The Duke was now aware that all my previous speeches had been, as it were, forced out of me. So he rejoined, "If you have confidence in me, you need not stand in fear of anything whatever." I recommenced, "Alas! my lord, what can prevent this coming to the ears of the Duchess?" The Duke lifted his hand in sign of troth pledge and exclaimed, "Be assured that what you say will be buried in a diamond casket." To this engagement upon honor I replied by telling the truth according to my judgment, namely, that the pearls were not worth above two thousand crowns. The Duchess, thinking we had stopped talking, for we now were speaking in as low a voice as possible, came forward and began as follows:--"My lord, do me the favor to purchase this necklace, because I have set my heart on them, and your Benvenuto here has said he never saw a finer row of pearls." The Duke replied, "I do not choose to buy them."--"Why, my lord, will not your Excellency gratify me by buying them?"--"Because I do not care to throw my money out of the window." The Duchess recommenced, "What do you mean by throwing your money away, when Benvenuto, in whom you place such well-merited confidence, has told me that they would be cheap at over three thousand crowns?" Then the Duke said, "My lady! my Benvenuto here has told me that if I purchase this necklace I shall be throwing my money away, inasmuch as the pearls are neither round nor well-matched, and some of them are quite faded. To prove that this is so, look here! look there! consider this one and then that. The necklace is not the sort of thing for me." At these words the Duchess cast a glance of bitter spite at me, and retired with a threatening nod of her head in my direction. I felt tempted to pack off at once and bid farewell to Italy. Yet my Perseus being all but finished, I did not like to leave without exposing it to public view. But I ask every one to consider in what a grievous plight I found myself!
From the 'Memoirs': Symonds's Translation
My brother at this period was also in Rome, serving Duke Alessandro, on whom the Pope had recently conferred the duchy of Penna. This prince kept in his service a multitude of soldiers, worthy fellows, brought up to valor in the school of that famous general Giovanni de' Medici; and among these was my brother, whom the Duke esteemed as highly as the bravest of them. One day my brother went after dinner to the shop of a man called Baccino della Croce, in the Banchi, which all those men-at-arms frequented. He had flung himself upon a settee and was sleeping. Just then the guard of the Bargello passed by; they were taking to prison a certain Captain Cisti, a Lombard, who had also been a member of Giovanni's troop, but was not in the service of the Duke. The captain, Cattivanza degli Strozzi, chanced to be in the same shop; and when Cisti caught sight of him he whispered, "I was bringing you those crowns I owed; if you want them, come for them before they go with me to prison." Now Cattivanza had a way of putting his neighbors to the push, not caring to hazard his own person. So, finding there around him several young fellows of the highest daring, more eager than apt for so serious an enterprise, he bade them catch up Captain Cisti and get the money from him, and if the guard resisted, overpower the men, provided they had pluck enough to do so.