The Effects of Diseases, Drugs, and Chemicals on the Creativity and Productivity of Famous Sculptors, Classic Painters, Classic Music Composers, and Authors

Continued

BENVENUTO CELLINI

A Homicidal Attempt on Cellini Utilizing Sublimate (Mercury)

Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571) was one of the world's greatest sculptors and a connoisseur of sensuous living. He produced a gigantic masterpiece Perseus With the Head of Medusa. The casting of it was an artistic feat. Cellini was a Renaissance man in every sense. He was a goldsmith, sculptor, musician, and a swaggering figure that saw himself as Michelangelo's artistic equal.

Cellini contracted syphilis at the age of 29 years.⁴ When he was in the secondary stage of syphilis with a vesicular rash, he was advised to have mercury therapy, but refused because he had heard of the undesirable effects of mercury.⁵ He received lotion therapy, and leeches were also applied. However, the “syphilis pox” skin rash relapsed. Cellini subsequently became ill with malaria, which was common in Rome at the time. The malaria caused him to become extremely febrile and led to improvement of his symptoms following attenuation of the spirochetes by the high fever. The Romans and the Greeks believed that malaria was due to “bad air”; thus, it was called mal (bad) aria (air). They were not aware that it was caused by a parasite. The fever of malaria obviously had a transient, minimal effect on the clinical course of Cellini's syphilis. In 1539, Roy Diaz De Isla observed the minimal therapeutic value of malaria on syphilis.⁶ Four hundred years later, in 1927, the Nobel Foundation awarded a Nobel Prize to Julius Wagner Jauregg for malaria therapy of syphilis, which was ineffective, as demonstrated in Cellini's case in 1529.

Subsequently, Cellini developed tertiary syphilis, which resulted in grandiose projects due to his megalomania and which led him to initiate his sculpture of Perseus. He fell easy prey to individuals attempting to capitalize on his grandiosity, his wealth, and his influential reputation. He made a disadvantageous property purchase from clever business individuals who suspected that Cellini was in a terminal phase of syphilis. These salespeople produced a plot to murder Cellini to hasten the realization of their investments. The assassins prepared a meal in which they added mercury to a sauce. After eating the meal, Cellini quickly developed a severe hemorrhagic diarrhea. He suspected that he had been poisoned with sublimate (mercury). Fortunately for Cellini, the dose of mercury in the sauce was not large enough to cause his death, but it was sufficient to cure his syphilis. He decided not to prosecute his would-be assassins, but to honor them as his therapists. Instead of dying of syphilis, Cellini lived many more years. A modern clinical chemistry laboratory might have confirmed the presence and level of mercury by examination of Cellini's urine when he was poisoned. The modern analytic procedure for detection and quantitation of mercury includes atomic absorption spectrometry. Numerous signs and symptoms are present with mercury poisoning, including a metallic taste, stomatitis, gastroenteritis, urticaria, vesication, proteinuria, renal failure, acrodynia, peripheral neuropathy with paresthesia, ataxia, and visual and hearing loss. The half-life of mercury poisoning is 40 days. The modern treatment of mercury poisoning is the utilization of meso-2,3 dimercaptosuccinic acid.

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Cellini's magnificent bronze sculpture Perseus With the Head of Medusa (Figure 1 ), stands on a pedestal that Cellini crafted. Cellini placed the mythical Mercury opposite the multibreasted Diana of Ephesus, or Venus, the goddess of love and beauty (possibly the venereal disease goddess as well) on the base of the statue of Perseus (Figure 2 ). A possible interpretation of this juxtaposition is that Cellini has demonstrated the cause and cure of his disease.

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Last updated: 12/05

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