CELLINI AS A TYPE OF RENAISSANCE INDIVIDUALISM
Its great importance as a document for the study of contemporary Italian life is obvious to the reader, but its temper also is strikingly related to certain spiritual movements of the day. Of the two determinative characteristics of the Renaissance, humanism, or the devotion to antiquity, and individualism, or the devotion to self-development, Benvenuto emphasizes the latter. The very natural transition from a study of self to the study of other personalities gave rise to the genre known as biography, eminent instances of which are Vespasiano da Bisticci’s “Lives of Illustrious Men,” and Giorgio Vasari’s more renowned “Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects.” Autobiography, however, is an even more pronounced manifestation of individualism, and as the composer of the first great and definite example of this literary form in modern times, Benvenuto stands forth as a brilliant exponent of his age. It is possible, doubtless, for an author to exhibit in an autobiography little of his own individuality, confining himself largely, like Trollope, to a narrative of events and a discussion of his books; but such was not the spirit of the sixteenth century, and Benvenuto even exceeds his time. He strips to the very soul. Unblushingly he lays bare alike his virtues and his vices, his public and his most private actions, his loves and hatreds. He seems unconscious of modesty’s existence, and takes a palpable delight, which, by the magic of his style, he causes the reader to share, in analyzing his own passions and in recounting his own deeds and misdeeds; typical and widely varying examples are the affair with the Sicilian girl, Angelica,〖H. C., xxxi, 127-138.〗 the terrible revenge for his brother’s assassination,〖H. C., xxxi, 98-106.〗 the celestial visions experienced in his long and gruesome incarceration.〖H. C., xxxi, 235, 241.〗