Benvenuto Cellini jewelry works swords breastplates. N

Peru Cellini owns several treatises and “Discourses” on jewelry, the art of sculpting, architecture, drawing and others, as well as those that brought him worldwide fame memoirs reminiscent of an adventure novel (between 1558 and 1565). Works in Russian translation: The Life of Benvenuto, son of maestro Giovanni Cellini, Moscow, 1958, 3rd edition.

From 1540 to 1545, Benvenuto Cellini lived at the French royal court in Fontainebleau. Here he completed work on his only surviving piece of jewelry, the authenticity of which is beyond doubt; this is one of greatest masterpieces in the history of this art form. It's about about the great salt shaker of Francis I (1540–1543). This is a product depicting Neptune and Juno along the edges of the recess for salt (which personify the elements of Water and Earth), as well as these elements themselves (in the form of a waving blue sea and hilly land - with fish and animals) impressively conveys, despite its modest size, the play of natural forces. The properties of Mannerist plasticity were clearly manifested in the most significant of Benvenuto Cellini’s works, executed by the artist in the service of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici in Florence, the statue of Perseus victoriously raising the head of the Gorgon Medusa (1545–1554). Also in the service of the Medici, Cellini executed a number of other sculptures, including a pair of remarkable portrait busts (“Cosimo I Medici”; “Banker Altoviti”; both – 1545–1548). He was also involved in the restoration of antique sculptures.

Father Benvenuto Cellini wanted his son to become a musician, but in 1513 he entered the workshop of the jeweler M. de Brandini, where he mastered the technique of artistic metal processing. For his participation in fierce street “showdowns,” including with competitors in his profession, Cellini was expelled from prison twice (in 1516 and 1523). hometown. Having changed several places of residence (Siena, Pisa, Bologna and others), he established connections with the highest church circles in Rome in 1524. Having become one of the defenders of the “eternal city” who tried to repel its capture by imperial troops (1527), Benvenuto Cellini was forced to temporarily leave Rome. Returning there, he held (in 1529-34) the position of head of the papal mint. Almost all early works Cellini's masters (with the exception of a few medals) did not survive, as they were later melted down.

The artist's life continued to be extremely stormy. Around 1534, Cellini killed a fellow jeweler (to avenge the death of his brother), then attacked a notary, and later, in Naples, killed another jeweler for daring to speak ill of Cellini at the papal court. In 1537, Cellini was received by the French king Francis I and was given his portrait medal. In Rome, Benvenuto Cellini was arrested, accused of stealing papal jewels, but he escaped, was again imprisoned and finally released in 1539.

Having mastered the technique of large-scale bronze casting in France, from that time on Benvenuto Cellini increasingly carried out large sculptural orders (“Nymph of Fontainebleau”, 1543–1544 and others). In these works it was impressively clear characteristic property plastic mannerism in general: jewelry art, increasingly luxurious, refined and innovative, began to noticeably advance monumental sculpture, dictating to it such properties as special care of finishing, “ornamental” beauty of the silhouette and a whimsical variety of angles, designed for leisurely looking and admiring.

In 1556, Cellini was again imprisoned for fighting (a jeweler was again a victim of his aggressive nature), and in 1557 he was charged with homosexuality and placed under house arrest for four years. His last significant monumental work was “The Crucifixion” (1555–1562), having fulfilled it according to a vow made in a Roman prison in the 1530s, for his own tombstone, Cellini sought to prove in this piece his ability to work in marble.

While under house arrest, Benvenuto Cellini began writing his autobiography (1558–1567). Written in a lively colloquial dialect, it is a real adventure novel and belongs to the best examples literature of the Renaissance (which circulated for a long time in handwritten copies; “The Life of Cellini” was published only in 1728). He also wrote “Treatise on jewelry” and “Treatise on Sculpture”, begun in 1565 and published in 1568. Benvenuto Cellini died on February 13, 1571 in Florence.

Benvenuto Cellini (Italian: Benvenuto Cellini; November 3, 1500 (15001103), Florence - February 13, 1571, Florence) - Italian sculptor, jeweler, painter, warrior and musician of the Renaissance.

Cellini was born on November 3, 1500 in Florence, the son of a landowner and craftsman. musical instruments Giovanni Cellini (son of a mason) and Maria Lisabetta Grinacci. Benvenuto was the second child in the family, born in the nineteenth year of his parents’ marriage.

