Il valore redentivo dell’arte nella Vita di Benvenuto Cellini. Dal sonetto proemiale all’episodio della pseudo-Porzia

The paper aims to analyse the basis of Cellini’s self-defence by the careful inspection of some passages of his Vita. Firstly, it stresses in detail the intertextual and interdiscoursive connection between the opening sonnet of the Vita and the first sonnet of Petrarch’s Canzoniere, representing an unavoidable reference for Cellini’s text, especially for its introductive purpose. Then, it focuses on the episode of ‘Madonna Porzia’, with an in-depth analysis of the moral entailments of the text. Furthermore, it highlights those points of the scrutinised passages, which are ideologically close to the ideal figure of the artist as depicted in Vasari’s Vite. In conclusion, the analysis shows the ways in which the author lets the level of the morals and that of the artistic skills cross together, so to make such a conceptual association the fundamental principle of his redemption as a man and an artist.