Benvenuto Cellini Sexuality, Masculinity, and Artistic Identity in Renaissance Italy

Celebrated goldsmith and sculptor of the Italian Renaissance, Benvenuto Cellini (1500-71) fits the conventional image of a Renaissance man: a skillful virtuoso and courtier; an artist who worked in marble, bronze, and gold; and a writer and poet. Using the methodologies of New Historicism, social history, and gender and sexuality studies, this book places Cellini and his cultural production in the context of contemporary discourses about sexuality, law, magic, masculinity, and honor. In his life and literary oeuvre, the notorious artist, rogue, and sodomite aligned himself with the transgressive and oppositional voices of his day.