ning the perils of the siege with common soldiers
on the ramparts. When peace at last was signed, Cellini paid a visit to
Florence, and found that his father and some other relatives had died of
plague.[362] His brother Cecchino, however, who was a soldier in the Bande
Nere of Giovanni de' Medici, and his sister Liperata survived. With them
he spent a pleasant evening; for Liperata having "for a while lamented her
father, her sister, her husband, and a little son that she had been
deprived of, went to prepare supper, and during the rest of the evening
there was not a word more spoken of the dead, but much about weddings.
Thus we supped together with the greatest cheerfulness and satisfaction
imaginable." In these sentences there is no avowal of hard-heartedness;
only the careless familiarity with loss and danger, engendered by war,
famine, plague, and personal adventures in those riotous times.[363]
Cellini gladly risked his life in a quarrel for his friends; but he would
not sadden the present by reflecting on inevitable accidents. This elastic
temper permeates his character. His affections were strong, but transient.
The one serious love-affair he describes, among a multitude of mere
debaucheries, made him miserable for a few days. His mistress, Angelica,
ran away, and left him "on the point of losing his senses or dying of
grief." Yet, when he found her again, a short time sufficed to satisfy his
longing, and he turned his back with jibes upon her when she bargained
about money.

It is worthy of notice that, at the same time, he was an excellent son and
brother. His sister was left a widow with two children; whereupon he took
them all into his house, without bragging about what appears to have been
the best action of his life. In the same spirit he conscientiously
performed what he conceived to be his duty to Cecchino, murdered by a
musketeer in Rome. After nursing his revenge till he was nearly mad, he
stole out one evening and stabbed the murderer in the back.[364] So
violent was the blow that he could not extricate his dagger from the man's
spine, but had to leave it sticking in his nape. Next to his own egotism
the strongest feelings in Cellini were domestic; and he showed them at one
moment by charity to his sister's family, at another by a savage
assassination.

After killing the musketeer, Cellini retired for refuge to the house of
Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Civita di Penna, who had been his brother's
pat