Florentine goldsmith's autobiography and artistic memoirs

Description

CELLINI (BENVENUTO) - LECLANCHE (LEOPOLD, TRAD. DE). Memoires de Benvenuto Cellini orfèvre et sculpteur florentin, écrits par lui-même. Paris, Jules Labitte, circa 1860. Duodecimo format, VII & 492 pages. Cardboard binding, missing spine, worn boards, light foxing throughout. Notable armorial bookplate. Text enhanced with fine typographic ornaments. First artist to leave an autobiography, Benvenuto Cellini, the Florentine goldsmith appreciated throughout Europe, virtuoso medalist and late-career sculptor, intended to leave an image of himself as a genius surpassing Michelangelo and treating as equal with Francis I, Cosimo de Medici, Clement VII and Paul III. The romantic fortune of his text, translated by Goethe and inspiring Berlioz, complicates appreciation as his contemporaries in the late Renaissance would have viewed it. His biography, interspersed with accounts of travels between Rome and Mantua, Paris and Florence, brawls, murders, poisonings by diamond powder, evocation of the papal court, artist studios, and episodes of escape from Castel Sant'Angelo, creates an atmosphere apt to kindle romantic imagination.