Saliera di benvenuto cellini autobiography

Italian goldsmith and sculptor (1500–1571)

For the Berlioz opera, see Benvenuto Cellini (opera).

"Cellini" redirects here. Idea other uses, see Cellini (disambiguation).

Benvenuto Cellini (, Italian:[beɱveˈnuːtotʃelˈliːni]; 3 Nov 1500 – 13 February 1571) was key Italian goldsmith, sculptor, and framer.

His best-known extant works subsume the Cellini Salt Cellar, honourableness sculpture of Perseus with greatness Head of Medusa, and authority autobiography, which has been dubious as "one of the get bigger important documents of the Sixteenth century".^[2][3]

Biography

Youth

Benvenuto Cellini was born thwart Florence, in present-day Italy.

Surmount parents were Giovanni Cellini suffer Maria Lisabetta Granacci. They were married for 18 years already the birth of their chief child. Benvenuto was the in two shakes child of the family. Leadership son of a musician topmost builder of musical instruments, Carver was pushed towards music, nevertheless when he was fifteen, fillet father reluctantly agreed to learner him to a goldsmith, Antonio di Sandro, nicknamed Marcone.

Premier the age of 16, Benvenuto had already attracted attention overlook Florence by taking part guess an affray with youthful associates. He was banished for provoke months and lived in Siena, where he worked for unembellished goldsmith named Fracastoro (unrelated hearten the Veronese polymath). From Siena he moved to Bologna, to what place he became a more acquainted cornett and flute player survive made progress as a goldsmith.^[4] After a visit to City and two periods of progress in Florence (where he was visited by the sculptor Torrigiano), he moved to Rome, habit the age of nineteen.^[6]

Work anxiety Rome

His first works in Brouhaha were a silver casket, silver plate candlesticks, and a vase bring back the bishop of Salamanca, which won him the approval custom Pope Clement VII.

Another famous work from Rome is honesty gold medallion of "Leda station the Swan" executed for dignity Gonfaloniere Gabbriello Cesarino, and which is now in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence.^[7] He also took up integrity cornett again, and was fit one of the pope's tedious musicians.^[8]

In the attack on Malady by the imperial forces light Charles V, Holy Roman Monarch under the command of Physicist III, Duke of Bourbon put forward Constable of France, Cellini's daring proved of signal service in half a shake the pontiff.

According to Cellini's own accounts, he shot near injured Philibert of Châlon, sovereign of Orange^[9] (and, allegedly, cannon-ball and killed Charles III derived in the Sack of Rome). His bravery led to expert reconciliation with the Florentine magistrates,^[10] and he soon returned seal his hometown of Florence.

Give he devoted himself to crafting medals, the more famous detailed which are "Hercules and illustriousness Nemean Lion", in gold repoussé work, and "Atlas supporting significance Sphere", in chased gold, description latter eventually falling into birth possession of Francis I remove France.

From Florence, he went back the court of the aristo of Mantua, and then restrict to Florence.

On returning be introduced to Rome, he was employed imprison the working of jewelry sit in the execution of dies for private medals and cherish the papal mint. In 1529, his brother Cecchino killed boss Corporal of the Roman Pocket watch and in turn was diseased by an arquebusier, later going of his wound. Soon after Benvenuto killed his brother's killer—an act of blood revenge on the contrary not justice as Cellini admits that his brother's killer difficult to understand acted in self-defense.^[13] Cellini muted to Naples to shelter break the consequences of an agitation with a notary, Ser Benedetto, whom he had wounded.

Rebuke the influence of several cardinals, Cellini obtained a pardon. Misstep found favor with the unique pope, Paul III, notwithstanding calligraphic fresh homicide during the interregnum three days after the sortout of Pope Clement VII set in motion September 1534. The fourth scapegoat was a rival goldsmith, Pompeo of Milan.^[14]

Ferrara and France

The plots of Pier Luigi Farnese discovered to Cellini's retreat from Set-to to Florence and Venice, hoop he was restored with bigger honour than before.

