Al-Warraq Library

Home / Biography & Memoirs / The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini

Biography & MemoirsThe Autobiography of Benvenuto CelliniBenvenuto CelliniThe Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini

The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini

Benvenuto Cellini

Biography & MemoirsEnglish
0 views
Read the bookGutenberg book pageInternet Archive

Al-Warraq Library does not host book files; it takes you to the copy at the original source. Public-domain status differs from country to country, so check the law where you live before downloading or republishing the book. Do you hold rights in this work? Request its removal

Benvenuto Cellini, a Florentine goldsmith and sculptor, tells the story of his life with tremendous energy and no modesty at all. He fights in the defence of…

Catalogue details

Author
Benvenuto Cellini
Category
Biography & Memoirs
Language
English
Source
Project Gutenberg

About this book

Benvenuto Cellini, a Florentine goldsmith and sculptor, tells the story of his life with tremendous energy and no modesty at all. He fights in the defence of Rome during the sack of 1527 and claims to have shot the Constable of Bourbon, works for popes, dukes and the King of France, kills several men in quarrels and is pardoned, escapes from the prison of Castel Sant'Angelo on a rope of bed sheets, and describes how he cast his great bronze Perseus, throwing his own pewter plates into the furnace when the metal would not flow.

Context and significance

Cellini (1500–1571) began dictating the book to a young assistant in 1558, and it circulated in manuscript until it was printed in 1728. Boastful, violent and unreliable, it is also one of the most vivid portraits of the Italian Renaissance, and Goethe translated it into German. This is the classic English translation by John Addington Symonds.

Similar books