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Historical Artist - Benvenuto Cellini (1500 - 1571)
Born in Florence, Benvenuto Cellini began training as a goldsmith at the age of thirteen. He
worked with a several artists, studied sculpture, and began working on large sculptural
projects. Cellini’s reputation was founded on his work in Fontainebleu, France where his
sculptures were created with the most ambition. He worked for famous patrons such as the Roman
popes, the Medici family of Florence, and King Francois I of France. Despite his established
position, Cellini’s life was marred by many run-ins with the law for sodomy, theft, and
murder. Late in his life and after several imprisonments, he began writing his autobiography and
several treatises on sculpture and goldsmithing. Besides his works in gold and silver, Cellini
executed sculptures of grander scale. The most distinguished of these is the bronze group of
"Perseus holding the head of Medusa", a work (first suggested by Duke Cosimo I de
Medici) now in the Loggia dei Lanzi at Florence, his attempt to surpass Michelangelo's David and
Donatello's Judith and Holofernes. The casting of this work caused Cellini much trouble and
anxiety, but it was hailed as a masterpiece as soon as it was completed. The original relief
from the foot of the pedestal — Perseus and Andromeda — is in the Bargello, and
replaced by a cast.
Contemporary Italian Artists
Art Galleries in Italy
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