The Cellini Papers
Life, work, and legend:
Life, work, and legend:
Essays on Benvenuto Cellini
Historical deep-dives into the man behind the autobiography — his art, his crimes, his century, and why he still matters.
How Cellini cast the Perseus — and nearly lost everything
The furnace failed. The metal was solidifying. Cellini threw his pewter plates in and ran outside to pray. This is the story of the most dramatic night in Renaissance art.
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The Saltcellar of Francis I: the most expensive small object in Europe
A golden table ornament that took ten years to reach a patron willing to pay for it. How the greatest small sculpture of the Renaissance was almost never made.
The prison break: how Cellini escaped from Castel Sant'Angelo
He made a rope from his bedsheets, climbed down from the papal fortress, broke his leg in the fall, and kept going. A true account of the most audacious escape of the Renaissance.
Cellini and Michelangelo: what two rivals really thought of each other
They worked in the same city for decades and knew each other well. Cellini wrote about Michelangelo in his autobiography. The picture is more complicated than rivalry.