SCULPTURE
"Sculpture is considered a masterpiece of Italian Mannerism, and is one of the most famous statues in Florence’s Piazza della Signoria. Located in the Loggia dei Lanzi, it depicts Perseus as he stands on Medusa’s body and holds her head up in the air. In the scene, he has just beheaded her with his sword, and triumphantly lifts up her head, holding it by her hair. The statute has a rather high pedestal, adorned with small bronzes that are now at the Bargello museum, so that the spectator must look up at it as Perseus looks down toward the ground. The refined pedestal bronzes are an example of Cellini’s unparalleled talent when working on smaller pieces. This was due to the fact that he was also an expert goldsmith.
The statute was commissioned by Cosimo I dei Medici, after he had just been named Grand Duke, and was completed from 1545 to 1554. The original still stands in the Loggia today. It has stood there since its completion in 1554, except for a period of restoration that ended in 1998. Cellini’s Perseus recalls Donatello’s bronze sculpture Judith and Holofernes (1460), but Cellini takes a step away from the early Renaissance style towards the characteristic titanism of the Italian Mannerism. Cellini’s Perseus also has political meaning, just like the vast majority of the statuary in the piazza. Indeed, it represents the new Grand Duke’s desire to break away from experiences of the earlier republic and send a message to the people, which are represented by Medusa.
Serpents emerge from Medusa’s body, representing the people’s many past conflicts that had only worked to threatened and obstruct true democracy. Making the statue proved extremely difficult for Cellini, who truly put his talents to the test. He often spoke of his difficulty with Perseus in his autobiography. He complained about the difficulty fusing the statue in his kiln, and how he used all of the dishware in his home to make it. Fun fact: It is believed that Cellini used a young lover as his model for the statute, and on the back of Perseus’ neck, there is the small portrait of a bearded man, which many maintain is Cellini himself. Florentine singer-songwriter Riccardo Marasco sings about this statue in a song called L’alluvione from his album Il porcellino".
-turismo.intoscana.it
BENVENUTO CELLINI
"Benvenuto Cellini (3 November 1500 – 13 February 1571) was an Italian goldsmith, sculptor, painter, soldier and musician, who also wrote a famous autobiography. He was one of the most important artists of Mannerism."
-Wikipedia
PERSEUS
"Perseus the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty of Danaans there, was the first of the heroes of Greek mythology whose exploits in defeating various archaic monsters provided the founding myths of the Twelve Olympians. Perseus was the Greek hero who killed the Gorgon Medusa, and claimed Andromeda, having rescued her from a sea monster sent by Poseidon in retribution for Queen Cassiopeia declaring that her daughter, Andromeda, was more beautiful than the Nereids."
-Wikipedia
MEDUSA
"In Greek mythology Medusa was a monster, a Gorgon, generally described as having the face of a hideous human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Gazing directly upon her would turn onlookers to stone. Most sources describe her as the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto, though the author Hyginus (Fabulae, 151) interposes a generation and gives Medusa another chthonic pair as parents.
Medusa was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. In classical antiquity the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the Gorgoneion."
-Wikipedia
