Cellini: stunning Renaissance artist & close papal friend. Oops and a murderer

gold and enamel table salt cellar.

made for Francis I of France, 1543

Cover image on Cellini's Autobiography

Benvenuto Cellini (1500-71) was a famous Fl­orentine goldsmith and scul­ptor, a passionate craftsman who was admired and resented by the most powerful C16th politicos and artists. His father had wanted Benvenuto to follow in him as a musician working at the Florentine Medici court. Despite playing well, the young man chose goldsmithing, work­ing in other cities before joining the prestigious Flor­entine goldsmiths’ guild.

This goldsmith, sculptor, poet, soldier and musician was also a murd­er­er, priest, commun­icator with the dead and sodomiser who knew all ab­out papal persecution and pris­on­s, AND the royal court's ad­ulation. In Auto­bio­graphy (1558-63), kings, car­d­inals and artists all appeared.

Once a famous Italian Renais­sance artist, and now a neglected fig­ure compared to his predecessors Leonardo da Vinci and Michel­angelo, Cell­ini’s story provided a unique perspective on the era.  In 1558, as commiss­ions dried up, Cellini began dictating My Life to an assistant, a scandalous account of C16th art and society.

His surviving art and writings re­v­ealed less an idyl­lic Golden Age, and more an era of polit­ic­al and religious turbulence. Largely based on life in Cell­in­i’s nat­ive Fl­or­ence & his career working el­se­where, his autobiography had both fact and fiction. Rely on Jerry Brotton and Martin Chorzempa.

The C15th Italian peninsula was a series of small republics ruled by powerful families. These powerful figures gave rise to great art, once they comm­ission­ed art­ists in the city states. But the It­alian Wars, st­art­ing with the French Invasion, was changing the polit­ical balance of these feuding cities, bringing French and Spanish empires in.

Perseus with the Head of Medusa

bronze sculpture,1545–54.

in the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence

Back in Florence, Cellini saw the Florentines took advantage of the turmoil in Rome to banish the Medicis and proclaim a republic. Worse, a plague had ravaged the city such that the beaut­iful streets once bursting with noble citizens were now filthy and stinking. The fear of plague led artists to move across Italy, obtaining patronage where they could.

In 1523 many sexual accusations emerged: Cellini was accused of sodomy, and he became embroiled in a blood feud with the Guasconti family, ad­mit­ting that he “attacked them like a raging bull” and stabbed one, for which he was sentenced to death in absentia. His autobiography recorded in detail his fights with his rivals, of whom he murdered 3+. He survived war­fare, gaol, poison­ing, syphilis and family tragedies in the ongoing plague.

Cellini fled to Rome and established his own goldsmith’s business there. He exploited his Medici ties to win Giulio de’ Medici’s patronage, who was appointed Pope Clement VII in 1523. But the wider geopolitics surr­ounding the Italian peninsula quickly submerged him. In 1527 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V’s imperial army invaded Rome, leading to an orgy of looting, violence and killing c25,000 civilians. Cellini was ordered by the Pope to hide the papal jewels, before the Pope fled the city. 

The plague saw Cellini working in Mantua, Ven­ice, Naples and Paris as a goldsmith. By 1529 the re-installed pope needed Cellini’s skills in renewing Rome, appointing him Head of the Papal Mint. But the art­ist’s bro­­ther was murdered, leading Cellini to confront the killer and stab­bing him very deeply. The pope told Cellini he should work hard and keep quiet. Cellini out-Caravaggio’d Caravaggio.

Patronage was the artist’s life-line, and when Pope Clement VII died in 1534, Cellini realised his days of pa­pal support were numb­er­ed. The new Pope Paul III was a Farnese man with lit­t­le interest in backing Medici supporters in Rome.

Cellini killed another rival, Pompeo de’ Capitaneis, and was exiled again. The pope absolved him but anti-Florentine fact­ions within the papacy re-opposed him. Hearing that the French King Francis I was searching for artists to help transform his royal Font­aine­bleau Palace, Cellini headed to Paris. Unhappy with the recep­t­ion he rec­eived, Cellini made the fateful decision to return to Rome in 1537.

The pope’s son Pier Luigi Farnese, Cellini’s nemesis, imp­risoned him in the Castel Sant’Angelo! The art­ist was charged with st­ealing papal jew­ellery, and in one of the most harrowing accounts of im­prisonment writ­t­en then, Cellini described att­empts to poison him. Inst­ead he read the Bible and had a mirac­ul­ous conversion, including vis­ions of Christ. As papal mach­in­ations swirled him, power­ful patrons like Fer­r­ara Card­inal Ippolito d’Este Cellini finally got him released. His con­v­ersion should have led to glorious redemp­tion, but reality was more violent.

Once free, Cellini ret­urned to France and to Francis I’s patronage, some of Cellini’s happiest and most productive. He began working on larg­er sculptural projects, Francis being keen to show that his patronage of the arts rivalled that of the pope and of Holy Roman Emperor Char­les V. Cellini made the unusual, elegant salt cellar (see above).

Alas Cellini quarrelled openly with Francis I’s mistress and was accused again of sodomy. He ret­urned to Florence in 1545 with the prospect of a powerful new patron: Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici. Cosimo had reasserted Me­dici control in Florence and wanted to comm­is­sion a piece of large pub­lic art to celebrate Med­ici power: sculpture of Perseus slaying Med­usa. This classical story repr­esented the mascul­ine Medici asserting their will over the feminine, malevolent republican ideals that typified the city’s recent rule. For 9 years Cel­l­ini worked on the Perseus, cast in bronze in one piece to outshine da  Vinci.

Bust of Cosimo I Grand Duke of Tuscany 

c1550, marble

Legion of Honour Museum, San Fran

In 1554 the Perseus statue was tri­ump­hantly unveiled in the Loggia dei Lanzi, opposite Michelang­el­o’s David. Perseus was holding up the severed head of Medusa; Cosimo was thrilled.

Sadly the artist was quarrelling with everyone, even Cosimo. He had a son by a different model and fought endlessly with artist Bar­t­olommeo Band­in­ello (1493-1560). Band­inelli accused Cellini of being a dirty sodomite, in front of Cosimo!

Even when Cellini finally secured the critical adulation he craved, he injured anoth­er rival goldsmith, was arrested and gaoled in 1556. Released on bail, he was re-accus­ed of sodomy by an apprentice the next year. Court records re­vealed he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 4 years’ gaol. Cosimo com­m­uted the sentence to house arrest, but Cellini’s reput­ation never recovered.

Cellini mar­ried, fathered child­ren with other mod­els and serv­ants. He turn­ed to religion, work­ing on a tall mar­ble crucifix, but Cos­imo wasn’t interested. Afterall there were younger, more exciting sculptors available. So Cellini with­drew and took religious vows, but renounced them after some years.

As Cellini’s influence at the Medici court waned, artist-writer Gio­rgio Vasari (1511–74) all but wrote the Florentine out of his infl­uent­ial book, The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Arch­it­ects.

Cellini's medal portrait of Pope Clement VII
1534

Cellini died in Feb 1571 and this brawler-murderer was buried with great pomp in Santissima Annunziata Church. The funeral oration praised the fine disposition of Cellini’s incomparably virtuous life!