal order - a statue of silver Jupiter.

Soon the king with his court came to watch the work, and everyone was amazed at the wonderful art of Benvenuto. And Benvenuto planned to make a salt shaker of amazing beauty and a magnificent carved door for the king, more beautiful than which the French had never seen. Unfortunately, it did not occur to him to win the favor of Madame de Tampes, who had a great influence on the monarch, and she held a grudge against him. And the little people whom he expelled from the castle brought a lawsuit against him and they annoyed him so much that he pulled them with a dagger and taught them wisdom, but did not kill anyone. To top it all off, Pagolo Michcheri, a Florentine student, entered into fornication with model Katerina, had to beat the slut to bruises, although she was still needed for work. The traitor Pagolo Benvenuto forced to marry this French whore, and then every day he called her to him to draw and sculpt, and at the same time indulged in her carnal joy in revenge to the cuckold husband. Meanwhile, Cardinal Ferrara persuaded the king not to pay Benvenuto's money; the good king could not resist the temptation, because the emperor moved with his army to Paris and the treasury was empty. Madame de Tampa also continued to plot, and with pain in her heart, Benvenuto decided to temporarily leave for Italy, leaving the workshop in Ascanio and Pagolo Roman. The king was whispered that he had taken three precious vases with him, which was impossible to do, since the law forbids this, so Benvenuto, upon the first request, gave these vases to the traitor Ascanio.

In 1545, Benvenuto arrived in Florence - solely to help his sister and her six daughters. The duke began to squander caresses, begging him to stay and promising unheard of mercies. Benvenuto agreed and regretted it bitterly. For the workshop they allocated him a miserable little house, which had to be patched on the go. The court sculptor Bandinello praised his virtues in every possible way, although his nasty crafts could only cause a grin - but Benvenuto surpassed himself by casting a statue of Perseus in bronze. This creation was so beautiful that people did not get tired of marveling at him, and Benvenuto asked the duke for work ten thousand pounds, and he gave only three with a great creak. Many times Benvenuto recalled the magnanimous and generous king, with whom he parted so frivolously, but nothing could be corrected anymore, for the insidious disciples did everything to prevent him from returning. The duchess, who initially defended Benvenuto in front of her husband, was terribly angry when the duke, on his advice, refused to give money for the pearls that she liked, - Benvenuto suffered exclusively for his honesty, because he could not hide from the duke that it was not worth buying these stones. As a result, a new large order was received by the mediocre Bandinello, who was given marble for the statue of Neptune. From all sides, troubles fell on Benvenuto: a man nicknamed Zbietta deceived him in the contract for the sale of the manor, and his wife Zbietta poured him a gravy of gravy, so he barely survived, although he could not expose the villains. The French queen, who visited her native Florence, wanted to invite him to Paris to sculpt a tombstone for her deceased husband, but the duke prevented this. A pestilence began, from which the prince died - the best of all the Medici. Only when the tears were dry did Benvenuto go to Pisa. (The second book of memoirs breaks off at this phrase.)