Giuseppe Arcimboldo Prague court

Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526–93) was c36 when he left Italy to be­come a court portraitist to Hapsburg emperors Ferdinand I, Max­imil­ian II in Vien­na & Rudolf II in Prague.

Examine the enigmatic, Late Renaissance world of Arcimboldo and his most famous piece The Librarian c1566. He was one of the Italian artists who changed art during the Renaissance. Born into an artistic family in Milan, he started his career by designing stained glass windows for the Milan Cathedral. But Arcimboldo was attracted to the peculiar. In Prague Court, one of the great centres of the later Renaissance, Archimboldo became a very desirable painter for Emperors Maximilian II and Rudolf II. Rudolf II gathered creative around him: scientists, astronomers, authors and artists of every kind. This strengthened the possibility that portrait was of Wolfgang Lazius, a humanist and historian who served those Holy Roman Emperors in Prague.

Arcimboldo belonged to the Mannerist movement, famous for most of the C16th. His most well-known portraits were composite heads made out of fruits, vegetables and plants. So he wasn’t just an artist; he was a creative maverick. Arcimboldo wasn’t content with painting regular portraits - he wanted something new! Arc-imboldo’s creations turned the art scene upside down. Imagine a face crafted from foods. He played this style like a virtuoso. Of course The Librarian was just one piece of Arcimboldo’s wild collection of composite heads. He started a trend that caused artists to think outside the canvas. It took genius to mix fruits, vegetables and books to create a face.

The Librarian, 

c1566, height 67cm, width 50cm 

Skokloster Castle, Sweden

Arcimboldo created something unusual. He invented a librarian, not made of flesh & bone but from books. The librarian’s face is a stack of books, arranged to form a face that was strangely calm and surprisingly wise. Arcimboldo might have been saying Knowledge is my play ground, and I’m building it with books. He wasn’t just painting a librarian; he was crafting a symbol of intellect. Those books weren’t just random; they were a nod to the intellectual feelings of the Renaissance. He meant Look at all this knowledge, neatly stacked on my librarian’s face.

Another perspective was Roland Barthes’ essay on Arcimboldo, on the visual articulation of the intersection of man and nature. The fascination with Arcimboldo’s paintings was greater, because the Italian better challenged the viewer’s own ideas about the work’s exact purpose.

 Even though Arcimboldo was doing this long before the C20th Surrealists, his work has a dreamy, surreal feel, playing with reality in the coolest way possible. The Librarian wasn’t just a portrait; it was a portal into a whimsical realm of artistic eccentricity. The C16th Hapsburgs were thrilled with this artist, but cool heads reigned in the next centuries and his fame faded. We can see why modern Surrealists were attracted to Arcimboldo: his daring ascribing of human attributes to non-humans, his morphing of the natural with the extreme and grotesque, and transformation of the everyday and the dreamlike.

Under the layers of The Librarian, Arcimboldo didn’t throw books together randomly. In the face of wisdom, the face was a meticulous set of book spines as facial features. The eyes, nose, mouth were well crafted using the varied shapes and sizes of books. Arcimboldo was guiding a symphony of literature; the librarian’s face was a masterpiece.

And appreciate the diversity of the books used. They were either thick or thin; they were either bound in dark leather or in lighter hues. Each book seemed to have a personality of its own, contributing to the librarian’s overall character, a visual feast for book and art lovers alike.

Despite the quirky construction, the librarian’s expression was composed. It was not just a stack of literature; the face exuded tranquillity and wisdom coming from the composed arrangement of books. The composition was balanced, with books carefully arranged to create a harmonious whole, a testament to Arcimboldo’s talent that he could turn books into a surreal yet strangely natural face. 

An intimate friendship developed between Arcimboldo and Emperor Rudolf's son. In this work, the painter depicted the Emperor as the ancient god Vertumnus, the god of seasons, of inexhaustible change and agriculture. To realise this, he composed the face of the ruler from all kinds of plants, flowers and fruits. These were from different seasons and thus symbolised the eternal cycle of life. But the painting was not meant to hang alone but to be flanked by many other allegory paintings that Rudolf commissioned.

Arcimboldo, Rudolf II of Habsburg as Vertumnus, 1590 

Skokloster Castle, Sweden

Skokloster Castle, Sweden invites visitors to stroll through the halls and stumble upon a librarian made entirely of books, a historical and artistic jackpot! A Renaissance aristocrat’s worth was determined by the number of books he had read, OR by the quantity of books in his library. Arcimboldo was ridiculing the widespread theory then, by arguing that knowledge was not solely derived from book ownership but that real knowledge was more important. And in this exploration, unravel the layers of Arcimboldo’s genius, break down the eccentricities of The Librarian, and serve an important section of art history unexpectedly.

Conclusion In the grand stream of art history, Arcimboldo’s Librarian stood out as a bold stroke of creative genius. It was a journey into the surreal, a celebration of intellect and a testament to the endless possibilit-ies of artistic expression. Gaze upon the librarian’s face crafted from books, knowing it was not just witnessing a portrait; it was stepping into the great realm of a Renaissance rebel who dared to re-imagine the boundaries of art. Next time the reader is inside a good book, think of Arcimboldo i.e a reminder that knowledge was/is a masterpiece waiting to be unveiled.

In Rudolfine Prague, life was surrounded by the 30 Years’ War. Many of Arcimboldo’s paintings were lost, destroyed or stolen by the invading Swedish Army. Thus Archimboldo’s work is NOT in the great gallery in Prague’s Hradcany Castle

Credit to Philip Harvey and to Roland Barthes. 

