Dan Snow's History Hit - Cellini: Bad Boy of the Renaissance

Episode Date: April 24, 2021

Benvenuto Cellini was the bad boy of the Renaissance! His life was a story of murders, violence, war, the sack of cities, sodomy, imprisonment, religious conversion, prodigious artistic talent and writing one of the greatest artistic autobiographies of all time. Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary University of London, has recently made a superb series for the BBC called The Essay, Blood and Bronze which charts the sometimes mad life of Cellini. He joins Dan to discuss Cellini's life, work and the mystery of a recently discovered Cellini painting.

Hello everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Gerry Brottam, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary University of London, is one of the most talented history communicators out there. Yes, he is. And because of that, he's got a new series on BBC Radio 3 about Cellini. Benvenuto Cellini. He was the bad boy of the Renaissance, and he was up against some pretty stiff competition. When you hear this folks you'll agree he was bad. Completely remarkable.

This is a story of murders, of war, of the sack of cities, of sodomy, of being imprisoned, of becoming a priest and of writing one of the greatest autobiographies in history. Cellini makes Caravaggio look like a goddamn choir boy, I'll tell you that much. Insane. So enjoy this episode of podcast featuring the brilliant Jerry Broughton. You can watch a video in which Jerry Broughton and I go around the Bodleian Library in Oxford, looking at maps, because his other great passion is maps, Renaissance maps. And we go and look at some of the finest that are currently existing in this world in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. That's available at historyhit.tv. Please head over, historyhit.tv and get yourself plugged into

a world of history. You're going to absolutely love it. But in the meantime, here is the totally awesome Professor Gerry Broughton. Enjoy. here is the totally awesome Professor Gerry Broughton. Enjoy. Gerry, great to have you back on the podcast, buddy. It's brilliant to be back. Well, I mean, I couldn't say no, because when you said Cellini makes Caravaggio look like a choir boy, I was like, hold on, didn't Caravaggio kill a guy? I feel like that moment in Ron Burgundy in Anchorman. He killed a guy. So Cellini, one of the great sculptors of all time. But where did he come from?

So Benvenuto Cellini, as you say, is the generation before Caravaggio. This is the way in which I'm really talking about him. He makes Caravaggio look like a quiet boy. He really does. He kills three people. He's accused of sodomy with men and women. He's poisoned by the Pope. Yet he's one of the great artists.

So he's born in Florence in 1500, and he dies there in 1571, celebrated as one of the great artists. But what's extraordinary about him is that he leaves behind this amazing book. It's not quite the first artist's autobiography, but pretty much because of the people like Michelangelo write about what they do, but nobody does it like Cellini. So he writes this book in Italian called Vita, The Life, his autobiography. And it's completely insane. It's scurrilous, it's gossipy, it's violent. It describes everyday life in Florence and in Rome. He travels everywhere. He goes to France, he takes Leonardo da Vinci's job, he works for the French king Francis I. He travels through all the great cities working in Italy. And throughout it, there's this extraordinary mixture of creativity and the art that he makes, particularly, as you say, the sculptures, but also other amazing works.

and endlessly getting into trouble with men, with women sexually, with his patrons. He has connections with some of the great patrons of the period. He invariably falls out with them all. His temper is extraordinary. I mean, it's just you lose count of the number of times he attacks people, usually rival artists. But as I say, he kills on three occasions. It is the most extraordinary piece of work. And alongside the art, I think he's really dropped out of sort of understanding of the Renaissance, but for me, sort of epitomises what the Renaissance is all about in that book and his art as well. Is this a life of a typical young man from this part of Northern Italy in this period, or is this because he's an artist and he's got money? Is he like a rock star,

a kind of celebrity chef who goes around like hard living, hard driving? Like, what does it tell us about who was becoming artists and access to art and wealth? Or does it tell us nothing? Is he just a kind of mad individual? No, it's a really good question because he's both exceptional and he's not. I mean, that's a bit of a cop out, but in a way he is typical of artists of this period. He's the next generation of those real high Renaissance figures. So Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo are already either finished or they're sort of at the top of their career. He reveres Michelangelo. But he is a bit different because he's entering that period where artists are starting to be revered as artists. revered as artists. So the previous generation, they're seen very much as artisans. They're people you get in to sort of decorate your front room, literally. They're often not named in the documents. Somebody once said art was too important to be left to the artists in this period. So the patrons were always saying, well, you've got to do it in gold leaf. It's got to look like this. It's got

