#benvenuto cellini

[toyastales]

Bronze sculpture Perseus with the Head of Medusa created by Benvenuto Cellini between 1545 and 1554.

[7pleiades7]

Perseo con la testa di Medusa (Perseus with the Head of Medusa) (completed 1545-1554) by Benvenuto Cellini (Italian, 1500 – 1571), bronze, h: 19 m (17 ft), Loggia dei Lanzi, Piazza della Signoria, Florence

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

la monnaie de munt just released photos for their new benvenuto cellini and:

i believe this can be considered camp

[gleamingvessel]

John Singer Sargent, Sketch of Cellini's "Perseus", c. 1909-1910

[astral-witch]

Perseus by Cellini

[waldires]

Bronze model from Jupiter by Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), Bargello Museum, Florence

[oliverscarlin]

Benvenuto Cellini - Narcissus (c.1548)

[theoutcastrogue]

"Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?"

What has to go wrong for someone to die in a gutter? You can learn a lot about any culture by asking that question: what mechanisms are in place to keep people from falling out of the social safety net, and what can make those mechanisms fail?

In the Renaissance, what had to go wrong was patronage, the multi-generational relationships between greater and lesser families which helped each other, fulfilling different functions that only high or low families could do. Do you remember the opening scene of Romeo and Juliet? Those men who bite their thumbs at each other are clients of the powerful Capulet and Montague families, while Lord and Lady Capulet and Lord and Lady Montague are their patrons, and young Romeo and young Juliet their future patrons. …

Patronage was also integral to the legal system. We’ve all heard of the extreme severity of medieval and Renaissance laws (Death for stealing! Death for adultery! Death for sneezing near the prince’s horse!), but they make more sense when you remember that it isn’t until the eighteenth century that Europe developed the idea that justice systems should aim for equal enforcement, that justice is when a person who committed a specific crime receives the standard punishment, and that it’s unjust or strange for the punishment to be lighter. Renaissance courts focused instead on mercy, expecting the judge to almost always give a lighter punishment than what was on the books—a fine, for example, instead of death—so that the extreme sentences proclaimed by law were actually the exception, not the rule. …

Thus, the period absolutely did have those showy public executions and ingenious tortures, as portrayed so many times by Hollywood, but scholars know these are the odd cases, not the norm. When we find a record of somebody actually going to the stake, our reaction isn’t, “How typical of these cruel times!” it’s “They actually killed them this time? Why?” Sodomy, for example, was a capital offense in Florence and many places, but our greatest Renaissance sodomy expert Michael Rocke, while going through Florence’s trial records, found that the vast majority of sodomy convictions ended with a fine, not bloodshed. … Even homicide was usually punished with a fine or a period of banishment, and execution saved for what they saw as really serious crimes, like desecrating a church, or betraying the ruler or regime. …

It was the patron who secured the lesser sentence, the powerful family who vouched for you, who stood character witness, who talked to the judge on the side to make clear they’ll be grateful if their virtuous and deserving servant is acquitted. If you got on the wrong side of your patron, angered them, let them down, stole goods, spread gossip that hurt their reputation, got caught doing a quick job for the Capulets when you were supposed to be on team Montague, that’s when the same political influence which usually arranged for mercy pushed for severity instead. ...

The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, featuring his Salt Cellar (made for Francis I of France, 1540–1543; gold, partly enameled, with an ebony base; depicts Earth and Sea personified; to be clear that's a salt shaker) / Cellini's bronze statue Perseus With the Head of Medusa, 1545–1554, Florence

In addition to asking what has to go wrong for someone to die in a gutter, another great question that gives us an entry into any place and time is: What portion of the population can commit murder with no consequences? In the Renaissance, anyone could do so as long as the victim was of equal or lower status, and you had someone above you to pull strings. In the implausibly interesting autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (1500–71), the Florentine goldsmith-sculptor-assassin-jailbreaker-necromancer (actually!), Cellini boasts in several passages about how he waits to get a big commission from a king or the pope and then brutally murders a rival, knowing his patron will pull strings to let him get away with it, rather than lose a precious artist and the unfinished art. When working for the King of France, Cellini was renting his shed to some men to store their stuff, but they didn’t get it out on time when the lease ended, so he explains (very proudly) how he burst into their homes at night and stabbed them in all four limbs to leave them disabled for life. A courtier of the King of France doesn’t face consequences, he’s in a place of grace.*

* grace = political influence

– Ada Palmer, Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age (2025) (abridged excerpts)