Of all the great personalities of the Renaissance, none more completely embodies the bold and sumptuous period than Benvenuto Cellini. His autobiography, like his work in rare jewels and marble, is a record of grandeur and beauty. It remains today, as it has for almost three centuries, unparalleled in literature as a chronicle of a life consecrated to passion and to pleasure, to vast and delicate creative enterprises and to dangerous escapades. Its vivacity and its untameable defiance give it an unchallenged first rank among all the autobiographies of the world.