to look like that. At the end of the careers of Leonardo and Michelangelo, you're starting to see patrons going, wow, well, I think we'll just let you get on with it. And Cellini is that second phase of people who say, I want a Cellini. And this is new, that mid-16th century moment where people are desperate for art by a very specific individual. So that's what I think he represents. He's not unusual in the sense that he trains as a goldsmith. He then moves through different ways he draws. He then moves into sculpture. That's not atypical of the period. What is different about Cellini is he writes it all down. So he really captures the way in which the art world is changing from that sort of early high flush of the Italian Renaissance to really its ending. You know, he dies in 1571. And by then, I think most people say the High Renaissance is over. And his artworks really, I think, are a culmination of it and sort of bring to a certain end that sort of fascination with classical pagan art.

Because, of course, by the 1560s, 1570s, you've got the Counter-Reformation. You've got the Inquisition. You've got the church sort of saying, no, we don't like that classical stuff anymore. That's out the window. We've got to be pious. the church sort of saying, no, we don't like that classical stuff anymore. That's out the window.

We've got to be pious. And so Cellini also becomes a priest after he murders somebody. And he's also done for sodomy. So he goes, I think I'll be a priest. So he gets the way the wind's blowing. He is unique because the character is unique. The art is unique, but he gives an insight into the way in which art and artists and patronage work in this period. So he's a bit of both, really. But, you know, everybody's doing this. Everybody's moving around. He goes to all these different courts. That's typical of the artists. He's not the only artist who gets involved in all kinds of trouble in terms of violence, you know, Caravaggio later, but earlier figures do it as well in the late 15th century. So he does give us a sense of how artists work in this period and their milieu, the way in which they're embedded within patronage, popes and princes. Was he getting away with things because that's the nature

of the Renaissance states? Because things were just pretty loose and you could shoot people and rush off and do other things. Or was he getting away with it because they were aware that they were living through something called the High Renaissance?

He was like the enfant terrible of Hollywood. It was just like celebrated. And this was almost part of the culture of what it was to produce extraordinary art. Yeah, absolutely. Because everybody wants a piece of Cellini. So he goes to Rome and he avenges his brother's murder. So his brother is a soldier. He comes to Rome.

He himself is murdered. Cellini then avenges the death of his brother. And the Pope just says, look, just don't do this again. People like you, it doesn't count because you're a great artist, so we let you off. You're right, there's that randomness. Law, of course, is pretty subjective in this period. But also because, as you say, the competitive nature of the different Italian city-states. He leaves Florence in 1523 because he's accused of sodomy for the first in innumerable times. He goes to Rome and everybody just goes, oh, you're in Rome now, it doesn't count. So the way in which you move means that the writ of law in Florence doesn't work in Rome because

at that time everybody's cross with the Florentines. They say, I don't worry about the Florentines, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. So it doesn't work in the same way in terms of law. So he's very good at that. He's very good at keeping on moving. He lands somewhere else. He goes, look what I can do with gold. And they go, wow.

Okay. What have you been doing? Oh, sleeping with your model. Nevermind. Nevermind. No, it's okay. Sodomy again. Nevermind.

