Description
The wildest autobiography of the Renaissance. Benvenuto Cellini — goldsmith, sculptor, brawler, braggart, murderer by his own cheerful admission — wrote one of the most entertaining memoirs ever put to paper. His Autobiography charges through 16th-century Italy at full tilt: masterpieces and murders, popes and prison breaks, duels and seductions, all narrated with unmatchable swagger.
Cellini served Francis I of France, cast the Perseus in Florence in a legendary all-night pour, dueled rivals in the street, and escaped the Castel Sant’Angelo by rope — or so he claims, and half the fun is deciding what to believe. Goethe adored it; readers have devoured it for four centuries; historians mine it as a primary source on Renaissance life at its most vivid and violent.
The original artist’s tell-all — racy, boastful, and utterly alive. If you read one Renaissance memoir, make it the one written by the man who lived loudest.
The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini is one of the most vivid memoirs ever written — the life story of a Florentine goldsmith, sculptor, and soldier of fortune, told in his own swaggering voice. Begun in 1558 and covering his years at the courts of popes and kings, it reads like a Renaissance adventure novel: brawls, duels, imprisonments, escapes, love affairs, and masterpieces cast in bronze and gold.
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nCellini (1500–1571) served Francis I of France and the Medici popes, created the famous salt cellar for the French king and the bronze Perseus for Florence, and wrote about it all with complete candor — boasting, settling scores, and describing his craft in fascinating detail. Historians treasure the book as a first-hand window onto sixteenth-century Italy; general readers love it for its energy, humor, and sheer audacity.
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nThis edition presents the complete autobiography in accessible modern language — the essential starting point for anyone curious about Renaissance art, and one of the great life stories of Western literature.
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