At honesty age of 37, upon repeated from a visit to decency French court, he was interned on a charge (apparently false) of having embezzled the jewellery of the pope's tiara around the war. He was tiny to the Castel Sant'Angelo, free, was recaptured, and was burned with great severity; he was in daily expectation of complete on the scaffold.

While immured in 1539, Cellini was justness target of an assassination endeavor of murder by ingestion replicate diamond dust; the attempt unsuccessful, for a nondiamond gem was used instead.^[15] The intercession replica Pier Luigi's wife, and exceptionally that of the Cardinal d'Este of Ferrara, eventually secured Cellini's release, in gratitude for which he gave d'Este a exceptional cup.^[16]

Cellini then worked at significance court of Francis I authorized Fontainebleau and Paris.

Cellini legal action known to have taken harsh of his female models since mistresses, having an illegitimate maid in 1544 with one female them while living in Writer, whom he named Costanza.^[17] Sculpturer considered the Duchesse d'Étampes restrict be set against him move refused to conciliate with excellence king's favorites.

He could inept longer silence his enemies stomach-turning the sword, as he challenging silenced those in Rome.

Final turn back to Florence and death

After various years of productive work lineage France, but beset by approximately continual professional conflicts and bloodshed, Cellini returned to Florence.

About he once again took vigorous his skills as a author, and was warmly welcomed via Duke Cosimo I de' House – who elevated him vertical the position of court artist and gave him an beautiful house in Via del Rosario (where Cellini built a foundry), with an annual salary be more or less two hundred scudi. Furthermore, Cosimo commissioned him to make yoke significant bronze sculptures: a jail of himself, and Perseus account the head of Medusa (which was to be placed summon the Lanzi loggia in character centre of the city).

In 1548, Cellini was accused through a woman named Margherita be in command of having committed sodomy with jewels son Vincenzo,^[18] and he for the moment fled to seek shelter remove Venice. This was neither rendering first nor the last interval that Cellini was implicated all for sodomy (once with a lassie and at least three days with men during his life), illustrating his homosexual or hermaphroditical tendencies.^[19][20][21] For example, earlier call a halt his life as a youthful man, he was sentenced persist pay 12 staia of flour in 1523 for relations confront another young man named Domenico di Ser Giuliano da Ripa.^[22] Meanwhile, in Paris a plague model and lover brought excise against him of using in sync "after the Italian fashion" (i.e., sodomy).^[22]

During the war with Siena in 1554, Cellini was adapted to strengthen the defences search out his native city, and, notwithstanding rather shabbily treated by emperor ducal patrons, he continued pile-up gain the admiration of fillet fellow citizens by the superlative works which he produced.

According to Cellini's autobiography, it was during this period that consummate personal rivalry with the sculpturer Baccio Bandinelli grew.^[23] On 26 February 1556, Cellini's apprentice Fernando di Giovanni di Montepulciano offender his mentor of having sodomised him many times while "keeping him for five years family unit his bed as a wife".^[24] This time the penalty was a hefty 50 golden scudi fine, and four years pay prison, remitted to four duration of house arrest thanks stand your ground the intercession of the Medicis.^[22] In a public altercation at one time Duke Cosimo, Bandinelli had hollered out to him Sta cheto, soddomitaccio! (Shut up, you polluted sodomite!) Cellini described this type an "atrocious insult", and attempted to laugh it off.^[25]

After succinctly attempting a clerical career, ploy 1562 he married a lackey, Piera Parigi, with whom recognized claimed he had five posterity, of whom only a individual and two daughters survived him.

He was also named straighten up member (Accademico) of the imposing Accademia delle Arti del Disegno of Florence, founded by position Duke Cosimo I de' House, on 13 January 1563, prep below the influence of the father Giorgio Vasari. He died bother Florence on 13 February 1571 and was buried with useful pomp in the church counterfeit the Santissima Annunziata.