Despite the wishes of his father, who wanted his son to become a musician, Benvenuto in 1513 became an apprentice in the workshop of the jeweler Brandini, where he learned the techniques of artistic metal processing. From these years he began to participate in many fights, especially with other jewelers, which is why he was expelled from his hometown in 1516 and 1523. After wandering around Italy, he settled in Rome in 1524, where he became close to the top of the Vatican.

In 1527 he took part in the defense of Rome from imperial troops. After the defeat of the Romans he left the city. In 1529 he returned to Rome and received the post of head of the papal mint, which he held until 1534. All of his jewelry from that era (with the exception of a few medals) did not survive - they were later melted down.

Avenging his brother, in 1531-1534 Cellini killed a jeweler, then attacked a notary, after which he fled to Naples, where he again took the life of another jeweler for speaking ill of Cellini at the papal court.

In 1537 it was adopted French service King Francis I, having executed his portrait medal. Once again in Rome, Cellini was arrested and accused of stealing papal jewelry, but he was able to escape again. The master did not remain free for long: he was again taken into custody and, however, was later released.

From 1540 he lived at the French royal court in Fontainebleau, where he completed work on the only piece of jewelry that has come down to us, the authenticity of which is beyond doubt - the large salt shaker of Francis I (1540-1543).

In France, the master mastered the technique of bronze casting and from that time began to carry out large sculptural orders. From 1545 to 1553, Cellini was in the service of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici in Florence, where he created famous statue Perseus holding the head of Medusa the Gorgon. Here he executed a number of other sculptures and restored antique works. Deserves special attention Active participation Cellini in the local academic movement. From 1545 to 1547, he became involved in the activities of the newly founded Florentine Academy, the intellectual life of which was reflected both in his lyrics and in his autobiography and treatises (Cellini called the academy a “wonderful school”).

In 1556, Cellini was again imprisoned for a fight with a goldsmith. His last significant monumental work was The Crucifixion. Under house arrest, the master began writing an autobiography, which became the pearl of his work.

The sculptor died on February 13, 1571 in his native Florence. He was buried with great honors in the Church of the Annunciation.

The book "The Life of Benvenuto, son of Maestro Giovanni Cellini, Florentine, written by himself in Florence" is one of the most wonderful works literature XVI V. Benvenuto Cellini began writing his autobiography in 1558. Paolo Rossi demonstrates that the final version of the manuscript (bella copia), presumably intended for distribution among the sculptor's friends and colleagues and written by the hand of a 14-year-old boy, Cellini's secretary, differed significantly from the draft, which contained extensive edits. When creating the latter, the author most likely used various diary entries, which at that time were carried out not only by people of art, but also, for example, by merchants. The chronicle of the events of Life reaches 1562. In the 18th century, after various adventures, the manuscript disappeared. In 1805, it was found in one of the bookstores in Florence and transferred to the Laurentian Library, where it remains to this day. First printed edition appeared in Naples in 1728.

This is part of a Wikipedia article used under the CC-BY-SA license. Full text articles here →

To Father Benvenuto Cellini
I wanted my son to become a musician, but he entered a jeweler’s workshop in 1513
M. de Brandini, where he mastered the technique of artistic metal processing. Behind
participation in fierce street “showdowns”, including with competitors in
profession, Cellini was expelled from his hometown twice (in 1516 and 1523). By changing
several residences (Siena, Pisa, Bologna and others), established in 1524
in Rome, connections with high church circles. Having become one of the defenders of the “eternal
city”, trying to repel its capture by imperial troops (1527), Benvenuto
Cellini was forced to temporarily leave Rome. Returning there, he occupied (in 1529-34)
position of head of the papal mint. Almost all early works
Cellini's masters (with the exception of a few medals) have not survived, since
were later melted down.

"Perseus", 1545-1554, Loggia
dei Lanzi, Florence
The artist's life continued to be extremely stormy.
Around 1534, Cellini killed a fellow jeweler (to avenge his brother's death), then
attacked a notary, and later, already in Naples, killed another jeweler for
he dared to speak ill of Cellini at the papal court. In 1537 it was adopted
French King Francis I and executed his portrait medal. In Rome
Benvenuto Cellini was arrested, accused of stealing papal jewels, but he
escaped, was again imprisoned and finally released (1538-1539).


