Cellini - The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENVENUTO CELLINI

BENVENUTO CELLINI was born in 1500 in Florence, where he spent the early years of his life training to be a goldsmith. His ties with the city remained close, and he returned there to work for Grand Duke Cosimo in the latter part of his life. But like many other Renaissance artists, he was attracted to Rome as a young and ambitious craftsman, and worked there for a variety of patrons including Popes Clement VII and Paul III. He also spent a period in France at the court of King Francis I.

Cellini was admired by his contemporaries as a goldsmith and sculptor, and his powerful talent can still be seen in such works as the bronze statue of Perseus (in the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence) and the gold salt-cellar made for Francis I (in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). But he is chiefly remembered for his vivid and revealing autobiography.

In this book, which Cellini started to write in 1558, he describes in a highly emotional and subjective manner the events of a full and colourful life, including his escapades as a boy in Republican Florence, his amorous and artistic adventures in Rome and at Fontainebleau, his travels through Italy and France, his lively encounters with the great artists and rulers of the day, his mystical visions and his terms in prison. He left the last few years of his life unrecorded, and died in 1571.

GEORGE BULL is an author and journalist who has translated six volumes for the Penguin Classics: Benvenuto Cellinis Autobiography (1956), The Book of the Courtier by Castiglione (1967), Vasaris Lives of the Artists (two volumes, 1987), The Prince by Machiavelli (1961) and Pietro Aretinos Selected Letters (1976). He was also consultant editor to the Penguin Business Library and abridged the Penguin edition of Self-Help by Samuel Smiles (1986). After reading History at Brasenose College, Oxford, George Bull worked for the Financial Times, McGraw-Hill World News, and for the Director magazine, of which he was Editor-in-Chief until 1984. He was appointed Director of the Anglo-Japanese Economic Institute in 1986. He is a director of Central Banking Publications and the founder and publisher of the quarterly publications Insight Japan and International Minds. His other books include Vatican Politics; Bid for Power (with Anthony Vice, 1958), a history of take-over bids; Renaissance Italy, a book for children; Venice: The Most Triumphant City (1980); Inside the Vatican (1982); a translation from the Italian of The Pilgrim: The Travels of Pietro della Valle (1989); and Michelangelo: A Biography (Penguin, 1995; St Martins Press N.Y., 1997). George Bull was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1981 and a Vice-President of the BritishItalian Society in 1994. He was awarded an OBE in the 1990 New Years Honours List.

Translated and with an Introduction by

GEORGE BULL

PENGUIN BOOKS

FOR
JEREMY MITCHELL

PENGUIN BOOKS

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This translation published in 1956
Reprinted with a Bibliography 1996
Revised edition 1998
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 1

Copyright George Bull, 1956, 1996, 1998
All rights reserved

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

Benvenuto Cellini was born in 1500, wrote his autobiography at intervals during the years 155866, and died in 1571. The first printed edition of the Life did not appear until 1728, and it did not become widely known outside Italy until the early nineteenth century. During the past hundred years it has taken its place as the most famous, or notorious, of all autobiographies.

Despite its egotism and bias, it gives us the most vivid and convincing account we have of the rulers of the sixteenth century and of the manners and morals of their subjects. Cellinis friends and enemies were drawn from every level of society: we are introduced, in rapid succession, to inn-keepers and prostitutes, merchants and soldiers, musicians and writers, cardinals and dukes. Cellini is the protagonist of this world: he alone appears in the round, the men and women he describes are in half or low relief.

The reader can appreciate Cellinis character and the adventures he recounts without knowing a great deal about the sixteenth century. The Life, after all, is itself a revealing historical document, shedding light on matters as diverse as prison conditions in Rome, the behaviour of Florentine exiles, or the relationship between Francis I and his mistress. Apart from his devotion to the House of Medici and from the occasional, rather intelligent comments that were forced out of him (as, for example, when Alessandro de Medici was murdered), Cellini was always anxious to dismiss politics as being no concern of his. And, although his pen often ran away with him, he was trying to write the story of his own life, not the history of his times.

Yet during his lifetime the republic of Florence was overthrown by a coup dtat, the Medici were restored to the government of Florence, and then driven out, and then restored again; Rome was sacked by the Imperial army; the Papacy diffidently initiated the Counter-Reformation; the Continent was rent by religious and dynastic wars.

Only six years before Cellini was born the peace of Italy had been shattered by the invasion of King Charles of France. Besides quickening the pace at which Italian art and ideas spread to the rest of Europe, the invasion was a prelude to the struggle between France and Spain for the mastery of Italy and, arising out of the Italian wars, to the prolonged conflict in every part of the Continent between the House of Habsburg and the House of Valois. Charless invasion was followed up with more vigour and intelligence by his successors, first Louis XII and then Francis I. But during the reign of Francis, when the rivalry between France and Spain became more embittered by the concentration of enormous territorial power in the hands of the Emperor, Charles V, Italy passed decisively into the orbit of Spain.

In 1500, Italy was a mosaic of states, each maintaining a precarious independence; Florence was experimenting with a republican form of government inaugurated under the guidance of Savonarola. When Cellini died, Italy was still composed of many great and small principalities. But national unity and independence were frustrated by the power of the Papal States and by the rule of Spanish viceroys in Naples and Milan. After several abortive attempts to found a lasting republic, Florence had succumbed to despotism in the person of Cosimo de Medici.

Elsewhere in Europe the rapid progress of the Reformation was halted by the wars of religion in France and by the harsh alliance of Spain with the Counter-Reformation. The way towards a Europe of self-contained sovereign states was confirmed by the strengthening of national monarchies. In France the wars and startling diplomatic intrigues pursued by Francis I did not prevent the consolidation of royal power at home. The King continued the centralizing policy of his predecessors, gradually reducing the feudal nobility to impotence. By active patronage and by a policy which increased the prosperity of the smaller nobles and middle classes he ensured the assimilation of the Renaissance.