This work is the only known autobiography of a Renaissance artist. It describes not only the artist's life at the Papal Court in Rome and at the Royal Court of France but makes very vivid historical writing, including, as it does, an eye-witness acount of the Sack of Rome in 1527. Cellini also gives[...]

'You should know that men like Benvenuto, unique in their profession, need not be subject to the law.' Thus spoke Pope Paul III on learning that Cellini had murdered a fellow artist, so great was his reputation in Renaissance Florence. A renowned sculptor and goldsmith, whose works include the famo[...]

Benvenuto Cellini is an artist-craftsman, one of the greatest sculptors in the renaissance, passionately devoted to art, the worshipper and frequenter of the great men of his time, the 'divine' Michelangelo, who came to his studio, the 'marvellous' Titian (the adjectives are Cellini's). He loathed t[...]