"Pietro
Bembo, Cardinal"
Then Benvenuto Cellini lived under the French royal
courtyard in Fontainebleau (1540-1545). Having mastered the technique of large-scale bronze painting in France
casting, Cellini from that time on increasingly carried out large sculptural orders
(“Nymph of Fontainebleau”, 1543-1544 and others). In these works it is impressively clear
a characteristic property of the plastic mannerism of mannerism as a whole appeared: jewelry
art, increasingly luxurious, refined and innovative, became noticeable
to get ahead of monumental sculpture, dictating to it such properties as special
careful finishing, “ornamental” beauty of the silhouette and whimsical
a variety of angles designed for leisurely looking and admiring.

"Crucifixion", marble
In 1556
Cellini was again jailed for fighting (a victim of his aggressive
character again became a jeweler), and in 1557 he was accused of homosexuality and
was placed under house arrest for four years. His last significant
“The Crucifixion” (1555-1562) was a monumental work, performed according to
a vow made back in a Roman prison in the 1530s, for his own tombstone,
Cellini sought to prove in this piece his ability to work in
marble.
While under house arrest, Benvenuto Cellini began to write
autobiography (1558-1567). Written in a lively colloquial dialect, it
is a real adventure novel and belongs to the best examples
literature of the Renaissance (long circulated in handwritten copies, “Life
Cellini” was published only in 1728). He also wrote “Treatise on
Jewelry" and "Treatise on Sculpture", begun in 1565 and published in 1568.
Benvenuto Cellini died on February 13, 1571 in Florence.


"Francis I, King of France"
,1537


"Medallion with Leda and the Swan"
,1520,gold, diameter 3.8 cm, National Museum del Bargello,
Florence

"Apollo and Hyacinth", 1540
,marble, height 191 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

"Narcissus", 1540, marble,
height 149 cm, National Museum del Bargello, Florence

"Ganymede", 1540, marble,
height 106 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

"Morion for the Medici", 1570
,chasing, silver plated iron, height 37 cm, Dresden

"Shield for the Medici"
,1570,chasing, silver plated iron, height 76 cm, Dresden

"Shield", 1572, gilded
iron, 68 x 49 cm, Louvre, Paris

"Helmet", 1570, covered
gold and enamel, 68 x 49 cm, Louvre, Paris


1570, silver, London

"Bust of Cosimo I", 1546-47
,bronze, height 110 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

"Bust of Bindo Altoviti", 1549
,bronze, height 105 cm, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston


"Saluki Greyhound", bronze,
18 x 28 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence



"Ganymede", 1548, Bronze,
height 60 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

"Mercury", 1547, Bronze,
height 96 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

"Jupiter", 1549, Bronze,
height 98 cm, National Museum del Bargello, Florence

"Minerva", 1549, Bronze,
height 89 cm, National Museum del Bargello, Florence

"Danae and her son Perseus"
,1549,Bronze, height 84 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

"Fear", Bronze, height 32 cm

"Satire"
,drawing, National Gallery art, Washington

"Apollo", 1560, drawing,
private collection

"Fountain of Diana Anet", Louvre

Http://www.liveinternet.ru/users/credime/post209331468/

The mirror by Benvenuto Cellini was made in the 16th century.

It was made by a great sculptor, alchemist and magician for the most beautiful woman Renaissance.

In his famous “Life of Benvenuto Cellini, son of Maestro Giovanni Cellini, a Florentine, written by himself in Florence,” the author says that one day, when he was five years old, his father, sitting by the fire with a viol, saw a small animal, like a lizard, frolicking in the flame. He called Benvenuto over and gave him a slap, which made the baby roar. His father quickly dried his tears with caresses and said: “My dear son, I’m not beating you because you did anything bad, but only so that you remember that this lizard that you see on fire is - a salamander, which no one has ever seen of those about whom it is known for certain."

Reading this book, written by the hand of an old man, trembling not from weakness, but from re-experienced anger or delight, you see the flame consuming Cellini himself.

