Why read The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini?

Book cover of The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini

Book description

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…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Peter Elbling

Author

I appreciate people who don’t shrink from celebrating their own genius, and Benvenuto Cellini was indeed a genius at it. Still, I didn’t mind his boasting, whether it was about his intricate works as a goldsmith or his killing of a rival, for his sense of humor about himself more than made up for his monstrous ego. And even if he had left us nothing else but his autobiography, he bequeathed to us a brilliant record of the Renaissance.

From Peter's list on The best bloody and tasty books about the brilliance, cruelty, and especially the food, of the Italian Renaissance.