Note 2. The Eight, or Gli Otto, were a magistracy in Florence with cognizance of matters affecting the internal peace of the city. IX THE CARDINAL DE’ MEDICI, who afterwards became Pope Clement VII., had us recalled to Florence at the entreaty of my father. [1] A certain pupil of my father’s, moved by his own bad nature, suggested to the Cardinal that he ought to send me to Bologna, in order to learn to play well from a great master there. The name of this master was Antonio, and he was in truth a worthy man in the musician’s art. The Cardinal said to my father that, if he sent me there he would give me letters of recommendation and support. My father, dying with joy at such an opportunity, sent me off; and I being eager to see the world, went with good grace. When I reached Bologna, I put myself under a certain Maestro Ercole del Piffero, and began to earn something by my trade. In the meantime I used to go every day to take my music lesson, and in a few weeks made considerable progress in that accursed art. However I made still greater in my trade of goldsmith; for the Cardinal having given me no assistance, I went to live with a Bolognese illuminator who was called Scipione Cavalletti (his house was in the street of our Lady del Baraccan); and while there I devoted myself to drawing and working for one Graziadio, a Jew, with whom I earned considerably. At the end of six months I returned to Florence, where that fellow Pierino, who had been my father’s pupil, was greatly mortified by my return. To please my father, I went to his house and played the cornet and the flute with one of his brothers, who was named Girolamo, several years younger than the said Piero, a very worthy young man, and quite the contrary of his brother. On one of those days my father came to Piero’s house to hear us play, and in ecstasy at my performance exclaimed: “I shall yet make you a marvellous musician against the will of all or any one who may desire to prevent me.” To this Piero answered, and spoke the truth: “Your Benvenuto will get much more honour and profit if he devotes himself to the goldsmiths trade than to this piping.” These words made my father angry, seeing that I too had the same opinion as Piero, that he flew into a rage and cried out at him: “Well did I know that it was you, you who put obstacles in the way of my cherished wish; you are the man who had me ousted from my place at the palace, paying me back with that black ingratitude which is the usual recompense of great benefits. I got you promoted, and you have got me cashiered; I taught you to play with all the little art you have, and you are preventing my son from obeying me; but bear in mind these words of prophecy: not years or months, I say, but only a few weeks will pass before this dirty ingratitude of yours shall plunge you into ruin.” To these words answered Pierino and said: “Maestro Giovanni, the majority of men, when they grow old, go mad at the same time; and this has