Rage literally suffocates him. From the first to the last page he rages, rages, scolds, smashes, accuses, growls, threatens, rushes about - work, fights and murders only let off steam from him for a short time. Not a single offense, no matter how insignificant it may be, remains unavenged, and every retribution is told with simplicity and sincerity, without a drop of regret and repentance. There is nothing to be surprised here - this is the Italy of Borgia and condottieri. The tiger does not tolerate being pulled by its whiskers. Cellini, this bandit with the hands of a demiurge, uses a dagger no less often than a chisel. Pompeo, goldsmith papal court, with whom Cellini had a score to settle, was killed by him in Rome right on the street. “I took hold of a small, thorny dagger,” Cellini narrates, “and, breaking the chain of his fellows, grabbed him by the chest with such speed and calmness of spirit that none of those said had time to intercede.” Murder was not his intention, Cellini explains, “but, as they say, you don’t strike by agreement.”

He hunts down the killer of his brother, some soldier, “like a mistress,” until he stabs him to death at the door of a tavern with a stiletto blow to the neck. He kills the postal inspector, who did not return his stirrups after spending the night, with an arquebus. He “decided in his heart to cut off the hand of an employee who left him in the middle of work.” One innkeeper near Ferrara, with whom he stayed, demanded payment for the night in advance. This deprives Cellini of sleep: he spends the night thinking about plans for revenge. "The idea came to me to set fire to his house; then to stab him four good horses, which he had in the stable." Finally, "I took a knife, which was like a razor; and the four beds that were there, I chopped them all up for him with this knife." He forced his model lover, who cheated on him with one of his apprentices, to pose for hours in the most uncomfortable positions. When the girl lost patience, Cellini, "surrendered to prey anger,.. grabbed her by the hair and dragged her around the room, beating her with his feet and fists until he was tired." The next day she again caresses him; Cellini softens, but as soon as he was "agitated" again, he beats her mercilessly again These scenes are repeated for several days, “as if from scratch.” By the way, this is the same model who served as his model for the serene “Nymph of Fontainebleau.”

Here I must remind the reader of what is said in Mérimée's magnificent preface to the Chronicle of the Reign of Charles IX. “In 1500,” writes Merimee, “murder and poisoning did not inspire such horror as they do today. A nobleman treacherously killed his enemy, petitioned for pardon and, having asked for it, reappeared in society, and no one even thought of turning away from him In other cases, if the murder was committed out of a sense of just revenge, then they talked about the murderer, as they now talk about decent person, who killed in a duel a scoundrel who had inflicted a blood insult on him."

Yes, Cellini was a murderer, like half the good Catholics of that time. Of course, sometimes he could, wiping his prickly dagger, say along with Pushkin’s Don Juan: “What to do? He wanted it himself”; Of course, one could object to him along with Laura: “It’s a shame, really. Eternal pranks, - But it’s not his fault.” His conscience gave him “easy sleep,” and life developed in him the habit of going widely around the corners of houses - a precaution that was not superfluous in that age even for a person who did not know “what color fear is.” Cellini's participation in the defense of Florence from the troops of Charles of Bourbon and the dizzying escape from the papal prison have the same spiritual source as well as his iniquities. I think the word "courage" would be appropriate here.

Where there is no opportunity or reason to sort things out with the help of a sword, Cellini unleashes the full force of his Homeric abuse on his enemies. His swearing flows like boiling lava, the enemy is completely crushed by the blocks of his curses. One must hear how he reviles the sculptor Bandinelli, who, in the presence of Duke Cosimo de' Medici, dared to praise his "Hercules" to the detriment of Cellini's art. “My lord,” Cellini begins his speech of acquittal, “let your high lordship know that Baccio Bandinelli consists entirely of filth, and he has always been so; therefore, no matter what he looks at, immediately in his disgusting eyes, although if the thing was in superlatives pure good, it immediately turns into the worst evil." And then he attacks Hercules with the wrath of Apollo, who flays Marsyas: "They say that if you cut Hercules' hair, he will not have a head left big enough to hide in her brain; and that this is his face, it is unknown whether it is human or bull, and that it does not look at what it is doing, and that it is poorly fitted to the neck, so unskillfully and so clumsily that worse has never been seen; and that these shoulders of his are like the two bows of a donkey's pack saddle; and that his chest and the rest of these muscles were not sculpted from a person, but sculpted from a bag filled with melons, which was placed upright, leaning against the wall,” etc., etc.

Bandinelli. Hercules and Cacus.

After all this, it is strange to hear Cellini call himself melancholic.

