by Michael Hone
Cellini opened his own shop on the Via dei Banchi, guarded by a dog given him by Alessandro de’ Medici himself. The workshop was burglarized soon afterwards while Cellini was asleep with a girl. He was awoken by the dog’s barking and although the animal didn’t succeed in stopping the burglar, it did get a whiff of him, and several days later, while strolling through the Piazza Navona, the dog attacked a boy in the custody of two policemen. In order to keep the animal way from him the boy confessed to having robbed Cellini. He returned what he had taken and begged forgiveness, which Cellini granted, but the lad was nonetheless hanged. Alas for Cellini, the girl gave him syphilis: ‘’It broke out over my whole body at one instant, covering my flesh with blisters of the size of a six-pence and rose-colored.’’ The syphilis went away, perhaps permanently, as Cellini lived forty more years.
Cellini got in a row with a jeweler, a certain Capitaneis, with whom he was in competition. Words were exchanged and Cellini scooped up some mud and threw it at him. Cellini says that unknown to him there was a stone in the mud and the jeweler was felled. ‘’Provoked by his ugly words, I stooped and took up a lump of mud--for it had rained--and hurled it with a quick and unpremeditated movement at his face. He ducked his head, so that the mud hit him in the middle of the skull. There was a stone in it with several sharp angles, one of which striking him, he fell stunned like a dead man, whereupon all the bystanders, seeing the great quantity of blood, judged that he was really dead.’’ Then a few days later, while sitting with friends outside a shop, Capitaneis happened to pass with some friends. Seeing Cellini, insults and gestures were exchanged. Capitaneis and friends wandered off down the street, giggling. Cellini, despite his own friends who tried to stop him, followed Capitaneis and cold-bloodedly knifed him from behind, Capitaneis’s companions having been too surprised to intervene. Cellini is said to have coolly walked away, but when news got to the pope, Cellini’s arrest and execution were ordered. Alessandro de’ Medici nevertheless gave him a horse for his escape.
The newly elected pope, Paul III, gave Cellini a pardon and a commission saying, ‘’Men like Cellini, unique to art, are above the law.’’ But a problem arose: the pope’s son, Pier Luigi Farnese, a homosexual who had raped the bishop of Fano, was a friend of the man Cellini had murdered, a man who had a daughter that Farnese wanted to marry to his lover, a young peasant boy, in order to confiscate the girl’s dowry. Despite what the pope felt for Cellini, Farnese had the power to order Cellini’s arrest, which he did. He also hired an assassin to kill Cellini. The assassin met him in a tavern and, seduced by his charm, told Cellini of the plot to kill him. Cellini then immediately fled to Florence and the open arms of Alessandro de’ Medici.
Alessandro took advice from no one, living for his own pleasure, his motto being ‘’They made me duke, so I’ll enjoy it!’’ By enjoying it he meant wandering the streets at night fully armed, pushing aside anyone in his way, looking for a fight he was destined to win for the simple reason that he had barred the carrying of a sword or a firearm, both of which never left him, nor did his dagger. And he had reason to fear, as the nobility of Florence wanted him replaced by legitimate blood, noble blood. He had gained power at age 19 and had by now fully tasted every perversion, so that what was left was taking the hymen of those who still had one, notably nuns, and that of those who kept guard over theirs, virtuous women. He liked his boys too, for quick, easy couplings, as heated and virile as possible. His favorite companion was his cousin Lorenzino with whom he shared his bed and more when not extinguished from a night of whoring. And when he awoke with a lustful urge, Lorenzino was always conveniently spread out, naked, at his side. This is how Cellini had caught them many times, as the artist was permitted to come and go as he wished, and as Alessandro had no modesty and no need to hide his vices, Cellini was aware of every thing that went on. ‘’Meanwhile I went on making the Duke’s portrait and oftentimes I found him napping after dinner with that Lorenzino of his.’’