Artwork

Statues

Besides authority works in gold and white, Cellini executed sculptures of natty grander scale. One of excellence main projects of his Sculpturer period is probably the Gold Gate for the Château mellowness Fontainebleau. Only the bronze cavum of this unfinished work, which represents the Nymph of Fontainebleau (Paris, Louvre), still exists, nevertheless the complete aspect can tweak known through archives, preparatory drawings and reduced casts.^[26][27][28]

• 1542 Cellini sketch which would have flanked interpretation Nymphe de Fontainebleau

• The Nymph put a stop to Fontainebleau, by Benvenuto Cellini, at once in the Louvre (1542)

• 1542 Sculptor statue which would have flanked the Nymphe de Fontainebleau

Upon fulfil return from France to coronate hometown Florence in 1545, Benvenuto cast a bronze bust good deal Cosimo I Medici, the Illustrious Duke of Tuscany.^[29] On that statue, Cellini crafted three anthropomorphous heads on to the smartness of the duke.

The lid of them is "grotesque" off work on the right shoulder surrounding Cosimo. The decorative head evolution composed of lineaments of fastidious satyr, lion and a male. Two other heads, much lesser than the first and supposedly apparent identical, can be found below the collarbones on the bust's front. His most distinguished bust is the bronze group donation Perseus with the Head catch sight of Medusa, a work (first elective by Duke Cosimo I surety Medici) now in the Loggia dei Lanzi at Florence, government attempt to surpass Michelangelo's David and Donatello's Judith and Holofernes.

The casting of this profession caused Cellini much trouble careful anxiety, but it was hailed as a masterpiece as any minute now as it was completed. Representation original relief from the settle up of the pedestal—Perseus and Andromeda—is in the Bargello, and has been replaced by a cast.

By 1996, centuries of environmental contamination exposure had streaked and banded the statue.

In December 1996 it was removed from ethics Loggia and transferred to distinction Uffizi for cleaning and return. It was a slow occasion, and the restored statue was not returned to its domicile until June 2000.^{[citation needed]}

Decorative attention and portraiture

Among his art productions, many of which have decayed, were a colossal Mars demand a fountain at Fontainebleau captivated the bronzes of the entree, coins for the Papal most recent Florentine states, a life-sized silverware Jupiter, and a bronze breakdown of Bindo Altoviti.

The productions of decorative art are ruddy in style.

In addition to influence bronze statue of Perseus fairy story the medallions previously referred greet, the works of art train in existence today are a ornament of Clement VII commemorating position peace between the Christian princes, 1530, with a bust unbutton the pope on the turn upside down and a figure of Ataraxia setting fire to a accumulate of arms in front ransack the temple of Janus, gestural with the artist's name; systematic signed portrait medal of Francis; a medal of Cardinal Pietro Bembo; and the celebrated gilded, enamel and ivory ^{[citation needed]} salt cellar (known as Saliera) made for Francis I noise France at Vienna.

This tough 26-cm-high sculpture, of a threshold conservatively estimated at 58,000,000 schilling, was commissioned by Francis Raving. Its principal figures are regular naked sea god and systematic woman, sitting opposite each thought with legs entwined, symbolically to save the planet Earth. Saliera was stolen from the Kunsthistorisches Museum on 11 May 2003 lump a thief who climbed state and smashed windows to go aboard the museum.

The thief lead off the alarms, but these were ignored as false, dominant the theft remained undiscovered 8:20 am. On 21 January 2006 the Saliera was recovered stomachturning the Austrian police and following returned to the Kunsthistorisches Museum where it is now appal on Kunstkammer display.^[30] One sharing the more important works timorous Cellini from late in ruler career was a life-size buck naked crucifix carved from marble.

Granted originally intended to be be situated over his tomb, this mongrel was sold to the House family who gave it medical Spain. Today the crucifix admiration in the Escorial Monastery away Madrid, where it has generally been displayed in an changed form – the monastery further a loincloth and a coil of thorns. For detailed dossier about this work, see prestige text by Juan López Gajate in the Further Reading disintegrate of this article.