Shameless boasting and a proud consciousness of his dignity are equally inherent in him, and sometimes it is impossible to distinguish where one ends and the other begins. To the remark of one nobleman that only the sons of dukes travel like Cellini, he replied that the sons of his art travel like that. He puts the following words about himself into the mouth of Pope Clement VII: “Benvenuto’s boots are worth more than the eyes of all these stupid people.” He said to some arrogant interlocutor that “people like me are worthy of talking with popes, and with emperors, and with great kings, and that there are, perhaps, only one people like me in the world, and people like him , ten go to each door." He credits himself with the murder of Charles of Bourbon and William of Orange during the siege of Rome and repelling the French attack on the Vatican. And about his life up to the age of fifteen, he says: “If I wanted to describe the great things that happened to me up to this age and to the great danger for own life, I would amaze whoever read it."

Cellini never stoops to charge a price for his works. He feels like a king of his art, and sometimes a saint. In prison, angels and Christ appear to him with a face “neither stern nor cheerful” (we see this face on his “Crucifixion”). He speaks with captivating details - and this is not the most amazing place in the book - about the halo that appeared on him. This radiance, explains Cellini, “is obvious to every kind of person to whom I wanted to show it, of which there were very few. It can be seen on my shadow in the morning at sunrise up to two o’clock in the sun, and it is much better visible when the grass is kind of wet.” dew; also visible in the evening at sunset. I noticed this in France, in Paris, because the air in those places is so much clearer of fog, that there it was seen much better expressed than in Italy, because fogs are much more frequent here ; but it doesn’t happen that I don’t see it in any case; and I can show it to others, but not as well as in these said places.” He is also not averse to looking into the world of demons, for which purpose he participates, together with his student, in the experiments of some necromancer priest. When the legions of demons that appeared frightened the student, Cellini encouraged him: “These creatures are all lower than us, and what you see is only smoke and shadow; so raise your eyes.”

Cellini. Crucifixion

Cellini did not lower his eyes even before the popes, formidable shepherds who tended their flocks with an iron rod. Amazing people there were these Julia II, Clement VII, Paul III! Art was their second religion (the first was politics), they saw the glory of Christianity in having crucifixes in churches sculpted as well as ancient gods. They revered artistic genius as God's grace sent into the world, and were afraid to offend it with their unbridledness. For Julius II, Michelangelo had the value of the property of the Roman throne; an attempt to lure the sculptor would be anathema. When Michelangelo fled from his severity to Florence, Julius wrote thunderous messages to the Senoria, accusing her of theft and demanding to hand over the creator. Sistine Chapel. He had to go to Bologna to get it himself. At new meeting Dad could not contain his anger: “So, instead of coming to us in Rome, you expected us to come to Bologna to look for you!” One of the cardinals clumsily tried to soften Julius, saying: “Let Your Holiness not be angry with him, because people of this kind are ignorant who do not understand anything other than their craft.” The enraged dad hit the stupid priest with his staff: “You yourself are ignorant, since you insult someone we ourselves do not want to insult!”

Clement VII

Cellini visited with dads no less expressive scenes. Clement VII called him Benvenuto mio ( "My Benvenuto" but also "my desired" ) and forgave him any tricks. Cellini delayed and changed the terms of work for him, postponed papal orders for the sake of his plans, did not hand over completed work and drove the papal messengers to hell. The Pope gnashed his teeth and summoned him to the Vatican. Their quarrels were terrible and at the same time comical. Cellini appears with his head raised. Clement looks at him furiously with “a kind of pig’s eye” and falls with thunder and lightning: “As God is holy, I declare to you, who have taken up the habit of not taking anyone into account in the world, that if it weren’t for respect for human dignity, I would have ordered you to throw out you out the window along with all your work!" Cellini answers him in the same tone, the cardinals turn pale, whisper and look at each other uneasily. But then, from under the master’s cloak, the finished product appears, and the pope’s face breaks into a fatherly smile: “My Benvenuto!” One day Cellini left him enraged because he did not receive the sinecure he asked for. Clement, who knew his freedom-loving disposition and was afraid that the master would leave him, exclaimed in confusion: “This devil Benvenuto cannot stand any comments! I was ready to give him this place, but you can’t be so proud with dad! Now I don’t know what I have to do it." Cellini could fill Rome with murders and atrocities, but as soon as he showed the pope a ring, a vase or a cameo, mercy was immediately returned to him. The half-relief of God the Father on a large diamond saved his life after settling scores with his brother's killer; Having killed Pompeo, he asked for pardon from Paul III, threatening otherwise to go to the Duke of Florence - forgiveness was immediately granted to him. Dissatisfied with his decision, the pope announced: “Know that people like Benvenuto, unique in their art, cannot be subject to the law.”

