PerseusMedusa1.0009

Benvenuto Cellini, "Perseus" (holding the head of Medusa), bronze over-lifesize statue, 1546 - 54, Loggia dei Lanzi (Piazza della Signoria), Florence. Note that the statue's base includes Cellini's artwork in its niches, also — Jupiter, Danaë, Hermes, and Minerva.

Mythologically, Perseus wears the special cap that allows him invisibility and talaria (the famous winged sandals). His blade has a specialized curve, the artist's conception of scimitar. Medusa's head has snaky tresses; because her eyes are closed, she has been rendered momentarily benign, a dangerously potent tool subject now to Perseus' whim. Perseus strides triumphantly over the gorgon's crumpled body. Gore surges from the decapitation, both from the severed neck and from the severed head. The strap on Perseus' chest displays the artist's name prominently.

Narrative Gain: Commissioned by Cosimo I de' Medici, the Duke of Florence, as a reminder of how he treated opponents after the Battle of Montemurlo (1537). Public decapitation of several captive enemy occurred in the Piazza della Signoria, right on the spot you stand in to view this sculpture head-on. — See C. Corretti, Cellini's Perseus and Medusa: configuration of the body of state, PhD diss. Case Western Reserve U. (2011): 68. [OhioLINK]
—— Sarah Myers, Emily Bliss (F11), thanks