Act I. The carnival of 1532. We are in the house of the Papal

treasurer, _Balducci_, who has scolded his daughter _Teresa_ for having looked out of the window. The old man is quite vexed, because the Pope has summoned the goldsmith _Cellini_ to Rome.

_Balducci's_ daughter _Teresa_, however, thinks quite otherwise and is happy. For she has found a note from _Cellini_ in a bouquet that was thrown in to her from the street by a mask--_Cellini_, of course. A few moments later he appears at her side and proposes a plan of elopement. In the morning, during the carnival mask, he will wear a white monk's hood. His apprentice _Ascanio_ will wear a brown one. They will join her and they will flee together. But a listener has sneaked in--_Fieramosca_, the Pope's sculptor, and no less _Cellini's_ rival in love than in art. He overhears the plot. Unexpectedly, too, _Teresa's_ father, _Balducci_, comes back. His daughter still up? In her anxiety to find an excuse, she says she heard a man sneak in. During the search _Cellini_ disappears, and _Fieramosca_ is apprehended. Before he can explain his presence, women neighbours, who have hurried in, drag him off to the public bath house and treat him to a ducking.