Tower of London: palace, execution, tours

After defeating the last Saxon king of England Harold II at the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror/William I of England would con­trol his new kingdom. He distributed the conquered lands to his fav­our­ite nobles, a useful practice from wars in Norm­andy. They built motte-and-bailey forts and soldiers built a wooden tower to house the battal­ion, its weapons, horses, food and val­uables. The bar­r­acks could become a refuge, if the outer defences were breached. Around the hill, Norman soldiers built an enclosure for a well, rais­ing crops, feeding livestock and holding weap­ons. 

Upper photo: Tower of London

Lower photo: entrance through the Byward Towers

defended by the moat and draw­bridge

Post-Hastings William I wanted to stake his claim to Saxon lands and to control hostile subjects. Clergy­man Gundulf (1024–1108), who des­ig­ned castles & ch­ur­ches in France, became Bishop of Roch­ester in 1077 and was asked to design the new fort­ress-castle. In 1078, William ordered building the White Tower of London, a 90’ high square tower with tapering walls, soaring up over Lon­don. The 1st floor had liv­ing quarters, soldiers’ ref­ec­t­ory, dormitory and Roman­esque Chapel of St John. The 2nd floor’s rooms were for the con­stable/Tower’s comm­ander: a great hall, ch­apel gall­ery, meet­ing room and living-rooms. And there was a cellar.

The Tower took 20 years to build, only finished when William II had a stone wall built around the Tower. Then Gun­d­ulf began a stone curtain-wall enclosing land between the Tower and riv­er. Under Henry III (r1216-72) and Edward I (r1272-1307), the Tow­er reached today’s basic design: the central White Tower surround­ed by two curtain walls with their 20 towers. The main C13th entrance was via two cyl­ind­rical Byward Towers and defended by the moat and draw­bridge.

Two of the Tower’s early prisoners of state were King John the Good of France, taken in Battle of Poitiers in 1356; Char­les Duke of Orléans, captured at Agincourt in 1415.

When King Edward IV died in 1483, Richard Duke of Glouc­ester became lord protector of his son Edward V. Glouc­ester put Ed­ward and his young brother Richard Duke of York in the Tower, awaiting Edward V’s coronation. But spurred on by Glouc­es­ter, Parl­iam­ent made the 2 princes illegitimate, confirming Glouc­ester as King Richard III. Were the young Princes in the Tower mur­d­ered in the Tower in mid 1483?

Inmates wrote of torture in Bell Tower records and torture objects used in 1500s & 1600s are in the Royal Arm­ouries.

By the 1500s Henry VII abandoned his Tower Palace home after losing his firstborn son. His most lasting contribution was founding the Tower Yeo­men of the Guard, direct ancestors of today’s Yeoman Warders/beefeaters.

Yeomen of the Guard

guarded the tower interior, including the crown jewels

Then the site became a notorious prison, the Tower’s most famous prisoners being gaoled by nasty King Henry VIII. When Henry sought to divorce Cather­ine of Aragon and split from the Cath­olic Church, Thomas More wouldn’t accept the king as supreme head of the Church of England. More was gaoled in the Tower, convicted of treason and executed.

2 of Henry’s wives went to the Tower. Anne Boleyn gave him one daug­h­t­er (later Elizabeth I) but no sons, so Anne was arrested for treason & executed in 1536. Henry’s 5th wife, Catherine Howard, was arrested & executed for adultery.

Inevitably the Catholics and Protestants battled on. Young King Ed­ward VI, who’d been raised a Prot­es­tant, created his Device for the Succ­es­sion (1553), dis­inheriting his Catholic half-sister Mary and his Prot­estant half-sister Elizabeth. Instead his crown passed through his aunt’s line to her Prot­estant granddaughter Jane Grey. But noone told Jane & only 3 days after Edward’s death in 1553 she became became queen anyhow. Queen Jane quickly lost the support of her entire Privy Council; in 1553 the Catholic Mary was formally declared by Parl­iament as the next mon­ar­ch. And although Queen Mary rel­uc­t­antly signed Jane’s death warrant, Jane’s trial and execution quickly followed.

 (ex Queen) Jane Grey was executed, 1553

Historic UK

Queen Mary’s fears about usurpers continued. She gaoled her half sister, Princess Elizabeth-whom Mary believed had masterminded the plots. So in 1554, 20-year-old Eliz­a­b­eth was also kept under house arrest in the Tower, living as mum Anne Boleyn had. Still, finding no evidence of treason, Mary moved Elizabeth from the Tower to house-arrest elsewhere.

Mary died in 1558 and Elizabeth took the throne. The new queen still used the Tower to hold enemies of the crown; from Walter Raleigh to Guy Fawkes, infamous prisoners and deaths at the Tower maintained its notorious reputation. Even Samuel Pepys was ac­cus­ed of complic­ity in the Popish Plot, selling naval secrets to France and piracy. He was imprisoned there in 1679 and eventual­ly disch­arged, but was later re-gaoled for plotting to restore exiled King James.

The Tower also stored chancery records, relating to diplomatic corr­es­­p­on­dence and government­ decisions, plus pr­operty ownership docu­m­ents and tax­at­ion. The Records Office was in the Wake­field Tower, the largest in the Tower of London complex, where it remained un­til 1858. Only then did the Public Records Office move to Chancery Lane.

Now the blood has been cleaned up, the Tower is London’s most famous tourist site. Admire the Crown Jewels, including the coron­ation reg­a­lia worn at a new monarch’s investiture, and the cerem­on­ial regalia worn at the State Op­ening of Parliament. St Edward’s Crown is a C17th replace­ment for Saxon King Edward the Confessor’s crown.