No one knows why Lorenzino turned against Duke Alessandro, aided by a professional assassin, Scoronconcolo. In his play, Lorenzaccio, Musset writes that Lorenzo wanted the duke dead so that Florence could become a Republic again. Others suggest that he was just jealous of the duke’s powers and privileges. As Duke Alessandro was so unpopular, he was never without his body armor, weapons and guards. But Lorenzino told him that he had found a Florentine lady of exception beauty and, especially, ironclad virtue, who had been abandoned by her husband. Lorenzino would bring her to the duke, and from then on it was up to the duke to prove that he could triumph over virtue. Lorenzino convinced the duke to dismiss the guards for the night, to take off his armor and to slip naked into bed. From then on it was easy for Lorenzino to strike him with a dagger. Afterwards he rode off to Venice, a glove covering a finger Alessandro had nearly bitten off. There, he published his version of what had taken place in his Apologia, claiming to be a second Brutus. Lorenzino himself was later stabbed to death by a poisoned dagger on a bridge in Venice.
Due to the events described above and his problems with the pope and the pope’s son Pier Luigi, Cellini had had enough of both Rome and Florence. So with two new boys, Ascanio, ‘’the most handsome boy in Rome,’’ and another handsome lad, Girolamo Pascucci, he and they headed for France and the wondrous court of the courtly François I. The trip to Fontainebleau was fraught with dangers. It rained incessantly and at one point one of his horses slipped and fell against another horse where the rider’s javelin pierced its neck. At another place a horse and rider fell over a bridge, landing, luckily, in a pool deep enough so that no bones were broken. Naturally, it was Cellini who rode down to the river’s edge and pulled the driver free from the torrents by grasping his cloak: ‘’As he had stayed underwater all this time, unable to come to the surface, he lived thanks to my quick actions.’’ Brigands stopped them at one point but were forced to flee thanks to Cellini’s drawn sword.
François, who had already lost his virginity to his sister at age 10, was a lad 6 ½ feet tall and so big some girls couldn’t accommodate him although most tried. His bed, as I’ve mentioned but can’t help repeating, even accompanied him while he was out hunting, using it between kills, to the utter amazement of Henry VIII who had accompanied the king during his visit to France (Henry went far in such things, very far even, but not that far). François took whomever he wanted from the nobility, whether the ladies liked it or not, and apparently not all did as one woman had her husband infect himself with syphilis before infecting her so that she could infect the king. Another woman had her face slashed, which didn’t dissuade François as it wasn’t her face that interested him.
Louis’ two big attributes, one of which was his nose.
François offered him a commission: six colossal gods and six goddesses, all in silver, more than life-size as François wanted them his height, the purpose of which would be to hold candlesticks. That he asked Cellini to create these giant candelabras, holding three or more candles, was a surprise, given the expense of the project, as Cellini was only noted for his belt buckles, silver plates and vases.
Cellini set to work making a clay model of one of the statues, a male figure, that was cast in bronze over which he hammered sheets of silver with a wooden hammer. During this time Cellini had problems with accountants, with jealous artists who badmouthed him and, far more deadly, with Madame d’Étampe, François’s mistress, whose ass (to be honestly frank) he just hadn’t sufficiently kissed.
The day came for Cellini to present the finished statue to the king and his mistress. ‘’The Jupiter was raising his thunderbolt with the right hand in the act of hurling it; his left hand held the globe of the world. ‘’Among the flames of the thunderbolt I had very cleverly introduced a torch of white wax.’’ Cellini had the king observe the statue from several angles, informing him that a sculpture should always be viewed from at least eight different standpoints. Cellini had draped some tissue around the statue’s private parts, knowing a woman would
be present, but when d’Étampes saw the statue she suggested to the king that the tissue was there to hid some imperfection. Cellini had Ascanio take it away. Madame d’Étampes stared at the incredible detail of the pubic bush, balls, penis and ample foreskin, and Cellini asked, ‘’Do you find it all as it should be?’’ Madame d’Étampes left the room in a huff. As soon as she was gone the king ‘’exploded with laughter,’’ says Cellini. The statue had taken 4 years to make, at the cost of 40,000 francs.