Can you make me a nice portrait medal? That's kind of how it works, as you say. And that is the nature of the Renaissance it's not sort of Melentai drifting around reading Aristotle it's pretty conflicted it's very competitive and he's really good at playing that game this is a funny way to talk about murder but he's not just killing any old people he's killing globally significant politicians and claiming to isn't he I mean it's during the assault on Rome isn't it? I mean, it's during the assault on Rome, isn't it, that he allegedly kills the enemy commander, doesn't he? It is utterly mad. He gets to Rome and in 1527, the Habsburg army of Charles V, which is actually made up mainly of German and Spanish

soldiers, hungry, unpaid, there's a big conflict with the papacy, and they invade Rome. And what do you know? Cellini's there. And Cellini is in one of the big castles, Castle Sant'Angelo. He's given charge of an artillery battery. And in the first flush of the fight, he says, well, I've got this arquebus, which is a sort of rudimentary early shoulder weapon, which is a bit like a sort of rifle. He says, and I saw these people flooding in. He said, so I took him and I shot. And what do you know? I killed Bourbon, who was head of the army. Everybody goes, blimey. Turns out this is classic Cellini. He clearly did shoot at somebody. Bourbon was killed, but the records tell us he was killed with cannonball fire,

not an arquebus shot. So it's typical, again, of Cellini. He's such an opportunist. He hears that Orban's killed. He goes, well, I was shooting that direction. Do you know what? It was me. I did it. And it's classic of him. He goes on like this all the time. So he then says he pretty much single-handedly held out against the besieging forces. The fact that half of Rome was slaughtered in the streets below, He doesn't really care about it because, again, it's about him. It's about him writing about how brilliant he is, that he himself is a kind of work of art. He writes of himself almost as a work of art. He says, I saw it all going on. He said, I just loved watching it. It was like a big sort of piece of installation art.

That's sort of how he operates. He's kind of extraordinary. So it's always about him. Actually, he's a horror. I interviewed Terry Gilliam for the podcast series and Gilliam was great. He said, he's outrageous. He said, he's brilliant. He's an absolute genius. But I think if you met him, you'd hate him. He's just an awful braggart. But within that, I think you still have to tell that whole story because that is the nature of the Renaissance. It's not just all sweetness and light. He kills many people at the Sack of Rome. He kills his brother's murderer. He then just has a fight with a goldsmith called Pompeia de Capitanis. He just gets really angry with this guy and he just stabs him. He says, I stab him in the head with my blade, he said, and I stab him so powerfully in the skull, I couldn't pull the knife back out. He relishes this sort of culture of violence

within which he pretty much thrives. And as you say, he keeps getting away with it. He kills somebody else. Many years later, he's imprisoned in the Castel Sant'Angelo, where he's defended it in the sack of Rome in 1527. He travels around, he goes to France, he comes back. He gets involved on the wrong side of factions in the new papacy, and they throw him into jail in the Castel Sant'Angelo. And they accuse him of nicking the Pope's jewels during the sack of Rome, which he is indeed told to melt down because he's a goldsmith. So the Pope's new son takes against him and throws him in jail. And he claims that he has this massive religious conversion, extraordinary part of the book. He comes out, he's told that he can go and work in France. He goes via Siena and he

just kills a postmaster. And you go, well, so much for your religious conversion, mate. This is the kind of nature of the man. He goes, yes, I had a blinding light and I saw Christ. And then a postmaster really annoyed me. So I killed him. They lived in a different world. And whilst in Castellanagio, he thought he was going to die every day and be executed. I mean, every day must have just been another adventure for these people. That's a very interesting point,

that sense of the precariousness of life. He lives through plague. So when he returns to Florence and his family after the sack of Rome, the plague is raging throughout Florence. It kills most of his family, wipes them out. He survives. He gets malaria. He survives. He gets syphilis. There's a clear case where he gets syphilis. He survives as well. So the precariousness of life, I think, is absolutely true.

And you sort of see that in the art. The art is always on the edge. true. And you sort of see that in the art. The art is always on the edge. The kind of art he makes is always, what can I do to push the outrageousness of both the themes and the way in which he uses materials? So I'll make a salt cellar, but I'll make a salt cellar in gold, diamond encrusted. I'll make a statue of Perseus in bronze, two and a half meters in one single pour. You can't do that today. So it's absolutely outrageous work, which I think is always about him being on the edge, because at any moment you think it can end. So you try and push the limits of what's possible within your artwork as well. So this is the difficulty with him, because as somebody said

in the series, how do you square the fact he's a brilliant artist, but he's a vile individual? And of course, that connects to questions about hashtag me too at the moment, because how do you square that? You have to somehow tell the whole story, not just the brilliance of the art, but the way in which the awfulness of the man and the tenor of the times is represented in the art as well. We shouldn't anymore just see it just as sweetness and light. Isn't it beautiful? Yes, it is beautiful, but it's beauty that's been born of something very violent and very dark as well. You're listening to Down Snow's History. I've got Gerry Brocklin on. We're talking about Cellini. Get ready for more mind-blowing stuff after this. We're talking about Cellini.

