d to have their portraits cast in bronze; or generals needed
medals to commemorate their victories, or dukes new coins for their mint;
or bishops ordered reliquaries for the altars of their patron saints; or
merchants sought for seals and signet rings engraved with their device; or
men of fashion asked for medallions of Leda and Adonis to fasten in their
caps--all these commissions could be undertaken by a workman like Cellini.
He was prepared for all alike by his apprenticeship to _orfevria_; and to
all he gave the same amount of conscientious toil. The consequence was
that, at the time of the Renaissance, furniture, plate, jewels, and
articles of personal adornment were objects of true art. The mind of the
craftsman was exercised afresh in every piece of work. Pretty things were
not bought, machine-made, by the gross in a warehouse; nor was it
customary, as now it is, to see the same design repeated with mechanical
regularity in every house.

In 1518 Benvenuto returned to Florence and began to study the cartoons of
Michael Angelo. He must have already acquired considerable reputation as a
workman, for about this time Torrigiani invited him to go to England in
his company and enter the service of Henry VIII. The Renaissance was now
beginning to penetrate the nations of the North, and Henry and Francis
vied with each other in trying to attract foreign artists to their
capitals. It does not, however, appear that the English king secured the
services of men so distinguished as Lionardo da Vinci, II Rosso,
Primaticcio, Del Sarto, and Cellini, who shed an artificial lustre on the
Court of France. Going to London then was worse than going to Russia now,
and to take up a lengthy residence among _questi diavoli ... quelle bestie
di quegli Inglesi_, as Cellini politely calls the English, did not suit a
Southern taste. He had, moreover, private reasons for disliking
Torrigiani, who boasted of having broken Michael Angelo's nose in a
quarrel. "His words," says Cellini, "raised in me such a hatred of the
fellow that, far from wishing to accompany him to England, I could not
bear to look at him." It may be mentioned that one of Cellini's best
points was hero-worship for Michael Angelo. He never speaks of him except
as _quel divino Michel Agnolo, il mio maestro_, and extols _la bella
maniera_ of the mighty sculptor to the skies. Torrigiani, as far as we can
gather from Cellini's description of him, must have been a man of his own
kid