Benvenuto Cellini was a celebrated Renaissance sculptor and goldsmith - a passionate craftsman who was admired and resented by the most powerful political and artistic personalities in sixteenth-century Florence, Rome and Paris. He was also a murderer and a braggart, a shameless adventurer who at different times experienced both papal persecution and imprisonment, and the adulation of the royal court. Inn-keepers and prostitutes, kings and cardinals, artists and soldiers rub shoulders in the pages of his notorious autobiography: a vivid portrait of the manners and morals of both the rulers of...

This work is the only known autobiography of a Renaissance artist. It describes not only the artist's life at the Papal Court in Rome and at the Royal Court of France but makes very vivid historical writing, including, as it does, an eye-witness acount of the Sack of Rome in 1527.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

With enviable powers of invective and an irrepressible sense of humour, Cellini has provided an intriguing and unrivalled glimpse into the palaces and prisons of the Italy of Michelangelo and Medici.

New 6x9 inch paperback edition. Regarded as one of the most colorful autobiographies ever written (and also one of the first autobiographies written), the chronicle of Renaissance artist Benvenuto Cellini's life is an epic tale of exaggerated proportions. Cellini's loves, hatreds, passions, delights, brawls and battles, along with extraordinary events, and even supernatural phenomena, are narrated in an energetic, direct, and often racy style. Completed in 1563, Cellini's autobiography is also historically important for its firsthand account of daily life in Renaissance Italy. This 1887...

"La vita di Benvenuto di Maestro Giovanni Cellini fiorentino - Libro I" from Benvenuto Cellini. Benvenuto Cellini, scultore, orafo, scrittore e artista italiano ed e considerato uno dei piu importanti artisti del Manierismo (1500-1571)."

Benvenuto Cellini (1500 -1571) was an Italian goldsmith, sculptor, draftsman, soldier, musician, and artist. He started his autobiography in the year 1558 and ended around the year 1563. The memoirs give a detailed account of his singular career, as well as his numerous passions and delights. It has been considered a classic and commonly regarded as one of the most colorful autobiographies.