The Cellini-Bernini Debate

Cellini is a stitch that I've struggled with. It just seems so wonky when I'm beading it that I'm constantly questioning if I've got the right bead size and whether I'm on to the next row? 

Recently my beady friend Linda was using a pattern that seemed more my speed ... well at least it is flat and somewhat less wonky. So it has that going for it. This actually is just straight up peyote, but you are switching the bead sizes from 6s, to 8s, to 11s, to 15s. So pretty wide range which is what makes this pattern look like Cellini. The original Cellini spiral stitch is a sculptural peyote beaded into a self-supporting tube. Kind of like a carved column, or how the stitch was named.

Benvenuto Cellini is who the stitch is named after. He is a 16th century Italian artist best known for his sculpture of Perseus holding the head of Medusa (left). Apparently the beaders who created this stitch thought the pattern looked like spiral columns they thought were in the Sistine Chapel. Virginia Blakelock and Carol Perenoud of Beadcats are said to be the beaders who named the stitch.

But here is the fun part. I then found a second post on BeadingDaily by a beader, who also studied art. She noticed that the pillars were actually the work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini who created the columns in question for the alter in Saint Peter's Basilica (right). So does that mean that we should be calling it the Bernini Spiral? I don't know about you all, but I'm going with Bernini Spiral.