Benvenuto Cellini

Benvenuto Cellini trained as a goldsmith in Florence and made his name in Rome working for popes, then served Francis I of France, for whom he made a gold and enamel salt cellar. Back in Florence he cast the bronze Perseus with the Head of Medusa for Cosimo I de' Medici. His autobiography, full of brawls, killings, imprisonment and boasting, is one of the liveliest documents of the Renaissance. In it he claims to have shot the Constable of Bourbon during the Sack of Rome.