Crown jewels

British Heritage

  

Mayflower Pub London, a dream relived

Piccadilly, which bounds the south side, was originally the medieval high road to Reading. By the 1500s, Piccadilly was a thriving fashion centre, taking its name from the ruff lace collars that were made in local workshops. Piccadilly’s north side was lined with the London homes of the country’s landed gentry; of which the most important were Burlington, Cambridge, Albany and Devonshire Houses

Established in 1550, and London's oldest pub to be built by the Thames, the Mayflower Pub overflowed with history. Set in the London homeport of Rotherhithe, the pub is located at the original mooring point of Pilgrim Fathers’ Mayflower ship which, under the command of Capt Christopher Jones, set sail on its epic journey to America in July 1620.

Front entrance and seating,

Rotherhithe St

View over the river, Tripadvisor

At low tide see original 1620 mooring point of Pilgrim Father’s Mayflower ship

In July 1620, the Mayflower ship took 65 passengers aboard, from its London homeport of Rotherhithe on the River Thames. It is believed that the Pilgrim Fathers had their last meal and gathered provisions in this very establishment. Rumour suggested that Capt Jones cunningly moored here to avoid paying taxes further down the river. The Mayflower journeyed onwards to Southampton for supplies and to rendezvous with the Speedwell ship. But after many delays, false starts and a dangerous leak, the Speedwell’s journey with The Mayflower was abandoned. In Sept 1620, Captain Jones set sail with 102 passengers and c30 crew members from Plymouth on a prosperous wind. 

After sighting land in Nov 1620, strong winter seas forced the Rotherhithe captain to anchor at Cape Cod, much further North than the original destination, Virginia. To establish legal order in their new homeland, the settlers agreed to write and sign The Mayflower Compact. In Nov the Mayflower anchored at Cape Cod where the settlers signed the Compact, which set out the first framework of a U.S government. The Mayflower pub apparently had some of the ship’s original timbers incorporated into its structure

Capt Jones later returned to London on the Mayflower, arriving at the home port of Rotherhithe in May 1621. He died less than a year later and was buried at St Mary's church in Rotherhithe. This was close to the mooring point of the Mayflower where she sank in the Thames, no longer useful as a ship. A commemorative plaque to Mayflower voyage now adorns the side of St Mary’s church; plus a memorial statue, dedicated to the memory of Captain Christopher Jones, sits in the churchyard.

dark and atmospheric with wooden furniture, cosy open fire 

Mayflower Pub ran from 1686-1764, before it was supressed by the area's new residents. Clearly they didn’t take to the annual visit of showmen, jugglers, prize-fighters, semolina eating contests, prostitutes and heaps of cheap ale on their doorstep. The pub was rebuilt in 1780 as the Spread Eagle and Crown, renamed The Mayflower later, and its history is tied to the ship which set sail from a nearby wharf.

Anyone visiting the Mayflower Pub, if they are direct descents from one of the Pilgrim fathers, is welcome to sign the Descendants Book. So strong is the Mayflower’s connections to the U.S that it is the only pub in the UK that is licensed to sell US postage stamps.

A visit offers amazing riverside views from its terrace whilst inside offers wooden pews, a cosy fire and a lively, authentic atmosphere. To deepen the historic experience, wander to St Mary’s Church across from The Mayflower and you can see the grave of Captain Christopher Jones himself.

Nestled on the Thames, The Mayflower Pub in Rotherhithe is a true London treasure, offering a fine blend of history, hospitality, and stunning riverside views. My last visit was a pleasure, and it's easy to see why this establishment holds a special place in the hearts of locals and visitors alike. The first thing that captivates you is the location. The pub's outdoor seating area provides an unparalleled panorama of the river, with views that stretch from the iconic Canary Wharf skyline to the bustling activity on the water. The views alone are worth the trip.

While the scenery is breathtaking, the staff makes The Mayflower special. When patrons walk in, they are met with genuine warmth and efficiency. They are happy to offer recommendations and share a bit of the pub's fascinating history, making for a truly welcoming experience. 

The walls are covered with many historical portraits, paintings and maps

The beers are kept in great condition, and beer drinkers say it was a pleasure to sample a few of the options on tap. There’s something for every taste and the quality is above average pub fare. [Since I don't drink beer, good wine and friendly staff are more important to me]. A must-visit for anyone looking for an essentially British pub experience with a touch of romance.

It is situated directly opposite Sands Films and Picture Research Library, adjacent to The Brunel Museum.

Medieval sexual abuse & clerical crimes

From the late 1980s, allegations of sexual abuse of children as­s­ociated with Catholic institutions and clerics in several countries started to be the subject of formal investigations. In Ireland, in the 1990s, a series of criminal cases and Irish gov­ernment enquir­ies established that hundreds of priests had abused thousands of children over the decades.

Catholic sexual abuse cases in Australia have involved convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests and teachers that have come to light in recent decades, along with the growing awareness of sexual abuse within other religious and secular institutions.

A USA grand jury report recorded dozens of Penn priests accused of molesting 1,000 minors in 70 years. Now 12 other American states have announ­ced their own formal investig­ations into Catholic clerical child sexual abuse.

The German Catholic church presented the results of an investig­at­ion into decades of sexual abuse of children in 2018. The report detailed the cases of 3,677 mostly male children in 27 dioceses who were sexually abused since 1946. 1,670 cl­er­ics were implicated. The report detailed how 60% of abusive priests eluded punishment, or were moved to other German parishes to conceal their crimes.

