The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
by Benvenuto Cellini · Vita di Benvenuto Cellini
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- written 1558-1563, published 1728
- Era
- Renaissance
- Language
- Italian
- Length
- Long · 450 pp300 to 700 pages
- Difficulty
- Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendMy Life, translated by Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter BondanellaOxford World's Classics, 2009A modern translation with notes on the artists, popes and princes Cellini names.
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The Florentine goldsmith and sculptor dictated his life to a boy in his workshop, beginning at fifty-eight. He recounts his training, his quarrels and killings, his claim to have shot the Constable of Bourbon during the sack of Rome in 1527, his imprisonment in the Castel Sant'Angelo and escape, his years at the court of Francis I in France, and his return to Florence, where he cast the bronze Perseus for Duke Cosimo. The casting of the Perseus, in which he throws his pewter dishes into the furnace to save the metal, is the book's set piece. It breaks off in 1562.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