Get ready for more mind-blowing stuff after this. Romans, gods, Spartans, the wars of Alexander the Great's successors in incredible, entirely necessary detail. The Ancients podcast, it's kind of like Dan's show, except it's just ancient history. We've got the leading experts. We've got the big topics from ancient Vietnam to the fall of Rome. Subscribe to the Ancients on History hit wherever you get your podcasts. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt

and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits.

There are new episodes every week. What else has it being born i asked you about the salacious stuff and i apologized you know on the art where's that ambition coming from this is i guess a wider question about the renaissance like why now were the technological changes was it the diversity of places in which you could sell art these competing cities and aristocratic patrons. Why would people like him suddenly be given budget and time and space to just push everything as far as it would go? I think, again, it's technology meets demand. So the way in which in this period, particularly because you hit the Reformation period, so the way in which Lutheran Protestantism challenges the Roman Catholic Church, the church strikes back with many elements, one of which is art.

So a lot of the art of the period is being commissioned by the papacy as a sort of response. Look at what we can do. Look at our power. Look at the beauty of what can come out of the church. The Lutherans can't do this. And similarly, of course, there's a response by more Lutheran artists, people like Durer or Holbein, who say, no, we can take it in a different direction. There is a real explosion of games and conflicts being played out through the art. And then, yeah, it's about the technology. It's about access to new materials,

the wealth of silver that floods in from the new world. Cellini's trained as a goldsmith, which is not atypical. Many of the great Renaissance artists in Italy are trained in those more practical artisanal skills. And from then, because he can work in gold and silver, he can start to then cast on an epic scale, which is what he does.

The great artwork really is the Perseus, a big bronze sculpture of Perseus beheading Medusa, which you can still see in Florence, one of the great squares in Florence. So I think it's the two things. It's about the way in which the patrons desperately want big visual statements, particularly of public art, as a display of their authority,

the display of their imperial ambitions as a sign of their religious piety. And Cellini is a gun for hire. He's really interesting, because he works with the Medici, but then when the Medici get kicked out of Florence, he works for the Republic. When the Republic's under threat, he runs off and he goes to work for Francis I. He comes back and he works for a new pope. He doesn't care. For him, it's all about if you can get a lot of money and a lot of resources, what can you then

do? You know, the Persia statue which stands in Florence, I think is a sort of monumental image to tyranny. And Cosimo de' Medici, who's the great autocrat, who's got rid of the Republic, and he wants a big macho image of his authority. And that's what Cellini gives him. I don't think Cellini gives a hoot about the politics. Cellini says, great, I can make something bigger than Michelangelo's David. Bring it on. Great. How do we do this then? And that's his great challenge. Technologically, how do I make that? How do I cast something in over two meters? Nobody's done that since antiquity. It's absolutely outrageous. So for him, he's given the tools. At the end of it, Cosimo de' Medici goes, ah,

that's what I was after. Cellini doesn't care. What he's interested in is taking on his great master, who's Michelangelo. And you know the great story about the Perseus. It's a statue that has Perseus beheading Medusa. So classic Greek myth. And as we know, the image of the Medusa, the whole point of Medusa is that Medusa's gaze turns you to stone. So he casts this piece in bronze in the same piazza that Michelangelo's David is across the square. De Perseus holds up the Medusa, looking at David, turning David to stone. It's the most outrageous thing to do because he's saying, my bronze sculpture showing Medusa is turning Michelangelo's David to stone. It's such a brilliant brilliant outrageous thing to do