Cellini's art brought the last consolation to the dying Clement VII. Having ordered medals for him, dad soon fell ill and, fearing that he would not see them, ordered them to be brought to his deathbed. And so, the dying old man orders candles to be lit around him, sits up on the pillows, puts on his glasses and sees nothing: deadly darkness is already covering his eyes. Then with his stiff fingers he strokes these medals, trying to touch the beautiful reliefs; then he leans back on the pillows with a deep sigh and blesses his Benvenuto.

Cellini. Medal with the image of Alessandro Medici

Cellini enjoyed the patronage and friendship of Francis I, a northern barbarian from then still wretched Paris.

The king never tired of petitioning the pope for Cellini’s release from prison and sheltered him after his escape. It is difficult to point out another example when a monarch was so sincere in his admiration for art. Just as the crusaders were once amazed at the wonders of the East, he rejoices at everything that Cellini, like a sorcerer, pulls out of his sleeve in front of him. The fresh flowers of Tuscany, blooming among the cold stones of his palace, delight him. The generosity he showered on the Florentine amazed even Cellini himself, who knew his worth. Francis gives him money without waiting for the work to be completed. (“I want to give him courage,” the king explains.) “I will drown you in gold,” he tells him one day. Instead of a workshop, he gives him the Little Nel castle and issues a certificate of citizenship. But Cellini is not a subject for him; the king prefers to call him “my friend.”

“Here is a man whom everyone should love and honor,” Francis never tires of exclaiming.

Claude de France. Francis I visits Cellini's workshop

This king, who spent his life in epic wars with the huge empire of Charles V, he knew how to experience sweet oblivion, looking at some small trinket, like a salt shaker made by Cellini with allegorical figures of Earth and Water intertwining their legs. One day, the Cardinal of Ferrara took the king, concerned about the renewal of the war with the emperor, to look at the model of the door and fountain for the Palace of Fontainebleau, completed by Cellini. The first depicted a nymph in a circle of satyrs, bending voluptuously and wrapping her left arm around the neck of a deer; the second is a naked figure with a broken spear. The cheerful Francis instantly forgot all his sorrows. “Truly, I have found a man after my own heart!” - he exclaimed and added, hitting Benvenuto on the shoulder: “My friend, I don’t know who is happier: the sovereign who finds a man after his own heart, or the artist who meets a sovereign who knows how to understand him.” Cellini said his luck was much greater. “Let’s say they are the same,” the king replied, laughing.

Cellini. Salt shaker

But there was no one who treated art more reverently than Cellini himself. His body could do anything, breaking all laws, divine and human, and yet, when the morning found him in the workshop, exhausted by a merciless fever of inspiration, he must have felt like Adam who had stripped off his old flesh. I don't want to say that this justifies anything. Art - why be mistaken about this? - does not write out indulgences, and beauty will not save the world (except perhaps one of us?). It is enough that the bile and blood with which the pages of his biography are soaked dry up where Cellini speaks about his works. Of course, here too he writhes with rage, as soon as the conversation turns to primacy in the art of sculpting (we must give him his due: he does not humiliate himself to argue with his rivals, he simply denies their talent - completely and unconditionally). But, as Chesterton said, there is always a certain amount of humility in a man who does not hide his ambition. Cellini knew this humility when he spoke of his equals. “From Michelangelo Buonarotti, and not from others, I learned everything I know,” he admits at one point. His respect for Donatello and Leonardo da Vinci remains unchanged; he approves of Raphael's students who wanted to kill Rosso because he humiliated their teacher.

