Il "PERSEO" di Cellini

Speranza

When we consider the figure of PERSEO, the reason for Cellini's insistence on "the natural human body" is self-evident.

THE MODEL

The right foot with its sandal, and the right knee and thick are modeled with exemplary delicacy, evidently from a living model, and so are the buttocks, the rib cage, and the chest.

Perseo's head, his curls covered by a simple helmet, is turned slightly to the left.

The face is shown GAZING DOWN at the severed neck of MEDUSA.

The Medusa head is raised, well above shoulder height, in Perseo's outstretched left hand.

The sword originally held in the rand hand is missing, but the muscular right forearm conveyes a feeling of its power and weight.

Countless other models for the PERSEO in wax and terracota must have been made.

But only ONE of them survivdes.

Cellini's practice was to cast certain of his models in bronze.

He did this with the model of PERSEO, and the cast model, carefully cleaned and chased and enriched with some traces of gilding is, like the wax model, in the Bargello.

Here, aspects of the statue, and especially its relatiln to the JUDITH of Donatello, are thought out afresh.

The BRONZE figures are mounted on a yellowish marble base.

At the bottom is the upper moulding of the support and on this is a thick rectangular cushion with tassels at its corners and strips of embroidery along its sides.

This cushion (a variant of which was adopted in the full-scale figure) depends from the wineskin on Donatello's 'gruppo scultoreo'.

Since the rectangle, implied in the wax model through the pose of Medusa, had now become explicit, the Medusa was herself modified.

The right shoulder was brought forwards so that the decapitated neck falls almost in the center of the front, and the neck itself became a more emphatic feature since it was shown pouring blood.

On the left side the left foot was no longer contained by the right knee, but projected from the cushion, and on the right the right arm was set diagonally against the base, while new emphasis was given to the right hand.

More important, the Medusa was no longer clothed, but was represented nude.

In the statue the Medusa is also nude, and her right arm hangs free.

The other changes, however, were abandoned in favour of a scheme which approximates more closely to the earlier model.