Cellini now had a girl model about whom he wrote, ‘’I also used to keep her for my bed,’’ a far cry from what he said about his boys, ‘’the most beautiful in Rome,’’ ‘’the sweetest face that ever existed,’’ ‘’the gods themselves would have been mad for him.’’ There were plenty of boys for his bed too, as well as at his dinner table. They played tennis on the court attached to his building, a building that François later present to him as a gift. While working on the other statues he completed another commission, the world-renowned saltcellar.
Saltcellar
The streets of Paris were dangerous and Cellini had to be careful as he wandered through cobbled alleys scarcely large enough for two to walk abreast. He passed under sagging facades suspended overhead like the stomach of Gargantua. Stone walls and latticed windows enclosed an eerie medieval silence. Wind-jostled shop signs depicting wares--a horse head for a chevaline, an old frock for a tailleur--were unlighted and at night the streets belonged to the thief. At the dawn of each day a dozen night wanderers were found assassinated. Lamp carriers were hired to accompany the rich to the doors of their apartment buildings; the price of the carrier's services sifted through an hourglass fastened at his waist. Returning home on one occasion Cellini was attacked by four armed men, but sent them running when they came up against his sword and drawn dagger.
No matter how beautiful were his boys, a man is programmed by nature to want more and Cellini found it in a girl, Caterina, a girl who served as model, a girl he seems to have been deeply, sexually, attached to. He did what he could to keep her out of the hands of others, fearing she might become pregnant. Alas, coming home early from a dinner he found her in flagrant delicto with a boy. He wanted to kill the boy but ‘’I had so many acts of violence upon my hands that if I killed him I could hardly hope to save my life.’’ In her defense, Caterina accused Cellini of sodomy, an offense that was more or less troublesome in Italy, but one that brought death in France. ‘’I found Caterina and her mother waiting in the courtroom. They were laughing with their advocate. In the presence of the judge I asked Caterina to relate all that happened between us. She answered that ‘I had used her after the Italian fashion.’ I commanded her to explain precisely how I had consorted with her. The impudent baggage entered into plain details regarding all the filth she lyingly accused me of. I made her repeat her deposition. When finished I cried out with a loud voice: ‘Lord judge I call on you for justice. Well I know that by the laws of his majesty both agent and patient in this kind of crime are punished with the stake. The woman confesses her guilt. I admit nothing whatsoever of the sort with regard to her. Her go-between of a mother is here, who deserves to be burned for either one or the other offence. Therefore I appeal to you for justice. To the stake with her and her mother.’’ As Sun Tsu said, The best defense in a good offense. He got off but we know nothing of the whys and hows because the court records have been lost. Caterina was chased from the house, but it suddenly became clear why he didn’t want her with another boy. Because Cellini used her as he did his boys, she couldn’t become pregnant. And if she ever did, she could sue him for support payments because he obviously couldn’t have risked having his head cut off by telling the court that he had abused her anally.
‘’The following morning Caterina came to our door and knocked so violently that I ran to see if it was a madman. When I opened the creature laughed and fell upon my neck, embracing and kissing me and asked if I was still angry with her. I said No. I supplied her with food and partook of it at the same table in sign of reconciliation. Afterwards she returned as my model, during which occurred some amorous diversions. Then she irritated me and I gave her some beatings. So we went on several days, repeating this around the clock.’’
In the meantime, while Cellini was busy on still another project, an enormous statue, Ascanio had fallen in love. The head of the statue was on the ground and was so huge that Ascanio, who had fallen in love with a French maiden, had a bed installed in the head where both he and his beloved hid when her mother, who had learned where she was, came around in search of her daughter. The statue soon gained a reputation for being haunted because, at night, movement could be observed behind its eyes.
There were lodgers in the Parisian palace where Cellini worked, and as he needed more room, he simply threw them, physically, into the street. One of the lodgers went to court. ‘’The lawsuit tormented me beyond measure and took up so much of my time that I often thought of decamping in despair from France.’’ He lost the suit: ‘’When the decisions of the court were sent to me I perceived that my cause had been unjustly lost. I had recourse for my defense to a great dagger which I carried. The first man I attacked was the plaintiff who had sued me. One evening I wounded him in the legs and arms so severely, taking care, however, not to kill him, that I deprived him of the use of both his legs. Then I sought out the other fellow who had brought the suit and used him also in such wise that he dropped it.’’ And, again, he got off scot-free. As Madame d’Étampes succeeded in poisoning the king’s mind against Cellini because of his cold indifference to her and his unwillingness to kowtow, Cellini decided to return to Florence.
