energy of the man, hitherto manifested in ungoverned acts of fury, took the form of ecstasy.  He began the study of the Bible from the first chapter of Genesis, and trusting firmly to the righteousness of his own cause, compared himself to all the saints and martyrs of Scripture, men of whom the world was not worthy.  He sang psalms, prayed continually, and composed a poem in praise of his prison.  With a piece of charcoal he made a great drawing of angels surrounding God the Father on the wall.  Once only his courage gave way:  he determined on suicide, and so placed a beam that it should fall on him like a trap.  When all was ready, an unseen hand took violent hold of him, and dashed him on the ground at a considerable distance.  From this moment his dungeon was visited by angels, who healed his broken leg, and reasoned with him of religion.

The mention of these visions reminds us that Cellini had become acquainted with Savonarola’s writings during his first imprisonment.[379] Impressed with the grandeur of the prophet’s dreams, and exalted by the reading of the Bible, he no doubt mistook his delirious fancies for angelic visitors, and in the fervour of his enthusiasm laid claim to inspiration.  One of these hallucinations is particularly striking.  He had prayed that he might see the sun at least in trance, if it were impossible that he should look on it again with waking eyes.  But, while awake and in possession of his senses, he was hurried suddenly away and carried to a room, where the invisible power sustaining him appeared in human shape, “like a youth whose beard is but just growing, with a face most marvellous, fair, but of austere and far from wanton beauty.”  In that room were all the men who had ever lived and died on earth; and thence they two went together, and came into a narrow street, one side whereof was bright with sunlight.  Then Cellini asked the angel how he might behold the sun; and the angel pointed to certain steps upon the side of a house.  Up these Cellini climbed, and came into the full blaze of the sun, and, though dazzled by its brightness, he gazed steadfastly and took his fill.  While he looked, the rays fell away upon the left side and the disk shone like a bath of molten gold.  This surface swelled, and from the glory came the figure of a Christ upon the cross, which moved and stood beside the rays.  Again the surface swelled, and from the glory came the figure of Madonna and her Child; and at the right hand of the sun there knelt S. Peter in his sacerdotal robes, pleading Cellini’s cause; and “full of shame that such foul wrong should be done to Christians in his house.”  This vision marvellously strengthened Cellini’s soul, and he began to hope with confidence for liberty.  When free again, he modelled the figures he had seen in gold.