ports with
pride that Michelangelo said to him: "If this work were made in
great, whether in marble or in bronze, and fashioned with as
exquisite a design as this, it would astonish the world; and
even in its present size it seems to me so beautiful that I
do not think even a goldsmith of the ancient world fashioned aught
to come up to it!" Cellini says that these words "stiffened him
up," and gave him much increased ambition. He describes also an
Atlas which he constructed of wrought gold, to be placed upon a
lapis lazuli background: this he made in extreme relief, using
tiny tools, "working right into the arms and legs, and making all
alike of equal thickness." A cope-button for Pope Clement was also
quite a _tour de force_; as he said, "these pieces of work are often
harder the smaller they are." The design showed the Almighty seated
on a great diamond; around him there were "a number of jolly little
angels," some in complete relief. He describes how he began with a
flat sheet of gold, and worked constantly and conscientiously,
gradually bossing it up, until, with one tool and then another, he
finally mastered the material, "till one fine day God the Father
stood forth in the round, most comely to behold." So skilful was
Cellini in this art that he "bossed up in high relief with his
punches some fifteen little angels, without even having to solder
the tiniest rent!" The fastening of the clasp was decorated with
"little snails and masks and other pleasing trifles," which suggest
to us that Benvenuto was a true son of the Renaissance, and that his
design did not equal his ability as a craftsman.

Cellini's method of forming a silver vase was on this wise. The
original plate of silver had to be red hot, "not too red, for then
it would crack,--but sufficient to burn certain little grains thrown
on to it." It was then adjusted to the stake, and struck with the
hammer, towards the centre, until by degrees it began to take convex
form. Then, keeping the central point always in view by means of
compasses, from that point he struck "a series of concentric circles
about half a finger apart from each other," and with a hammer,
beginning at the centre, struck so that the "movement of the hammer
shall be in the form of a spiral, and follow the concentric circles."
It was important to keep the form very even all round. Then the
vase had to be hammered from within, "till it was equally bellied
all round," and after that, the neck