Benvenuto Cellini: Sexuality, Masculinity, and Artistic Identity in Renaissance Italy - Hardcover

by M. Gallucci (Author)

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.

Author Biography

MARGARET A. GALLUCCI holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. A former Fulbright scholar, she is a published author and translator and has held fellowships at Harvard University and Columbia University. She has taught at Syracuse University in Florence, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan. She lives in New York City.