[348] To enlarge upon this point is hardly necessary; or it would be easy to prove from documentary evidence that artists so eminent as Simone Martini, Gentile da Fabriano, Perugino, and Ghirlandajo kept open shops, where customers could buy the products of their craft from a highly-finished altar-piece down to a painted buckler or a sign to hang above the street-door. The commercial status of fine art in Italy was highly beneficial to its advancement, inasmuch as it implied a thorough technical apprenticeship for learners. The defective side of the system was apparent in great workshops like that of Raphael, who undertook painting-commissions quite beyond his powers of conscientious execution. [349] See above, Chapter III, Orcagna's Tabernacle. [350] See lib. ii. cap. 5, for the description of Francis I. visiting Cellini in his work-room. He finds him hammering away at the metal, and suggests that he might leave that labour to his prentices. Cellini replies that the excellence of his work would suffer if he did not do it himself. [351] See Yriarte, _Vie d'un Gentilhomme de Venise_, p. 439, for a process instituted by the Inquisition against Paolo Veronese. [352] He calls it "un chiavaquore di argento, il quale era in quei tempi chiamato cosi. Questo si era una cintura di tre dita larga, che alle spose novelle s' usava di fare." [353] "Si come un toro invelenito." [354] "Living men have felt my blows: those many maimed and mutilated stones one sees, attest to your disgrace: the earth hides my bad work." See the lines quoted by Perkins, _Tuscan Sculptors_, vol. ii. p. 140. [355] Lib. i. cap. 79. [356] Lib. ii. cap. 34. The whole history of this woman Caterina, and of the revenge he took upon her and his prentice Paolo, is one of the most extraordinary passages in the life. [357] See Vol. 1., _Age of the Despots_, pp. 377-380. [358] See Vol. 1., _Age of the Despots_, pp. 362-363. [359] This might be further illustrated by analysing Cellini's mode of loving. He never rises above animal appetite. [360] Lib. i. cap. 85. "Nel qual vomito mi usci dello stomaco un verme piloso, grande un quarto di braccio: e' peli erano grandi ed il verme era bruttissimo, macchiato di diversi colori, verdi, neri e rossi." [361] Lib. i. cap. 128. [362] Notice lib. i. cap. 40, p. 90, the dialogue between Cellini and the old woman, on his return to the paternal house: "Oh dimmi, gobba perversa," &c. [363] "Per essere il mondo intenebrato di peste e di guerra," is a phrase of Cellini's, i. 40. [364] Lib. i. cap. 51. [365] Lib. i. cap. 74. Clement was dead, and Paul III. had just been elected, 1534. Paul sent Cellini a safe-conduct and pardon for Pompeo's murder to Florence in 1535. Lib. i. cap. 81. [366] Lib. ii. cap. 104. [367] Lib. i. cap. 64.