Benvenuto Cellini 1563 Autobiography Of Benvenuto Cellini

THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Perseus with Head of the slain Medusa By Benvenuto Cellini From the bronze s'.atue in the Musee Nationa/e, Florence THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF TRANSLATED BY J. ADDINGTON SYMONDS WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES REYNOLDS PUBLISHING COMPANY, Inc. NEW YORK Copyright, 1910 By p. F. Collier & Son In The Harvard Classics MANUFACTURED IN U. S. A. ^2INTRODUCTORY NOTE C3S^ Among the vast number of men ivho have thought fit to write down the history of their ozvn lives, three or four have achieved masterpieces which stand out preeminent: Saint Augustine in his "Confessions" Samuel Pepys in his "Diary" Rousseau in his "Confessions." It is among these extraordinary documents, and unsurpassed by any of them, that the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini takd its place. The "Life" of himself which Cellini wrote was due to other motives than those which produced its chief competitors for first place in its class. St. Augustine's aim was religious and didactic, Pepys noted down in his diary the daily events of his life for his sole satisfaction and with no intention that any one should read the cipher in which they were recorded. But Cellini wrote that the world might knoiv, after he was dead, what a fellow he had been; what great things he had attempted, and against what odds he had carried them through. "All men," he held, "whatever…