Promiscuous Monks: Monastic Sexual Misconduct in Late Medieval England

Medievalist.net

After the Vatican investigators found crime conceal­ment in Chile, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of five of their bishops. Now special Chilean prosecutors are invest­igating 150 clerics across Chile’s 15 regions. The prosecutors are examining the offences that took place from 1960 on.

But was sexual abuse in the Catholic Church a C20th phenom­enon, ignored because no church had ever investigated its own clerical wrongdoings before 1980? No!

I have cited Emma Wells' paper, Monks behaving badly, as closely as possible. Monastic morality tales displayed a familiar and long lasting cul­t­ural stereo­type: promiscuous and corrupt cleric. Medieval bis­hops, monks, vicars and nuns got and get a bad press in literat­ure – because of their appetite for las­civ­ious­ness, greed and drinking.

Errant Catholic clergymen were a feature of mediev­al life, probably because of the nature of their profession: a] the decision to put boys into the priesthood was made by parents; b] the men lived celibate lives and c] the priests visited families in the privacy of their homes or schools. [Jewish and Islamic clergy were never celibate, so I have excluded them from this post. No doubt they were charged with other wrongdoings].

The problem wasn’t a product of the bishops’ indifference. On the contrary, ensuring that the clergy remained on their pedestal was paramount to the medieval church. In fact the ecclesiastical auth­orities were eager to uphold the highest of standards, and protect themselves from the wrath of God. They established mechanisms for disciplinary action in the case of failure. Across Christendom, monasteries, parishes and colleges were subject to assessments run by their own diocesan bishops.

In Catholic England, records first appeared in late C13th. In the 1430s, in an investigation by Canons Ashby Priory in North­amps, the Bishop’s Commissary found that the monks were indulging in feast­ing and games, frequenting the village inn, skipping choir services and not wearing their monastic habit. In the late Middle Ages, these results were serious: neglected parishioners, damage to the Catholic church’s reputation and some outbreaks of violence. Monk John Shrewesbury from Dorchester Abbey app­arently abducted a woman in 1441 and smuggled her into the mon­ast­ery bell tower in a trunk, where he had carnal relations with her.

In 1500 William Bell, Nottingham’s Greyfriars warden was accused of incontinence/homosexuality against another man. By the 1530s, King Henry VIII was already agitating for the diss­olution of the Catholic monasteries. So if clergymen did drink too much, if they did fornic­ate with prostitutes and if they did gamble with dice, their future was shaky. By the time Henry VIII wielded the axe in 1536, it was all over.

Clergy enjoying sex with each other

Patheos

Investigators exposed the extent of indisc­ret­ions eg from sexual misbehaviour down to inapp­ropriate clothing. The authorities investigated community gossip, documented indis­cret­ions and swiftly punished those found guilty. Wrong doers could expect shaming sentences, ranging from enforced silence, fasting, prison time, floggings, barefoot pilgrimages and excommunication. 

Medieval clergymen also had a bad record of frequenting brothels aka stews. The most notorious were situated in Bankside South London, on land owned and controlled by the bishop of Winchester. 

Although monks and nuns technically led cloistered lives, they were also an important part of wider society. They regularly left cloisters to visit family, conduct business, teach children and enter politics! Most of the secular deacons were members of a non-cloistered rel­ig­ious institution, and many of them lived lives similar to their flocks. They often travelled to other parishes, to administer to the spirit­ual, social and medical needs of the poorest families, but they also lodged in local alehouses!

In the Priory, a medieval monk seduced a nun, who became pregnant and had an illegitimate baby. 

She desperately disposed of the baby in the privy.
From the Miracles de Notre Dame, in Ancient Origins.

In 1531, Bishop of Lincoln John Longland went to the August­inian abbey of Missenden in Bucks. He convened a special tribunal to in­vestigate monastic bad behaviour - drinking, gambling and fornic­ating with prostitutes. A local canon, Robert Palmer, was accused of carnal relations with a married woman. But Palmer claim­ed that it was Abbot John Fox who had shared the woman’s bed. The Abbot was accused of many offences - nepotism, financial misconduct and of ignoring Palmer’s affair with the married woman. After investigat­ions, Longland passed judgment on both Palmer and Fox; Palmer was imprisoned indefinitely and Abbot Fox was suspended from office.

In early C16th, anti-monastic pamphlets were filled with vivid descript­ions of clerical misdemeanours. But this does not mean that late med­ieval clergymen were more tempted by bad behaviour than their predecessors. Rather it shows that the authorities made insp­ections of churches and monasteries specifically to unearth cler­ical failings!

Churchmen sparked Lisbon's pogrom in 1506

Jews had inhabited Iberia for centuries. By the 1400s, Old Jews were thriving in Portugal’s best trading, commercial and intell­ectual cen­tres. It was only when Spain’s Queen Isabella & King Ferdinand decreed the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, some 100,000 Jews fled to neighbouring Port­ugal.

St. Dominic's Church, Lisbon

facing Rossio Square

Portugal’s King Manuel I came to the throne in 1495 and set about establishing himself as one of the great patrons of the Portuguese Renaissance. However things changed when Manuel begged to marry King Ferdinand’s daught­er. The Spanish monarch would approve, providing Por­tugal expel­led its Jews! In Dec 1496, Manuel promptly complied. He dec­reed that all Jews must convert to Catholicism or leave the count­ry, in order to placate his future in-laws, Spain’s Catholic Mon­ar­chs. 

King Manuel issued two decrees: 

A] in 1496, edict of expul­sion from Portugal (when the lucky Jews escaped to Amsterdam, Germany, Italy, France, Morocco, Constantinople, Brasil and Peru) and 

B] in 1497, the forced conversion edict. The 1497 Edict blocked Port­ug­uese Jews from emigrating and were they too were forcibly converted to Christ­ian­ity. The Portuguese Jews who’d been forcibly baptised in the 1497 mass con­ver­sion were called New Christians or Conversos. 

