Clever, Cocky, and Pissed off. A Genius
(A Reinterpretation of an Autobiography)
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“I am the greatest man ever born, and in so many professions… I’m the top man in the world!” And as if that were not enough: “I wanted to create a sound of priceless wonder on Earth.” And then there is still more: “I was born free, and I wanted to stay free… I wanted to be mine and not belong to others, and whoever wanted me would have to come to me and ask…”
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What a courageous, narcissistic, and refined appreciation of oneself and one’s qualities! Such a naïve shamelessness in this Florentine who fashions a crude novel out of his life. Sometimes, the narrative is false; often, he is unconsciously ruthless with himself and cruel to others! How immediately fascinating visually and psychologically the stories of his life are; they are frescoes of extreme realism while at the same time with mythic, magical features of an almost fantastical era! The extraordinary incarnation of the Renaissance Italian man! I’m talking about Benvenuto Cellini, born in 1500. Perhaps the greatest goldsmith in the history of goldsmithing. And the sculptor of Perseus, which stands today in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence.
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Guido Davico Bonino, in his introduction to the Einaudi edition of LA VITA di Benvenuto, son of Master Giovanni Cellini written (for himself) in Florence, says that the book is the “first Autobiography” of the Modern Intellectual in so much that the artist’s alienation constitutes its structure, and the rebellion of the protagonist to the alienation is its theme.”
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Benvenuto was a brilliant scoundrel, a fucked-up narcissist, a sublime maker of jewelry and luxury goods, an arriviste, a violent (a “most terrible man,” Vasari calls him), and a neurotic dreamer – albeit a delusional one. He was a man who was afraid of nothing except failing to leave an eternal mark behind as a testament to his “wonderful” time on earth.
An obnoxious personality? Quite the contrary, Benvenuto communicated his great, endearing qualities and equally great love. Behind his aggressive, mocking, narcissistic facade stood a true rebel struggling first and foremost with himself (he managed to run into ruin all the material and moral fortunes he acquired) and then with the alienation artists experience. Here is an element of Cellini’s biography that is immediately relatable to the present day: a work of art is a commodity tied to market value, to the ephemeral fame of the artist, and to the whim of whoever is paying for it. Talent is something else. Benvenuto’s anger and rebellion against this reality led him to murder.
Throughout his existence, Benvenuto Cellini unsparingly dispensed dagger blows and heroic gestures, had love affairs with women and shop boys alike, was intimate with the powerful, shared illnesses with prostitutes, felt contempt for morality while feeling desperately repentant, and held honors and wealth as well as misery and prison. All of this is depicted in a fresco that he himself wrote. It is exemplary for its lucidity and portrayal of the violence of an artist’s life during the Renaissance.
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His hand wielded a dagger from very early on. In Florence, when he was little more than an adolescent, some envious goldsmiths his same age attacked him. He ran away to Rome and started his bold career by climbing up the ladder and reaching the court of Pope Clement VII. A Medici. A shifty Pope, an indecisive politician, both ambitious and vicious, but a lover of art and beautiful things. He was soon enamored of Benvenuto’s talent and protected him. Cellini became the Pope’s personal goldsmith and the master of the mint. While at the Pope’s side, in a rash and wild gesture, Cellini took part in the defense of Castel Sant’Angelo during the sack of Rome by the lanzichenecks of the imperial army. Benvenuto had to melt the treasures of Saint Peter’s into gold ingots so the Pope could pay the bribe and free the tormented, burning city. Benvenuto, however, saved the jewels by hiding them. He sewed them inside His Holiness’ heavy cope.
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Cellini came out unscathed time and time again, surviving the plague, duels, and crimes. His pride, hunger for vendetta, or jealousy for a colleague often pulled him into trouble. He did not escape the (false) accusation of having stolen Saint Peter’s treasure and ended up in prison because his protector, the Florentine Pope who loved him and held him in high esteem, had died. The new Pope, a Roman and a member of the Farnese family, took away Cellini’s privileges and protection. In Cellini’s place, he nominated a mediocre Milanese goldsmith by the name of Pompeo, who enjoyed insulting Benvenuto. Cellini could not stand it and put a dagger in Pompeo’s chest: “I grabbed a small sharp dagger, forced my way through the line formed by his escort, and grabbed him by the chest with such speed and courage that none could stop me. I aimed at his face, but his fear made him turn it aside, causing me to stab him just under the ear; and after I struck him there only two more times, in an instant, he fell down dead by my hand, which was not what I intended; but as they say, you don’t trade blows by agreement….”
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While imprisoned in Castel Sant’Angelo, he met one of the most fascinating characters in the gallery of his memoirs: the Governor of the prison, a mad philosopher (mad in the psychiatric sense), who asked Benvenuto to help him fly.
