Benvenuto Cellini

The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (Dodo Press)

Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) was an Italian goldsmith, painter, sculptor, soldier and musician of the Renaissance, who also wrote a famous autobiography. Cellini's autobiographical memoirs, which he began, writing in Florence in 1558, give a detailed account of his singular career, as well as his loves, hatreds, passions, and delights, written in an energetic, direct, and racy style. They show a great self-regard and self-assertion, sometimes running into extravagances which are impossible to credit. He even writes in a complacent way of how he contemplated his murders before carrying them out. Parts of his tale recount some extraordinary events and phenomena; such as his stories of conjuring up a legion of devils in the Colosseum, after one of his not innumerous mistresses had been spirited away from him by her mother; of the marvelous halo of light which he found surrounding his head at dawn and twilight after his Roman imprisonment, and his supernatural visions and angelic protection during that adversity; and of his being poisoned on two separate occasions. The autobiography has been translated into English by Thomas Roscoe, by John Addington Symonds, and by A. Macdonald.