In the early 1500s, drought and plague swept through Portugal, food prices inevitably soared and the Church accused the Jewish merch­ants. Because Easter and Passover over­lap­ped, the Jews who were preparing Passover foods “caused” the deadly plague and drought.

During the worst of the drought in Ap 1506, the Dominican Convent attracted large crowds who were praying for relief. A light that seemed to be em­an­ating from a crucifix over the chapel altar was de­scribed as a divine sign. One New Christian asked “How can a piece of wood work wonders?” The crowd was enraged, calling his remark blasphemous, and beat him to death. His body was dismembered and burned in the square in front of the Con­vent. His protective brother was similarly killed.

 Contemporary image of the massacres by fire in Lisbon

                  

This began a 4-day massacre and burning of 2,000-4,000 Conversos. Mobs of cit­iz­ens who roamed through Lisbon, killing Jews, were in­cited by Dominican friars. They preached sermons against the Jews, shouting Death to the Jews! and Death to the Heret­ics! Other friars yelled “Destroy this abominable people!” Who did they mean, the old Jews or the New Christians?

Citizens followed the fanatical chur­ch­men through the city streets and soon murdered every New Christ­ian they could find. Their bodies were dragged to the main Rossio Square and burnt in huge bonfires in front of the Domin­ican church. Not even in­fants survived the slaugh­t­er.

The next day, sailors from foreign merchant ships joined the locals in the pogroms, presumably for the purpose of robbery and not because they were angry about true Christianity.

During the massacre, royals, courtiers and aristocrats left town, if they could. The Lisbon massacre had sign­al­led a failure of King Man­uel’s policy of integration. Most of the New Christians, convert­ed to Cathol­ic­ism against their will, had remained Jewish in their homes and souls.

Upon King Manuel's return to Lisbon, he arr­ested the two Dominicans who had led the riot and had them execut­ed, along with 40-50 other conspirators. He then gave consent to all New Christians to leave Portugal, countermanding his 1497 order that forbade Conversos from emigrating. 

Ending the madness, King Manuel gave New Christians a grace period of 30 years, without persecution, to cease all Jewish practices or emigrate. King Manuel also abolished legal discrimin­at­ion against them. After that, the lives and the property of the Con­versos who stayed in Lisbon were never endangered, at least until after his death in 1521. Then the persecutions resumed.

There were 3 main contemporary sources about the pogrom:
1. The massacre sent shockwaves throughout Europe and acc­ounts of it appeared in Portuguese, Jewish, Spanish and German doc­um­ents. An anonymous German, who had been present in Lisbon and witnessed the tragedy, wrote a vivid account that was printed in several German editions: The Massacre of the New Christ­ians of Lisbon, 1506.

2 The Spanish chroniclers Andrés Bernáldez and Alonso de Santa Cruz both devoted a chapter in their works to the 1506 crisis.

3 The New Christian Isaac Ibn Faradj was present in Lisbon during the massacre. He survived and later escaped from Portugal to Otto­man Salonica where he reverted to Judaism. He wrote: ‘It happened on a Christian holiday. It was while the King and the Queen were absent from Lisbon on account of the plague which raged there at that time, that a priest with a cross stood up. Wicked men with him, murderers and scoundrels, they killed more than 1,400 New Christians, and burned their bodies, men and women, pregnant women and children. They burnt them in the streets of the city for three days on end, till the bodies were consumed and became ashes. I stole from the fire one half of the burned head of a dear friend of mine, and I hid it, kept it, brought it to Valona, and buried it in a Jew­ish cemetery. When King Manuel heard of the great wrong done to the Jews he came to Lisbon, and the priest was burnt at the stake and forty murderers hanged”.

A memorial stone was placed in Rossio Square in 2006,  

the exact site where the Jewish bodies were thrown onto bonfires.

A memorial to the victims of the Lisbon Massacre was sponsored by the Jewish community of Portugal, and erected in 2006, the 500th anniversary. A round travertine stone was bisected and a bronze Star of David was shaped into the flat surface. Translated it read: “In memory of the thousands of Jews who were victimised by intolerance and religious fanat­ic­ism, killed in the massacre that started on 19th April 1506, in this Square”. And the base had a Biblical verse.

Modern visitors to this memorial need to reflect about the death and des­truction caused by intolerance. Or perhaps read Paulo Mendes Pinto & Susana Bastos Mateus’ book The Mas­s­acre of the Jews in Lisbon, 2014. Thank you to  Lisbon LPS for the photos. 

Medici Portraits & Politics exhibition, in N.Y

The Med­ici: Portraits and Politics 1512–1570 exhibition was at Met­ropolitan NY in 2021. The catalogue by the same name exp­lored how the art­ists end­owed their works with a clearly styl­ish character that identified Fl­orentine por­t­rait­­ure. With 90+ notable paint­ings, scul­pt­ur­es, works on paper and me­d­­als, this volume was written by a team of lead­ing international auth­ors and presented a detailed anal­ysis of this era in It­al­ian art: med­als, paintings, sculptures, car­v­ed gemstones, drawings, et­ch­ings, man­u­­scripts and arm­our. Incl­uded were works by the era's most fam­ous artists: Raphael, Jac­opo Pont­ormo & Rosso Fiorentino, Ben­venuto Cell­ini, Agnolo Bronz­ino, Fran­cesco Salviati etc who depicted the elite of Medici Florence.

