‘Sculpsit Cellinius Neptunam’: the biography of the Neptune fountain in Cellini's Vita

In Benvenuto Cellini's autobiographical account of his proposed Neptune fountain for Cosimo I, the artist verbally re‐fashioned his quest for this commission . This essay presents the Neptune passage as an alternative demonstration of Cellini's creative genius, and considers the episode as part of the series of unexecuted masterworks described in the Vita . Cellini's description also provides evidence for his technical facility with marble, associates the author with the legacies of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, and serves a self‐promoting function as Cellini attempted to re‐establish himself as a major court sculptor in the competitive group surrounding the Medici Duke. The Neptune occupied the artist in the concluding months of the period narrated in the Vita , and Cellini's description of it functions as a summation of the central themes of his autobiography. The Neptune description thus bears witness to the role of Cellini's Vita as a work of art in its own right and as a self‐conscious contribution to the burgeoning genre of theoretical writing on art in the sixteenth century. (pp. 604–618)