Excerpt from The Life of Benvenuto Cellini, Vol. 2 Now let the world take notice, and all the folk that dwell on it, what power malignant stars with ad verse fortune exercise upon us human beings! I had not spoken twice in my lifetime to that little simple ton of a Cardinal de' Gaddi; nor do I think that he meant by this bumptiousness of his to do me any harm, but only, through light-headedness and sense less folly, to make it seem as though he also held the aflairs of artists, whom the King was wanting, under his own personal supervision, just as the Car dinal of Ferrara did. But afterwards he was so stu pid as not to tell me anything at all about the mat ter; elsewise, it is certain that my wish to shield a silly mannikin from reproach, if only for our coun try's sake, would have made me find out some ex cuse to mend the bungling of his foolish self-conceit. Immediately upon the receipt of Cardinal Ferrara's letter, I answered that about Cardinal de' Gaddi I knew absolutely nothing, and that even if he had made overtures of that kind to me, I should not have left Italy without informing his most reverend lord ship. I also said that I had more to do in Rome than at any previous time; but that if his Most Chris tian Majesty made Sign of wanting me, one word of his, communicated by so great a prince'as his most reverend lordship, would suffice to make me set off upon the spot, leaving all other concerns to take their chance. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.