rendered true to the square and not a few would have had the whole taken down and rebuilt for that purpose, and to the end that it might be exactly in the square. But it was ultimately decided that it would be most advisable to continue the work as it had been commenced; this determination beingarrived at, partly to avoid appearing presumptuous or malevolent towards Baccio, and partly that we might not seem incapable of discovering and correcting the errors and defects committed by others.
But let us now return to Baccio, and not omit to remark that although his advantages were always perceived and acknowledged even during his life, yet he will be much better known and more earnestly desired, now that he is dead. Nay, much more effectually would all that he was capable of effecting have been acknowledged and appreciated even during his life, if he had received from nature the favour of a more amiable and obliging disposition, but the fact that this was not so, but that he was on the contrary discourteous in action and most rude of speech, deprived him of the good wdll of his contemporaries, and obscured his reputation, causing his talents to be less clearly perceived, and himself to be regarded with prejudiced eyes by the whole people, insomuch that he could never please or satisfy any one. Nay, although attached to the service now of this noble and now of that, and very capable by his knowledge of art, of performing such service effectually, he nevertheless did everything with so bad a grace that there were none who gave him any great thanks for his pains. His constant habit of evil speaking moreover, and of censuring all the works of others, was a cause for which no one could ever endure him; nay, whenever it was in the power of those whom he thus offended to repay him in the like coin, they took care to give him back his own both principal and interest.[1]
- ↑ We have an amusing illustration of the truth of this remark in the
Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, who was precisely the person to give
back any man a his own both principal and interest/’ if that “own” consisted in abusive words. Let us hear what he relates of himself in this
particular.
“I resolved to kill the scoundrel whenever I could catch him, and set off for the purpose of seeking him; then it chanced that as I entered the Piazza di San Domenico, Bandinelli came into it from the opposite angle, and I hurried directly towards him with intent to accomplish that sanguinary
