The last entry in Benvenuto Cellini’s manuscript is the announcement of a journey made by Duke Cosmo with his whole court, including his brother, the Cardinal de Medici, to Pisa, where the latter was attacked by “a malignant fever, which in a few days put an end to his life.  The cardinal was one of the duke’s chief supporters, and highly beloved by him, being a person of great virtues and abilities.  Consequently, his loss was severely felt.”

In 1554, Benvenuto had been admitted to the ranks of the Florentine nobility.  In 1560 he married Piera, the woman named in his will, who nursed him through his illness from the poison administered by the Sbietta family.  By her he had five children, two of whom died in infancy.  In 1561, Duke Cosmo made him a grant of a house near San Croce, in the Via Rosajo, Florence, “in consideration of his admirable talents in casting, sculpture, and other branches of art.”  The patent continues:  “We look upon his productions, both in marble and bronze, as evident proofs of his surpassing genius and incomparable skill.”

Benvenuto was deputed by the sculptors of Florence to attend the obsequies of his great master and friend, Michael Angelo Buonarroti, who had died on February 18, 1564.  Benvenuto died on December 13, 1569, and was buried by his own direction in the Chapter House of the Church of the Annunziata, Florence, with great pomp.

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CHATEAUBRIAND

Memoirs From Beyond the Grave

The “Memoires d’Outre-Tombe,” which was partly published before Chateaubriand’s death, represents a work spread over a great part of Chateaubriand’s life, and reveals as no other of his books the innermost personality of the man.  (Chateaubriand, biography:  see FICTION.)

I.—­Youth and Its Follies

Four years ago, on my return from the Holy Land, I purchased a little country house, situated near the hamlet of Aulnay, in the vicinity of Sceaux and Chatenay.  The house is in a valley, encircled by thickly wooded hills.  The ground attached to this habitation is a sort of wild orchard.  These narrow confines seem to me to be fitting boundaries of my long-protracted hopes.  I have selected the trees, as far as I was able, from the various climes I have visited.  They remind me of my wanderings.

Knight-errant as I am, I have the sedentary tastes of a monk.  It was here I wrote the “Martyrs,” the “Abencerrages,” the “Itineraire,” and “Moise.”  To what shall I devote myself in the evenings of the present autumn?  This day, October 4, being the anniversary of my entrance into Jerusalem, tempts me to commence the history of my life.

I am of noble descent, and I have profited by the accident of my birth, inasmuch as I have retained that firm love of liberty which characterises the members of an aristocracy whose last hour has sounded.  Aristocracy has three successive ages—­the age of superiority, the age of privilege, and the age of vanity.  Having emerged from the first age, ft degenerates in the second age, and perishes in the third.