Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini / translated by John Addington Symonds.

  • Benvenuto Cellini
Date:
[1927]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini / translated by John Addington Symonds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/416 page 6
    I am called Benvenuto Cellini, son of Maestro Giovanni, son of Andrea, son of Cristofano Cellini; my mother was Madonna Elisa- betta, daughter to Stefano Granacci; both parents citizens of Flor¬ ence. It is found written in chronicles made by our ancestors of Florence, men of old time and of credibility, even as Giovanni Villani writes, that the city of Florence was evidently built in imitation of the fair city of Rome; and certain remnants of the Colosseum and the Baths can yet be traced. These things are near Santa Croce. The Capitol was where is now the Old Market. The Rotonda is entire, which was made for the temple of Mars, and is now dedicated to our Saint John. That thus it was, can very well be seen, and cannot be denied, but the said buildings are much smaller than those of Rome. He who caused them to be built, they say, was Julius Caesar, in concert with some noble Romans, who, when Fiesole had been stormed and taken, raised a city in this place, and each of them took in hand to erect one of these notable edifices. Julius Caesar had among his captains a man of highest rank and valour, who was called Fiorino of Cellino, which is a village about two miles distant from Monte Fiascone. Now this Fiorino took up his quarters under the hill of Fiesole, on the ground where Florence now stands, in order to be near the river Arno, and for the con¬ venience of the troops. All those soldiers and others who had to do with the said captain, used then to say: “Let us go to Fiorenze;” as well because the said captain was called Fiorino, as also because the place he had chosen for his quarters was by nature very rich in flow¬ ers. Upon the foundation of the city, therefore, since this name struck Julius Caesar as being fair and apt, and given by circumstance, and seeing furthermore that flowers themselves bring good augury, he ap¬ pointed the name of Florence for the town. He wished besides to pay his valiant captain this compliment; and he loved him all the more for having drawn him from a very humble place, and for the reason that so excellent a man was a creature of his own. The name that learned inventors and investigators of such etymologies adduce, as that Florence is flowing at the Arno, cannot hold; seeing that Rome is flowing at the Tiber, Ferrara is flowing at the Po, Lyons is flow¬ ing at the Saone, Paris is flowing at the Seine, and yet the names of all these towns are different, and have come to them by other ways.1 l He is alluding to the name Fluenzia, which some antiquaries of his day thought to have been the earliest name of the city, derived from its being near Arno fiuente. I have tra**slated the word fiuente in the text literally, though of course it signifies “situated on a flowing river.” I need not call attention to the apocryphal nature of Cellini’s own derivation from the name of his supposed ancestor.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3