“It is a duty incumbent on upright and credible men of all ranks, who have performed anything noble or praiseworthy, to record, in their own writing, the events of their lives; yet they should not commence this honorable task before they have passed their fortieth year.  Such at least is my opinion now that I have completed my fifty-eighth year, and am settled in Florence, where, considering the numerous ills that constantly attend human life, I perceive that I have never before been so free from vexations and calamities, or possessed of so great a share of content and health as at this period.  Looking back on some delightful and happy events of my life, and on many misfortunes so truly overwhelming that the appalling retrospect makes me wonder how I have reached this age in vigor and prosperity, through God’s goodness I have resolved to publish an account of my life; and ...  I must, in commencing my narrative, satisfy the public on some few points to which its curiosity is usually directed; the first of which is to ascertain whether a man is descended from a virtuous and ancient family....  I shall therefore now proceed to inform the reader how it pleased God that I should come into the world.”

So you read on page i; what you read on page 191 is this:—­

“Just after sunset, about eight o’clock, as this musqueteer stood at his door with his sword in his hand, when he had done supper, I with great address came close up to him with a long dagger, and gave him a violent back-handed stroke, which I aimed at his neck.  He instantly turned round, and the blow, falling directly upon his left shoulder, broke the whole bone of it; upon which he dropped his sword, quite overcome by the pain, and took to his heels.  I pursued, and in four steps came up with him, when, raising the dagger over his head, which he lowered down, I hit him exactly upon the nape of the neck.  The weapon penetrated so deep that, though I made a great effort to recover it again, I found it impossible.”

So much for murder.  Now for manslaughter, or rather Cellini’s notion of manslaughter.

“Pompeo entered an apothecary’s shop at the corner of the Chiavica, about some business, and stayed there for some time.  I was told he had boasted of having bullied me, but it turned out a fatal adventure to him.  Just as I arrived at that quarter he was coming out of the shop, and his bravoes, having made an opening, formed a circle round him.  I thereupon clapped my hand to a sharp dagger, and having forced my way through the file of ruffians, laid hold of him by the throat, so quickly and with such presence of mind that there was not one of his friends could defend him.  I pulled him towards me to give him a blow in front, but he turned his face about through excess of terror, so that I wounded him exactly under the ear; and upon repeating my blow, he fell down dead.  It had never been my intention to kill him, but blows are not always under command.”