The Medici had continuously ruled Florence in 1434-94. But the Medici family only returned to power in 1512, after Florence had lost its ident­ity and become a pawn in stormy Eur­op­ean polit­ics. Florence ch­anged from a rep­ublic with elected officials .. to one ruled by Med­ici.

And the key fig­ure in this transformation was 17 year old Cosimo I de Medici from a mi­n­or branch of an elite family, who bec­ame Duke of Fl­orence in 1537, after his pred­ecessor Alessandro de' Medici was mur­d­ered. Cosimo had been selected by power brokers in Florence who bel­ieved they could con­trol him. But instead he grab­bed control from el­ected off­icials, estab­l­ish­ing him­self as an auto­crat. Flor­en­ce was made imp­ort­ant again, even with a tyrant, and the city was grateful.

Alessandro de' Medici Duke of Florence, 1534
by Jacopo Pontormo,
Credit: Philadelphia Museum of Art
 
To convert the mercant­ile city into the capital of a Medici state, Cosimo en­listed the leading in­tellect­uals, promoting grand architectural, eng­in­eering and art projects. Explore how Cosimo and the other Medici used the era’s dom­inant medi­um, art, as propaganda, clarifying that Florence was still a pow­er to reckon with. See what Floren­t­­ines thought about infl­uen­ce and the central role that arts and culture played in Renaissance pol­it­ics. Cosimo’s goal was to see how he and his cir­cle used the arts to promote the Medici brand.

Port­raits, a very personal sub­ject, pro­vided a seductive way to expl­ore politics and pat­ronage. They be­came an ess­ential means of not­ing sitters’ likeness, character, soc­ial pos­ition and cul­t­ur­al ambitions

In Giorgio Vasari's famous book Lives of the Artists (1550), which was dedicated to the Duke, Florence was promoted as the heart of the Re­n­aissance. He had nurtured the idea of Florence as the intellectual power­house of the Renaissance and the Medici as the key players.

The 2021 exhibition displayed a bronze bust of Cosimo I de' Med­ici 1545 by Cellini, on loan from the Museo Naz­ion­ale del Barg­ello in Fl­orence. In 1557 the bust found a permanent home above the main for­t­ress gate on Elba Island. Its pierc­ing gaze and Roman-ish armour conveyed Cosimo’s pow­er, build­ing on imperial iconography to link the Med­ici and It­aly’s ancient lead­ers. Specialists saw that its eyes had been crafted out of silver, a pre­ference pion­eer­ed in the class­ical civ­il­isations that Renais­sance artists copied centuries later. Thus it was restored.

bronze bust of Cosimo I de' Med­ici 1545 by Cellini
Credit Museo Naz­ion­ale del Barg­ello, Fl­orence

Other works also connected the family to classical culture eg Cosimo I de’ Medici as Orpheus (1537–9) by Bronzino. He cast the Duke as the mythological musician Orpheus, align­ing him with greater forces. A marble bust of an aging Cosimo by sculptor Giovanni Bandini showed him as a Roman emperor, timeless in his authority.

Portraits and Politics had 6 sections that started in the early C16th when the family newly returned from exile. See how the High Ren­ais­sance rulers cemented their power through commissioning cul­t­ure and associating with artists. The ex­hib­ition’s first sections cov­ered 1512-34, intro­d­ucing us to relatives like Pope Cl­em­ent VII, Lor­­enzo the Magnificent’s ne­ph­ew and Alessandro de’ Med­ici, who ?was the son of Lorenzo di Piero, Duke of Urbino. [The family actually pro­duced four popes: Leo X, Clement VII, Pius IV and Leo XI].

Then ins­pect Cosimo himself. See how the Duke and his immed­iate fam­ily, including 1st wife Eleonora of Toledo (d1572), used portraits to proj­ect power, assert Medici continuity and convey cultural refine­ment! Bronzino painted Eleonora, posing alongside each of her sons. Plac­ing each son next to mum said that the next gen­erat­ion would create branches from the invigorated dynastic  trunk.

Bronzino, Eleanora of Toledo and son Giovanni, 1545

Photo credit: Ufizzi

The second half of Por­t­raits and Politics examined those whose art elev­at­ed Florence to new cultural heights. It put together the work of Bronzino, the Mannerist artist who was Cosimo’s court paint­er, and Francesco Salviati, whose pan-Italian style com­peted with Bron­z­ino’s clearly Florentine-based art. And the exhibition celebrated the city’s literary culture, linked to portraiture. But as realistic as the facial image was, this alone could not convey the most intim­ate aspects of the sitter. Identity was embedded in symbols, in­ cod­if­ied for­m­al language capable of ex­­­­­plaining concepts prev­iously con­fin­ed to poetry. NB Bron­zino’s restored Portrait of Poet Lau­ra Bat­t­if­erri. Laur­a’s like­ness explicitly referenced 2 other fam­ous Flor­ent­ine poets: her Dante prof­ile and her Petrarch verses.

Not all of the people featured were well-known eg his ancestor Cosimo the Eld­er on the catalogue cover. Cosimo the Elder was not a Medici, but was the son of a wealthy Florentine bank­er. None­theless the work was described as a masterpiece of C16th port­rait­ure, summarising the power of art as prop­ag­an­da. The young man with a med­al­l­ion portrait of a woman near his chest was filled with symbolism.

The catalogue closed with a quote from the Ren­aissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, acknowledging the staying power of great art. Now read The Medici Family in History Today and The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512–70 (see above).

