Cosimo and Cellini's model for "Perseo"

Speranza

After the Duke had considered the model attentively, with mounting satisfaction, the Duke declared,

"If you could translate this little model, Benvenuto,
into a full-scale work, it would be the finest piece'
in the piazza."

Cellini protested, very properly, that the Piazza della Signoria included masterpieces by Donatello and Michelangelo, "the two greatest men who have ever lived since the days of the ancients" but promised that in broze his "Perseo" would be three times better than it looked in the model.

Cellini later wrote,

"My rare and excellent patron,
petitions of any validity and compacts between us of any value do not rest upon the spoken or written word; the whole point is that I should succeed in my work on the "Perseo" as fully as I have promised."

"And when I do succeed I am confident that your most illustrious Excellency will be mindful of all that you have promised me."

---- He later regretted this, seeing that Cosimo was more of a "merchant than a duke."