Beauty, whatever it may be, immediately fills him with delight. The human skeleton, a symbol of Death for most of his contemporaries, evokes from Cellini in his “Speech on the Fundamentals of Drawing” a real hymn to the splendor of the grace of its forms and articulations. “You will force your student,” he instructs his imaginary interlocutor, “to draw these magnificent pelvic bones, which are shaped like a pool, and so amazingly close with the bone of the Ladvia. When you draw and fix these bones well in your memory, you will begin to draw the one that placed between the two thighs; it is beautiful and is called sacrum... Then you will study the amazing spine, which is called the spinal column. It rests on the sacrum and is made up of twenty-four bones called vertebrae... You will have pleasure in drawing these bones, for they are magnificent. The skull must be drawn in all possible positions in order to fix it forever in the memory. Because, rest assured, an artist who does not keep all the cranial bones clearly fixed in his memory will never be able to draw a more or less graceful head. .. I also want you to keep in mind all the dimensions of the human skeleton in order to then more confidently dress it with flesh, nerves and muscles, the divine nature of which serves as the connection and connection of this incomparable machine.” Speaking of his "Jupiter", he mentions, along with other members, the perfection of the "beautiful reproductive parts."

Cellini. Perseus

The scene of the casting of "Perseus" - Cellini's main work, from which he long years orders from sovereigns and nobles and life circumstances were distracting. Here, inspiration is inseparable from craft, creative daring is inseparable from timidity before the greatness of the idea. Cellini carefully records all the details of his titanic work, like a magician trying to call from the fire with spells wonderful vision. "I began by procuring several piles of pine logs... and while I was waiting for them, I dressed my Perseus with the very clays that I had prepared several months before, so that they would arrive properly. And when I had made him clay casing... and perfectly strengthened it and girded it with great care with glands, I began to extract from there the wax over low heat, which came out through the many soulers that I made, because the more of them you make, the better the molds are filled. And when I finished to remove the wax, I made a funnel around my Perseus... from bricks, interlacing one on top of the other, and leaving many gaps where the fire could breathe better; then I began to lay wood there, so evenly, and burned them for two days and two nights continuously; having thus removed all the wax from there and after the said form was perfectly burned, I immediately began to dig a hole in order to bury my form in it, with all those wonderful techniques that it beautiful art tells us. When I finished digging the said hole, then I took my form and, with the help of a gate and good ropes, carefully straightened it; and, having suspended it by an elbow above the level of my forge, having straightened it perfectly, so that it hung just above the middle of its pit, I quietly lowered it all the way to the bottom of the forge, and it was secured with all the precautions imaginable. And when I had completed this wonderful work, I began to cover it with the very earth that I took out from there; and as I raised the earth there, I inserted its choke tubes, which were tubes made of burnt clay, which are used for gutters and other similar things. When I saw that I had strengthened it perfectly and that this was the way to cover it, inserting these pipes exactly into their places, and that these workers of mine understood my method well, which was very different from all other masters of this business; convinced that I could rely on them, I turned to my forge, which I ordered to be filled with many copper ingots and other bronze pieces; and, placing them on top of each other in the way that art shows us, that is, raised, giving way to the flame of fire, so that the said metal would quickly receive its heat and melt with it and turn into liquid, I boldly told them to light the said forge. And when this pine firewood was laid, which, thanks to this fatty resin that pine gives, and thanks to the fact that my forge was so well made, it worked so well that I was forced to help first on one side, then on the other, with such difficulty that it was unbearable for me; and still I tried." The work gives him a fever, and he goes to bed, no longer expecting to get up alive. At this time, the students report to him that in his absence the work was ruined by them - the metal thickened. Hearing this, Cellini let out a cry "so immense that it could be heard in the fiery sky." He runs "with an unkind soul" into the workshop and sees stunned and confused apprentices there. With the help of oak logs he manages to cope with this misfortune. He begins to fill the form, but there is no withstands the forge: it bursts and the bronze begins to flow out through the crack. Cellini orders to throw into the forge all the tin dishes, cups, plates that can be found in the house - there were about two hundred of them - and finally achieves the complete filling of the mold. Nervous shock overcomes the disease - he healthy again and immediately throws a feast. “And so my whole poor family (i.e., students), having recovered from such fear and from such exorbitant labor, at once went to buy, in exchange for these pewter dishes and cups, all kinds of earthenware, and all of us We dined cheerfully, and I don’t remember in all my life that I have ever dined with more cheerfulness and a better appetite.”

Yes, in the manner good fairy tale, ends Benvenuto Cellini’s book about himself. (The last thirty pages, filled with petty insults and court squabbles, do not count.) The rest - imprisonment on charges of sodomy, becoming a monk and being released from vows two years later, getting married at the age of sixty - happened to another man, tired and disappointed and, apparently, indifferent to himself: with a person who no longer believes in his halo.