his father's joy
at having a son.[347] It was the wish of Giovanni Cellini's heart that his
son should be a musician. Benvenuto in consequence practised the flute for
many years attentively, though much against his will. At the age of
fifteen so great was his desire to learn the arts of design that his
father placed him under the care of the goldsmith Marcone. At the same
time he tells us in his memoirs: "I continued to play sometimes through
complaisance to my father either upon the flute or the horn; and I
constantly drew tears and deep sighs from him every time he heard me."
While engaged in the workshop of Marcone, Benvenuto came to blows with
some young men who had attacked his brother, and was obliged to leave
Florence for a time. At this period he visited Siena, Bologna, and Pisa,
gaming his livelihood by working in the shops of goldsmiths, and steadily
advancing in his art.

It must not be thought that this education was a mean one for so great an
artist. Painting and sculpture in Italy were regarded as trades, and the
artist had his _bottega_ just as much as the cobbler or the
blacksmith.[348] I have already had occasion to point out that an
apprenticeship to goldsmith's work was considered at Florence an almost
indispensable commencement of advanced art-study.[349] Brunelleschi,
Botticelli, Orcagna, Verocchio, Ghiberti, Pollajuolo, Ghirlandajo, Luca
della Robbia, all underwent this training before they applied themselves
to architecture, painting, and sculpture. As the goldsmith's craft was
understood in Florence, it exacted the most exquisite nicety in
performance as well as design. It forced the student to familiarise
himself with the materials, instruments, and technical processes of art;
so that, later on in life, he was not tempted to leave the execution of
his work to journeymen and hirelings.[350] No labour seemed too minute, no
metal was too mean, for the exercise of the master-workman's skill; nor
did he run the risk of becoming one of those half-amateurs in whom
accomplishment falls short of first conception. Art ennobled for him all
that he was called to do. Whether cardinals required him to fashion silver
vases for their banquet-tables; or ladies wished the setting of their
jewels altered; or a pope wanted the enamelled binding of a book of
prayers; or men-at-arms sent swordblades to be damascened with acanthus
foliage; or kings desired fountains and statues for their palace courts;
or poets begge