page_title: Portraits of Benvenuto Cellini
section_title: Self-Portrait of Benvenuto Cellini on the bust of Cosimo I Medici
hierarchical_section_title: Portraits of Benvenuto Cellini / Self-Portraits of Cellini / Self-Portrait of Benvenuto Cellini on the bust of Cosimo I Medici
caption_attribution_description: English: Cellini, Benvenuto. Bust of Cosmo I. Bronze (1545). Bargello Museum, Florence. Detail: Cellini's portrait
context_page_description: There are several portraits of the Italian goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini. Including self-portraits and portraits of him by other artists. Benvenuto Cellini's physical appearance is determined based on a number of his lifetime portraits. However, due to a few known portraits from the 17th – 20th century, where the artists drew Cellini's facial traits from their imagination, as well as because of past posthumous erroneous attributions, there is a level of confusion on this subject.
context_section_description: Upon his return from France to his hometown Florence in 1545, Benvenuto cast a bronze bust of Cosimo I Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The decorative head located on the right shoulder of this bust is a self-portrait of Cellini, composed with lineaments of satyr, lion and man. Although the head on the shoulder possesses animalistic elements, the relief is anthropomorphic.
  
  Cellini took the lion and Satyr as prototypes. The lion, as the part of the grotesque image on the bust, is an allusion to Cellini himself.  The animalistic features of the Satyr, in combination with the human face, acquire an even more explicit hint at Cellini's personality than the semiotic value of the lion image. By presenting himself in the guise of a Satyr, Benvenuto alludes to his own nickname "Diablo". In the minds of Renaissance society, a Satyr was synonymous with the demon, if not the "Devil" himself.
  Dr. Pope Hennessy guesses that the horns on the Duke's armor are a hint at Cosmo di Medici's Zodiac sign, the Capricorn.
caption: Cellini, Benvenuto. Bust of Cosimo I. Bronze (1545). Bargello Museum, Florence. Detail: Cellini's portrait
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