The Sculptor's Funeral

The bust of benvenuto Cellini can be found at the center of  the Ponte Vecchio, Florence's oldest bridge which is home to over a dozen gold merchants. The Portrait was done in the 19th century by Florentine sculptor, Raffaello Romanelli.

The bust of Cellini on the bridge over the river Arno in Florence.

Cellini's masterpiece is to be found in the Loggia Dei Lanzi, a covered public area, at one side of the town square of Florence, called the Piazza Signoria. It is also home to a few of Giambologna's sculptures, as well as Roman and 19th century works.

The ornate base of the sculpture in marble and bronze was also made by Cellini, showing his prowess and originality as a decorative sculptor, which served him very well as a goldsmith.

From this angle we can see the gaze of the Medusa turning the figures of David and Hercules into stone - a visual joke that certainly would not have escaped the mind of the ambitious and proud Cellini.

The body of the Medusa at Perseus' feet, gore spewing from the severed neck.

"... if one were to shave the hair of your Hercules, there would not be skull enough left to hold his brain; it says that it is impossible to distinguish whether his features are those of a man or of something between a lion and an ox..." - Benvenuto Cellini

"... the face too is turned away from the action of the figure, and is so badly set upon the neck, with such poverty of art and so ill a grace, that nothing worse was ever seen; his sprawling shoulders are like the two pommels of an ass’ pack-saddle; his breasts and all the muscles of the body are not portrayed from a man, but from a big sack full of melons set upright against a wall. The loins seem to be modelled from a bag of lanky pumpkins; nobody can tell how his two legs are attached to that vile trunk; it is impossible to say on which leg he stands,..." - Benvenuto Cellini