The Immersion Library

I liken this book to the film Forrest Gump if Forest were arrogant, proud, stubborn, and hot-headed rather than blissfully ignorant and adorably innocent. Cellini consistently makes enemies and, in his self-acclaimed saintliness, thanks God for protecting him and his passionate temper and well-reasoned arrogance. Like Gump, he is a man who intersects with the powerful and historically relevant but, instead of maintaining a very simple focus on his personal loves and relationships, he arranges his adulations from those elites so he can still bow his head in humility because he does not speak about himself. I find his character a dangerous combination of ill-virtues and supreme self-righteousness.

Nevertheless, I find his autobiography entertaining, though a completely arduous read as well. Without chapter breaks or any sensible compositional construction – afterall, why edit perfection? – the modern reader will explore his life against the tides of confusion and scattered narrative.

Yet, if Italian Renaissance scholars consider Cellini a critical contributor to the artistry of the era, what better way to understand him than by letting him show his own character. He gives that combustible combination of ill-virtues and self-righteousness purpose. I imagine him dictating this autobiography to his scribe in full confidence of the pedestal he’s created for himself. But if he were to ask a modern reader for their criticism, he’d surely grow red in the face, reach for his sword and threaten them. Then run to the King of France or Duke Cosimo and say how his anger and passions only exist to serve them and that by defending him they only bring themselves honor.

It is the sort of read that might demand movie rights. But he does not finish the autobiography. I wonder how the modern audience would expect him, if he could, to document his own end.