Italian critics, Baretti, put it:--"The life of Benvenuto
Cellini, written by himself in the pure and unsophisticated idiom of
the Florentine people, surpasses every book in our literature for the
delight it affords the reader." This is high praise for the product of
a literature that boasts of Boccaccio's 'Decameron,' and gave birth to
the _novelle_, the parent of modern fiction. Yet the critics of other
nations have echoed this praise. Auguste Comte, the positivist
philosopher, included it in his limited list for the reading of
reformed humanity, and Goethe, laying aside his own creative work,
deemed it worth his time and attention to translate into German.

Benvenuto Cellini was born at Florence in 1500. The father, Giovanni
Cellini, a musician and maker of musical instruments, intended that
the boy should likewise become a musician; but young Benvenuto very
early showed strong leaning toward the plastic art, and detested the
flute he was forced to practice. The first chapters of the 'Memoirs'
are a most lively description of the struggles between the wishes of
the father and those of the son, until the latter finally prevailed,
and at fifteen years of age he was apprenticed to a goldsmith of
Florence. He made rapid progress, and soon attracted notice as a
skilled craftsman. At the same time, to please his father, toward whom
he everywhere professes the most filial feeling, he continued "that
confounded flute-playing" as a side issue. This accomplishment,
however, did him a good turn at the Papal court later on. After
various youthful escapades, street broils, and quarrels with his
father, he fled in monk's disguise to Rome in 1521. A vase made for
the Bishop of Salamanca drew upon him the notice of Pope Clement VII.,
who appointed him court musician and also employed him in his proper
profession of goldsmith. When the Constable de Bourbon attacked Rome,
in 1527, Cellini was of great service to the Pope in defending the
city. He boasts of having from the ramparts shot the Bourbon; and
indeed, if one were to take him strictly at his word, his valor and
skill as an engineer saved the castle of San Angelo and the Pope.
However his lively imagination may have overrated his own importance,
yet it is certain that his military exploit paved the way for his
return to Florence, where for a time he devoted himself to the
execution of bronze medals and coins. The most famous of the former
are Hercules and the Nemean Lion, and A