fantastic you know not only is the piece outrageously brilliant the British artist Mark Quinn is known for doing public statues he says this is like the first piece of installation art it's in a square and it's in conversation with either pieces Donatello's Judith slaying is in the other corner so So again, what Cellini's doing is saying, I've made a better bronze than Donatello, and I've even aced Michelangelo's Davids. Just outrageous, genius, brilliant. How much faith can we put in this memoir, this autobiography? I mean, is it fairly well corroborated elsewhere? This is a really interesting point around it, because yes, it is. So there are points where

really interesting point around it because yes it is so there are points where he's clearly lying or he's omitting stuff so in 1523 he as ever attacks somebody he's then fined for it and then he attacks them again and so then the florentine authorities say right that's it and they pass a death sentence on it they say because you're a repeat offender and this is really malicious wounding we sentence you to death and you're banished from Florence. And if you turn up again, you will be killed. He sidesteps that. He tells us about the attack, but he doesn't tell us about the death sentence. What he also doesn't tell us is that in the same few months, he's also charged with and found guilty of sodomy. He had two older men with a younger man, probably a teenage boy, and he's also sentenced for that. He doesn't tell us that. So what you do,

I think, with the autobiography is you try and piece it together with the records that survive. So in that case, he omits the story. In other cases, he attacks people and there's no record of it. And you wonder then, is it really true or is it part of his machismo? But another way of thinking about the life, I think, is to sort of say it's not about, as I was thinking as I went through the series, whether it's true or not. It's about the way in which he fashions his identity. He's creating a character called Benvenuto Cellino. creating a character called Benvenuto Cellini. It's important about the book because the book is written from 1557-58 towards the end of his life, when he starts writing, because guess what? He's accused of sodomy again. So the Florentines just say, look, dude, you've been doing this too much. He's fined again. He's actually imprisoned. And then it's commuted to house arrest. And they say, look, this is too much, mate. And so he starts losing his commission. So he turns to writing. So the book is clearly an attempt to justify his life.

And again, he doesn't mention the sodomy accusation, 1557, 58. So I think he's almost creating an artwork in the book itself. There's no sense of redemption. There's no sense in which he learns. It's about, look at what I did. I was at the sack of row. He is like a sort no sense of redemption. There's no sense in which he learns. It's about, look at what I did. I was at the sack of Roe. He is like a sort of work of art. Look at all these things. I always escaped. I always survived. And so I think you can piece it together and you can put it alongside the court records to see where he's omitting stuff. And you start to get a sense of

what he does want to talk about and what he doesn't want to talk about. But ultimately, I think it needs to be read in the round to sort of say how extraordinary that he's recreating really in words what he's been doing in gold and silver and bronze and marble throughout his artistic career. I've just done a podcast on Ernest Hemingway and there are some interesting parallels there. There are, you know, these kind of figures, these larger-than-life figures who we are both

fascinated by. And similarly, I think the way Hemingway has gone through so many different iterations that now we, I guess we're coming back full circle. There was a moment where everybody celebrated Hemingway and then stepped away from him, you know, to match toxic masculinity. And then I think we have to try and see in the round, especially in our current moment. And I think Cellini and these kind of figures were always the same. You know, we can cancel them out. And I talked to a lot of feminist art historians and artists as well, female artists, who said, look, the art's amazing. You've got to somehow read it alongside the braggadocio, the sort of toxic masculinity that comes from the artist, but you don't cancel it out. Actually, in many ways, this makes the idea of curation really interesting,

because you should now be able to do shows of Cellini and exhibitions, which tell that whole story. That happened recently, I think, with Artemisia Gentileschi, that amazing show at the National Gallery. And of course, Artemisia, achi, that amazing show at the National Gallery. And of course, Artemisia, a female artist who's on the other side of what we see happening with Cellini, she is raped, she is subject to sexual assault, she's endlessly diminished by the men around her, and yet she still creates great art. And now we've put her back sort of centre stage within the Renaissance. So I think these stories now shift and change and we can start to tell different stories, both of people like Artemisia, but then also Cellini as well. Let me finish off with the remarkable story you found of what, if it had worked, would have been the crime of the century. The portrait.

