rence. There he completedPerseus Holding
the Head of Medusa, a famous sculpture
that stood for centuries in the main square
of Florence, and which many historians
rank next to the greatest works of Dona-
tello and Michelangelo. When Florence
went to war with Siena, Cellini was hired
to strengthen the walls and defenses of the
city, a task that he carried out with great
skill and that earned him a pardon for the
many accusations against him of violence,
theft, and immorality.
Cellini created a celebrated gold me-
dallion of Pope Clement VII, who em-
ployed him as a diemaker at the papal
mint. He also created works on commis-
sion for Cardinal Pietro Bembo, King
Francis and Alessandro de’ Medici, the
duke of Florence. Cellini objects were rare
treasures jealously fought over by Euro-
pean kings and nobility, and remain ob-
jects of rivalry and veneration to this day
among museums all over the world.
The artist’s most renowned work, how-
ever, was an autobiography that he began
writing in the 1550s. The author goes into
great detail about his art, his many love
affairs and rivalries, his dealings with no-
bility and rival artists, and his love of vio-
lence to settle any and all disputes. He in-
terrupts his many strange, sometimes
supernatural, adventures with extravagant
praise of himself and his art, giving the
impression of a chimeric, rough-edged
character who outshines and outmaneu-
vers all who surround him. Cellini’s auto-
biography became a classic and one of the
most important written works to originate
during the Renaissance.
Cereta, Laura ....................................
(1469–1499)
Renaissance author, humanist, and femi-
nist. Born in Brescia, the eldest child of a
noble family, Cereta was given the excel-
lent education and tutoring that was usu-
ally offered only to sons. She spent much
of her youth in a convent, where she
learned Latin and Greek and made a study
of the ancient writers Cicero, Virgil, and
Pliny. She returned home at the age of
eleven and began the study of mathemat-
ics and science with her father. Married to
a merchant at the age of fifteen, she car-
ried on her studies and her correspon-
dences with scholars and writers from her
new home in Venice. After the death of
her husband from the plague, she devoted
herself completely to the writing of letters,
essays, and speeches, and also gave public
readings of her essays. She may have also
won an appointment as a professor of phi-
losophy at the University of Padua. In
1488, she boldly defied convention by cir-
culating a collection of her letters under
the title ofEpistolae Familiares. These let-
ters had been sent to friends and acquain-
tances; they covered the topics of women’s
rights and social position, the institution
of marriage, the right of women to an edu-
cation, and women’s political ability and
their attainments as artists. She criticized
the institutions of marriage and house-
keeping as stultifying and condemned
women’s predilection for jewelry, fine
dress, and cosmetics. She was roundly
criticized for presuming to be the equal of
men in intellectual ability, however, and
after theEpistolae Familiaresceased trying
to circulate her works. Her interest in over-
coming social barriers to women in the
field of education and scholarship laid the
groundwork for the more widely published
feminist writing after the Renaissance.Cervantes, Miguel de .........................
(1547–1616)
Spanish novelist and playwright whose
workDon Quixotehas become a world-Cervantes, Miguel de