Art · Premium
The bronze giant of Benvenuto Cellini
Benvenuto Cellini, a goldsmith and sculptor of indomitable temperament, was commissioned by Cosimo I de’ Medici to cast in a single bronze block a statue over five metres tall: Perseus with the Head of Medusa. During the casting, the metal would not flow. Cellini, on a night of fever and storm, threw all his tin tableware into the furnace, saving the work. The statue depicts the hero lifting the Gorgon’s severed head, a symbol of reason triumphing over chaos and of Medici power over republican instability. On the back of Perseus’s neck is hidden Cellini’s self-portrait. The masterpiece of Mannerism still stands today in Florence’s Loggia dei Lanzi.
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