There he went to find Cosimo I de’ Medici who had replaced Alessandro de’ Medici. Cosimo had not been taken seriously as a young man, his priority being himself and the quantities of drink and women his young body could do honor to. So all were surprised when he not only took control of the government, but did the job well, even cruelly, as his enemies were tortured and beheaded in public. Pleasure and pleasurable surroundings were in the de’ Medici blood, and that which was true of all the rich--a need for art in the form of paintings, frescoes, sculptures, drapery, sublime clothing, silverware, magnificent gardens and fountains--was true on an even grander scale for the de’ Medici. Cosimo I had nothing of the erudition of the first Cosimo, nor that of Lorenzo Il Magnifico, but he appreciated the good things in life enough to offer commissions without end to his suppliants. Alas, he offered much but came through with the minimum, financially, as Cellini would soon discover, and where Lorenzo Il Magnifico could charm a serpent, Cosimo I had his foot perpetually in his mouth, a lesser evil to his ceaseless meddling in the execution of the works of art he commissioned. Oh yes, he was also a hunter who slaughtered every living thing he came upon, including hummingbirds!
Cosimo promised that if Cellini produced a great work of art, he would not be disappointed in his reward. Cellini suggested doing the statue of Perseus, Cosimo agreed, and thus began the countdown to Cellini’s Immortality. The year was 1545.
A place for it was rapidly found, in front of Cosimo’s home, the Palazzo della Signoria, facing Michelangelo’s David. A new boy, handsome, naturally, was found too, a very young lad, Cencio, son of a prostitute who would eventually accuse him of sodomizing her boy in an attempt to extract money, but for the moment that was in the future. He took on Bernardino Mannellini, the exquisite head and body of whom would be the model for the future Perseus. ‘’He was 18 and I asked him if he would enter my service. He agreed on the spot. He groomed my horse, gardened, and soon essayed to help me in the workshop, with such success that by degrees he learned the art quite nicely. I never had a better assistant than he proved.’’ He decided to enlarge the horizons of Bernardino and his assistants by taking them to the Old Market, the Chiasso de’ Buoi, the Tavern Buca and the baths, all pleasure zones where the lads could enjoy both sexes, singly or in bacchanals. In fact, he was, in a sense, making up for lost time. He had kept boy-love to a minim
um in France because there the penalty was death, one that seems to have been enforced by François who much preferred female plumbing to that of males. Back home in Florence, he seems to have let out all stops. Be that as it may, Bernardino turned out to be intelligent, loyal and hard working, and was Cellini’s first assistant from then on.
If you’ve read my book TROY you know that I’m mad about Greek mythology. But frankly, the story of Perseus isn’t all that passionate: Acrisius, King of Argos, wanted a son and consulted the Delphic Oracle who told him that his daughter would have a boy, but that the boy would grow up and kill Acrisius. So Acrisius locked away his daughter, who was nonetheless impregnated by Zeus who took the form of a golden shower (?). The son she bore was Perseus. Acrisius refused to kill them both so instead locked them in a chest that he flung into the sea. The chest was netted by fishermen loyal to King Polydectes who reared Perseus. Polydectes wanted to marry Perseus’s mother but Perseus refused him her hand, telling the king he would give him whatever else he wanted. The king said he would settle for the Gorgon Medusa, a monster having a terrible face and hair of serpents, a face so horrible that the person looking on it froze with fright. The gods favored Perseus and gave him a sack in which to put the head, winged feet to get to it, a sickle to cut it off, and the helmet of invisibility belonging to Hades. Perseus collected the head and returned (after profuse adventures) to Polydectes who said he had sent the boy away to be killed by the Medusa, and had never planned to give up his mother. Perseus opened the sack, looked the other way, and froze Polydectes to stone. He then returned to Argos where, during Olympic-style games, he threw a discus that rebounded and killed Acrisius. (Whew!)