Page:The Life of Benvenuto Cellini Vol 1.djvu/68

Rh all other hypotheses in favour of a pure myth, by which the origin of the city is referred to an imaginary ancestor of his own, Fiorino da Cellino, a captain in the army of Julius Caesar. It is needless to say that there is no ground whatever for the legend; and we can hardly believe that Cellini thought it would impose on any one's credulity. That it flattered his own vanity is certain; and I suspect from his way of introducing it that the story formed part of some domestic gossip regarding his ancestry which he had heard in boyhood. Many of the so-called Norman pedigrees of our aristocracy used to begin with fables hardly less ridiculous. To call this one of Cellini's lies would be as absurd as to deny that it confirms our belief in his childish self-conceit and uncritical habit of mind.

A more important piece of boasting is usually cast in his teeth. He tells us how he went, upon the 6th of May 1527, to the ramparts of Rome at the moment when the assault of the Imperial troops was being hotly pressed, and how he slew a captain with a well-directed musket-shot. This captain, as he afterwards learned, was the Constable of Bourbon. Now there is nothing to prove whether he did or did not shoot the Constable. He only mentions the fact himself on hearsay, and when he enumerated his past services before the judges who sent him to prison in 1538 he did not mention this feat. That he wounded the Prince of Orange by the discharge of a culverin from the Castle of S. Angelo has never been disputed. Indeed, it is quite certain that he performed more than