Sultan Süleyman 1520-66, military genius, patron of the arts and filicide

Süleyman (1494–1566)’s political career began in his teens as a provincial governor and a key participant in his father Selim I’s (r1512-20) rebellion securing dad the throne. But Suleyman was exposed to brutal violence whenever Selim decided to slaughter his own father, two brothers and multiple nephews. Meantime Selim captured lands in Egypt, Syria and Arabian Peninsula, and then he  pushed on to capture Mecca and Medina.

Süleyman, by Titian c.1530 

Wikimedia

 

Selim left his son an emerging empire with a stake in regional and global commerce and a sophisticated cultural identity. And when Süleyman became Sultan in Sept 1520, his kingdom already cov­er­ed the territories of the Balkans, Anatolia, Levant and Egypt. In the first 6 years, Süleyman expanded his empire to take Belgrade & Rhodes. In 1526, he also enjoyed a clear victory against the Hungarian Kingdom and allies at the Battle of Mohács, sparking border disputes among Habsburg Austria, Ottomans, Croatia and Hungary.

Süleyman's empire was multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic and multi-confessional. The Ottoman state had little interest in radically changing the practices of local groups, if they were peaceful, so its offic­ials had to have a knowledge of local practices and norms.

In his long reign, Süleyman played a pivotal role in Eur­opean affairs. He pledged assistance to Protestant causes in order to undermine the Habsburgs etc. And he did not hinder Protestantism taking root in Hungary or Transylvania. He formed an alliance with the French against the Habsburgs and transformed much of the Med­it­erranean Sea into an Ottoman lake for decades to come.

The Ottoman world was one in which Islam was privileged and Süley­man’s reign marked an ongoing interest in Islamic religious matters. From then, all Sultans saw themsel­ves as Caliph and head of all Sunni Musl­ims. Süley­man waged 3 major wars against Persia. The first (1534–5) was in Iraq. The second (1548–9) brought the Lake Van area under Ottoman rule. And the third (1554–55) warned the Ot­tomans of the dif­ficulty defeating Persia’s Ṣafavid state. So a formal peace bet­ween the Ottomans and Ṣafavids was signed!

Süleyman's reign continued affecting Europe eg campaigns led to the em­erg­ence of 3 dis­tinct Hung­arys: Habsburg Hungary in north & west; Ottoman Hungary along the middle Danube centred on Buda; and the vassal state, Transylvania.   

Ottoman-Hungarian Wars, Battle 1526

fineartamerica

Beyond military conquest, Süleyman also standardised and cent­ralised legal system for the Ottoman state. He collected and edited the various law books of his forbearers, added statutes to create a more universally applic­ab­le text and specified the punishments for off­en­ces.

For all the cultural splendour and military success of Süley­man's rule, it was also brutal like his father’s. Marriage to his second consort Hurr­em Sultan (c1502–58) caused endless controversy because he was the first Sultan since the early years of the Empire to marry. He was deeply devoted to his wife and she amassed great power in her own right. But this mar­riage caused gos­sip that she was a witch who was behind the Sultan’s intrigues. And political intrigue followed him. He was forced to kill his dear friend, long serving grand vizier Ibrah­im (d1536) because he took too many roy­al rights for him­self. Worse still, he ordered his politically popul­ar son Must­afa (d1556) then son Beyzid (d1561) execut­ed.

Süleyman’s rule was a turning point in Ottoman history and across its empire. Histor­ians argued that Sül­eyman repr­es­ented the apogee of Ottoman pow­er and statecraft, and his death st­arted a long decline. Under Süleyman the Ottomans largely reached the limitat­ions of their supply lines and infrastructure, leading to a focus on int­ernal affairs, not territ­orial expans­ion. Although lat­­er Sul­tans did conq­uer more territory, they often found that wars gained little.

The sys­­tem of cent­ral­ised rule finalised under Süleyman was quickly ad­apt to the rap­idly changing world and the crises that later rock­ed Eur­ope. The empire began a control­led decent­ral­is­at­ion in response to the need for tax and chan­ges in war­fare in Eur­ope eg gunpowder.

Süleyman recognised the need for flexib­il­ity and it was this adaptab­ility during crises that made the difference. Where other empires and kingdoms collaps­ed, the Ottoman Empire lasted into the C20th!

Süleymaniye Mosque, built 1550–7

Taghribnews

He was a major patron of the arts whose cultural legacy remains. He often reflected in his poetry on the passing nature of rule, life and power. The NGA book Age of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (1987) accompanied the first major Turkish art exhibition dev­ot­ed to the Sultan's reign. The sophisticat­ed patron­age of Süleyman and his court nurtured the high standards that typified C16th Ottoman art. See 200+ works of art: manuscripts, jew­elled vess­els, silks and ceramics, created in the Sultan’s imperial studios. And architecture - along with other beautiful buildings in Is­t­anbul, the mosque was already built by the Chief of the Corps of Royal Architects, Mimar Sinan in 1550–7.

Süleyman’s reign lasted 46 years,  the longest in Ottoman history. The elderly Süleyman died in his command tent while leading a military campaign ag­ainst Szigetvár Hungary in 1566.  

Conclusion
He rose to be one of the most powerful, influential mon­ar­chs in European history, the foremost military power, even during the time of powerful rulers: Francis 1 (1494-1547); Henry VIII (1491-1547); Charles V (1500-58); and Ivan IV (1530-84). Suleyman con­quered new lands, exp­anded the Empire, built up Constant­inople as the Empire’s capital and introduced coffee houses. 

Expansion of the Ottoman Empire,

with conquests by Süleyman indicated in green.  Wiki, 

Press to expand

Cheapside Hoard - London's stunning jewels and gold

 Large Colombian emerald pocket watch, c1600. 

Museum of London.

