Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini (1728)

These memoirs are justifiably famous for their braggadocio. Cellini was, to all accounts, an amazing sculptor and metalworker with an era-eclipsing depth of style and capability, to which he was not afraid to own up! From his earliest days trying to evade his father's wish for him to be a musician (and being brilliant at it; the music and the evasion) he takes us onward into his in-depth relationships with various Italian noblemen; these are essentially the same warlike dukes, popes and princes of which Machiavelli spoke. Cellini describes himself being offered commissions, diddled out of payment, betrayed by rivals, adored by the influential when the works are finally displayed. The works themselves he describes in some detail - it would be very interesting to find out how many of them are still extant. He also describes with great assiduity many of his personal relationships, from the innumerable apprentices who were either grateful fine young men or mean, lazy dolts, to the various nobles and fellow-artists who either betrayed him evilly or were loyal and kind supporters. Added to this toward the middle of the book are several instances where trouble came gold-plated; word-fights which led to fist-fights which led to knife-fights which led to deaths. He is quite open about the facts. And this leads me to one main question: this book is always celebrated as the work of a braggart, with wild exaggeration and delusive avoidance-skills well in use. But what might be more interesting is not how much of this is false, but how much is true? The one, it seems to me, seems to outdazzle the other. There are many quieter sequences here where I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that he was sailing very close to the truth. This was written from 1558 to 1566 and then apparently went the rounds of renaissance libraries and scholars in manuscript form for a couple of centuries. It was finally published in a defective edition in 1728 from a copy of the manuscript. The real thing was rescued from an antique-dealer's shop subsequently and truer editions resulted. Whatever its faults, a deeply involving and fascinating glimpse into an artist's life in those times.