Perseus with the Head of Medusa, by Benvenuto Cellini

A Stormy Welcome

“I intend to tell the story of my life with a certain amount of pride,” wrote Benvenuto Cellini, as he began his autobiography at age 58. This may be the greatest understatement in literary history. His unabashed boastfulness may tempt a reader to dismiss everything he says; but his narrative is so lively, engaging, and occasionally horrifying, that one keeps reading anyway, if only with a grain of salt. Salt, in fact, is an appropriate seasoning for his story, because the most famous of Cellini’s surviving works is a gold, ivory and enamel saliera, or salt-cellar, that he made for the king of France in 1543.

Cellini’s favourite subject was Cellini, but his autobiography is still full of extraordinary verbal portraits: Popes Clement VII and Paul III; Cardinal Ippolito d’Este; the notorious Duke Alessandro of Florence and his assassin Lorenzino de’ Medici; Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici; and his wife, Eleanora of Toledo. Cellini wrote of artists he knew, too: Michelangelo, Pontormo, Bronzino, Giulio Romano, Sebastiano del Piombo, and “little Giorgio Vasari” with his “filthy little claws”. His adventures provide a vivid picture of his times.

Cellini was born in 1500, in Florence. His parents were delighted to have a male child after 20 years of marriage, and named him Benvenuto – “welcome”. However, he wore out his welcome in the city by age 16, and the apprentice goldsmith was banished to Siena for brawling. Eventually he traveled to Rome, where his precocious talent made him a favourite of Cardinals and Popes; but he seemed to enjoy turmoil. His story is replete with feuds, seduction, vendettas, murder, and heroism – mostly his own. (During the sack of Rome, he was, it seems, the most stalwart and effective defender of the Pope’s stronghold, Castel Sant’Angelo.)

He admits to at least two murders, both for revenge. He traveled frequently, often with enemies in hot pursuit. He visited Naples, Mantua, Ferrara, and Venice. Back in Rome, he was imprisoned in Castel Sant’Angelo for theft. While there, gravely ill, he experienced religious ecstasies and visions, in which he himself wore a halo. Finally freed, he traveled to France, where he worked decorating Fontainebleau palace, and made the salt-cellar for Francis I.

He returned to Florence in 1545. Duke Cosimo I commissioned a bronze statue of Perseus, showing the hero holding the severed head of Medusa. This superb work is still in Piazza Signoria, under the Loggia dei Lanzi. And the salt-cellar? It is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, in Vienna. The Habsburg Archduke, Ferdinand II, received it as a gift from Charles IX of France in 1570. But it must have absorbed some of its creator’s turbulent spirit. It was stolen in a daring museum break-in in 2003, and only recovered in 2006, when the thief led police to a forest where the golden treasure lay buried. So, there are three surviving masterpieces by Benvenuto Cellini. One is of gold, one of bronze, and one is made of words.