lisation of force and personal
character, we find it in Pietro Aretino. In him, too, conscience is
extinct; for him, also, there is no respect of King or Pope; he has placed
himself above law, and substituted his own will for justice. With his pen,
as Cellini with his dagger, he assassinates; his cynicism serves him for a
coat of armour. And so abject is society, so natural has tyranny become,
that he extorts blackmail from monarchs, makes princes tremble, and
receives smooth answers to his insults from Buonarroti. These three men,
Machiavelli, Cellini, and Aretino, each in his own line, and with the
proper differences that pertain to philosophic genius, artistic skill, and
ribald ruffianism, sufficiently indicate the dissolution of the social
bond in Italy. They mark their age as the age of adventurers, bandits,
bullies, Ishmaelites, and tyrants.

FOOTNOTES:

[345] "In lode e onor della vita sua e opere d'esso, e buona disposizione
della anima e del corpo." _La Vita di Benvenuto Cellini_, Firenze, Le
Monnier, 1852; _Documenti_, p. 578.

[346] I do not by this mean to commit myself to the opinion that Cellini
is accurate in details or truthful. On the contrary, it is impossible to
read his life without feeling that his vanity and self-esteem led him to
exaggeration and mis-statement. The value of the biography consists in
its picturesqueness, its brilliant and faithful colouring, and its
unconscious self-revelation of an energetic character.

[347] With regard to his pedigree Cellini tells a ridiculous story about
a certain Fiorino da Cellino, one of Julius Caesar's captains, who gave
his name to Florence. For the arms of the Cellini family, see lib. i.
cap. 50.

[348] To enlarge upon this point is hardly necessary; or it would be easy
to prove from documentary evidence that artists so eminent as Simone
Martini, Gentile da Fabriano, Perugino, and Ghirlandajo kept open shops,
where customers could buy the products of their craft from a
highly-finished altar-piece down to a painted buckler or a sign to hang
above the street-door. The commercial status of fine art in Italy was
highly beneficial to its advancement, inasmuch as it implied a thorough
technical apprenticeship for learners. The defective side of the system
was apparent in great workshops like that of Raphael, who undertook
painting-commissions quite beyond his powers of conscientious execution.

[349] See above, Chapter III, Orcagna's Tabernacle.

[350]