d to animate his "Perseus," or his "Ganymede," or his "Diana of
Fontainebleau," with a vestige of intellectual or moral loveliness. The
vacancy of their expression proves the degradation of an art that had
ceased to idealise anything beyond a faultless body. Not thus did the
Greeks imagine even their most sensual divinities. There is at least a
thought in Faun and Satyr. Cellini's statues have no thought; their blank
animalism corresponds to the condition of their maker's soul.[359]

When Rome was carried by assault in 1527, and the Papal Court was besieged
in the castle of S. Angelo, Cellini played the part of bombardier. It is
well known that he claims to have shot the Constable of Bourbon dead with
his own hand, and to have wounded the Prince of Orange; nor does there
seem to be any adequate reason for discrediting his narrative. It is
certain that he was an expert marksman, and that he did Clement good
service by directing the artillery of S. Angelo. If we believed all his
assertions, however, we should have to suppose that nothing memorable
happened without his intervention. In his own eyes his whole life was a
miracle. The very hailstones that fell upon his head could not be grasped
in both hands. His guns and powder brought down birds no other marksman
had a chance of hitting. When he was a child, he grasped a scorpion
without injury, and saw a salamander "living and enjoying himself in the
hottest flames." After his fever at Rome in 1535, he threw off from his
stomach a hideous worm--hairy, speckled with green, black, and red--the
like whereof the doctors never saw.[360] When he finally escaped from the
dungeons of S. Angelo in 1539, a luminous appearance like an aureole
settled on his head, and stayed there for the rest of his life.[361] These
facts are related in the true spirit of Jerome Cardan, Paracelsus, Lord
Herbert of Cherbury, and Sir Thomas Browne. 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. Yet, confining himself almost wholly to his own
adventures, he presents a very vivid picture of the sad life led by the
Pope and cardinals, vainly hoping for succour from Urbino, wrangling
together about the causes of the tragedy, sewing the crown jewels into
their doublets, and run