Cellini completed the "Perseus" in 1554. His autobiography is carried down to the year 1562, when it abruptly terminates. It appears that in 1558 he received the tonsure and the first ecclesiastical orders; but two years later on he married a wife, and died at the age of sixty-nine, leaving three legitimate children. He was buried honourably, and a funeral oration was pronounced above his bier in the Chapter House of the Annunziata. As a man, Cellini excites more interest than as an artist; and for this reason I have refrained from entering into minute criticism of his few remaining masterpieces. It has been well said that the two extremes of society, the statesman and the craftsman, find their point of meeting in Machiavelli and Cellini, inasmuch as both recognise no moral authority but the individual will.[388] The _virtù_, extolled by Machiavelli is exemplified by Cellini. Machiavelli bids his prince ignore the laws; Cellini respects no tribunal and takes justice into his own hands. The word conscience does not occur in Machiavelli's phraseology of ethics; conscience never makes a coward of Cellini, and in the dungeons of S. Angelo he is visited by no remorse. If we seek a literary parallel for the statesman and the artist in their idealisation of force and personal character, we find it in Pietro Aretino. In him, too, conscience is extinct; for him, also, there is no respect of King or Pope; he has placed himself above law, and substituted his own will for justice. With his pen, as Cellini with his dagger, he assassinates; his cynicism serves him for a coat of armour. And so abject is society, so natural has tyranny become, that he extorts blackmail from monarchs, makes princes tremble, and receives smooth answers to his insults from Buonarroti. These three men, Machiavelli, Cellini, and Aretino, each in his own line, and with the proper differences that pertain to philosophic genius, artistic skill, and ribald ruffianism, sufficiently indicate the dissolution of the social bond in Italy. They mark their age as the age of adventurers, bandits, bullies, Ishmaelites, and tyrants. FOOTNOTES: [345] "In lode e onor della vita sua e opere d'esso, e buona disposizione della anima e del corpo." _La Vita di Benvenuto Cellini_, Firenze, Le Monnier, 1852; _Documenti_, p. 578. [346] I do not by this mean to commit myself to the opinion that Cellini is accurate in details or truthful. On the contrary, it is impossible to read his life without feeling that his vanity and self-esteem led him to exaggeration and mis-statement. The value of the biography consists in its picturesqueness, its brilliant and faithful colouring, and its unconscious self-revelation of an energetic character. [347] With regard to his pedigree Cellini tells a ridiculous story about a certain Fiorino da Cellino, one of Julius Caesar's captains, who gave his name to Florence. For the arms of the Cellini family, see lib. i. cap. 50.