Italy.[358] Men made their own God and worshipped him; and the God of Cellini was one who always helped those who began to help themselves by taking justice into their own hands. From the date of his second visit to Rome in 1523, Cellini's life divides itself into three periods, the first spent in the service of Popes Clement VII. and Paul III., the second in Paris at the Court of Francis, and the third at Florence under Cosimo de' Medici. On arriving in Rome, his extraordinary abilities soon brought him into notice at the Court. The Chigi family, the Bishop of Salamanca, and the Pope himself employed him to make various jewels, ornaments, and services of plate. In consequence of a dream in which his father appeared and warned him not to neglect music, under pain of the paternal malediction, he accepted a post in the Papal band. The old bugbear of flute-playing followed him until his father's death, and then we hear no more of it. The history of this portion of his life is among the most entertaining passages of his biography. Drawing the Roman ruins, shooting pigeons, scouring the Campagna on a pony like a shaggy bear, fighting duels, prosecuting love-affairs, defending his shop against robbers, skirmishing with Moorish pirates on the shore by Cerveterra, stabbing, falling ill of the plague and the French sickness--these adventures diversify the account he gives of masterpieces in gold and silver ware. The literary and artistic society of Rome at this period was very brilliant. Painters, sculptors, and goldsmiths mixed with scholars and poets, passing their time alternately in the palaces of dukes and cardinals and in the lodgings of gay women. Bohemianism of the wildest type was combined with the manners of the great world. A little incident described at some length by Cellini brings this varied life before us. There was a club of artists, including Giulio Romano and other pupils of Raphael, who met twice a week to sup together and to spend the evening in conversation, with music and the recitation of sonnets. Each member of this company brought with him a lady. Cellini, on one occasion, not being provided for the moment with an _innamorata_, dressed up a beautiful Spanish youth called Diego as a woman, and took him to the supper. The ensuing scene is described in the most vivid manner. We see before us the band of painters and poets, the women in their bright costumes, the table adorned with flowers and fruit, and, as a background to the whole picture, a trellis of jasmines with dark foliage and starry blossoms. Diego, called Pomona, with regard doubtless to his dark and ruddy beauty, is unanimously proclaimed the fairest of the fair. Then a discovery of his sex is made; and the adventure leads, as usual in the doings of Cellini, to daggers, midnight ambushes, and vendettas that only end with bloodshed.