|
|  |
 |
|
Greetings from Florence OK…you don’t know what I am on about. Cellini wrote his
autobiography in Italian, and not in Latin as most people wrote at the time. That
in itself is worth recording. But more importantly, he was one of the most famous
goldsmiths of Florence at a time when the city was the foremost centre of science,
culture and engineering in Europe, if not the world.
He probably had his workshops near
the beautiful Duomo, the first domed building since Roman times and completed mid-15th century.
When he left the city, he would have passed it one last time and probably have ridden onwards
to the Palazzo Vecchio (old palace) and the Uffizi (offices) that represented the centre of the
city’s administration and the offices of the famous Medici family, who ruled Florence.
Oh….. the highs and lows of his life with the Court would have been there for him to see. The giant statue of Neptune in the square. How he would have liked to have carved that…. they had cut a beautiful piece of marble and there was a competition to see who would have had the honour to carve it…. Cellini lost out to his bitter rival Ammannati, and to intrigues in the Court. Still, he had a bitter consolation.. the top of the statue’s head is almost flat because he didn’t calculate properly. If Neptune was a low point, the bronze of Perseus would have been a high. Cast in one piece (even the uplifted arm) it is one of the most beautiful male nude figures of the Renaissance (it even beats Michelangelo’s David in my opinion. Preseus is shown raising the head of Medusa (whose stare could turn a man to stone.. Perseus used the mirror image in a polished shield to aim his blow and stay alive) and under his foot lies her headless body. The Medici’s liked images of youth beating incredible odds… it was an allegory of the city.
From the Uffizi, he would have crossed the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge), with its gold merchant shops on both sides, and have ridden on towards the city gate leading to Pisa. The gate had been built nearly 700 years ago and its heavy wooden doors, at least ten metres high, are still there… as too is the gate itself (higher than the five-six story houses near-by.. and it used to be higher still). In fact it is all still there… everything he would have passed as he left his city 450 years ago.
Richard
|