Yeah. The portrait. Yeah. So in the midst of making the series, I came across a supposed rediscovery of a painted self-portrait ascribed to Cellini. Now, throughout his life, there's no record of him ever painting. The autobiography never claims he paints. I mean, this is a guy who celebrates everything that he does. He tells you how brilliant his breakfast was.

So he's going to tell you if he paints. So in 2004, a Russian businessman turned art historian called Oleg Nazobin found a painting in a flea market in the south of France, which he bought for about three and a half thousand euros. He got it home. He took the frame off and he saw in the bottom left-hand corner that it said Tettoum, Benvenuto Cellini. So head of a man, self-portrait of Benvenuto Cellini. Ever since he's tried to authenticate this as a Cellini self-portrait, he then got involved with a Russian arts organisation called the Tomoikin Art Fund, and the Tomoikin Art Fund tried to sell it. And in 2018, they put stuff up on their website saying that the painting was being sold to the Saudis, to no less than Mohammed bin Salman, and that the Saudis had

bought this only known self-portrait of Benvenuto Cirini for 107 million euros. Then it turned out, as I started digging around for this series, that this was not true. The painting hadn't sold to the Saudis. I went on this sort of investigative journalist exploration of who these characters were, dived into the sort of murky side of the Russian art world, got to speak to the Tomoikins, this extraordinary guy called Dmitry Tomoikin, who lives in Nova Scotia in Canada, and who has a penchant on his social media sites for throwing axes bare-chested in the snow. Quite a character. He spoke to me, very nice guy. He talked about the whole process of how they tried to authenticate the Cellini. I then got hold of

Oleg Nazobin, who lives in Italy. He tells me that the painting is now in a vault in a bank in Monaco. And he's still trying to attribute it as a Cellini. So the debate goes on because nobody can see the painting because it's in a vault in Monaco. And I was desperate to see it. And he offered to show it to me. And so this story isn't over. It's quite interesting, Dan, because he has promised me that after lockdown ends, he's prepared to bring it to London to try and have the picture authenticated. So where we go from there, I do not know. But it's amazing that Cellini has popped up again. And I don't know really what to say about the attribution and the authenticity of the picture,

other than I think if Benvenuto Cellini was looking down, my, how he'd laugh at this story, because somehow it's a bit like something from his own life. Very much so. And I think he'd say, Jerry, Jerry, confirm it and take 10%. Come on, man. That's exactly what Cellini would do.

What are you worrying about? That's exactly what Cellini would do. Terry Gilliam said this. Terry Gilliam has a great line. He says, Cellini runs around and he says he goes to a Duke and he offers him some amazing piece of art. And the Duke says, how much do you want for it? And Cellini names an outrageous figure and the Duke doubles it. And then Cellini goes, what? Are you crazy? Following the money is hilarious. You know, all Cellini's stories about,

I was only offered 5,000 ducats for this piece. How outrageous. So I think Cellini would have absolutely loved the way in which the art market is turning itself inside out about this supposed self-portrait by him. It's great for him. Well, listen, how can everyone hear more about Cellini and your wonderful series? So the series is a 10-part series

which went out on Radio 3 but will now be available on BBC Sounds. So it's 10 15-minute episodes which really just goes through the life and also tells the story of this reappearance of a supposed self-portrait. So check it out on BBC Sounds. Thanks very much, Gerry.

Thank you very much indeed. That was great. Pleasure as always, Dan. I feel So check it out on BBC Sounds. Thanks very much, Gerry. Thank you very much indeed. That was great. Pleasure as always, Dan. I feel we have the history on our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished.

I've got just a quick message at the end of this podcast. I'm currently sheltering in a small windswept building on a piece of rock in the Bristol channel called Lundy. I'm here to make a podcast. I'm here enduring weather that frankly is apocalyptic because I want to get some great podcast material for you guys. In return, I've got a little tiny favour to ask. If you could go to wherever you get your podcasts, if you could give it a five-star rating, if you could share it, if you could give it a review, I'd really appreciate that. Then from the comfort of your own homes, you'll be doing me a massive favour. Then more people

will listen to the podcast, we can do more and more ambitious things, and I can spend more of my time getting pummeled. Thank you. you