Perseus by Cellini

Title: Perseus
Artist: Cellini
Location: Loggia dei Lanzi, Palazzo della Signoria, Florence
Medium: Bronze

Perseus, with a curved sword, a gift of Mercury, wears winged sandals, like Mercury's, and a helmet with wings (resembling Mercury's hat). Although blood gushes from the severed head of Medusa, this sensational subject is not treated with horror or drama.

Cellini, a goldsmith, carefully worked this large bronze. Like Michelangelo, who signed the St. Peter's Pietà on a strap across the Madonna's bosom, Cellini signed this bronze work on the strap which crosses Perseus's torso.

Blood gushes from the severed neck of Medusa, one of the snake-haired Gorgons, who could turn men to stone.
The niches of the base contain statuettes relating to the biography of Perseus: Danaë, his mother with the boy Perseus; Jupiter, Perseus's father who turned himself into a shower of gold to seduce Danaë; and Mercury and Minerva.