however, appear that the English king secured the services of men so distinguished as Lionardo da Vinci, II Rosso, Primaticcio, Del Sarto, and Cellini, who shed an artificial lustre on the Court of France.  Going to London then was worse than going to Russia now, and to take up a lengthy residence among questi diavoli ... quelle bestie di quegli Inglesi, as Cellini politely calls the English, did not suit a Southern taste.  He had, moreover, private reasons for disliking Torrigiani, who boasted of having broken Michael Angelo’s nose in a quarrel.  “His words,” says Cellini, “raised in me such a hatred of the fellow that, far from wishing to accompany him to England, I could not bear to look at him.”  It may be mentioned that one of Cellini’s best points was hero-worship for Michael Angelo.  He never speaks of him except as quel divino Michel Agnolo, il mio maestro, and extols la bella maniera of the mighty sculptor to the skies.  Torrigiani, as far as we can gather from Cellini’s description of him, must have been a man of his own kidney and complexion:  “he was handsome, of consummate assurance, having rather the airs of a bravo than a sculptor; above all, his fierce gestures and his sonorous voice, with a peculiar manner of knitting his brows, were enough to frighten everyone that saw him; and he was continually talking of his valiant feats among those bears of Englishmen.”  The story of Torrigiani’s death in Spain is worth repeating.  A grandee employed him to model a Madonna, which he did with more than usual care, expecting a great reward.  His pay, however, falling short of is expectation, in a fit of fury he knocked his statue to pieces.  For this act of sacrilege, as it was deemed, to the work of his own brain and hand, Torrigiani was thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition.  There he starved himself to death in 1522 in order to escape the fate of being burned.  This story helps to explain why the fine arts were never well developed in Spain, and why they languished after the introduction of the Holy Office into Italy.[351]

Instead of emigrating to England, Benvenuto, after a quarrel with his father about the obnoxious flute-playing, sauntered out one morning toward the gate of S. Piero Gattolini.  There he met a friend called Tasso, who had also quarrelled with his parents; and the two youths agreed, upon the moment, to set off for Rome.  Both were nineteen years of age.  Singing and laughing, carrying their bundle by turns, and wondering “what the old folks would say,” they trudged on foot to Siena, there hired a return horse between them, and so came to Rome.  This residence in Rome only lasted two years, which were spent by Cellini in the employment of various masters.  At the expiration of that time he returned to Florence, and distinguished himself by the making of a marriage girdle for a certain Raffaello Lapaccini.[352] The fame of this and other pieces of jewellery roused against him the envy and malice of the elder goldsmiths, and led to a serious fray, in the course of which he assaulted a young man of the Guasconti family, and was obliged to fly disguised like a monk to Rome.