Cellini, childhood employed at the papal small fortune at Rome during the pontificate of Clement VII and following of Paul III, created character dies of several coins bracket medals, some of which unrelenting survive at this now-defunct billions. He was also in high-mindedness service of Alessandro de House, first duke of Florence, good spirits whom he made in 1535 a 40-soldi piece with exceptional bust of the duke temporary one side and standing poll of the saints Cosima obtain Damian on the other.

Appropriate connoisseurs attribute to his get by several plaques, "Jupiter crushing righteousness Giants," "Fight between Perseus put forward Phineus", a Dog, etc. On works, such as the rendering bust shown, are not circuitously attributed but are instead attributed to his workshop.

Lost works

The important works which have putrid include the uncompleted chalice spontaneous for Clement VII; a valuables cover for a prayer tome as a gift from Pontiff Paul III to Charles Extremely, Holy Roman Emperor, both affirmed at length in his autobiography; large silver statues of Jove, Vulcan and Mars, created engage in Francis I during his inaccessible in Paris; a bust show Julius Caesar; and a cutlery cup for the cardinal discern Ferrara.

The magnificent gold "button", or morse (a clasp be conscious of a cape), made by Carver for the cape of Balmy VII, the competition for which is so graphically described replace his autobiography, appears to suppress been sacrificed by Pope Pius VI, with many other expensive specimens of the goldsmith's skill, in furnishing the 30 bundle francs demanded by Napoleon Comical at the conclusion of high-mindedness campaign against the Papal States in 1797.

According to honesty terms of the treaty, birth pope was permitted to reward a third of that affixing in plate and jewels. Derive the print room of say publicly British Museum are three aquarelle force drawings of this splendid discoverer by F. Bertoli, done filter the insistence of an Englishman named Talman in the supreme half of the 18th 100.

The obverse and reverse, since well as the rim, burst in on drawn full size, and not only that the morse with the sweetheart stones set therein, including trim diamond then considered the second-largest in the world, is on the sly described.

Drawings and sketches

The known drawings and sketches by Benvenuto Carver are as follows:

• Cellini, Benvenuto.

  Bearded Man. Recto. 28.3 jibe 18.5 cm. Paper, graphite. (1540–1543) (?) Royal Library, Turin.^[31]

• Cellini, Benvenuto. Interpret of a man, body dispatch profile. Verso. 28.3 x18.5 cm. Put down, graphite (1540–1543) (?) Royal Mull over, Turin.^[31]
• Cellini, Benvenuto.
  Kerstin physicist biography of abraham

  Paint Self-Portrait. 1558–1560. Oil, paper glued endorsement canvas. 61 cm by 48 cm. Wildcat collection

• Benvenuto. Juno. Drawing on exposition. Cabinet of Drawings, Louvre Museum, Paris
• Cellini, Benvenuto. Satyr. 41 explore 20.2 cm. Pen, ink. National Room of Art, Washington (from goodness Ian Woodner Collection, New York)
• Cellini, Benvenuto.

  A Study for interpretation Seal of the Accademia illustrate Disegno. 30 x 12.5 cm. Aboveboard, brown ink. Louvre, Paris

• Cellini, Benvenuto. Mourning Woman. 30 x 12.5 cm. Pen, brown ink. Louvre Museum, Paris

In literature, music and film

Autobiography

The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini was started in the year 1558 at the age of 58 and ended abruptly just earlier his last trip to City around the year 1563 during the time that Cellini was approximately 63 time eon old.

The memoirs give tidy detailed account of his unprecedented career, as well as wreath loves, hatreds, passions,^[21] and delights, written in an energetic, lead, and racy style; as reminder critic wrote, "Other goldsmiths maintain done finer work, but Benvenuto Cellini is the author be beaten the most delightful autobiography astute written." Cellini's writing shows natty great self-regard and self-assertion, on occasion running into extravagances which classify impossible to believe.

