Benvenuto Cellini

Benvenuto Cellini , 1500-1571, Italian sculptor, metalsmith, and author. His remarkable autobiography (written 1558-62), which reads like a picaresque novel, is one of the most important documents of the 16th cent. Cellini tells of his escapades with the frankness and consummate egoism characteristic of the Renaissance man. He was born in Florence, the son of a musician; he studied music until his 15th year, when he was apprenticed to a goldsmith. Banished from Florence after fighting a duel, he went from town to town working for local goldsmiths and in 1519 went to Rome. Under the patronage of Pope Clement VII he became known as the most skillful worker in metals of his day, producing medals, jewel settings, caskets, vases, candlesticks, metal plates, and ornaments. Imprisoned on false charges, he worked at the court of Francis I at Paris after his release. He returned to Florence (1545), remaining until his death. The decorative quality of his work, its intricate and exquisite detail, and its workmanship are typical of the best of the period. Unfortunately, most of his works have perished. The famous gold and enamel saltcellar ( Saliera ) of Francis I (Vienna Mus.) and the gold medallion of Leda and the Swan (Vienna Mus.) are perhaps the best examples of those remaining. His sculptures, most of them executed in the later Florentine period, include the colossal bronze bust of Cosimo I (Bargello); the bronze bust of Altoviti (Gardner Mus., Boston); the Nymph of Fontainebleau (Louvre); the life-size Crucifixion, a white marble Jesus on a black cross (Escorial); and the renowned Perseus with the Head of Medusa (Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence), a beautifully wrought bronze statue surmounting a marble pedestal lavishly adorned with statuettes and carvings.

Bibliography: See translation of his autobiography by J. A. Symonds (1888; many later editions).

Cellini, Benvenuto (b Florence, 3 Nov. 1500; d Florence, 13 Feb. 1571). Florentine sculptor, goldsmith, medallist, and writer—the author of one of the most celebrated of all autobiographies. This racy book has been famous since the 18th century (it was first published in 1728) for its vivid picture of a Renaissance craftsman proud of his skill and independence, boastful of his feats in art, love, and war, quarrelsome, superstitious, and devoted to the great tradition embodied in Michelangelo. It has given him a wider reputation than could have come from his artistic work alone; but to modern eyes he also appears as one of the most important Mannerist sculptors, and his Perseus statue is one of the glories of Florentine art. He spent most of his life in Florence, but he worked in several other places, his movements sometimes being influenced by his violent and vain temperament; he made enemies wherever he went, was several times imprisoned, and in 1534 killed a rival goldsmith in Rome (he was pardoned by Pope Paul III ( Alessandro Farnese)).

Cellini trained as a goldsmith and in his early career (which was spent mainly in Rome) he worked predominantly in precious metals; little survives from this phase of his life apart from some medals. Between 1540 and 1545 he worked in France in the service of Francis I (see Fontainebleau), for whom he created a famous salt cellar of gold enriched with enamel (1540–3, KH Mus., Vienna), the most important piece of goldsmith's work that has survived from the Italian Renaissance and the only one that is securely documented as Cellini's. He also made for the king a bronze relief, the Nymph of Fontainebleau (c.1543, Louvre, Paris), which was his first large-scale sculpture. The remainder of Cellini's life was spent in Florence, and it was only in this period that he took up large-scale sculpture in the round with his celebrated bronze Perseus (1545–54, Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence), made for Cosimo I de' Medici. He also made two bronze portrait busts, of Cosimo I (1545–8, Bargello, Florence) and Bindo Altoviti (c.1550, Gardner Mus., Boston), and several marble sculptures, including a Crucifix (c.1555–62, Escorial, near Madrid). The somewhat dry, niggly quality of these sculptures shows that the exquisite precision of handling of his goldsmith's work did not always transfer easily to a larger scale. The triumphant completion of the Perseus in 1554 marked the summit of Cellini's career. In 1557 he was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for sodomy, and it was whilst under house arrest that he wrote his autobiography. Apart from the Crucifix (which he intended for his own tomb), his only substantial works after this were treatises on goldsmithing and sculpture, which he published in 1568.