For 300 years a buried treasure lay below a busy London street. No-one knew the hoard was there till workmen were demolishing a timber-framed building in Cheapside, near St Paul's Cathedral and St Mary-le-Bow.

The busin­ess had stood on the site since the C17th, but the cell­ars were older and lined with brick. The row of hous­es on the south of Cheap­side was owned by the Worshipful Co. of Gold­smiths, form­erly Lond­on’s centre of the manufacture and sale of gold and jewellery under Queen Eliz­abeth I. The shops sold of luxury goods, including jewels.

The location was probably the prem­ises of a Jac­obean gold­smith, and the hoard was thought to have been a jeweller's working stock, buried in the cellar during the En­glish Civil War (1642-6). Gold­smith's Row was dest­royed in 1666’s Great Fire of London then the build­ings were rebuilt by the Goldsmiths' Co soon after.

The workmen started to excavate the cellars with their tools  in 1912, and while they were break­ing up the floor, they noticed glitter in the soil below. They realised that they’d struck the remains of an old wooden casket, and to their immense delight a tangled heap of jewellery, chains and rings, gems and other prec­ious objects fell out. They had uncovered what is now called The Cheapside Hoard, a great cache of early jewellery and one of the most amazing recoveries from British soil.

Gold scent bottle, the bejewelled handle hung from a chain. 

White enamel with milky chalcedony carvings of leaves, rubies, sapphires and diamonds. 

Museum of London.

When the hoard was cleaned, the workmen sold the items to an ant­iques dealer who frequently paid labourers cash for special finds from London building sites. The dealer was appointed by Guildhall Museum to sear­ch for new items for its collection and bec­ame Inspector of Excav­ations for the new London Museum in 1911. NB the Goldsmiths' Co. did not declare ownership of the finds, and no treas­ure trove inquest was held!

Viscount Lewis Harcourt provided the funds for the London Museum Kensington to purchase most of the Hoard in 1912, though some pieces went to the British Museum and the Guildhall Museum, 5 items were bought by the Vict­oria and Albert Museum and 25 pieces by the British Mus­eum. The ent­ire hoard of Elizabethan and early Stuart jew­ellery was brought toget­her for the first time in 100 years for a recent exhibition Cheap­side Hoard: Lon­d­on's Lost Jewels.

The Ch­eapside Hoard was special bec­ause so little jewellery of this era survived, so little information on London’s role in the inter­nat­ional gem trade in an age of global conquest and exploration was available

The hoard in its entirety represents the stock-in-trade of a working goldsmith-jewel­l­er so its presence in Cheapside is highly significant. This street was not only the prin­­cipal artery of the City, its ceremonial route and main shopping st­reet, but was also the hub of the goldsmiths’ trade. The Hoard contained a fine array of 500 dazzling jewels and gemst­ones from many parts of the world. It included topaz and amazonite from Brazil; ruby from Burma; Afghan lapis lazuli; peridot from the Red Sea; Bohemian and Hungarian opal, gar­net and amet­h­yst; sap­phires, diamonds and rub­ies from India; spinel and chrysoberyl from Sri Lanka; pearls from Ba­hrain; turquoise from Egypt and Persia; and Byzantine classical gems which had been in circulation for centuries when the Hoard was buried.

Gold fan holder, white enamel and Colombian emeralds.

Museum London.

This international treasure might have been brought back to England from the East Indies in 1631, perhaps assembled by the Dutch jeweller Gerald Polman. He died en route, and his gem chest was taken by the carp­ent­er's mate on the ship who was eventually forced to surrender the box. The contents went to Ro­bert Bertie 1st Earl Lindsey, Treasurer of the East India Co. (He died at Battle of Edgehill in 1642).

Some of the display cases and portraits pr­ovided further information ab­out the gem trade, or clothing fashions of Elizabethan Eng­land. See the contemporary portraits that provided a great record of how some of the jewels on display were worn. In the por­trait of Countess Elizabeth Wriot­hesley from the National Portrait Gallery, she was wear­ing ruby or garnet earrings, like those found in the hoard. A small red intag­lio stone seal bore the arms of William How­ard 1st Viscount Staff­ord, exactly dating the burial of the hoard between his ennob­lement in Nov 1640 and the Great Fire of Lond­on in 1666 which des­t­royed the area.

Fortunately the cur­at­ors helped visitors see the size and the minute det­ail. First, large and strong magnify­ing glasses have been provided to magnify the objects. Second, around the exhibition are a number of video present­at­ions show­ing how objects were made eg pearl pendants that were worn as earrings or hair pendants. The pend­ant showed highly skilled enamelling and metalsmithing. 

Rose-cut sapphire and diamond cross pendant, enamelled chains. 

Museum of London.

See a clock set in an exquisite, large Colombian emerald crystal dated c1600. The unique round emerald had been hollowed out by the maker to hold a Swiss watch movement, and used the removed material to embellish the metalwork, Green enamel decorates various parts of the watch, for nobility.. Then cont­rast it with the green Elizabethan timepiece with the amethyst cameo of Byz­ant­ine age.

Historians want to know exactly why the Cheapside Hoard was buried and by whom. And why did the owners never return to retrieve it? Nonetheless the exhib­it­ion clarified what was known about the national and inter­nat­ional objects and the research it promoted, revealing much about crafts­manship and wealth in C16th and early C17th London.

The Hoard is not currently on display in the Museum of London. A purpose-built gallery for the permanent display of the Hoard is planned for a new museum in Smithfield, scheduled to open in 2024.

Salamander brooch, gold set with emeralds and diamonds

Museum of London

Many thanks for GIA photos.

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!