author
Benvenuto Cellini
1500–1571
A stormy genius of the Italian Renaissance, he turned the precision of a goldsmith into bold, dramatic sculpture and left behind one of the era's most vivid autobiographies. His life was as colorful as his art, full of ambition, danger, and larger-than-life stories.
2 Audiobooks
The treatises of Benvenuto Cellini on goldsmithing and sculpture
by Benvenuto Cellini
The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
by Benvenuto Cellini
About the author
Born in Florence in 1500, Benvenuto Cellini became famous as a goldsmith, sculptor, and writer during the Italian Renaissance. He worked in Florence, Rome, and at the French court, and is often remembered as one of the great Mannerist artists.
Among his best-known surviving works are the celebrated gold salt cellar made for Francis I of France and the bronze Perseus with the Head of Medusa in Florence. His art is admired for its technical brilliance, energy, and theatrical flair.
Cellini is also widely read for his autobiography, written later in life, which helped make him one of the most memorable personalities of the Renaissance. Lively, dramatic, and deeply personal, it offers a rare firsthand picture of an artist who saw his own life as boldly as he shaped metal and stone.