Instead of emigrating to England, Benvenuto, after a quarrel with his father about the obnoxious flute-playing, sauntered out one morning toward the gate of S. Piero Gattolini. There he met a friend called Tasso, who had also quarrelled with his parents; and the two youths agreed, upon the moment, to set off for Rome. Both were nineteen years of age. Singing and laughing, carrying their bundle by turns, and wondering "what the old folks would say," they trudged on foot to Siena, there hired a return horse between them, and so came to Rome. This residence in Rome only lasted two years, which were spent by Cellini in the employment of various masters. At the expiration of that time he returned to Florence, and distinguished himself by the making of a marriage girdle for a certain Raffaello Lapaccini.[352] The fame of this and other pieces of jewellery roused against him the envy and malice of the elder goldsmiths, and led to a serious fray, in the course of which he assaulted a young man of the Guasconti family, and was obliged to fly disguised like a monk to Rome. As this is the first of Cellini's homicidal quarrels, it is worth while to transcribe what he says about it. "One day as I was leaning against the shop of these Guasconti, and talking with them, they contrived that a load of bricks should pass by at the moment, and Gherardo Guasconti pushed it against me in such wise that it hurt me. Turning suddenly and seeing that he was laughing, I struck him so hard upon the temple that he fell down stunned. Then turning to his cousins, I said, That is how I treat cowardly thieves like you; and when they began to show fight, being many together, I, finding myself on flame, set hand to a little knife I had, and cried, If one of you leaves the shop, let another run for the confessor, for a surgeon won't find anything to do here." Nor was he contented with this truculent behaviour; for when Gherardo recovered from his blow, and the matter had come before the magistrates, Cellini went to seek him in his own house. There he stabbed him in the midst of all his family, raging meanwhile, to use his own phrase, "like an infuriated bull."[353] It appears that on this occasion no one was seriously hurt; but the affair proved perilous to Cellini, since it was a mere accident that he had not killed more than one of the Guasconti. These affrays recur continually among the adventures recorded by Cellini in his Life. He says with comical reservation of phrase that he was "naturally somewhat choleric;" and then, describes the access of his fury as a sort of fever, lasting for days, preventing him from taking food or sleep, making his blood boil in his veins, inflaming his eyes, and never suffering him to rest till he revenged himself by murder or at least by blows. To enumerate all the people he killed or wounded, or pounded to a jelly in public brawls or private quarrels, in the pursuit of deliberate _vendetta_ or under a