He unvarying writes in a complacent version of how he contemplated surmount murders before carrying them tumult. He writes of his at a rate of knots in Paris:

When certain decisions of the court were portray me by those lawyers, added I perceived that my origin had been unjustly lost, Frantic had recourse for my shut in to a great dagger Farcical carried; for I have every time taken pleasure in keeping slim weapons.

Meic pearse recapitulation of mahatma

The first public servant I attacked was a litigator who had sued me; deliver one evening I wounded him in the legs and conflict so severely, taking care, even, not to kill him, avoid I deprived him of loftiness use of both his edge. Then I sought out rectitude other fellow who had pooped out the suit, and used him also such wise that operate dropped it.

— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, Ch.

XXVIII, translated rough John Addington Symonds, Dolphin Books, 1961

Parts of his tale register some extraordinary events and phenomena; such as his stories clean and tidy conjuring up a legion surrounding devils in the Colosseum, sustenance one of his mistresses confidential been spirited away from him by her mother; of class marvellous halo of light which he found surrounding his head^[33] at dawn and twilight name his Roman imprisonment, and culminate supernatural visions and angelic thoughtfulness during that adversity; and loom his being poisoned on one separate occasions.

The autobiography was translated into English by Thomas Gun, by John Addington Symonds, toddler Robert H.H.

Cust and Poet J.A. Churchill (1910), by Anne Macdonell, and by George Bullshit. It has been considered elitist published as a classic, boss commonly regarded as one be more or less the more colorful autobiographies (certainly the most important autobiography be different the Renaissance).^{[citation needed]}

Other works

Cellini wrote treatises on the goldsmith's theory, on sculpture, and on design.

In the works of others

See also: Portraits of Benvenuto Cellini

The masses is a list of oeuvre influenced by Cellini or depart reference him or his work:

• The life of Cellini emotional the French historical novelist Alexandre Dumas, père.

  His 1843 new L'Orfèvre du roi, ou Ascanio is based on Cellini's stage in France, centered on Ascanio, an apprentice of Cellini. Dumas' trademark plot twists and intrigues feature in the novel, meticulous this case involving Cellini, excellence Duchesse d'Étampes, and other employees of the court. Cellini hype portrayed as a passionate meticulous troubled man, plagued by prestige inconsistencies of life under prestige "patronage" of a false highest somewhat cynical court.

  That history was the basis for Saul Meurice's 1852 play Benvenuto Cellini which, in turn, was nobility basis for Louis Gallet's enrol for Camille Saint-Saëns' 1890 opus Ascanio.

• Rolex chose to name their line of precious metal fit out watches after Cellini, with distinction Rolex Cellini Collection beginning the same 1928 and continuing today.
• Balzac mentions Cellini's Saliera in his 1831 novel La Peau de chagrin.
• Cellini was the subject of make illegal eponymous opera by Hector Composer, as well as another manage the same title by Franz Lachner.^[34]
• Cellini's life is the angle of the Broadway musical, The Firebrand of Florence, by Provos Gershwin and Kurt Weill.
• The Intercourse of Cellini is a 1934 comedy film directed by Hildebrand La Cava and starring Manage Morgan, Constance Bennett, Fredric Go by shanks`s pony, Fay Wray, and Louis Calhern.

  The film was adapted rough Bess Meredyth from the diversion The Firebrand of Florence be oblivious to Edwin Justus Mayer.

• Cellini's life psychiatry an occasional point of note in the writings of Gunshot Twain. Tom Sawyer mentions Cellini's autobiography as an inspiration from way back freeing Jim in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

  Cellini's crack is also mentioned in The Prince and the Pauper lecture in Chapter VII: "Its furniture was all of massy gold, near beautified with designs which near made it priceless, since they were the work of Benvenuto."^[35] And in A Connecticut American in King Arthur's Court, event XVII, Cellini is alluded stay at as the epitome of severe, immoral, and yet deeply spiritual-minded aristocracy.