After the Governor’s Da Vinci-like attempt to fly failed, Benvenuto tried to escape by climbing down from the ramparts of Castel Sant’Angelo with a rope made from twisted sheets. The rope was not long enough, and he had no choice but to jump down the last few meters toward his freedom. He broke his leg. It was dawn. He dragged himself along by his elbows through the alleyways of Rome, followed by a pack of stray dogs that licked his blood. He was caught again and thrown into Castel Sant’Angelo’s “tarantula hole” to rot. He had bouts of delirium and mystic hallucinations and would talk with Christ. He should have died, but fate was having fun toying with him and saved him again: the Pope, “vomiting,” sold him to the King of France, Francois I, who surrounded himself with the best of Italians: Primaticcio, Leonardo, Rosso Fiorentino, Sebastiano Serlio, Niccolò dell’Abbate “as well as writers and scientists.” Oh, yes, there was already a brain drain of the best and brightest leaving Italy.
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More honors and riches and more dissatisfaction for Benvenuto. He proposed, drew, and designed statues, fountains, triumphal arches, and great works for the enlightened French sovereign. Francois I answered him more or less as follows: “You artists have the wonderful talent of your art - but you would be nothing if we were not here to pay for your work. Give me a – salt cellar – where I can put my salt and pepper on the table.” Here. What artist, in the entire history of art to this day, has been able to avoid making saltshakers, all the while aiming for something higher? Benvenuto obeyed and made a minuscule but sublime statue in gold, ebony, and enamel, an absolute masterpiece (today, it can be found in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). This element of Cellini’s biography is immediately relatable to the present: the work of art is a commodity that is linked to market value, the artist’s success, and the whim of the payer. Talent is something else.
Benvenuto increasingly revolted against his image as a goldsmith and maker of “things.” He decided he wanted to leave his mark for all of eternity. After spending almost all of his accumulated earnings from working at court, he left France and returned to Florence as poor as when he left as a teenager.
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He recounted his crimes and how he “bollocked” others with an air of contempt (but also, we can imagine, with a sly smile and sparkle in his eyes that were capable of seducing popes, kings, noblewomen, prostitutes, and boys). When he was old, he had no shame in saying. “I’ve been knocked down without a pot to piss in, me, plucked, humble, and broken.”
How can you not love him when, right in the moment of his greatest humiliation, he created the work that would leave his eternal mark? And he made it according to his taste and his ideals, not to the wishes of those commissioning it.
This was his moment of truth: the lost wax casting in bronze of a large statue of Perseus cutting off Medusa’s head. It was Benvenuto’s last adventure, which he meticulously described, detailing how it challenged the rules of art, technique, and reason. An old creaking titan fighting against flames and fate. The “humble and broken” sixty-year-old wandered around the Palazzo della Signoria dragging a package. In the package was the model for a large statue to be cast in bronze, “A masterpiece in the manner of the ancients, as no man today is capable of any longer.” Yes, a lost-wax casting, a technique long forgotten. Benvenuto knew that Cosimo de’ Medici did not want his project; or rather, he did not believe in it and, in fact, did not pay for it. Cellini observed the great public success of Baccio Bandinelli, a mediocre sculptor honored by everyone while he was laughed at. When Cellini insisted on pursuing the Perseus project with Cosimo, Bandinelli, to publicly humiliate him, accused him of being an “ugly sodomite.” Benvenuto responded to this insult/accusation with a smile: “I wish to God that I knew how to exercise such a noble art, for we read that Jove practiced it with Ganymede in paradise, while here on earth it is practiced by the greatest emperors and the greatest kinds in the world. I am but a lowly and humble little man who could nor would ever know how to meddle in such a marvelous matter.” What a fantastic answer to someone’s insult for being gay!
The old man fighting against ridicule and distrust was animated by anger and melancholy but also by a great desire to fight against the “slutty ignorance” of those who ruled and decided the affairs of art. Once a violent rebel, he now agreed to “please, convince, and wag his tail” because to make his life’s masterpiece, he needed to be believed in and financed because he required a great deal of money. He had to face “the perverse stars”, as he called obstacles, to realize his dream.
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That “old humble and broken man” invested everything he had. He was helped by the women in the neighborhood where he had his home and workshop. In the epic and tragic moment of casting, when the magma was about to coagulate and his masterpiece about to become a fiasco, the women brought him plates and glasses and all the liquids they possessed and threw them in the furnace. The bronze statue that came out of the earth, magnificent and perfect, contained in its “flesh” this love from the people and neighboring women.
The description of Perseus’ casting is the most spectacular story on the gestation, realization technique, and birth of a work of art I’ve ever read. And the end is sublime: “…I turned to a plate of salad lying on an old bench, and with the greatest appetite I ate and drank… “