Few names in the history of Italian art are more renowned than that of Benvenuto Cellini.  This can hardly be attributed to the value of his extant works; for though, while he lived, he was the greatest goldsmith of his time, a skilled medallist and an admirable statuary, few of his many masterpieces now survive.  The plate and armour that bear his name, are only in some rare instances genuine; and the bronze “Perseus” in the Loggia de’ Lanzi at Florence remains almost alone to show how high he ranked among the later Tuscan sculptors.  If, therefore, Cellini had been judged merely by the authentic productions of his art, he would not have acquired a celebrity unique among his fellow-workers of the sixteenth century.  That fame he owes to the circumstance that he left behind him at his death a full and graphic narrative of his stormy life.  The vivid style of this autobiography dictated by Cellini while still engaged in the labour of his craft, its animated picture of a powerful character, the variety of its incidents, and the amount of information it contains, place it high both as a life-romance and also as a record of contemporary history.  After studying the laboured periods of Varchi, we turn to these memoirs, and view the same events from the standpoint of an artisan conveying his impressions with plebeian raciness of phrase.  The sack of Rome, the plague and siege of Florence, the humiliation of Clement VII., the pomp of Charles V. at Rome, the behaviour of the Florentine exiles at Ferrara, the intimacy between Alessandro de’ Medici and his murderer, Lorenzino, the policy of Paul III., and the method pursued by Cosimo at Florence, are briefly but significantly touched upon—­no longer by the historian seeking causes and setting forth the sequence of events, but by a shrewd observer interested in depicting his own part in the great game of life.  Cellini haunted the private rooms of popes and princes; he knew the chief actors of his day, just as the valet knows the hero; and the picturesque glimpses into their life we gain from him, add the charm of colour and reality to history.

At the same time this book presents an admirable picture of an artist’s life at Rome, Paris, and Florence.  Cellini was essentially an Italian of the Cinque-cento.  His passions were the passions of his countrymen; his vices were the vices of his time; his eccentricity and energy and vital force were what the age idealised as virtu.  Combining rare artistic gifts with a most violent temper and a most obstinate will, he paints himself at one time as a conscientious craftsman, at another as a desperate bravo.  He obeys his instincts and indulges his appetites with the irreflective simplicity of an animal.  In the pursuit of vengeance and the commission of murder he is self-reliant, coolly calculating, fierce and fatal as a tiger.  Yet his religious fervour is sincere; his impulses are generous; and his heart on the whole is good.  His vanity is inordinate; and his unmistakable courage is impaired, to Northern apprehension, by swaggering bravado.