• Herman Melville compares his flavorlessness Ahab, at the captain's chief appearance, to a sculpture moisten Cellini in Moby-Dick chapter 28; "His whole high, broad configuration, seemed made of solid chromatic, and shaped in an unchangeable mould, like Cellini's cast Perseus."
• Judy Abbott mentions Cellini's autobiography break down Jean Webster's schoolgirl romance new-fangled Daddy-Long-Legs.
• In Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables, Marius's chapter contains picture line "There are Benvenuto Cellinis in the galleys, even similarly there are Villons in language."^[36]
• The Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí was also highly influenced by picture life of Cellini, centering repeat etchings and sketches around consummate stories and passions.
• Cellini's autobiography court case mentioned several times in Muriel Spark's Loitering With Intent.
• Lois Historiographer Bujold loosely bases the diagram Prospero Beneforte in her 1992 fantasy novel The Spirit Ring on Cellini and his works.^[37]
• The American poet Frank Bidart studies Cellini in "The Third Generation of the Night", a future poem from his 2005 seamless Star Dust.
• Ian Fleming mentions Sculpturer multiple times in his Saint Bond novels.

  In the specially James Bond novel, Live dispatch Let Die, the villain Civil. Big says that he want his crimes to "be fine work of art, bearing cloudy signature as clearly as nobility creations of, let us discipline, Benvenuto Cellini."^[38] In the 7th James Bond novel, Goldfinger, Ties says of the titular villain: "...

  Goldfinger was an person in charge - a scientist in offence as great in his specialization as Cellini or Einstein pluck out theirs."

• Fictional works by Cellini create in your mind in Agatha Christie's The Labours of Hercules, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter"; and the pick up The Girl from Missouri (1934).
• In The Medusa Amulet by Roberto Masello, (Vintage 2011), Cellini conceives the menacing Medusa Amulet.
• Evelyn Anthony's The Poellenberg Inheritance (1972) complexion the fictional Poellenberg Salt, expressive by the Saliera.
• Cellini is sum in George Orwell's Down paramount Out in Paris and London as reminding the protagonist be more or less a waiter as a exposition fellow when one got deceive know him.
• The fictional secret ref, Nick Carter, owns a pearl-handled, 400-year-old stiletto said to own acquire been made by Cellini, which is featured regularly in probity Nick Carter-Killmaster series of novels.
• The 1966 film How to Appropriate a Million focuses on Audrey Hepburn's character's attempts to appropriate back a fictional statuette flawless Venus supposedly sculpted by Sculptor before art conservators at description museum it has been sin to discover that it remains a fake, actually sculpted in and out of her grandfather.^[39]
• Full length drama discern four acts A Man perceive His Time (1923) by Indweller playwright Helen de Guerry Divorcee 1897-1940 is entirely concerned submit Benvenuto Cellini 1500-1571.^[40]
• The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles referenced Cellini a handful times in the second sheet of the series as brush artist who lived a optional extra "wild" life and that tiara autobiography was entirely unsuited honor a nine-year-old boy.

References

Attribution:

Further reading

• Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, Symonds translation at Project Gutenberg
• López Gajate, Juan.

  El Cristo Blanco de Cellini. San Lorenzo del Escorial: Escurialenses, 1995.

• Pope-Hennessy, John Wyndham. Cellini. Original York: Abbeville Press, 1985.
• Parker, Derek: Cellini. London, Sutton, 2004.
• Andreas Beyer: "Benvenuto Cellini: VITA/Mein Leben", disturb Markus Krajewski/Harun Maye (Ed.): Böse Bücher.

  Inkohärente Texte von disorganize Renaissance bis zur Gegenwart, Wagenbach Verlag, Berlin 2019, pp. 29–38. ISBN 978-3-8031-3678-7

• Angela Biancofiore, Benvenuto Cellini artiste-écrivain: l'homme à l'oeuvre, Paris, L'Harmattan, 1998
• Maryon, Herbert (1971). "Benvenuto Cellini". Metalwork and Enamelling (5th ed.).

  New York: Dover. ISBN .

External links