For the rest of Clement’s pontificate the relations between him and Cellini varied; now the jeweller was in high favour, now in disgrace. Jealous rivals maligned him; Cellini retorted by personal attack. His rash hands readily obeyed his quick temper; he struck down an enemy wherever he met him and then fled to escape just consequences. Throughout he laboured assiduously at his art. One of his finest works was a gold chalice for the pope and he was employed to make the stamp for the Roman mint, and it is agreed that his coins were the finest produced. Then a great change came over his fortunes; Pope Clement VII died and was succeeded by Paul III, a Farnese and no friend to Cellini, who had also incurred the bitter enmity of one Pier Luigi, the new pope’s nephew. Benvenuto went wrong at once by following up an old quarrel with another jeweller, Pompeo, who had been in the service of Clement and constantly at variance with Cellini. One day Pompeo came to his shop, Cellini relates, and stopping in front of the door, “whilst you might say a couple of Ave Marias, began to laugh in my face; and when he went off his comrades fell a laughing likewise, shook their heads and made many gestures in derision and defiance of me.” Cellini, hot-headed as usual, was easily spurred on by his friends to retaliate; he followed Pompeo down the street and met him as he came out of a shop where he had been boasting of having bullied Cellini, who continues: “I thereupon clapped my hand to a sharp dagger and laid hold of him by the throat so quickly and with such presence of mind that there was no one who 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 my repeating my blow he fell down dead. It had never been my intention to kill him but blows are not always under command.” Cellini found protectors. Cardinal Cornaro, a Venetian, sent out a party of soldiers to bring him safely to his house. At the same time Cardinal de Medicis proposed to befriend him but Cornaro angrily refused to part with Cellini, vowing that he was as proper a person to take care of him as De Medicis. At that time the new pope, Paul III, came into power and called for Cellini, meaning to employ him again at the mint. They told Paul that Cellini had absconded for having killed one Pompeo in a fray, but the pope would not interfere, declaring that “men who are masters in their profession like Benvenuto should not be subject to the laws, but he less than any other, for I am sensible that he was right in the whole affair. I have often heard of Benvenuto’s provocation, so let a safe conduct be made out and that will secure him from all manner of danger.” After that Cellini resumed his business and was again employed by the pope’s order at the mint.